Skald

Skald replaces Valheim's Start Game window with its own, and replaces the title screen logo and the menu music with files of your choosing.

It ships set up for the Guys Being Vikings server, so the logo and track you get out of the box are ours. Both are meant to be swapped for your own.

The Start Game Window

Click Start Game as you always have. There is no hotkey and nothing to switch on.

Your worlds and the server list run down the left, and everything about the one you picked fills the right, which is where Valheim gives you nothing at all.

Everything the game's own window can do is here, so you never end up back in it: making and removing worlds, world modifiers, managing saves, hosting options, and the full server browser.

Worlds

Pick a world to see its seed, where it is stored, and whether you are about to host it.

New asks for a name and a seed, with a button to roll a different one.

Modifiers opens the same presets and settings Valheim offers: Casual through Hardcore, Hammer Mode, Immersive, and the individual sliders for combat, death penalty, resources, raids and portals, plus the toggles for things like no build cost and passive enemies.

Saves lists every save with its size and backups. You can move a save between your computer and cloud storage, delete old backups, and delete a save outright.

Remove deletes a world after asking you once.

Servers

The four lists Valheim uses are a rail down the left with live counts, so you can see at a glance how many servers are in each. They are the same lists the game uses, so your favourites and recent servers are shared with it.

Sorting. Sort by name, players, version or whether a server is up, and click again to reverse. Valheim's browser cannot sort at all.

More servers. The community list shows everything that comes back. Valheim's own browser stops at 200.

A Rejoin row at the top for the server you were last on, so getting back in after a crash is one click.

Version warnings. A server on a different game version is marked in the list and the reason is spelled out before you try, rather than after the join fails.

Nicknames and notes. Rename any server to something that means something to you. The name the host advertised stays visible, so a renamed row is still identifiable.

Favourites, and adding by address. Add a server by typing its address, and favourite or drop any entry.

Saved Passwords

Save a server's password once and Skald sends it for you. The password prompt stops appearing.

Passwords live in BepInEx/config/Skald/servers.json, which is its own file and deliberately not the mod's config file, because a config is what people paste into Discord when troubleshooting.

They are encrypted with your Windows account, so the file is useless on another machine or another user. If Windows encryption is unavailable the mod falls back to obfuscating them, says so in the log and in the window, and you should not save a password you use anywhere else.

Saving is per server and opt-in. There is a Forget Key button, and deleting the file forgets everything.

Using Your Own Logo and Music

Put your file in BepInEx/config/Skald/ and set its name in the config. That folder is checked before the one the mod ships with, so your file survives an update and you never have to edit the installed package.

The logo should be a PNG with a transparent background, around 1600px wide. It is fitted into the space Valheim's logo occupies, so any shape works without being stretched. The transparency matters because the logo sits over the forest and the campfire.

The music can be .ogg, .wav or .mp3. Ogg is recommended, as a wav of the same track is around ten times the size.

The Crowd

The vikings around the campfire are generated fresh each time the menu loads, with different hair, beards, colouring and armour. Nothing about them is saved.

They are placed clear of the fire, the rocks and your own character, and out of the line between your character and the camera.

Weedheim is optional. With it installed they carry its bongs and joints and blow smoke. Without it they appear empty handed. Skald does not depend on Weedheim and will not install it.

Turn the crowd off with Enabled under [Revel], or reduce it with Count.

Install

Client side only. Each player installs it themselves. There is nothing to install on a server, and a dedicated server has no title screen.

Compatibility

Any other mod that replaces the menu logo, the menu music or the Start Game window will conflict with Skald. Mods that only add to the main menu are fine, and nothing in game is affected.

The menu ambience is a separate sound and is left alone, so it plays over your music as it did over Valheim's.

Settings

BepInEx/config/gbv.valheim.skald.cfg

The console command skald_props reports what the crowd was able to find. Run it on the main menu if something is missing.

Is It Safe

Skald only acts on the title screen. It leaves nothing running once a world loads, and if any part of it fails, that part is skipped and Valheim's own window is used instead.

