Headless Horseman

When the full moon rises, the village roads are no longer safe.

Headless Horseman adds a rare mounted boss encounter to the Overworld. Dressed in a black frock coat and burgundy waistcoat, the headless rider carries an iron sword and a glowing jack-o-lantern atop his dark Hollow Steed.

The steed occasionally rears on its hind legs while idle, and its glowing eyes and the rider’s raised lantern bring the encounter to life.

Defeat the Horseman to claim his surviving steed, already saddled and tamed to the player who lands the killing blow. You’ll also receive a jack-o-lantern, The Hollow Road lore book, and a challenge advancement that awards 100 experience.

By default, encounters have a 25% chance during an eligible full-moon night, once every eight Minecraft days. There is one roll across the Overworld per full-moon cycle, and that roll persists across server restarts. A living Survival or Adventure player must be near a village with a bell, a claimed workstation, and at least five living villagers within 48 blocks of the bell. Suitable loaded ground is required, so a successful roll does not guarantee a spawn.

Typical trading halls without bells do not qualify. Player-built villages and trading halls that meet all configured requirements can qualify. Peaceful difficulty and disabled mob or monster spawning prevent automatic encounters.

With optional Mod Menu installed, adjust the encounter chance, toggle the bell and claimed-workstation requirements, change the minimum population from 0 to 64, and set the village radius from 16 to 96 blocks. Set the chance to 0% to disable encounters or the population minimum to 0 to disable that requirement. Dedicated servers can edit config/headlesshorseman.json and restart to apply changes.