Hearthforge

One mod, a whole Valheim upgrade. Hearthforge by Organixxed adds a WoW-style HUD, a live settings panel (F7) and 68 modules for building, sailing, taming, farming and playing together. Every module can be switched on or off in F7, and most come with sliders, so you can keep the game as close to vanilla as you like.

Highlights: Runeforge Imbues (turn 25% of a weapon's physical damage into Frost, Blood, Lightning or Spirit at the forge, black forge or galdr table), a WoW-style Social window with friends, party, guild and player levels 1-60, dungeons, villages and fortresses that reset every 3 in-game days (Charred Fortress, Fuling and Draugr villages, camps and ruins) with fresh enemies and loot, reset zones (build within 15 m of the edge of a dungeon, village, fortress or ore node and you're warned: it's deleted when the area resets), World Renewal, copper deposits that break whole once 5 pieces are mined, crafting from chests and your backpack, Beastmaster tames, Ship Salvage and custom sails.

Bugs, suggestions or help: join the Hearthforge Discord.

Requirements

• Valheim 1.0.20 (network version 41)
• BepInExPack_Valheim 5.4.2351
• No Jötunn required.

Installation

Install with r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager. To install by hand, copy plugins/Hearthforge.dll to <Valheim>/BepInEx/plugins/. Multiplayer: install it on the server as well. Server-synced options (marked in F7) are then enforced for everyone, and server-authoritative features such as Homestead Move shipments run on the server.

Modules

85 improvements in 68 modules, sorted by what you do. Everything marked (off by default) is switched on in F7 first; everything else can be switched off there.

Mining & Gathering

• Prospector: copper nodes shatter: Once 5 pieces of a copper deposit are broken, the rest breaks at once and drops all its ore. No chasing loose chunks, far less digging. Same total ore; 40% of it drops as tin ore, so fewer trips for tin.
• World Renewal: resources return: Mined rocks and ore deposits, flint, stone and other one-time pickables come back after 3 in-game days. Ore deposits and mineable piles have a reset zone (see Reset zones); otherwise nothing comes back within 30 m of a build or inside a ward.
• World Renewal: trees regrow: Chopped trees regrow from their stumps after 3 in-game days (not within 8 m of a build or inside a ward). Pickaxe a stump to clear the spot for good.
• Woodcleaver: Your axe combo keeps going on trees, so chopping is faster and smoother.
• Gatherer's Ward (F9): Pick the items you never want to auto-pick up (resin, stone, feathers...). No more full bags of junk.
• Overweight guard: Auto-pickup stops before you become overweight and takes partial stacks that still fit, so you never get stuck slow.
• Quiet Wishbone: Turn the Wishbone's treasure ping down or off; the visual pulse stays.

Crafting & Inventory

• Quartermaster: craft from chests: Craft (cauldron included), build, refuel and load smelters with materials from chests within 20 m. A never-pull list and a per-chest switch keep your favourites safe.
• Wanderer's Pack: A backpack from day one: 4 slots, +2 per boss once upgraded at a workbench, items inside weigh half and it never slows you. Crafting and building use it, and Sort and Quick Stack include it. You pick its key the first time; Shift+Right-click moves an item in while it's open.
• Storekeeper: Quick Stack (L / Alt+Click): Send matching items to nearby chests with one key. Lock bag slots so they are never moved.
• Ward Organize (O): Look at a ward and sort every chest in its area by category (it asks first). Chests get floating labels, and a sign next to a chest is filled in with its contents.
• Sort buttons: One-click Sort on your inventory and on every chest.
• Crafting search: A search box and Armor / Weapons / Tools / Food tabs on the crafting window.
• Item compare: Tooltips compare an item with what you have equipped.
• Bulk Load (Shift+E): Fill a smelter, kiln, oven or fire in one go instead of one piece at a time.
• Coin Purse: Drop valuables on the trade-in slot to turn them into coins. Coins weigh nothing and stack without limit.
• Warband Gear: A WoW-style character panel: armor, weapons, ammo, food and coins get their own slots outside the bag, the hotbar moves there so the bag gains a row, plus 2 utility slots, a weightless currency pocket, health/stamina/eitr and food timers.
• Kiln Guard: Charcoal kilns only take plain wood, so Fine and Core wood are never burned to coal by accident.

