Elite Creatures Pack

New creatures for Valheim, each with its own way to fight. A crypt chest that bites whoever opens it. A greydwarf with a slingshot that shoots stones. A giant crusted in ice, asleep on the mountainside until night falls. A kraken that hunts ships on the open sea, and the shield you make from its beak. A skeleton with a crossbow, who has to reload after every shot, and a crossbow of bones like its own for you to make. Seven skeletons armed with weapons of bone and vertebrae, and the same weapons for you to make from the spines they drop. And in some burial chambers, a skeleton executioner with a greataxe of bone, whose axehead you can take to make the greataxe yourself.

It works on its own. With Elite Creatures Reborn installed as well, every creature here rolls stars and mutations like any other (the kraken, a boss, rolls stars and a boss aspect), and the mimic keeps its disguise until it wakes.

The mod is young. The numbers will be tuned in play, and settings may still change before 1.0.0; reports of anything that feels off are welcome (see "Bugs and feature requests" below).

Crypt Mimic

Some crypt chests aren't chests. In burial chambers and sunken crypts, a chest can be a crypt mimic: it looks, reads and sits exactly like the crypt chest ("[E] Open") until you open it. Then the lid bursts open and bites you, and there is no dodging that one. Awake, it hops after you and lunges: the lid gapes wide, it leaps about two and a half metres and snaps shut. Dodge the lunge (blocking doesn't stop it), then hit it while it recovers with its tongue out; it needs three seconds before it can bite again. Its bite does 20 slash. It has the Black Forest crypt skeleton's health and resistances (weak to blunt and fire, resists pierce and frost, immune to poison), is undead so the crypt's skeletons and draugr leave it alone, and drops the loot of the chest it was pretending to be.

About 15% of crypt chests are mimics, only in crypts generated after the mod is installed. The chest and every texture on it are the game's own; the mimic's teeth, tongue and animations are embedded in the plugin.

Epic Loot adds magic items to a creature only when its loot table names that creature; add an entry for ECP_CryptMimic to give the mimic some.

Greydwarf Slinger

Some greydwarfs have learned to fight from a distance. In the Black Forest about one greydwarf in ten is a Greydwarf Slinger: a greydwarf with a forked-branch slingshot in its fist and a satchel of stones on its hip. It fights like a skeleton archer: it stands its ground, raises the slingshot, draws the pouch back to its cheek and lets fly, a fist-sized stone (12 blunt), a little faster than a greydwarf throws, arcing onto you from up to 22 metres every few seconds. It aims where you stand when it lets go, so a dodge, a raised shield or running across its line beats it. It never claws: walk right up to it and it keeps shooting at point blank. It has the Greydwarf's health, resistances and loot plus a few stones.

Slingers come from the wild and from greydwarf nests; camps keep their greydwarfs. The greydwarf and its materials are the game's own; the slingshot, satchel and the shot animation are embedded in the plugin.

Rime Giant

Some mountains have a sleeper. A Rime Giant is a troll half again as big, grey-white with frost and crusted in eight plates of ice; about three mountains in five hold one, and only ever one. By day it sleeps where it stands under a crust of snow, with no name or health bar: it looks like one more snowy outcrop, and walking past (or into it) won't wake it or budge it. At night, in a snowstorm, or the moment you hit it, it wakes.

With every plate on, weapons barely hurt it (15% of the physical damage gets through), and each plate it loses lets more through. Fire breaks the plates: each fire arrow knocks off about one, a torch's hit most of one, and it loses one every few seconds near a campfire. At 40% health whatever is left shatters at once. Broken plates fall off and tumble away and the last one staggers it. They never grow back mid-fight, only once it has given up on you. It is immune to frost and weak to fire.

Its fist throws you back. Its ground slam sends an avalanche rolling towards you: far down the slope, barely a few metres up it, knocking whoever it catches downhill. Don't stand below it; flank along the ridge or get above it. From range it hurls ice boulders that burst into frost and slow you. It has 1500 health, and drops crystal, freeze glands and silver ore.

