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

Install Fabric Loader for Minecraft 1.21.8.
Install Fabric API.
Install GeckoLib 5 for Minecraft 1.21.8.
Install oωo for Minecraft 1.21.8.
Place Hired Villagers inside the profile’s mods folder.
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.