The Obituaries

Every death on the server, announced the way Quake announced a frag.

Greg accepted the Draugr's shaft Marco was sliced in half by a Draugr Anna got her head bashed in by a Skeleton Greg was swatted by a 2-star Troll's log Marco was skewered by a Fuling Anna sank like a rock Greg does a back flip into the lava Marco was mauled by Fluffy the Wolf Anna was ax-murdered by Greg Greg tried to leave

The lines come from Quake, Quake II and Quake III (cratered, sank like a rock, was railed by, accepted his shaft, should have used a smaller gun, became one with Shub-Niggurath) and are mapped onto what killed you in Valheim: the creature and what it was holding, the fall, the water, the lava, the tree, the edge of the world. An archer draugr reads differently from an axe draugr, a spear fuling from a torch fuling, a troll with a log from one without. Bosses get their own lines. Starred creatures are named by their stars, tamed ones by their pet name. His or her comes from your character's body type.

Kill another player and you get Quake III's You fragged Marco across the middle of your screen.

What you see

• In the chat window, in orange and a little bigger than chat, and the window stays up half a minute for it.
• In the center of the screen, for fifteen seconds, which is all of the ten you lie there before the respawn starts. Can be moved to the small top-left messages, or turned off.
• In the BepInEx log, plain text, for the record.

The dead player's name is yellow, the killer's red; the line, both names and all the timings are configurable.

Installing

Client-side. Install it on every computer that should see the obituaries; nothing goes on the server. A player without the mod dies and kills as usual and simply sees no obituaries, and their deaths are not announced (their game is the only one that knows what killed them).

Trying it without dying

The console (F5) has obituary:

• obituary previews a random death line, on your screen only.
• obituary fall, obituary drowning, obituary troll, obituary pvp preview one cause. Add a weapon to pick the wording: obituary draugr bow, obituary troll log, obituary pvp club. obituary causes lists everything.
• obituary all runs through every hit type at once.

Nothing from the command is sent to other players.

When a creature reads wrong

The game does not say what a creature's weapon is; the mod reads it off the weapon's name and the damage it did. Each death writes one line to the BepInEx log with what the game said about the killing hit: the creature, the weapon it held, the damage types, and what the mod made of it. If a line is off, send that log line along with what it should have said.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/DeathMonger.TheObituaries.cfg. Every setting takes effect immediately.

How it works

The game only tells the dying player's own client what hit it last, so that client composes the line and sends it to everyone over a routed RPC. Every client with the mod shows it; the server relays it without needing the mod, and a client without the mod drops it as an unknown message. Every hit you take is remembered for two minutes along with what dealt it, so a killer that despawned before you died is still named.

Source

github.com/gbahns/ValheimMods

Changelog

0.3.2 — 2026-10-01

• Another player's death stays in the center of your screen for 5 seconds (Center Seconds Others) rather than the 15 your own does. You are lying there anyway; they are busy.

0.3.1 — 2026-09-29

• A death by the poison or fire a hit left behind is credited to whoever dealt it. The poison ticks name no attacker, so "was poisoned to death" was all the mod could say when a Writhan's blast did the damage; now it is "was slimed by a Writhan", or one of the Writhan's own lines.
• A creature that blows up as it dies has no body left to ask when its blast lands, so its identity is read off its network data instead, and a blast nobody owns is credited to the last creature that hit you in the seconds before.
• Explosions read as explosions ("was blown up by", "stood too close to", "should have backed away from") rather than as a punch.
• Writhan lines.

0.3.0 — 2026-09-28

• A config file written by 0.1.0 or 0.2.0 kept the small top-left message and the old victim color, since a changed default never touches a value already in the file. Once per file, a value still at an old default now moves to the new one; anything you changed yourself is left alone.
• Louder. The whole line is orange in the chat window (Line Color), a little bigger (Text Size), and the window stays up 30 seconds for it (Chat Seconds). The on-screen message now defaults to the center of the screen and stays 15 seconds (Center Seconds), which covers the 10 you lie there before the respawn starts, instead of fading after 4.
• The weapon matters. A Draugr with a bow reads "accepted the Draugr's shaft" or "ate the Draugr's arrow"; one with an axe "was sliced in half"; a Fuling with a spear "was skewered"; a Skeleton with a mace "got his head bashed in"; a Troll with a log "was swatted by the Troll's log". Every weapon kind has a pool of lines, and the creature's own lines are mixed in.
• Pronouns. His or her from the character's body type, or set Pronouns to He, She or They.
• More entertaining everywhere. An unidentified weapon reads "got jacked up by" rather than "was killed by".
• The BepInEx log gets one line per death with what the game said about the killing hit (Log Killing Hit), for tuning: send it along when a creature reads wrong.
• The console preview takes a weapon: obituary draugr bow, obituary pvp club, obituary troll log.

0.2.0 — 2026-09-27

• Another mod that kills a player itself can now say what the obituary should read as, instead of the blank line kept for deaths nothing is known about. Valheim records only the blow, so such a death carries no cause of its own for this mod to work from. Nothing changes for a death the game deals.

0.1.0 — 2026-09-25

First release.