A mountain here is one of the game's own connected Mountain regions at least about 150 m across; once its giant has come it never gets another, even after it dies. The troll and its materials are the game's own; the plates, the crust and the boulder are embedded in the plugin.

Kraken

Far out on the deep ocean, something follows ships. A Kraken is a boss of the sea: a huge dark head with a chitin beak and six long tentacles. When it finds a ship with a crew it roars and gives chase, its mantle breaking the water behind its eyes. It is rare, and only ever over deep water: a crew sailing the open sea meets one about every hour or two. You can outrun it: under sail with a fair wind any ship is faster, and once you're out of its reach for a few seconds, or safe in water too shallow for it, it dives and is gone. Rowing won't save you, and a raft never will.

If it catches you, it dives under the ship and holds it: the sail comes down and the ship can't move until the kraken dies or lets go (it lets go once nobody has been aboard for twelve seconds). Then it fights in two phases, round and round: six attacks from under the ship, then six from the head. It attacks one thing at a time, every few seconds (a little less often for a crew of two or a lone player). While it holds your ship, your own blows can't damage the ship, so swing away over the rail:

• Tentacles. Six tentacles rise out of the sea round the hull. One at a time, a tentacle rears up, curls over, and whips down across the deck along a line through whoever it picked, lying across the rail and deck before it lifts again. They are thin towards the ends: step out of the line or roll through it. A tentacle on the deck is the moment to hit it. One of the six is the grab: listen for the deep bellow and watch for the tentacle that rears higher and trembles. Roll clear, because if it lands on you it hoists you up and tosses you into the sea a few metres off the hull. After six slams they sink.
• The head. The head rises right against the hull, facing the crew and close enough to hit from the rail, with two tentacles gripping the rail either side of it. It keeps off the ladder: on a ship with one ladder it comes up on the other side, so you can always climb back aboard. It bites anyone near the rail in front of it and spits ink from its mouth in a straight line at anyone further off, after a moment of warning as it rears back with its beak gaping. Between squirts, nowhere a few metres in from the rail is safe: the whole head throws itself over the rail and onto the deck to bite. Ink in the eyes blacks out your screen for a second and a half before it fades; dodge it, step aside, hide behind the mast, or block or parry it facing the kraken and it never reaches you. About every ten seconds a tentacle from the far side smashes across the ship instead, damaging it. After six attacks the head goes back under and the tentacles come up again.

It has 3000 health (Bonemass has 5000), and 30% more for every other player nearby, as for every creature, and a boss health bar. Its smashes are measured against the ships: a karve (500 health) survives a fight only if you kill it quickly, a longship (1000) holds out, a drakkar (3000) shrugs them off. Every part of it can be hit, head or tentacle. It drops its loot onto the deck: chitin, coins, its beak and 5 to 7 cuts of raw kraken tentacle.

• Cooked kraken tentacle. Cook the raw tentacle on an iron cooking station, like serpent meat. It beats cooked serpent meat on every count: 80 health, 28 stamina, 4 healing a tick, for 30 minutes (serpent: 70, 23, 3, 25 minutes).
• Kraken shield. At a level 3 forge, 10 fine wood, 5 silver and the kraken's beak make a finewood-and-silver shield with the beak set in its face. It beats the serpent scale shield on every count (block 70 against 60, deflection 110 against 100, -5% movement against -10%, durability 300 against 250, lighter, pierce resisted while blocking) and, unlike it, it parries. Parry a creature's blow with it and the beak bites back: 60 pierce damage to the creature, 10 more for each upgrade. Upgrades take more fine wood and silver, never another beak.

Its body is the game's sea serpent, hidden, wearing the kraken; the kraken's model, its ink and its loot's models are embedded in the plugin, and everything it does is played by the mod, not by animations, so the tentacles strike wherever the crew stands and lie on whatever deck your ship has: a raft, a karve, a longship, the Ashlands drakkar, or a modded ship.

Skeleton Crossbowman

Some of the dead kept their crossbows. The Skeleton Crossbowman is a new kind of skeleton unit: wherever the game spawns its Black Forest archer skeleton, about one spawn in seven is a crossbowman instead - in burial chambers, from bone piles, and out in the night once Bonemass is dead. It has that skeleton's health (40), resistances, looks and loot, and hits as hard as its archer (20), with blunt bolts. The Meadows', Swamps' and Mountains' skeletons are left as they are.

