Hired Villagers

Hired Villagers turns ordinary villagers into useful settlement workers that can be recruited, commanded, equipped, and developed over time.

Instead of villagers standing around with limited interaction, this mod allows players to build an organized settlement workforce. The first available role is the Patroller, a recruitable village guard who can follow the player, hold a position, guard an area, and walk custom patrol routes.

The mod is currently in early alpha development. Core recruitment, movement orders, patrol routes, custom Patroller appearances, and equipment management are functional. Combat, alarms, additional roles, and advanced progression are still being developed.

Current Features

Recruit Villagers

Use the Recruitment Ledger on an eligible villager to open the recruitment screen.

Patrollers currently cost:

8 Emeralds

Eligible villagers:

• Adult unemployed villagers
• Adult nitwits

Villagers that cannot currently be recruited:

• Baby villagers
• Villagers with an existing profession
• Villagers already hired by another player
• Previously hired villagers

Profession villagers are protected so the mod does not accidentally remove important traders from your settlement.

Level 1 Patroller

When successfully hired, the villager becomes a custom Level 1 Patroller Recruit.

The Patroller receives:

• A unique GeckoLib-powered model
• A dark recruit uniform
• A persistent owner
• Level and XP data
• Saved order information
• Saved patrol-route information
• A custom equipment and backpack interface

The Patroller appearance is separate from normal villager rendering, meaning ordinary villagers keep their normal models and clothing.

Patroller Orders

Use the Recruitment Ledger on a hired Patroller to open the orders menu.

Available orders include:

Follow Me

The Patroller follows their owner and attempts to remain nearby.

Stay Here

The Patroller stops moving and holds their current location.

Guard This Area

The Patroller remains near a selected guard position and returns if they move too far away.

Patrol Route

Create a route containing between two and eight checkpoints. The Patroller travels between the checkpoints continuously.

Patrol routes can be:

• Created
• Replaced
• Paused by selecting another order
• Resumed later
• Preserved after leaving and reopening the world

Checkpoints represent important turns or destinations. Players do not need to place a checkpoint on every block of the route.

Equipment Interface

Patrollers have a custom RPG-style equipment screen created specifically for Hired Villagers.

The interface includes:

• Main-hand slot
• Off-hand slot
• Helmet slot
• Chest armor slot
• Leg armor slot
• Boot slot
• Eight-slot Patroller backpack
• Player inventory
• Player hotbar
• Patroller portrait
• Current role and level information

Items can be dragged between the player and Patroller inventories. Shift-click transfers are also supported.

The interface is built using oωo, while the Patroller model and animations use GeckoLib.

Persistent Data

Hired Patrollers retain their important information after the world is saved and reopened, including:

• Owner
• Role
• Level
• XP
• Current order
• Guard location
• Patrol checkpoints
• Equipment
• Backpack contents

Planned Features

Hired Villagers is still actively being developed. Planned systems include:

• Hostile mob detection
• Patroller combat
• Sword and shield animations
• Visible equipped weapons and armor
• Returning to patrol after combat
• Patroller XP and leveling
• Equipment requirements based on level
• Automatic gear upgrades every five levels
• Bell alarm networks
• Patrollers warning nearby settlements
• Civilians seeking shelter during attacks
• Additional combat roles
• Citizen workers
• Tanks
• Archers
• Healers
• Settlement residence markers
• Daily villager routines
• More commands and management options
• Fabric, NeoForge, and Forge releases

Planned rank progression:

Level 1  — Recruit
Level 5  — Watchman
Level 10 — Guard
Level 15 — Veteran
Level 20 — Elite

Each rank is planned to receive improved equipment, visuals, abilities, and combat effectiveness.

Customization

Patroller models, textures, portraits, animations, and interface assets use stable Hired Villagers resource locations.

Resource-pack creators may replace supported visual assets to create custom Patroller appearances while leaving the recruitment, ownership, orders, and progression systems unchanged.

Custom GeckoLib models should preserve the required animation bone names unless replacement animations are also supplied.

Requirements

Hired Villagers currently requires:

• Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.8
• Fabric Loader
• Fabric API
• GeckoLib 5
• oωo / owo-lib

All required dependencies must be installed on the same profile.

Installation

1. Install Fabric Loader for Minecraft 1.21.8.
2. Install Fabric API.
3. Install GeckoLib 5 for Minecraft 1.21.8.
4. Install oωo for Minecraft 1.21.8.
5. Place Hired Villagers inside the profile’s mods folder.
6. Launch Minecraft using the Fabric profile.

Do not install multiple versions of Hired Villagers at the same time.

Alpha Notice

This project is currently an alpha development build.

Features may change, and bugs may occur. Backing up important worlds before testing new versions is strongly recommended.

Current releases are focused on testing one system at a time before combat, leveling, additional roles, and public multiplayer support are finalized.

Bug reports should include:

• Hired Villagers version
• Minecraft version
• Fabric Loader version
• Fabric API version
• GeckoLib version
• oωo version
• Crash report
• latest.log
• Steps that caused the issue

Credits

Hired Villagers is an original mod created for Minecraft Java Edition.

Required libraries:

• Fabric API
• GeckoLib
• oωo / owo-lib

Hired Villagers is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mojang Studios or Microsoft.