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Minecraft: Java Edition
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Deadman's Chest
Drifting barrels, soggy pirate maps, cursed guardians, and buried treasure for PaperMC servers.
No resource pack. No NMS. Just pirate treasure hunts built with supported Paper/Bukkit APIs.
What Is Deadman's Chest?
Deadman's Chest turns the open ocean into the beginning of a survival-friendly pirate adventure.
While exploring the world, players may discover strange glowing barrels drifting in the water. Claim the soggy map inside, follow the skull-marked chart, locate the cursed treasure marker, defeat the guardians, and claim whatever the dead left behind.
But treasure is never truly free.
A dead pirate does not give up his loot willingly.
The Gameplay Loop
Deadman's Chest is built around a complete treasure-hunt loop:
Find a drifting barrel
-> Claim the soggy treasure map
-> Watch the wet parchment reveal itself
-> Follow the skull-marked chart
-> Discover the cursed treasure marker
-> Activate the marker
-> Defeat the skeleton guardians
-> Watch as the chest is revealed
-> Loot the treasure
-> See the chest cleansed and vanish
The goal is not to create a complicated quest system. The goal is to add mystery, danger, and reward to normal survival exploration.
Features
- Floating treasure barrels that spawn in the world using custom models
- Three treasure tiers: Emerald, Ruby, and Diamond
- Custom soggy parchment-style treasure maps
- Animated wet-map reveal effect
- Skull-and-crossbones treasure marker drawn directly onto the map
- Standard Minecraft player tracking cursor on the custom map
- Cursed treasure markers placed in the world
- Skeleton guardian encounters based on treasure tier
- Custom treasure chest model
- Chest reveal animation after guardians are defeated
- Chest loot inventory instead of forced item delivery
- Chest remains while loot is still present
- Chest vanishes with a cleansing effect once emptied
- Configurable loot tables
- Support for enchanted book rewards
- Support for custom configured loot
- Operator cleanup command for Deadman's Chest entities
- No resource pack required
- No NMS or internal server classes
Deadman's Chest is designed to feel like something that belongs naturally in a survival world: rare, atmospheric, dangerous, and rewarding.
Treasure Tiers
Deadman's Chest uses three visual treasure tiers.
Each tier carries through the entire hunt:
barrel band
-> map skull color
-> treasure marker gem
-> treasure chest gem
| Tier | Theme | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Emerald | Green | The most common treasure tier. A good early-to-mid survival reward. |
| Ruby | Redstone red | A stronger treasure tier with better rewards and tougher guardians. |
| Diamond | Diamond blue | The highest treasure tier, guarded by the strongest encounter and capable of rare rewards. |
The tier is visible before the fight begins, giving players a chance to decide how prepared they want to be.
Bring a sword.
Bring a shield.
Bring friends.
Bring wolves.
Maybe bring iron blocks and pumpkins if you like solving problems the Minecraft way.
Screenshots and Videos
Finding a Barrel
Receiving a Soggy Map
Following the Treasure Map
Discovering the Treasure Marker
Fighting the Guardians
Guardians Defeated
Chest Rises
Videos:
Watching the soggy map reveal
Reaching the marker and triggering the guardians
The chest is revealed
Getting the loot and cleansing the location
Why This Exists
Minecraft survival already has wonderful systems:
- oceans
- maps
- exploration
- hostile mobs
- wolves
- iron golems
- enchanted gear
- rare resources
- strange places in the world
Deadman's Chest tries to connect those systems into a small adventure.
It gives players a reason to sail, explore, prepare, fight, and return home with a story.
It also provides an alternate path to meaningful rewards such as enchanted books and useful supplies, especially for servers that do not want villager trading halls to dominate progression.
Installation
- Download the latest release.
- Drop the plugin jar into your server's
plugins/directory. - Start or restart the server.
- Review the generated configuration file.
- Watch the waters.
When the plugin is running, treasure barrels may begin appearing in valid water locations depending on your configuration.
Requirements
- PaperMC
- Java 21+
- Minecraft/Paper version targeted by the current release
Tested Against
- Paper 1.21.x
- Java 21
Deadman's Chest uses supported Bukkit/Paper APIs and does not rely on NMS or internal server classes.
