Start a Minecraft Factions server

Factions is a game mode built around player factions that claim land. This guide sets up PvPIndex Factions on a Paper server. It is a modern refactor of the classic Factions plugin, published on Modrinth, in which a faction claims land chunk by chunk, and it keeps its data in an embedded database by default.

Checked against PvPIndex Factions 1.1.9 on Paper 26.1.2, October 2026.

What you need

• A Paper server on Minecraft 26.1.2. The plugin runs on Paper, Folia and Spigot for 1.21 and newer, and needs Java 21 or later. We choose the Java version for you.
• Optional plugins for extra features. Vault with an economy plugin adds costs for creating a faction and claiming land, WorldGuard and WorldEdit add territory protection hooks, and EssentialsX can route /f home through its own teleports once you set integrations.essentialsx.enabled to true in config.yml. The plugin starts without any of them.

Switch to Paper

In JAR Manager, choose Paper, pick 26.1.2 as the Minecraft version and press Apply change. Leave Take a backup first ticked and press Confirm & reinstall. Change your Minecraft version or mod loader covers it in detail.

Install the plugin

1. Open the Plugins tab and stay on Store.
2. In the source chip row at the top of the tab, choose Modrinth and search for PvPIndex Factions.
3. Press Install.
4. Restart from the Console tab, wait for the server to finish starting, then stop it.

The first start writes files into a PvPIndexFactions folder under plugins, including config.yml, database.yml, messages.yml and gui.yml. Start the server again and watch the Console. A healthy start reports the database initialised and the /f and /fa commands registered.

Choose the data store

Open database.yml in File Manager. It defaults to type: h2, an embedded file database that needs no setup. Keep it. The mysql option is for an external database server, and our servers do not include one.

Set the rules in config.yml

The same folder holds config.yml. Some defaults to know:

• factions.max-members is 50 and factions.max-warps is 10.
• factions.power.per-player-max is 10.0. Each player adds power to their faction, and a faction's power limits how much land it can hold.
• factions.power.loss-on-death is 4.0, and factions.power.regen-per-second is 0.1 while online.
• factions.power.grace-period-seconds is 3600, a startup period before power loss applies.
• factions.land.max-per-command is 200, the most chunks a player can claim with one command.
• Overclaiming of enemy land is off by default. factions.overclaiming.enabled turns it on.

Restart after editing, or run /fa reload in game.

Test it in game

As an operator, run these in order:

/f help
/fa help
/f create <name>
/f map once

Players claim land with /f claim, or with /f claim square <radius> for a block of chunks. They invite others with /f invite <player>, set a home with /f sethome and set relations with /f relation <faction> <relation>, where the relation is ally, truce, neutral or enemy.

As staff, /fa safezone and /fa warzone assign or remove safe zone and war zone chunks, which players cannot claim over, and /fa bypass lets you build in anyone's land. Staff commands need factions.admin, which defaults to operators. Player commands such as /f create and /f claim default to everyone.

If something goes wrong

• Players cannot hit each other. PvP is switched off for the server. Turn off PvP on your server explains where it lives.
• Players cannot join. Check the whitelist switch on the Players tab. Whitelist players and set operators has the steps.
• Costs do nothing. They need Vault and an economy plugin, and integrations.vault must be true in config.yml, which it is by default. Set up Vault and set up EssentialsX, which provides an economy.