Building & Base

• Ward Guard (Shift+E): Keep Mobs Out is on for every ward (Shift+E toggles it): no hostile spawns inside, hostiles walk back out, and monsters can't damage your buildings there. Hold Shift+E and scroll to size a ward from 32 m (vanilla) to 96 m (3x).
• Interact While Building (E): Use doors, chests, stations, beds and portals without putting the hammer away.
• Homestead Move (F6 / U) (off by default): Copy or pack up an area (up to 24 m radius), chests and all, and rebuild it elsewhere at the normal building cost.
• Streamcraft (Shift/Ctrl/Alt+Wheel): Build ponds, rivers and waterfalls from a Water tab. Rivers gently carry swimmers along.
• Sign Styling (Shift+E, Shift+C/V): Fonts, colours, gradients, icons and rune glyphs on signs; copy and paste a design.
• Armor Stand Swap (Shift+S): Swap your whole loadout with an armor stand, weapons and shield included.
• Placeable Traders: Place Haldor, Hildir or the Bog Witch at home once you've found them (same wares and prices). They stand upright on the ground or a floor, so you can build a shop.
• Compact Stations: Half-size windmills, blast furnaces, kilns, smelters and eitr refineries. Same recipe, speed and capacity.
• Dvergr Masonry: Dvergr walls, beams, floors and furniture, sized to the vanilla building grid.
• Yggdrasil Root: Build an ancient root at home (near a Galdr Table) and tap sap with a Sap Extractor at vanilla rates.
• Boss Stones & Graveyard: Decorative boss trophy stones, grave crosses and markers.
• Terrain Tools: A ring shows the real radius of terrain tools. The server refuses ops over 16 m radius and ops reaching into wards you can't use.
• Terrain Edit Limit (off by default): Raise or lower ground further than vanilla's 8 m.
• Wisp Sky Column: Placed Wisp Torches clear the Mistlands mist all the way up to the sky.

Farming & Production

• Greenhand: Grow crops outside their native biome (more slowly), plant berry bushes, mushrooms and wild plants, and remove plants you placed (you get the resources back). Berry bushes can't be destroyed.
• Apiary & Harvest: Beehives hold 8 honey (vanilla 4) and make it 3x faster. Crops within 30 m of a hive grow 33% faster. Hives, crops, saplings and bushes show their timers.
• Brewmaster (J / Shift+E): Fermenters queue 5 batches and keep finished mead until you collect it. Honey makes a batch 50% faster. Honey and mead bases come from nearby chests.
• Smeltery: Smelter, blast furnace and kiln timers on hover, a blast furnace that also smelts copper, tin, iron, silver and scrap, and an optional coal boost.
• Everflame: Fires, torches, ovens and the hot tub never run out of fuel; the hot tub stays lit in rain and wind. Smelters and kilns are unaffected.
• Offline Progress: Crops, fermenters, beehives, sap, smelters, cooking, fires and tames catch up for the time the world was off (up to 2 hours).

Tames

• Beastmaster (T / E / Shift+E): Tames never damage your pens and don't stack up. Every tame follows with E, Shift+E makes one Passive, and T cycles Follow / Passive / Aggressive.
• Faster taming & growing: Taming takes half the time, young animals grow up 3x faster, and breeding catches up for the time nobody was near.
• Smaller, faster loxes: Tamed loxes are half size and ride twice as fast.
• Pets through portals: Tames following you (within 15 m) come through portals and home with your Hearthstone.
• Tame Volume: Turn your tames' sounds down, or mute them completely (your own setting).

