How It Works
An admin starts the war. Everyone online is split evenly into two sides — the Angels and the Demons — and each side is led by a single Captain who wields a real mythic.
The Angel Captain wields the Angelic Shard, glows white, and stands at 15 hearts.
The Demon Captain wields the Devil Token, glows red, and stands at 15 hearts.
Strike down an enemy and they switch sides — Angels redeem Demons, Demons corrupt Angels.
If both Captains survive the melee, an admin calls the duel — the war ends the instant a Captain dies.
When a Captain falls, the other side wins — and the fallen Captain's mythic does not drop. It vanishes to a distant Rebirth pedestal, waiting for someone bold enough to claim it.
Factions & Captains
Angel Captain
- Wields the 😇 Angelic Shard (mythic)
- Cheat-death passive, star-beam A1, invulnerability A2
- 15 hearts · glows white
- White nametag + the shard's own aura
Demon Captain
- Wields the 😈 Devil Token (mythic)
- Dark Cloak disguise A1, Devil Trigger flight + blast A2
- 15 hearts · glows red
- Red nametag + the token's own aura
Everyone else is a rank-and-file Angel or Demon: an ordinary player who simply has a side — a white or red nametag and a trail of faction-coloured particles. They carry no special stats; their power is in numbers, and in who they can convert.
The two mythics are the real core ShardsSMPv2 shards — the Angelic Shard and the Devil Token — granted through the core's own /shard command. The Captains' 15-heart cap is applied by the event with an attribute modifier and cleanly removed when the war ends.
Inversion
This is the heart of the war. Strike down an enemy and you flip them to your side. An Angel slain by a Demon is dragged below and respawns a Demon; a Demon slain by an Angel is redeemed and respawns an Angel. The tide of the war is the tide of the battlefield.
Only kills across the divide convert — your victim respawns on your team, nametag and all.
Two players on the same side cannot harm each other, regardless of /trust.
A Captain never inverts. When a Captain dies, the war ends instead — that's the whole game.
No death in the war touches the SMP lives system — the event runs its own rules.
The Captain Duel
If the melee grinds on and both Captains still stand, an admin calls /celestials duel — Final Judgement. The rosters lock (inversion stops), the server is told the Captains must duel to the death, and only a Captain's fall now matters.
The duel doesn't have to be a 1v1 in an arena — it's simply the moment the war is decided on the Captains alone. An optional config can teleport the two Captains together for a clean showdown.
The Mythic Claim
When a Captain dies, the survivor keeps their mythic — but the fallen one's mythic is not lost and does not drop. It is spirited away to a random one of the world's Rebirth pedestals (the same altars built with /pedestal set).
A glowing, floating marker of the mythic appears above a random pedestal, labelled with what it is.
Any player who steps within the claim radius takes it — the real shard is granted to them on the spot.
The claim persists after the event ends and even survives a server restart — the marker re-appears until someone claims it.
There is exactly one bearer. The first to reach it wins the mythic; admins can also cancel or hand it out directly.
Needs The Rebirth Ritual installed for its pedestals. With no pedestals available, the war still resolves — the fallen mythic simply can't be relocated, and the server is told so.
Winning
Heaven prevails
The instant the Demon Captain falls, the Angels hold the field. The Angel Captain keeps the Angelic Shard; the Devil Token relocates to a pedestal to be claimed.
Hell prevails
The instant the Angel Captain falls, the Demons hold the field. The Demon Captain keeps the Devil Token; the Angelic Shard relocates to a pedestal to be claimed.
Wrongly flipped someone or need to fix a Captain? /celestials set <player> <role> reassigns anyone mid-war, and /celestials stop ends it cleanly with no winner — everyone is restored and both Captains keep their mythics.
Commands
shardscelestials.admin· default: OPAll Celestials commands are admin-only. There are no player-facing commands — Angels and Demons fight it out in-world.
| Command | Description | Permission |
|---|---|---|
/celestials start | Begin a war, splitting online players evenly into Angels and Demons with a random Captain on each side (needs event.min-online). | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials start <angel> <demon> | Stage explicit Captains — first name leads the Angels, second the Demons; everyone else is split evenly at random. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials duel | Lock the rosters and call the final Captain duel. Both Captains must be online; inversion stops and only a Captain's death now matters. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials stop | End the war immediately with no winner — both Captains keep their mythics and nothing relocates. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials info | Show the active war: faction counts, both Captains, the duel state, and how many mythics are awaiting a claimant. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials set <player> <role> | Reassign a participant mid-war: Angel, Demon, AngelCaptain or DemonCaptain. A captain reassign moves the mythic and demotes the old captain. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials claim cancel | give <player> | Resolve a waiting mythic: 'cancel' removes it from its pedestal; 'give <player>' hands it straight to a player. | shardscelestials.admin |
/celestials reload | Reload config.yml and messages.yml. | shardscelestials.admin |
Configuration
config.yml holds every gameplay number; all text lives in messages.yml (MiniMessage). Reload both with /celestials reload.
event:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
min-online | 4 | Random /celestials start refuses unless at least this many players are online. |
angel:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
shard-name | angelic | Core /shard granted to the Angel Captain (and relocated to a pedestal on their death). |
shard-model-data | 1020 | CustomModelData of the shard item shown on the claim pedestal (angelic_shard in the pack). |
captain-hearts | 15 | Angel Captain max health in hearts (15 = 30 HP). Members are left at vanilla. |
team-color | WHITE | Scoreboard / nametag / glow colour for Angels. |
captain-glow | true | The Angel Captain glows (white) so they're findable for the duel. |
demon:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
shard-name | devil | Core /shard granted to the Demon Captain (and relocated on their death). |
shard-model-data | 1022 | CustomModelData of the shard item on the pedestal (devil_token in the pack). |
captain-hearts | 15 | Demon Captain max health in hearts (15 = 30 HP). |
team-color | RED | Scoreboard / nametag / glow colour for Demons. |
captain-glow | true | The Demon Captain glows (red). |
cosmetics:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
particles-enabled | true | Ambient faction-coloured particles around members (white for Angels, red for Demons). |
captain-particles | false | Captains already emit their mythic's own aura while holding the shard, so ours are skipped by default. |
tick-interval | 10 | Ticks between particle emissions. |
member-particle-count | 6 | Faction dust particles per emission around each member. |
particle-size | 1.0 | Particle scale. |
duel:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
teleport-captains-together | false | On /celestials duel, teleport the two Captains to each other for the finale. |
claim:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
claim-radius | 2.0 | A player within this many blocks of the pedestal claims the waiting mythic. |
marker-float-height | 1.5 | Blocks the floating claim marker sits above the pedestal top. |
glow | true | Faction-coloured glow outline on the claim marker. |
skip-active-ritual-pedestals | true | Avoid relocating onto a pedestal a Rebirth ritual is currently using. |
end:
| Key | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
revert-members | true | On a normal end (a Captain died), revert all members — clear buffs, teams, glow and nametags. |
clear-captain-shards-on-stop | false | On an admin /celestials stop (abort), also strip the Captains' shards? Default: they keep them. |
Integration
Celestials hard-depends on ShardsSMPv2 and integrates only through its public EventPolicy SPI — it never touches the core's internals. While active it force-allows cross-faction combat (overriding /trust), protects same-faction team-mates from each other, and exempts every death from the lives system.
It soft-depends on The Rebirth Ritual for the claim pedestals, reading them through a small read-only PedestalLocator service so pedestals are defined in one place. If Rebirth isn't installed, the war still runs — there are just no pedestals for a fallen mythic to land on.
The Angelic Shard and Devil Token are the real core Mythic shards, granted and stripped through the core's own /shard command — so a claimed mythic is the genuine kit.
Testing (temporary)
Internal — delete this section after validation. Goal: prove the even split + Captain mythics, faction cosmetics, cross-faction inversion, the duel, a Captain death ending the war with the mythic relocating + claimable, and a clean revert on stop.
Quick run
- Make sure a Rebirth pedestal exists: look at a block and run
/pedestal set. - Start it:
/celestials start(random) or/celestials start AngelCap DemonCap. - Confirm the even split, both Captains get their shard (😇 angelic / 😈 devil) + 15 hearts + the right glow, and members get white/red nametags + particles.
- Inversion: have a Demon kill an Angel → the Angel respawns a Demon (and vice-versa). Confirm same-faction players can't hurt each other.
- Check
/celestials infofor faction counts, Captains and the duel state. - Call
/celestials duel→ confirm the Final Judgement broadcast and that inversion stops. - Kill a Captain → confirm the win broadcast, that their shard does not drop, and a glowing claim marker appears on a pedestal.
- Walk another player onto the pedestal → confirm they're granted the real mythic and the marker disappears.
- Restart the server mid-claim → confirm the marker re-appears and is still claimable.
/celestials stopmid-war should revert everyone with no winner and no relocation.
Watch the revert closely — no lingering 15-heart cap, glow, scoreboard teams, or leftover claim markers after the war ends. That clean restore is the whole contract for an event plugin.