Odyssey: The Wine-Dark Sea

Sing, Muse, of a voyage home.

Odyssey: The Wine-Dark Sea opens a new dimension: an endless violet sea, scattered with islands out of Homer. Troy burns behind you. Ithaca lies somewhere beyond the horizon. Between the two: a Cyclops, a sorceress, the Sirens, a six-headed monster in a sea cliff, and a god who wants you drowned. You have a ship, a crew, an owl, and a long way to go.

No portals, no teleports from one episode to the next. You sail.

At a glance

• A whole dimension: seven rings of sea and hundreds of islands, laid out like the poem, from burning Troy to the hearth of Ithaca.
• A ship with a crew: twelve named companions of Ithaca at the oars, four winds, a sail, a hold, mooring and repairs. Lose them to Scylla, and you will mourn them by name.
• Six boss fights from Homer, each beaten the way the poem beats it (an olive stake, a sprig of moly, wax in your ears), not by hitting harder.
• A world that lives: dolphins racing your bow, Phoenician traders, islanders at their trades by day and round the fire at dusk, goats on the ledges, Argos on his dung heap.
• Homer’s own sky: 645 real stars and the Milky Way, a rosy-fingered dawn, a wine-red dusk, nights that follow the moon.
• An original orchestral score and a soundscape in which every biome has its own breath.
• The Book of the voyage: an illustrated scroll of sixteen songs, in English and French.
• Fabric and NeoForge, Minecraft 26.3, single player and multiplayer.

Pour a libation, and the sea turns to wine

Craft a Libation Amphora (a honey bottle, sweet berries and clay: a libation of wine and honey) and pour it into any water in the Overworld. The sea darkens to purple around you, the fog closes in, a choir rises, and you wake on the beach of Troy, among the beached ships of the Greek camp, the burning city on its hill above you.

The same amphora brings you home. So does the hearth of Ithaca, if you ever reach it.

Seven rings of sea

The Wine-Dark Sea is laid out like the poem. Troy stands at its centre; every 1,500 blocks outward, a new ring of sea holds the next part of the voyage, in order, whichever way you set your prow.

Each ring has its own weather and water: calm turquoise in the Thracian Sea, swell and wind among the Giants, mist and endless dusk among the Enchantments, storms and whirlpools where the gods live, a rosy dawn off Ithaca.

Every island is a work of its own

Relief, biome, palette, structures, creatures and music are designed together, island by island. Every island is readable from far away (built for Distant Horizons): the black cone of the Cyclops, the bronze-walled island of Aeolus floating 150 blocks above the waves, the smoke over Circe’s palace, the smooth needle of Scylla, Troy in flames.

• Troy: sloping walls, the Scaean Gate, Priam’s palace, burning houses, ravens; on the beach, the Greek camp with its beached ships; on the plain, the great wooden horse, hollow inside.
• The Cyclops’ island: a 200-block volcanic cone, black pastures, a giant’s cave with sheep pens and cheese racks, and a boulder for a door.
• Aeolia: a floating island ringed with bronze, a palace of winds and chimes.
• Aiaia: deep woods, a stone palace, pigsties, and wolves and lions that are far too tame.
• The Cimmerian shore: black sand, eternal mist, poplars and willows, and a way down to the Meadow of Asphodel.
• Thrinacia: a three-cornered island of golden grass where the Sun’s cattle graze. Do not touch them.
• Ogygia, Scheria, Ithaca: Calypso’s grotto, the bronze-walled city of King Alcinous, and at last, home.

Between the episodes, hundreds of ordinary islands: olive coasts and cypress hills, umbrella-pine isles, sea stacks and arches, black-sand volcanic islets, white dunes, turquoise lagoons. Fishing villages, hilltop shrines, ruined temples, watchtowers, sea grottoes and shipwrecks wait on them.

A sea that lives

The open sea is never empty. Dolphins race your bow, shearwaters trail your stern, flying fish skim the swell and a turtle lets you overtake it. Flotsam drifts by with a sealed amphora in it. Phoenician traders hail you from their decks, with the wares of Sidon. Mist rises at dusk, an eagle carries off a goose (read the omen as you like), and after a shower Iris bends her bow over the water.

Every fight is a scene from Homer

Each boss is beaten the way the poem beats it, not by hitting harder.

• Polyphemus. Seven blocks of Cyclops. Drive a fire-hardened olive stake (or an arrow) into the eye. Blinded, he hunts by sound, like the Warden: crouch, and slip past him.
• Circe. Her spell turns you into a pig: tiny, slow, harmless. Find the moly first, and her magic slides off you.
• The Sirens. Their song drags you onto the reef. Stop your ears with beeswax and fight with a clear head.
• Scylla. Six heads on six long necks, each one snatching a sailor. Sever them one by one.
• Poseidon. A twenty-block god rising from the sea: storm, capsizing waves, foam serpents. Strike when he raises the trident.
• The Suitors. In the great hall of Ithaca: string the Bow of Odysseus, shoot through the twelve axes, and clear your house of Antinous and his feasting friends.

