📜 Idle Colony Reclaim Policy — Why It’s Necessary

As Shadows of Aethro continues to grow, we need to keep the world playable, fair, and free of abandoned clutter. One of the biggest sources of dead land and unnecessary lag comes from colonies left behind by players who no longer log in. NPCs still pathfind, blocks stay claimed, and huge areas of land are locked off with no one around to use them.

To fix this, we are introducing a strict Idle Colony Reclaim rule.

⚔️ The Rule

Colonies tied to accounts inactive for 20 days may receive a Discord notification as a warning. (Not guaranteed.)

Colonies tied to accounts inactive for 30 days will be automatically reclaimed and deleted.

Reclaims are final — no appeals by default.

Exception: If you know you’ll be gone longer than a month (vacation, deployment, medical, etc.), open a ticket before you leave. We may hold off on reclaiming your land on a case-by-case basis.

Staff may reclaim earlier if the colony causes extreme issues (grief placement, lag impact, broken pathfinding, etc.).

Applies equally to all players, including supporters.

🧙 Why We’re Doing This

World Health: Dead colonies eat up land, prevent new players from settling, and make the world feel abandoned.

Server Performance: MineColonies NPCs keep running even when players are gone, causing lag for everyone else.

Fairness: Allowing inactive players to lock down land forever is unfair to those actively playing.

Clarity: Simple rule — if you haven’t logged in for 30 days, your colony is gone unless you’ve contacted us beforehand.

✔️ What You Can Do

Don’t panic — 30 days is a generous amount of time.

If you’ll be away for longer, open a ticket in Discord before you leave.

If you return after 30+ days without notice, your colony will already be reclaimed. Starting fresh is the only option.

🏴 Final Note

This policy is not about punishing players. It’s about protecting the community. By keeping the world clear of dead weight, we ensure Shadows of Aethro stays fun, fair, and performant for everyone who’s actually here playing. If you have any questions, please create a ticket and a member of the staff team will be happy to assist.

🎃 Shadows of Aethro Update — September 30, 2025

Heads up: when you connect today, you’ll get a quick install. It’s our Halloween prep.

Also: something… happened at spawn. We apologize for the chaos. Reports say Michael Myers, Chucky, and friends are roaming the world.

Be careful out there.

• Travel with gear

• Keep your head on a swivel

• If you see them, run or be ready to fight

Happy haunting, survivors. 👻

💀 Graves are back!

Totems are gone. Graves are back. Smash one and rumor has it something spooky might happen… 👀

🐝 The Bee Wars have begun!

You all invaded their colonies, and now the bees are officially done with you. Expect full-scale bee warfare. 🐝⚔️ Grab a sword, a shield, and maybe a jar of honey.

🎉 Rewards Bossbar Toggle RETURNS!

Yes, it’s back! You can now once again choose between Bossbar or Actionbar for your reward spam. Decide what screams at you, because options matter.

🏛 Byzantine Style

Fixed the missing Charioteer Residence Level 4. The Byzantines can sleep well again.

😵 Chat Heads

Upside down players are now rendered… upside down. With shadows. Because logic.

🍳 Create Slice & Dice

Identical fluids for recipes now merge together. Soup is soup.

🌲 Every Compact (Wood Good)

Fixed missing recipes. Wood is good again.

📚 Library Corner Updates

• 📖 GechoLib & GuideME updated

• 🏗 MineColonies updated (too much to list, just trust chaos)

• 🪜 SmallColonies: fixed slabs next to ladders and made sandstone walls less ugly

• 🔦 Sophisticated Core: highlights storage slots now!

  • Green = matching stack

  • Blue = matching item

  • Yellow = empty slot

• 📦 Sophisticated Storage updated same as above

• 🌍 Structurize reworked world operations & classes

• 🏰 Stylecolonies: Aquatica gatehouse tweaks

• 🚰 Supplementaries: faucet dupe patched

👹 The Horrors

We keep trying to fence them in and shove them through portals… but they’re starting to slip out. If you see one, run. Or wave. Your choice.

⚔️ War and Taxes

The new War and Taxes system is live! Colonies now generate Cogs from buildings, while guards and upkeep consume them. It’s up to you to balance your economy or watch it crash.

⛵ Small Ships

Ships can now be built to float and travel across oceans. The seas are officially open!

🔧 Updated Mods

• Create Slice & Dice

• MineColonies

• Moonlight Lib

• Sophisticated Backpacks

• Sophisticated Core

• Sophisticated Storage

• MineColonies Tweaks addon

🏦 The Bank of Spawn

A brand new bank is available at spawn inside the black building. Deposit and manage your Cogs here.

👻 Herobrine Fired

Herobrine was removed from his banker duties for “creative accounting” and has been banished back into the void.

Chaotic Finds by Jack – Today’s Update

Jack dove headfirst into CurseForge again and came back with a pile of shiny chaos. No new bosses. No new worlds. Just builder toys, lag fixes, armor fashion shows, jobs, escalators, and questionable life choices.

Create Expansions

• Create: Framed – Your machines, but make them fashion.

• Create: Cobblestone – Cobble generators that don’t murder the TPS.

Immersive Mods

• Immersive Paintings – Custom paintings are now in. Jack’s art isn’t added yet, but soon you’ll be forced to hang it on your walls.

Variants & Builder Toys

• Any Lanterns – More lanterns than you’ll ever need.

• Chipped & Chipped Express – Every block now has a dozen decorative cousins.

Lag Reduction / Utility

• Easy Mob Farm – Please stop building lag bombs. This is your intervention.

The Quark Family

• Quark & Quark Oddities – A million small tweaks plus a throwable pickaxe.

• Every Compat – Makes mods behave nicely together.

• QuarkPonders – In-game tutorials so you don’t have to ask “what does this do?” in chat.

• Vertical Slabs Compat – Vertical. Slabs. Rejoice.

• Stone Zone – More rocks, more flavor.

• Gems Realm – New shiny blocks because apparently we needed more.

• Quark Delight – A food crossover nobody expected.

Armor Drip Update

• Cosmetic Armor Reworked – Wear your best gear but look however you want.

Jobs System

You can now officially clock in to Minecraft. Choose from Alchemist, Builder, Digger, Enchanter, Farmer, Fisherman, Hunter, Lumberjack, Miner, or Smith. Earn cogs as you work and spend them to trade or pay for things.

Press J to open the Jobs menu (or set your own keybind if J is already taken). Time to get that blocky paycheck.

Escalators

Because stairs are for peasants. Enjoy your moving block technology.

The Vibe

Builders get more blocks. Decorators get more toys. Fashionistas get armor drip. Workers get jobs and cogs. Lazy players get escalators. The server gets a little less lag. And Jack gets ready to plaster his art all over your colonies very soon.

Sidenotes

• All existing mods have been updated to their latest versions.

• Bumblezone added the Hive Lifeline Enhancement: nearby bees will now take damage for you when you’re attacked. Your swarm’s got your back.