LAUNCHING FOR PUBLIC ACCESS

Halcyon: The Dark Ages is an Australian, medieval-themed, Lands PvP server, with a custom world and a focus on an old-school survival experience.

I am a postgraduate medievalist, with a focus on occultism, mysticism, and chivalric romance. I’ve been playing Minecraft since the late Infdev era, and am now returning to the game after a few years’ hiatus. My goal has been to create a server which captures the unique tone found in early Minecraft – the fear of night, the mystery of exploration, and the significance of death. Thus Halcyon: The Dark Ages seeks to tackle the problems of the modern meta and cultivate a tone of mystery, adventure, and medieval intrigue through the following features:

🗺️ A Vast, Custom World: Simulated based on realistic geology in Gaea, and hand-detailed in Worldpainter, the Continent measures 20,000 x 20,000 blocks of vast mountains, sweeping valleys, rocky coasts, abyssal ravines, deep cenotes, and winding rivers.

🏰 Player-Driven Lands & Nations: Players can protect their homes by founding Lands, which can be deeply customised to their preference, with custom roles, permissions, taxation, and alliances. Game mechanics – not just roleplay – support the creation of democratic peasant communes, centralised autocratic empires, or tyrannical tributary kingdoms.

🗡️ PvP without Griefing: The Lands system ensures a tense PvP environment, but without the risk of griefing – your creations are safe and protected, but the only protections given to chests and players are those provided by sturdy walls and armour, giving purpose to your architecture.

⛏️ Meaningful Progression without Mods or Datapacks: Without employing any mods or datapacks, we have made a small number of tweaks to vanilla mechanics to slow down progression, making endgame items meaningful and memorable.

💀 Tougher Survival & Exploration: Health can only be regenerated with the use of a bed, and nights cannot be skipped, bringing back a taste of the true old-school survival experience.

♟️ Gameplay, not Roleplay: While roleplaying is welcomed, Halcyon has been designed in such a way that gameplay mechanics support a medieval-esque atmosphere without requiring players to be ‘in character’.

⛏️ Proximity Text & Voice Chat: Simple VoiceChat is enabled, but completely optional.

Halcyon has been in a final state of beta testing this past week, with the help of a welcoming and committed community of players (mostly recruited from this subreddit) who have begun to found the initial factions. A small alliance of traders and monks can be found near spawn in the mountains of Oakmont, while a growing band of vikings have made their home in the Eastern Plains. The vast majority of the map, however, remains unexplored and unpopulated – ripe for the taking!

As of tonight, Halcyon is open to public access. If you like the idea of fending for survival against the bitter night, carving out a kingdom in undiscovered lands, engaging in high medieval politics and defending your honour on the field of battle, then please feel free to join us at:

> halcyonmc.org <<

We look forward to seeing you there!

Serekin

🏳️‍🌈 Naturally, Halcyon is an inclusive and queer-friendly server, welcoming people of any gender, sexuality, race, religion, and background. A medieval theme does not mean medieval values, and bigotry or harassment of any sort is strictly disallowed.