Before the Ash

Survive in a world where dinosaurs rule.

Before the Ash is a prehistoric survival modpack for Minecraft 1.20.1, built on NeoForge. Step into a dangerous, beautiful world filled with dinosaurs, prehistoric creatures, and ancient ecosystems. Explore lush biomes shaped by custom world generation, tame creatures from a bygone era, build shelters to survive the night, and uncover the mysteries of a land untouched by human civilization.

This isn't just a mod slapped onto vanilla — it's a fully curated experience with custom menus, hand-picked world generation, balanced progression, and over 130 mods working together to create something that feels like a complete game.

Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures

The star of the show. Before the Ash brings dinosaurs and prehistoric life to Minecraft through Fossils and Archaeology Revival, giving you the ability to discover fossils, extract DNA, and bring ancient creatures back to life. Tame and ride dinosaurs, build enclosures, and study the paleontology of a world that never went extinct.

Alongside the dinosaurs, The Dawn Era and Dawn Era Delight expand the prehistoric roster with even more creatures and themed content. Alex's Mobs and Naturalist fill out the world with diverse wildlife — from the depths of the ocean to the canopy of the jungle — so every biome feels alive.

World Generation

The world itself is as much a character as the creatures in it. Before the Ash uses a layered world generation stack to create landscapes that feel epic and ancient:

Terralith — Over 100 new biomes with dramatic terrain, towering cliffs, and deep valleys
Tectonic — Massive continental-scale terrain shaping with realistic geology
WWOO (William Wythers' Overhauled Overworld) — Enhanced vanilla biomes with richer vegetation and detail
Biome Replacer — Fine-tuned biome placement to match the prehistoric theme
Ecologics — Richer ecosystems with new plants and environmental details

Every world you generate will feel unique, vast, and worth exploring.

Structures & Exploration

A prehistoric world needs things to discover. Before the Ash includes a curated set of structure mods to reward exploration:

Yung's Better Dungeons — Completely overhauled dungeon generation
Yung's Better Mineshafts — Massive, sprawling underground mineshafts
Yung's Better Strongholds — Redesigned strongholds that feel like real fortresses
Repurposed Structures — Hundreds of new structures scattered across every biome
Philip's Ruins — Atmospheric ruins and remnants of ancient civilizations
Explorer's Compass & Nature's Compass — Find biomes and structures without wandering aimlessly

Building & Decoration

Once you've survived long enough to settle down, you'll have plenty to build with:

Handcrafted — Beautiful furniture and decorative blocks
Macaw's Bridges & Fences — Detailed architectural elements
Chipped — Hundreds of block variants for every building material
Supplementaries — Signs, flags, jars, and dozens of useful decorative items
Chalk — Mark your path through caves and the wilderness
Simply Tents — Portable shelters for the nomadic survivor
Storage Drawers & Sophisticated Storage — Keep your base organised

Survival & Progression

Before the Ash adds depth to the survival experience without making it tedious:

First Aid — Localized body damage; a broken leg means you can't sprint
Scaling Health — Health scales with progression, making the early game dangerous
Realistic Torches — Torches burn out; you'll need to plan your lighting
Spoiled — Food rots over time, adding urgency to farming and storage
Sol: Carrot Edition — Eat a varied diet to gain permanent health bonuses
Sleep Tight — Sleeping bags and improved rest mechanics
Comforts — Sleeping bags that don't set your spawn
Farmer's Delight & Croptopia — A massively expanded food and cooking system
Traveler's Backpack — Extra inventory space for long expeditions

Combat & Equipment

You'll need every advantage to survive alongside apex predators:

Spartan Weaponry — Spears, halberds, battleaxes, and more
Better Combat — Overhauled melee combat with combos and weapon reach
Tinkers' Construct — Build and customise your own tools and weapons from parts
Tool Leveling — Your gear improves the more you use it
Apotheosis — Overhauled enchanting with rare, powerful enchantments
Cosmetic Armor Reworked — Look however you want without sacrificing stats

Performance & Quality of Life

Before the Ash is optimised to run well and feel smooth:

Embeddium — Sodium-level rendering performance on Forge
Immediately Fast — Entity rendering optimisation
ModernFix — Memory and startup time improvements
FerriteCore — Reduces RAM usage significantly
Entity Culling — Skips rendering entities you can't see
Fast Leaf Decay — Leaves disappear quickly after chopping trees
Clumps — Merges XP orbs to reduce lag
Chunk Sending — Optimised chunk delivery for smoother exploration
Memory Settings — Automatic memory management

Quality of life mods keep the experience smooth without feeling like cheating: Jade (block info HUD), JEI (recipe browser), Xaero's Minimap & World Map, Controlling (searchable keybinds), Mouse Tweaks, Inventory Profiles Next, and Ping Wheel for multiplayer communication.

Immersion & Atmosphere

The little details that tie it all together:

Ambient Sounds — Biome-specific ambient audio that makes the world feel alive
Sound Physics Remastered — Reverb in caves, muffled sounds through walls
Particle Rain — Weather particles that interact with the terrain
Fog — Atmospheric distance fog for that prehistoric haze
Dynamic Lights — Holding a torch lights up the world around you
Drippy Loading Screen — Custom themed loading screens
FancyMenu — Fully custom main menu, pause screen, and loading backgrounds

Multiplayer Ready

Before the Ash includes a dedicated server pack with everything pre-configured:

Aikar's JVM Flags — Industry-standard garbage collection tuning
6GB RAM default — Optimised for modded server performance
Simple Voice Chat — Built-in proximity voice chat (no Discord needed)
FTB Chunks — Chunk claiming and protection
FTB Teams & Essentials — Team management and server utilities
Pre-configured server.properties — Tuned view distance, simulation distance, and compression

Included Shaders

Before the Ash ships with a selection of shaders so you can make the world look incredible right out of the box:

BSL Shaders
Complementary Reimagined
Complementary Unbound
Sildur's Vibrant Shaders
Solas Shader
Bliss Shaders

Included Resource Packs

Fresh Animations — Improved mob animations
Mandala's GUI (Dark Mode) — Clean, dark-themed UI

Requirements

Minecraft: 1.20.1
Mod Loader: NeoForge 47.1.106
Minimum RAM: 6GB allocated (8GB recommended)
Java: 17 or newer