IN TESTING. This is an early, experimental release for the Dropped and Lost server. Camp placement is off by default. Expect rough edges, and please report problems.

Lost Camps

Two things for the Dropped and Lost world. Both work in any Valheim world.

1. Abandoned camps and a journal

Small abandoned camps appear near real places in every biome except the Mistlands (burial chambers, sunken crypts, caves, swamp huts, stone circles, drake nests, Fuling camps, burnt ruins and more): a lean-to, a bit of floor, and a sign. Reading the sign (E) shows a diary page written by one of two travellers, Einar and Runa, and adds it to your journal (press J). The pages are found in any order, are sorted by the day the writer gave, and each makes sense on its own. Every page says which way a nearby place lies, from that camp. The story has 42 pages, some for every biome and some for one biome only.

• Each note also says, in general terms, what other places lie near its camp, for example "a troll cave to the west, a longer walk". Boss altars are never mentioned. Turn this off with NearbyPlaceHints, or change what is mentioned in BepInEx/config/LostCamps/pois.json.
• Nothing tells you how many pages exist or which you are missing. There are no map marks and no arrows.
• The server never gives the same page out twice in a world.
• Camps are plain wooden pieces: no loot, no fires, no creatures, no terrain changes. Anyone can take them down with the hammer.

Who needs it: the server (or the host of a local game) places the camps, so it needs the mod. Every player who wants to read the notes needs it too. A player without it sees an ordinary sign saying "Read with Lost Camps installed" and can still play normally.

Placement is off by default. Turn it on only after trying it in a throwaway world: in the config, [Server] PlacementEnabled = true. Camps are placed as players explore (the ground has to be loaded), at most one every ten seconds, and never more than MaxCamps (12) in a world. The page for a removed camp is not reused.

2. Sleep paintings

When you sleep, a painting and a short line fade in behind the game's own sleep text. 39 paintings, each with its own original line (written for this mod; they are not quotations from anyone). They rotate in a shuffled order: every painting is used before any repeats, and never the same one twice in a row. It is purely local and only appears when you are really asleep, not on teleports, death or loading.

Install

Install it like any BepInEx mod and restart the game. Keep the DLL, lore.json and the sleep folder together.

Settings (BepInEx/config/com.laoch.lostcamps.cfg)

Camps: Enabled, JournalKey (default J). Server: PlacementEnabled (default off), MaxCamps, ScanIntervalSeconds, CampSpacingMeters, NearbyPlaceHints, NearbyRadiusMeters, NearbyMaxKinds. Maintenance: CleanupPreview, CleanupConfirm (see below). SleepScreens: Enabled, TextMode (StoicQuotes, VanillaDream, Both, None), ImageFit (Fit or Cover), QuoteFontScale, QuoteHeight.

Your own story

BepInEx/config/LostCamps/lore.json is copied from the mod on first run and can be replaced with your own story. The format is in LORE_FORMAT.md. Pages already placed keep their saved text.

Your own sleep paintings

Put a sleep_screens.json and images in BepInEx/config/LostCamps/sleep/, in the same format as the one in the mod's sleep folder. The same id replaces a packaged one; bad entries are skipped with a note in the log.

Removing camps

Set PlacementEnabled to false first. With the game started with -console, the commands lostcamps cleanup and lostcamps cleanup confirm TOKEN remove the loaded camps (a dedicated server can use the Maintenance settings in its config file instead). Only camps that are loaded can be removed, and camps near player buildings are skipped. Uninstalling the mod leaves the plain wooden pieces in the world.

Files

• World record (server): BepInEx/config/LostCamps/worlds/
• Your journal: BepInEx/config/LostCamps/journals/
• Paintings rotation: BepInEx/config/LostCamps/sleep-state.txt (delete it to reset)

Back these up with your world. If a record is damaged, placement stops and the file is left untouched.

Notes

• The paintings and lines are original to this project. No licence has been assigned to the images yet.
• If anything goes wrong with a painting or its file, the game's normal sleep screen is shown instead.

Your own list of places

BepInEx/config/LostCamps/pois.json (optional) changes which kinds of place a note can mention:

{ "schema": 1, "rules": [ { "prefix": "TrollCave", "phrase": "a troll cave" }, { "prefix": "Ruin", "phrase": "old ruins" } ] }

Any location whose name starts with prefix is described as phrase; the first matching rule wins, and places that match nothing are never mentioned. A bad file is ignored with a note in the log.