It carries a crossbow made of bones in its fists (a femur for the stock, a gently bowed row of vertebrae threaded on a bone along it, two ribs for the prod, a jawbone for the stirrup) and a quiver of grimy bone bolts on its hip. It fights like the skeleton archer, standing its ground and shooting from up to 25 metres down to point blank, but every shot is a crossbow's: it brings the stock up to its shoulder, lays its skull on it, holds the aim a moment and looses a bolt with a blunt knuckle of bone for a head, flying straight and fast. Then it has to reload: it lowers the crossbow, bends over it, hooks the string and draws it back into the nut, pulls a bolt from its quiver and lays it in the groove, taking its time over it (about three and a half seconds). That's your moment to close in. It carries the crossbow at the low ready in both hands wherever it walks or runs, and drops a few Blunted Bone Bolts now and then. The skeletons and their materials are the game's own; the crossbow, its bolts, the quiver and the animations are embedded in the plugin.

Bone Crossbow

The crossbowmen's weapon, for players: a Bone Crossbow made at a level 2 workbench. It handles like the game's own crossbow (the same aim, reload and Crossbows skill, bolts as ammo, on your back when put away) and hits like a club: 30 blunt of its own (+4 an upgrade, three levels), and whatever bolt it looses adds its damage on top. It reloads in 3 seconds with no skill (the skill halves it), and it does not chop trees. Its cost is a placeholder for now (see Recipe below).

It has a reload of its own: you bend over it, hook the string and draw it back into the nut (the string comes back with your hand), take a bolt from your hip and drop it into the groove, and hold it ready. Your right hand holds its stock whenever you are not reloading. When it shoots, the string snaps back and shivers. Everyone near sees the same.

Its ammo is the Blunted Bone Bolt: a bone shaft with a blunt knuckle of bone for a head and no feathers, as long as the game's bone bolt. 20 of them take 8 bone fragments at a level 2 workbench, and each adds 27 blunt, a flint arrow's damage as blunt. Any crossbow shoots them, and the crossbowmen drop a few. (The game's own bone bolt, 32 pierce, still needs the Black Forge.)

Skeleton Arsenal

The dead make their own weapons now, out of what they have: bone. Seven new skeleton units, each carrying one weapon of bone with vertebrae worked into it:

They are skeleton units like the game's own: wherever the game spawns its Black Forest skeleton, about one spawn in four is an arsenal skeleton instead - in burial chambers, from bone piles, and out in the night once Bonemass is dead. Each has that skeleton's health (40), resistances, looks and loot, and hits about as hard as its sword or bow. The Meadows', Swamps' and Mountains' skeletons are left as they are. They strike one blow at a time, never a combo. The one-handed fighters keep the skeleton's shield. Every one drops what a skeleton drops, and one in ten drops a Spine as well.

Bone Weapons

The arsenal's weapons, for players, made at a level 2 workbench from bone fragments and a spine (the dagger needs only bone fragments). Each handles like the bronze-age weapon of its kind (the same attacks, combos, skill, durability and upgrades) and hits a little softer: 0.85 of its damage.

The Bone Atgeir has attacks of its own: the atgeir's thrust, second thrust and sweep, timed as the game's, with both hands on the haft throughout, and your left hand stays on its haft whatever you do with it in hand.

Upgrades cost bone fragments only. Bone Arrows, 20 for 8 bone fragments at a level 2 workbench, hit for 24 pierce: better than wood (22), not as good as flint (27).

Crypt Executioner

A mini boss of the Black Forest: a skeleton headsman, a head taller than the others, with a greataxe whose haft is strung from vertebrae. About one burial chamber in four has one waiting in its largest room. It has 900 health and six moves:

• Slam: the axe raised high and brought down on you, stones flying where it lands. Only where the axe lands hits.
• Sweep: the edge dragged low across its front in an arc; what the axe head passes through is hit.
• Spin: a full turn with the axe held out flat; the ring the axe head draws hits, and close in to its body is safe.