Your ship and its crew

The pentekonter: a Greek ship of fifty oars and a square sail. Row it out of Troy’s bay, and keep it alive across seven seas. You do not sail alone: twelve companions of Ithaca, each with a name, take the benches. They speak, they follow you ashore, they guard the beach at night, and when one falls the rest call him thrice by name before the ship sails on.

• The four winds fill the sail; Aeolus’ Bag of Winds gives you a gale, and (as in the poem) your crew will open it the moment you sleep.
• Moor her in a cove or haul her out on a beach; keep your hold stocked; paint and repair the hull.
• Dangers are real: the Laestrygonians throw boulders from their cliffs and each hit can take a man, Scylla snatches up to six from the benches as you pass under her cliff, Charybdis tries to swallow the lot.
• Works in multiplayer: two players, two oars, one crew.

People of the islands

The islands are lived in. Islanders of nine trades, dressed as on Ithaca, in the Aegean or at Scheria, work at their doors by day, gather round the fire at dusk and go home at night. After each deed they speak of your kleos (your glory), and every town offers you its guest-gift, the xenia, once.

The great names of the poem are there too, each with something to say: Penelope at her loom, Eumaeus and his pigs, Eurycleia who knows you by your scar, Telemachus, Laertes in his terraced orchard, Nausicaa, Alcinous, Arete and Demodocus in the city of the Phaeacians, Circe’s handmaids, Aeolus’ twelve children, and Argos, the old hound on his dung heap, who knows his master and dies. In the Underworld, the famous dead drift to the blood and shrink from your sword.

Under Homer’s sky

The sky is the poem’s. 645 true stars and the Milky Way turn about the Aegean pole: the Great Bear, that never bathes in Ocean, Orion, the Pleiades. Dawn comes saffron with rosy fingers; dusk goes wine-red under violet. The moon has its phases, and a moonless night is truly dark, so you will want a torch, or the stars. Clear nights bring portents, and storm clouds veil them.

The arms of heroes

Bronze armour and blazoned shields, painted with devices from the poem. The shield is raised like a shield; the dory, the heroes’ spear, is drawn back like a trident and thrown, and stands pitched in the ground where it lands. String the Bow of Odysseus at last, and shoot through the twelve axes.

The voyage: the Book, the owl and the scroll

The Odyssey advancement tab is the story, sixteen songs long, from Sing, Muse to Nostos. The Book of the voyage is an illustrated scroll with a red-figure plate for each song, in English and French. Some episodes are guarded: until you have done what the poem demands first, a storm of Poseidon walls off the lair, and tells you why.

• Athena’s Owl is a compass that points to the next island of your voyage.
• The Muse’s Scroll tells you which song you are in, what it asks of you, and gives a hint when you are lost.
• Chapter cards introduce each island, and are read aloud to screen readers.

The last songs are the best: Penelope’s test of the olive bed, Athena’s long night, Tiresias’ oar carried inland until a countryman takes it for a winnowing-fan, and Telos, which gives you the voyage in numbers.

{{img:owl_scroll}}

An original orchestral score

Every island and every boss has its own piece, written for this mod: strings, horns, harp, choir and drums, from the smoke of Troy to the dawn over Ithaca. One theme, Nostos (the homecoming), runs through the whole score and changes with every island it reaches. Between the pieces, the air itself sounds: the swell, surf on pebbles, cicadas at noon, crickets and the scops owl at night, the wind of Aeolia, Troy’s embers, the sheep-bells of the Cyclops, the whispering dead, the Sirens’ far voice, Charybdis’ roar. All of it is original.

Requirements and compatibility

• Minecraft 26.3
• Fabric (Fabric Loader 0.19.5+, Fabric API) or NeoForge (26.3.0.1-beta or later)
• Java 25
• Install on the client and on the server.
• Recommended for the full view: Distant Horizons (the islands are built to be seen from kilometres away), Sodium and Iris with a shader pack. Not required.

FAQ

Does it change my Overworld?

No. Everything happens in the Wine-Dark Sea dimension. The only way in is the Libation Amphora.

Can I play it with friends?

Yes. It works on servers, and the ship has seats for your crew.

Do I have to follow the episodes in order?

The sea is laid out in order and the owl leads you on, but you can sail anywhere. Some lairs stay sealed by Poseidon’s storm until you have done what the poem requires first (no Scylla before the Underworld, no Poseidon before Scylla and Thrinacia).

Is this based on a film?

No. It is based on Homer’s Odyssey, which is in the public domain. Every model, texture, structure, logo and note of music is original.

Can I use it in a modpack?

Yes, through CurseForge.

Is it available in French?

Yes: the whole mod, the Book and the dialogue are in English and French (fr_fr).

Is it accessible?

The camera shake, the Sirens’ pull and the lightning follow Minecraft’s Distortion Effects slider, chapter cards are read to screen readers, and sounds have subtitles.

Credits

• Design, code and art: cedr0u
• Story: Homer, The Odyssey (public domain)
• Music: an original score composed for this mod, performed with the VSCO 2 Community Edition sample library (Versilian Studios, CC0) and the Virtual Playing Orchestra (Paul Battersby)
• Logo lettering: Cinzel (Natanael Gama) and Cormorant Garamond (Christian Thalmann), SIL Open Font License

Not an official Minecraft product. Not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft.