Aurethia SMP is a heavily modded geopolitical Minecraft survival server centered around nations, politics, industry, warfare, diplomacy, and player driven history. Players can found countries, develop their own governments and ideologies, build industrial economies using Create, establish cities and infrastructure, form alliances, conduct diplomacy, and fight wars using period inspired weapons and technology.

The server is built around emergent roleplay rather than a predetermined storyline. Nations rise and collapse, governments change, friendships turn into rivalries, revolutions and civil wars occur, and those events become part of Aurethia's history. The world gradually develops through different technological and political eras as players industrialize and reshape it.

Aurethia is relatively small and personal, usually consisting of around 10 to 20 active players. Because of this, individual players can have a major impact on world history. One person founding a movement, betraying a government, building an industry, or starting a war can completely change the direction of the server.