The axe head is what hits in these three, not a sweep from its body: step inside its reach, or out of it.

• Overhead throw and spin throw, when you keep your distance: the axe shatters where it hits, and its pieces gather into a skeleton that rises there, bone by bone from the feet up, while a new axe forms in the Executioner's hands. No more than two of its skeletons stand at a time.
• Rear strike, when two or more of you are near and one is behind it: its skull turns all the way round, and the axe comes down behind it.

It drops coins and bones, and its axehead half the time. Once killed, it returns to its chamber after three days. Burial chambers from before you installed the mod can hold one too.

Executioner's Greataxe

The Executioner's weapon, for players: made at a level 3 workbench from its axehead, 8 spines and 10 bone fragments. It is a two-handed axe that handles like the Battleaxe (the same stance, block and Axes skill) and hits like a fully upgraded Bronze Axe: 55 slash, 49 chop. It cannot be upgraded. Its combo is its own: a slash in front, a whirling spin that hits all round, then a heavy overhead blow that takes a moment to recover from.

With Elite Creatures Reborn

Neither mod needs the other. With both installed:

• Every creature here rolls stars and mutations like any creature, scaled by the world tier, and Elite Creatures Reborn's loot rules apply to their drops.
• The kraken is a boss there: it rolls boss stars and a boss aspect, but never Twin or Phantom. Its fight is built around one ship and one health bar, and a Twin would put two krakens on your hull. That takes Elite Creatures Reborn 3.12.0 or later, whose rules know the kraken; with an older version the kraken rolls nothing at all.
• A dormant mimic shows nothing of it - no size change, star colour, mutation effect or decorated name - until it wakes; its health is already scaled, so the first hit counts.
• A mimic split off by the Splintering mutation is born awake.
• elite spawn ECP_RimeGiant 2 makes a two-star giant to try.

Configuration

One file, BepInEx/config/com.EliteCreaturesPack.cfg, written on first run and reloaded while the game runs when you edit it. Every entry has a description in the file. Every setting changes gameplay, so every one is synced from the server (see "Server settings" below). Most changes reach the creatures already loaded; a changed health applies to new ones. Switching a creature off stops new ones from appearing; the ones already in the world stay until they die.

1 - General

2 - Crypt Mimic

3 - Greydwarf Slinger

4 - Rime Giant

5 - Kraken

The kraken's meat and the Kraken shield's stats are fixed; a food mod such as FeastMaster can tune the meat.

6 - Skeleton Crossbowman

Only the Black Forest's archer skeletons come as crossbowmen.

7 - Bone Crossbow

8 - Skeleton Arsenal

Enabled (on) switches all of them on or off at once. Below it, one switch per skeleton, all on: Skeleton Cutthroat, Skeleton Swordsman, Skeleton Axeman, Skeleton Bonebreaker, Skeleton Spearman, Skeleton Halberdier, Skeleton Bowman. Off: that skeleton no longer spawns (ones already in the world stay), and the others come no more often than before. Everything else about the arsenal and the bone weapons is fixed as described above.

25 - Crypt Executioner

26 - Executioner Greataxe

Server settings

Gameplay settings come from the server. With Lock Configuration on (the default), every player uses the server's values and cannot change them locally; server admins can still edit them in game. With it off, each player uses their own file. In the console (F5), charter status shows whether the server binds your settings, charter diff lists where the server's values differ from your own file, and charter versions lists the mods on both sides. Joining with a missing or mismatched version of the mod shows one screen naming the mod and both versions, with a refusal code that is also written to the server's and your own log.

