The Ancient Towns
by Shinnyx
The Ancient Towns adds large abandoned settlements that generate deep underground, inside cave systems.
What it does
Deep underground, ancient towns lie hidden within caves. The mod overhauls underground exploration with massive abandoned settlements that read as a natural extension of the vanilla game's ruins. Explorers who go into the dark find crumbling corridors, ruined plazas and secrets, and no two settlements share the same layout.
The mod ships two town types, a deepslate town and a dripstone town, with more town styles planned for later updates. Loot chests are scattered through debris and forgotten structures, stocked with vanilla-balanced rewards that support mining progression without changing the game's economy. Structures are large and rare underground, so they do not clutter ordinary cave systems.
The Ancient Towns is published for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt across 22 release versions, 1.20.1 – 26.2. The server must run it, while players may leave it out. It is also available as a data pack. The mod is released under All rights reserved, so it is not open source.
Key features
Procedural town layouts
A procedural system built from over 180 individually crafted architectural pieces produces a different layout in each settlement.
Two town types
The deepslate town and the dripstone town are the two underground types included in the mod.
Vanilla-balanced loot
Chests hidden in debris and forgotten structures hold rewards tuned to the vanilla economy.
Locate command
The /locate structure command finds the nearest ancients:deepslate town or ancients:dripstone town.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
26.x4 of 4 versions with builds
1.21.x12 of 12 versions with builds
1.20.x6 of 6 versions with builds
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Underground exploration
Players who dig deep into caves can find settlements that add a new goal to cave travel.
Mining progression
Loot from the ruins supports mining progression in survival worlds.
Who it’s for: Players who explore deep caves and server owners who want more underground structures in their world.
How it compares
Towns and Towers is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0, is not open source, and is published for 1.18.2 – 26.3 on Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt. Caves Everywhere is published only for 1.21.1 on Fabric, Forge and NeoForge, is not open source, and runs as a client and server mod, so every player needs it as well.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Ancient Towns | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.20.1 – 26.2 | Server required, client optional | 2026-06-25 |
| Towns and Towers | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.18.2 – 26.3 | Server required, client optional | 2026-09-16 |
| Caves Everywhere | Fabric, Forge and NeoForge | 1.21.1 | Client and server | 2026-10-11 |
Questions
Does The Ancient Towns need to be installed on the client?
Which game versions does The Ancient Towns support?
How does a player find an ancient town?
In the catalog
The Ancient Towns is one of 8,515 World generation mods on ModsFinder, and one of 4,027 World generation mods for Fabric. 13,894 mods support Minecraft 26.2.
More from Shinnyx
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What the author says
Ancient Towns completely overhauls your underground exploration by introducing massive, abandoned settlements hidden deep within the caves. Designed to feel like a natural extension of the vanilla game, these sprawling ruins offer a thrilling and rewarding experience for anyone brave enough to step into the darkness…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/the-ancient-towns
- Owner
- Shinnyx
- Published
- 2026-05-18
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-06-25
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15