🧟‍♂️ Undead Riders

Name: Undead Riders
Author: SwordfishBE

Undead Riders is a Fabric mod for Minecraft that adds naturally spawning undead horsemen to the overworld surface.

Six types in total, each tied to a fitting biome. Fully configurable and difficulty-scaled.

✨ Features

🐴 Zombie Horseman — Zombie on a Zombie Horse. All biomes except Desert. Night only.
🏜️ Husk Horseman — Husk on a Zombie Horse. Desert only. Night only.
💀 Skeleton Horseman — Skeleton on a Skeleton Horse. All biomes except Desert/Swamp/Frozen. Night only.
☀️ Parched Horseman — Parched on a Skeleton Horse. Desert only. Day and night.
🌿 Bogged Horseman — Bogged on a Skeleton Horse. Swamp and Mangrove Swamp only. Night only.
❄️ Stray Horseman — Stray on a Skeleton Horse. All frozen biomes. Night only.
🐗 Zombified Piglin Rider — Zombified Piglin on a Zoglin. Crimson Forest, Nether Wastes, and Bastion Remnants.
💀 Nether Skeleton Horseman — Skeleton on a Skeleton Horse. Soul Sand Valley only.
🎁 Saddle drop — Horses only spawn with a saddle at a low configurable rate (default 15% zombie, 10% skeleton). Saddles are looting-aware: Looting III gives ~20% drop chance. Players must hunt at night for saddled horses!
🔥 Optional Skeleton Horse sunlight burn — Skeleton Horses can be configured to burn in sunlight. A separate option can make saddled Skeleton Horses protected from that sunlight burn. Vanilla Skeleton Horse traps and their triggered horsemen are always excluded.
🛡️ Horse armor — ZombieHorses have a configurable chance to wear armor (default 60%). 40% spawn without.
🔑 Tameable Skeleton Horses — After killing the rider, Skeleton Horses can immediately be saddled and ridden.
🛡️ Shield on Hard — Zombie and Husk riders have a 40% chance to carry a shield.
🏹 Enchanted bow on Hard — Skeleton, Parched and Stray riders have a 30% chance for a Power I–III bow.
⚠️ Unarmed on Easy — Zombie and Husk riders have a 25% chance to spawn without a weapon.
⚔️ Difficulty-scaled weapons — Zombie/Husk riders carry tier-appropriate weapons including 1.21.11 Spears.
🔀 Independent toggles — Each type can be enabled/disabled separately.
⚙️ Fully configurable — Spawn rates, saddle/armor chances, distances, timing, and more.
🧭 Optional Open Parties and Claims support — When OPAC is installed, Undead Riders respects claimed chunks where hostile natural spawning is disabled.
🖥️ Optional Mod Menu support — On clients with Mod Menu and Cloth Config installed, the config can also be edited through an in-game screen.
🚫 Non-interfering — Never touches vanilla's spawn system.

📊 Difficulty Scaling

Zombie / Husk Horseman — horse armor

Armor only spawns at the configured probability (zombieHorseArmorChance, default 60%).

Zombie / Husk Horseman — rider weapon

Drop chance: 5%. On Hard: 40% chance of a shield in offhand (no drop).

Skeleton / Parched / Stray Horseman

Rider equipment handled by vanilla's finalizeSpawn().
On Hard: 30% chance for a Power I–III enchanted bow (drop chance 10%).

Biome restrictions

⚙️ Configuration

Generated automatically on first launch at: <game>/config/undeadriders.json

With `Mod Menu` + `Cloth Config API` installed, you get a full in-game config screen.

Option - Default - Description

`zombieHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Zombie Horseman
`huskHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Husk Horseman (desert)
`skeletonHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Skeleton Horseman
`parchedHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Parched Horseman (desert)
`boggedHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Bogged Horseman (swamp)
`strayHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Stray Horseman (frozen biomes)
`skeletonHorseSunlightBurnEnabled` - `false` - If enabled, Skeleton Horses burn when exposed to sunlight
`saddledSkeletonHorsesAvoidSunlightBurn` - `false` - If enabled, saddled Skeleton Horses are protected from the sunlight burn option until the saddle is removed
`zombifiedPiglinRiderEnabled` - `true` - Enable Zombified Piglin Rider in Crimson Forest, Nether Wastes, and Bastion Remnants
`netherSkeletonHorsemanEnabled` - `true` - Enable Nether Skeleton Horseman in Soul Sand Valley
`zombieHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.15` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`huskHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.15` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`skeletonHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.10` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`parchedHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.10` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`boggedHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.15` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`strayHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.10` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`zombifiedPiglinRiderSpawnRate` - `0.30` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`netherSkeletonHorsemanSpawnRate` - `0.15` - Spawn chance per attempt, `0.0`–`1.0`
`babyUndeadRiderChance` - `0.05` - Chance supported undead riders spawn as baby variants. `0.0` = never
`zombieHorseSaddleChance` - `0.15` - Chance a ZombieHorse spawns with a saddle. `0.0` = never
`skeletonHorseSaddleChance` - `0.30` - Chance a SkeletonHorse spawns with a saddle. `0.0` = never
`zombieHorseArmorChance` - `0.30` - Chance a ZombieHorse spawns wearing armor. `0.0` = never
`spawnCheckIntervalTicks` - `400` - Ticks between spawn rounds (20 = 1 s)
`spawnAttemptsPerPlayer` - `6` - Spawn attempts per player per round
`minSpawnDistance` - `24` - Minimum spawn distance from player (blocks)
`maxSpawnDistance` - `64` - Maximum spawn distance from player (blocks)
`nightOnly` - `true` - Night/thunderstorm only (ignored for Parched)
`maxHorsemenPerPlayer` - `5` - Max per type per online player
`openPartiesAndClaimsSupport` - `true` - Respect Open Parties and Claims hostile natural spawn protection when OPAC is installed

Open Parties and Claims compatibility

If Open Parties and Claims is installed and `openPartiesAndClaimsSupport` is enabled, Undead Riders checks OPAC claim settings before spawning a horseman.

Claims that have hostile natural spawning disabled, for example through OPAC's "allow hostile spawn" setting, will block Undead Riders natural spawns in that claimed area.

🔄 Commands

Both commands require OP.

/undeadriders reload - Reloads the config from disk without a server restart.
/undeadriders info - Shows enabled/disabled status, spawn rates, and current caps in chat.