Three things are worth stating plainly, because this is no longer only decorative:

It stores a secret if you ask it to. A saved server password is written to BepInEx/config/Skald/servers.json, encrypted with your Windows account, as described above. Nothing is saved unless you save it.

It joins servers. That is the browser's job, and it joins only the one you click. It does not connect you to anything on its own and adds nothing to the game's own network traffic.

It can delete worlds and saves, because that window can. Every one of those actions is Valheim's own, called exactly as its buttons call it, and each asks you first.

Credits

The bundled menu track is original music written for Guys Being Vikings. It ships so the mod works out of the box and is not released for reuse. Point File at your own track to use something else.

Changelog

0.3.1

Added

• A scrollbar on the world, server and save lists. Drag it, or click anywhere on it to jump.

Fixed

• The number beside Community counted what was listed rather than what exists, so a list that was still filling looked like it had stopped. It now shows how many servers are out there and the footer shows how many are listed.
• Opening the window for the first time is quicker.

0.3.0

Added

• A new Start Game window, replacing Valheim's. Your worlds and the server list sit beside a panel showing everything about the one you picked.
• Save a server's password and it is sent for you, so the password prompt stops appearing.
• Sort servers by name, players, version or whether they are up.
• The community list shows every server it gets. Valheim's browser stops at 200.
• Server sources load as soon as the window opens instead of when you click them.
• A Rejoin row at the top of the server list for the one you were last on.
• A warning when a server is on a different game version, before you try to join.
• Nicknames and notes per server, so a list of hosts' names becomes a list of yours.
• Favourite or drop any server, and add one by typing its address.
• New World, World Modifiers, Manage Saves and Remove World, all in Skald's own style.
• Manage Saves can move a save between your computer and cloud storage, and delete old backups.
• New [Browser] settings: Enabled and Passwords.

Notes

• Saved passwords are kept in BepInEx/config/Skald/servers.json, not in the mod's config file, and are encrypted with your Windows account. Copied to another machine they stop working.
• Your favourites and recent servers are still Valheim's own lists, shared with its browser.
• Restoring a backup is not offered. Use Valheim's own Manage Saves screen for that.
• Turn the whole window off with Enabled under [Browser] to get Valheim's back.

0.2.3

Fixed

• Errors when you leave a server and come back to the title screen. The crowd was setting itself up as though it were still in a world.

0.2.2

Changed

• New bundled menu track. The Guys Being Vikings theme is now the chiptune version.
• Plainer readme.

0.2.1

Documentation only. No behaviour change.

Changed

• Rewrote the description and readme. Skald is a mod for replacing the title screen logo and music with your own; it happens to ship set up for the Guys Being Vikings server, and the previous wording made that sound like the only thing it was good for.

0.2.0

Added

• A crowd of randomly generated vikings around the campfire on the title screen. They dance, sit and headbang, and are rolled fresh every launch.
• A hot tub with two vikings in it, in shot on the character select screen.
• Weedheim support: the crowd carries its bongs and joints and blows its smoke. Optional, and not a dependency.
• skald_props console command, reporting what the crowd could find.
• New [Revel] settings: Enabled, Count, Radius, HotTub, Props, Bongs, Smokers and SmokeInterval.

Notes

• Works without Weedheim. The vikings turn up empty handed and nothing else changes.
• Your own character is untouched.
• Turn the crowd off with Revel/Enabled = false.

0.1.0

First release.

Added

• Replaces the title screen logo with a bundled image, fitted to the space Valheim's own logo occupies rather than stretched.
• Replaces the main menu music. The track is kept compressed in memory, costing about five megabytes rather than forty.
• Your own logo or track can be dropped into BepInEx/config/Skald/, overriding the bundled ones and surviving an update.

Notes

• Client side and cosmetic. Anything that fails falls back to Valheim's own title screen.
• Menu ambience is a separate sound and is left alone, so it still plays over the music.