Configuration
Deadman's Chest is intended to be configurable while still having sensible defaults.
Configuration areas include:
- Barrel spawn limits
- Barrel lifetime
- Treasure generation distance
- Treasure tier weighting
- Loot tables
- Enchanted book chances
- Custom loot additions
- Cleanup/debug behavior
Example configuration shape:
debug: true
messages:
treasure-recovered:
enabled: true
broadcast: false
text: "%player% has recovered the treasure of %adjective% pirate %pirate_name% and broken the curse."
barrels:
max-active: 30
min-lifetime-minutes: 4
max-lifetime-minutes: 12
seconds-between-spawn-checks: 30
min-distance-between-barrels: 128
loot:
remove-defaults: false
level-1:
rolls: 4
remove:
- minecraft:cooked_cod
add:
- material: minecraft:copper_ingot
min: 4
max: 12
weight: 12
level-2:
rolls: 6
book-chance-percent: 18
remove: []
add:
- material: minecraft:lapis_lazuli
min: 4
max: 16
weight: 8
add-books:
- enchantment: minecraft:mending
level: 1
weight: 1
- enchantment: minecraft:fortune
level: 2
weight: 2
- enchantment: minecraft:efficiency
level: 4
weight: 2
custom:
- material: minecraft:iron_sword
name: "Cursed Raider's Cutlass"
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 2
enchants:
- enchantment: minecraft:sharpness
level: 3
- enchantment: minecraft:vanishing_curse
level: 1
- material: minecraft:iron_chestplate
name: "Salt-Stained Breastplate"
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 2
enchants:
- enchantment: minecraft:protection
level: 3
- enchantment: minecraft:binding_curse
level: 1
level-3:
rolls: 8
book-chance-percent: 35
remove:
- minecraft:enchanted_golden_apple
add:
- material: minecraft:diamond
min: 2
max: 5
weight: 8
- material: minecraft:trident
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 1
add-books:
- enchantment: minecraft:mending
level: 1
weight: 2
- enchantment: minecraft:fortune
level: 3
weight: 3
- enchantment: minecraft:efficiency
level: 5
weight: 4
- enchantment: minecraft:protection
level: 4
weight: 4
- enchantment: minecraft:sharpness
level: 5
weight: 4
custom:
- material: minecraft:diamond_sword
name: "Deadman's Blade"
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 1
enchants:
- enchantment: minecraft:sharpness
level: 5
- enchantment: minecraft:fire_aspect
level: 2
- material: minecraft:diamond_pickaxe
name: "Buried King's Pick"
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 1
enchants:
- enchantment: minecraft:efficiency
level: 5
- enchantment: minecraft:fortune
level: 3
Exact configuration options may change during beta as gameplay balance is tuned.
Loot
Treasure chests use a chest-sized inventory window.
Loot is not forced directly into the player inventory. This avoids losing rewards when a player's inventory is full.
Current behavior:
Player opens treasure chest
-> Loot inventory appears
-> Player takes items
-> Chest remains if loot is still present
-> Chest is removed only after the loot inventory is emptied
This makes the reward feel like an actual treasure chest rather than a simple item payout.
Loot Categories
Deadman's Chest loot may include:
- Food
- Ingots and gems
- Experience bottles
- Saplings and useful survival items
- Armor
- Tools
- Weapons
- Rare items
- Enchanted books
- Custom configured treasure items
Enchanted Books
Enchanted books can appear in higher-tier treasure.
The intent is to make treasure hunting a meaningful alternate reward path without making books too common.
Recommended balance:
| Tier | Book Behavior |
|---|---|
| Emerald | No premium books by default |
| Ruby | Chance for useful books |
| Diamond | Chance for top-tier books |
A chest should never be flooded with books. Books are meant to feel special.
Custom Loot
Server owners may configure custom loot entries such as enchanted tools, armor, or weapons.
Example:
loot:
level-3:
custom:
- material: DIAMOND_SWORD
name: "Deadman's Blade"
min: 1
max: 1
weight: 1
enchants:
- enchantment: sharpness
level: 5
- enchantment: vanishing_curse
level: 1
Custom loot is intended for server owners who want to add their own flavor while preserving the core treasure-hunt experience.