Trying them

With devcommands on, the game's spawn command makes any of them: spawn ECP_CryptMimic, spawn ECP_GreydwarfSlinger, spawn ECP_RimeGiant, spawn ECP_Kraken (at sea, near a ship with a crew), spawn ECP_SkeletonCrossbowman, spawn ECP_BoneCrossbow, spawn ECP_BoltBoneBlunt 20, spawn ECP_SkeletonSwordsman (Cutthroat, Axeman, Bonebreaker, Spearman, Halberdier, Bowman), spawn ECP_BoneSword (Dagger, Axe, Mace, Spear, Atgeir, Bow), spawn ECP_Spine, spawn ECP_ArrowBone 20, spawn ECP_Headsman (the Crypt Executioner), spawn ECP_ExecutionerAxehead, spawn ECP_ExecutionerGreataxe. A mimic comes dormant and a giant asleep. The kraken's loot: spawn ECP_KrakenBeak, spawn ECP_KrakenMeat, spawn ECP_KrakenMeatCooked, spawn ECP_ShieldKraken.

Install

1. Install BepInEx for Valheim.
2. Install this mod. On a server, install it on the server and on every client: the creatures and the kraken's items are new objects, and every machine has to know them.

By hand, drop EliteCreaturesPack.dll into BepInEx/plugins. The config file is created on the first run. Elite Creatures Reborn is optional.

Multiplayer

Every creature is built the same way on the server and every client, and everything a player needs to see - asleep or awake, the giant's plates, the mimic's disguise - travels in the world data the game already shares. Spawning is decided where the game decides every spawn. The plugin carries its models built for Windows and for Linux, so a dedicated server on either runs them.

The kraken is decided by one machine (whichever the game gives it to) and drawn by every machine on its own view of the ship, so the tentacles ride the ship's rolling without lag. Each player is judged hit or missed on their own machine, against what they see: a dodge that looks clear is clear. The held ship stays put on whichever machine sails it.

Warnings

• Removing the mod removes its creatures from the world, and the kraken's beak, meat and shield, the Bone Crossbow, the bone weapons, bone arrows, spines and the Executioner's axehead and greataxe from every inventory and chest as it loads: the game drops items it does not know. A crypt chest that became a mimic stays gone.
• The models are built for Windows and Linux. On macOS the mod tries the Windows build, and its own parts (the mimic's teeth, the slingshot, the giant's plates, the kraken, the crossbow, the bone weapons, the Executioner's axe) may not show.
• Names and texts are English in every language for now.

Files

• plugins/EliteCreaturesPack.dll - the mod, a single merged assembly with its models inside
• config/com.EliteCreaturesPack.cfg - the settings, synced from the server

Building

.NET SDK 8, with Valheim installed and the ValheimModLibs folder next to this one:

dotnet build EliteCreaturesPack/EliteCreaturesPack.csproj -c Release

Override -p:GamePath=..., -p:BepInExCore=... or -p:ModLibsPath=... if your layout differs. The build merges the shared libraries into one DLL and writes it to dist/. The models are built in the workspace's AssetWorkshop.

Bugs and feature requests

The source is open, at the repository linked from the store page (website_url in thunderstore/manifest.json): https://github.com/geraldjglasgow/ValheimMods. Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue at https://github.com/geraldjglasgow/ValheimMods/issues and name the mod, its version and what happened.

Shout outs

• The BepInEx and Harmony teams, for the tools every Valheim mod stands on.
• Iron Gate Studio, for Valheim.
• Thunderstore, for hosting this page.
• The Valheim modding community, for the hard work and dedication that keeps enhancing an already great game.
• Every modder who keeps their mods open source so others can collaborate, learn and build on them.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0). You are free to use, study, share and modify it, and anything you distribute that is built from it must carry the same freedoms and be released under the same licence, with source. See the LICENSE file for the full terms.

Changelog

0.6.0

• Skeletons: the plain skeleton, each arsenal skeleton and the crossbowman are equally likely; one switched off drops out.
• Skeleton Crossbowman: now switched by Skeleton Crossbowman in section 8; section 6 loses Enabled and Share.
• Skeleton Crossbowman: drops a spine like the other arsenal skeletons.
• Every bone weapon, the Bone Crossbow, its bolts and the Executioner's Greataxe: new low-poly models and icons.
• Bone Crossbow: 2.3 s reload, bolts at 60 m/s, no recoil or smoke ring; its recipe takes a spine.
• Fixed: the Executioner's Greataxe asks for spines, not bone fragments; it takes 1 (was 8).
• A saved Recipe, Reload Time or Spines still at its old default moves to the new one.

