Set up Curses on your Minecraft server

Curses is a troll plugin by Ajneb97. An admin opens a menu, picks a player and switches on curses such as water that hurts, ore that turns to stone or chests that explode when placed. It suits friend servers and event nights, and it is not meant for a public server's regulars. This guide installs it by hand, because the store has no SpigotMC source, and covers its commands and config.

Checked against Curses 1.16.1, the latest file on its SpigotMC page, October 2026. The page lists Minecraft 1.8 to 1.20, and the last update was in July 2023.

Before you start

• You need a Paper or Purpur server. Curses is a Spigot-family plugin.
• The page says it works with 1.8+ and lists Minecraft up to 1.20. It does not say whether it loads on newer versions, so try it on a copy of the world first, using a backup from the Backups tab.
• Curses can damage builds and kill players. Only curse people who agreed to it.

Install Curses

The Plugins tab searches Modrinth, CurseForge and Hangar, and Curses is published on SpigotMC, so this one is a manual upload.

1. Download the jar from the Curses page on SpigotMC on your own computer.
2. Open your server and select File Manager, then open the plugins folder. Start the server once first if the folder doesn't exist.
3. Press Upload (the upload arrow on a phone) and pick the jar, or drag it onto the file list.
4. Open the Console tab and press Restart (or Start if the server is off).
5. Select Plugins and press Installed. Curses should appear in the list.

Install Minecraft plugins on Paper or Purpur shows the same upload with screenshots.

Curse a player

Make sure your account holds curses.admin, the plugin's only permission. The plugin's plugin.yml doesn't declare it, so Bukkit gives it to operators only. Anyone else needs it granted in a permissions plugin (Set up LuckPerms on your Minecraft server). Then in game:

• /curse opens the main inventory menu.
• /curse <player> opens the cursing menu for that player.
• /curse reload reloads the config.

Click a curse in the menu to switch it on for that player, and click again to switch it off. Each curse has a description, which comes from its lore setting. The plugin lists 27, including Milk To Lava, Always Diamonds, Block Disappear, Chat Spam, Surprise Chest, Aquaphobia, Ore Troll, No Damage, Extreme Fall, Insta Break, Creeper Stalker and Drop All.

The plugin has one permission, curses.admin. Give it only to people you trust with this.

Edit the config

Stop the server, then open plugins/Curses/config.yml in the File Manager. Save, then run /curse reload or restart.

• remove_curses_when_leave: true clears a player's curses when they leave. Set it to false to keep them.
• Each curse is a section under Curses. enabled: false hides it from the menu.
• global_curse: true on a curse switches it on for everyone who joins. In the author's sample config, Aquaphobia ships with it set to true, so if your config matches that sample, every player takes water damage from their first join. Remove the line from Aquaphobia if you want it to be opt-in.
• slot places the curse in the menu, from 0 to 44.
• name and lore are the menu text. lore can show %status%, which reads as enabled or disabled for that player.
• Some curses have their own numbers: blocks: 20 for Bed Glitch, time: 30 for Special Gift, and max_radius: 8 for Creeper Stalker.

The author's page is firm on one point: don't rename the section names, such as MilkToLava, or that curse stops working. Change only name and lore.

Item id values are Material names on 1.13 and later, like WATER_BUCKET, taken from the Bukkit Material list.

If it doesn't work

• The curse menu doesn't open. Check that you hold curses.admin (see above), and that Installed lists the plugin.
• The plugin is missing or shows a Failed to load badge. It didn't load. In the Console tab, scroll up to the first error after the restart.
• A curse is missing from the menu. Its enabled is false in config.yml.