Encounters
Treasure markers are not harmless decorations.
When activated, they summon skeleton guardians. The number and strength of guardians depends on treasure level.
| Tier | Encounter Feel |
|---|---|
| Emerald | Small fight |
| Ruby | Moderate fight |
| Diamond | Stronger fight with a captain-style guardian |
Guardians are configured to avoid becoming gear farms. Their purpose is to protect the treasure, not to replace the reward chest.
The encounter is designed to be dangerous but not absurd. Players can prepare using normal survival tools:
- Better armor
- Shields
- Bows
- Potions
- Wolves
- Friends
- Iron golems
- Terrain preparation
Deadman's Chest creates the problem. Minecraft gives players many ways to solve it.
World Atmosphere
Deadman's Chest leans into a cursed pirate mood:
- glowing barrels drifting at sea
- damp parchment maps
- skull-marked treasure locations
- soul fire
- skeleton guardians
- treasure chests rising from the earth
- lightning and fire cleansing the empty chest
The plugin works in normal survival worlds, but it especially shines in atmospheric coastal, island, pirate, or night-focused servers.
Commands
Commands are primarily intended for operators and server recovery.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/deadmanschest:info |
Shows current spawned barrel information. |
/deadmanschest:flush |
Removes Deadman's Chest tagged world components. |
Command behavior may change as the plugin matures.
During beta, commands may be more permissive or debug-oriented than they will be in a final release.
Operator Notes
Deadman's Chest uses Display Entities, Interaction entities, PersistentDataContainer tags, and custom map renderers.
Important behavior:
- Barrels are transient and non-persistent.
- Barrel counts are limited by configuration.
- Treasure maps are player-held custom maps.
- Treasure markers may persist in the world until activated.
- Treasure chests remain only while loot remains.
- Operator cleanup tools exist for removing Deadman's Chest world entities if needed.
This design allows abandoned treasure markers to become atmospheric world dressing while still giving server operators a recovery path.
Performance Notes
Deadman's Chest is designed to keep active entity counts bounded.
- Floating barrels are capped and time out.
- Treasure markers are lightweight Display/Interaction compositions.
- Guardians exist only during active encounters.
- Treasure chests exist only while unclaimed or partially looted.
- Cleanup commands are available for operators.
The plugin avoids NMS and avoids resource-pack dependency.
As with any plugin using visual entities, server owners should avoid extreme configuration values that create excessive numbers of active world objects.
Current Status
Deadman's Chest is currently in beta.
The full gameplay loop is playable:
barrel -> map -> marker -> guardians -> chest -> loot -> cleanup
Current focus areas:
- Survival-world testing
- Loot balance
- Configuration polish
- Edge-case cleanup
- Documentation
- Release packaging
Feedback, bug reports, and suggestions are welcome.
Design Philosophy
Deadman's Chest is not meant to be a full quest engine.
It is meant to add a small, memorable adventure to survival play.
The best moments should feel like stories players tell afterward:
- I saw something glowing out on the water.
- The map was soaked, but it started to reveal itself.
- We found the skull marker at night.
- The skeletons came out of nowhere.
- The chest rose out of the ground after the last guardian fell.
- We got a Mending book and barely made it home.
That is the experience this plugin is trying to create.
Compatibility
Deadman's Chest should work well with ordinary Paper survival servers.
It is especially fun alongside plugins or server styles that encourage:
- sailing
- exploration
- coastal bases
- survival progression
- dangerous nights
- reduced villager-trading dependence
- world ambience
No client mod is required.
No resource pack is required.
Inspiration
Deadman's Chest is inspired by:
- pirate legends
- cursed treasure
- shipwreck stories
- old parchment maps
- strange things floating in the ocean
- skeleton crews
- survival worlds that reward exploration
A pirate, even a dead one, is not going to give up his loot willingly.
License
Deadman's Chest is licensed under the MIT License.
See the LICENSE file for full details.
Final Thoughts
Deadman's Chest is meant to add mystery to the ocean and danger to treasure hunting.
Not every barrel should be ignored.
Not every map should be trusted.
Not every treasure should be easy to claim.