0.5.0

• Crypt Executioner: only its axe head hits in the slam, sweep and spin.
• Crypt Executioner: the ground scrape loses its stones and shockwave, the slam winds up faster, knockback is halved.
• New Axe Head Radius and Slam Windup Speed; Shockwave Damage is now Sweep Damage: set it again if changed.
• The Executioner's Greataxe sounds like the battleaxe.
• The Vertebra is now a Spine with its own model, dropped and used in recipes as before.
• Vertebrae you have are lost.
• The greataxe's Vertebrae setting is now Spines: set it again if changed.

0.4.2

• Fixed: since 0.2.0 the mod loaded no creatures, items or recipes. The greataxe's section is now 26 - Executioner Greataxe (no settings lost).
• Fixed: the Crypt Executioner, its axehead and the Executioner's Greataxe were missing; the Executioner now bursts into bones on death.
• Fixed: the Kraken shield was plain white.

0.4.1

• The bone weapons need a level 2 workbench (was 3).
• The Bone Crossbow and its bolts need a level 2 workbench (was 1); existing configs keep 1: set Workbench Level to 2.
• The Kraken shield has one handle, in the middle of the board.

0.4.0

• The crossbowman and arsenal skeletons replace only Black Forest skeletons; their other versions are gone.
• New Blunted Bone Bolts for any crossbow, dropped by crossbowmen; settings Bolt Recipe, Bolts Per Craft, Bolt Damage.
• The Bone Crossbow reloads in 3 seconds (was 4) with its own animation, your right hand on its stock.
• Its string snaps back on the shot, and the crossbowmen's bolts are now blunt with no feathers.
• The Bone Atgeir has its own thrust, second thrust and sweep, both hands on the haft.
• The Executioner's Greataxe keeps your left hand on its haft.

0.3.0

• Removed the ten Swamps and Mountains creatures 0.2.0 shipped by mistake; any already in a world no longer appear.
• Nothing in an inventory or chest is lost: they dropped only the game's own items.
• Their sections, 10 - Mire Jarl to 19 - Ice Crawler, do nothing now and can be deleted.

0.2.0

• Skeleton Crossbowman: one archer skeleton in seven shoots a fast blunt bolt, then must reload.
• Bone Crossbow for players: like the game's crossbow plus 30 blunt; its recipe is a placeholder.
• Skeleton arsenal: one skeleton in four carries a bone weapon, one in ten of them drops a Vertebra; 8 - Skeleton Arsenal switches them.
• Bone weapons: the arsenal's seven at a level 3 workbench (0.85 of bronze-age damage); Bone Arrows at level 2.
• Crypt Executioner: a skeleton mini boss with a bone greataxe in about one burial chamber in four.
• Executioner's Greataxe: a two-handed axe made from its axehead, with a combo of its own.
• Five Swamps creatures: the Mire Jarl, Reed Stalker, Bog Maw, Fen Crawler and Drowned Shade.
• Five Mountains creatures: Frostfang, the Rimeback, Scree Wing, Cairn Wight and Ice Crawler.
• With Elite Creatures Reborn, every new creature rolls stars and mutations.
• An existing config keeps every value; the new sections are added.

0.1.0

• Crypt Mimic: about 15% of crypt chests, in crypts generated after install, bite whoever opens them.
• Greydwarf Slinger: about one Black Forest greydwarf in ten shoots stones from a distance and never claws.
• Rime Giant: a very rare ice-plated troll asleep on the mountains by day; fire breaks its plates.
• Kraken: a deep-ocean boss that hunts ships; outrun it under sail, or fight it while it holds your ship.
• Kraken loot: its beak, tentacle meat that beats serpent meat, and the Kraken shield, whose parry bites back.
• A settings section per creature, synced from the server; install on the server and every client.
• With Elite Creatures Reborn, every creature rolls stars and mutations; a dormant mimic shows none until it wakes.
• The kraken rolls boss stars and an aspect, never Twin or Phantom, with Elite Creatures Reborn 3.12.0 or later.