Travel & Exploration

• Bifrost: Portal trips end the moment the destination has loaded, instead of vanilla's minimum of about 10 seconds.
• Hearthstone (H): Every character can channel home to their bed (10 s cast, 60-minute cooldown), tames included.
• Tidewalker (Ctrl / Space): Swim 30% faster for 25% less stamina, regain stamina at the surface, dive (up to 18 m) and rise, and keep one-handed gear while swimming.
• Wayfinder: A 1.5x bigger map reveal at sea.
• Cartographer: A parchment map with hillshade, readable pin labels and your coordinates (also under the minimap).
• Day & Night length: Days last 30 real minutes and nights 15 by default (vanilla about 21 and 9). The server sets both.
• Slope Assist (off by default): Walk up slopes up to 48° (vanilla 38°) for a little extra stamina.
• Meadows Anywhere (off by default): World generation: Meadows can appear far from spawn (changes terrain in existing worlds).

Sailing

• Ship Salvage (Hammer Remove): Take a ship apart for its full recipe; materials and all cargo float up in one Salvage Crate.
• Shipwright (N): Colour your hull, trim, shields and sail, and hoist your own sail picture. Everyone sees it.
• Seafarer: Rowing has 25% more force, plus an optional personal tailwind for the ship you steer (off by default).
• Longship Harbor (Shift+E): A workbench window for Longship Upgrades (by shudnal, in the pack): unlock upgrades once per player and new longships get them free.
• Sailing camera: The camera zooms out further at sea, so you see your whole ship.

Combat & Character

• Runeforge Imbues (Shift+E): Turn 25% of a weapon's physical damage into Frost or Blood (forge), Lightning (black forge) or Spirit (galdr table). Total damage stays the same; Blood bleeds the target and heals you for 20% of it. Unlocked by bosses, paid in materials.
• Player levels 1-60: Up to 40 levels from your skills and 20 from bosses (Eikthyr 1, The Elder 2, Bonemass 2, Moder 3, Yagluth 3, The Queen 4, Fader 5). It shows in every Social list.
• Targeting (****): Cycle hostile targets with (Shift goes back, Esc drops), with a target frame and ground ring, plus an optional soft lock.
• Well Fed: With 3 foods active, half of your gear's movement speed penalty is cancelled.
• Packbearer: A Hauling skill: carry up to 75 more at level 100, trained by moving with a heavy load.
• Hearthrest: Become Rested the moment you rest (fire plus shelter, as in vanilla).
• Death settings: No tombstone and no skill loss when you die (server settings, on by default).
• Dyer's Wardrobe (Y): Dye your armor at the Armoire wardrobe (Armoire mod, in the pack); other players see it.

Interface

• Warband HUD (F8): A WoW-style action bar, unit frames, buffs, party frames and a framed minimap with a clock. Press F8 to move the frames.
• F7 live settings (F7): Every module and option in one settings window; most changes apply right away.
• Gilded UI: Gold filigree frames on the game's own screens, plus font and text-size options for readability.
• Equipped Glow: Hotbar slots glow softly when their item is equipped.
• Camera (Scroll): A first-person view and a farther zoom-out.
• Graphics look controls (off by default): Stars, haze, fog, shadows and sun shafts, on top of the game's own settings (never your view distance).
• No Cave Fog: No fog inside caves you dig with Voxheim.
• Swift Start: Skip the startup logos (the new-character intro can be skipped too).
• Seed Preview: Preview a seed's land, sea and height before creating a world, and reroll.

Social & Server

• WoW-style Social window (Shift+O): Friends (requests, notes, last seen), Party, Guild (ranks, member and officer notes, message of the day, colours) and Who with name, level and biome filters.
• Guild colours: The guild master picks two colours; members wear them on armor they haven't dyed (needs Dyer's Wardrobe).
• Chat channels (/w /p /g): Whispers, party, raid and guild chat, and world shouts limited to 250 m with a 15 s cooldown.
• F7 Admin & Staff (F7): Server admins get a Staff page (admin and moderator roles, kick, ban) and every server setting in one place. Uses Valheim's own adminlist.txt; moderators can kick.
• Dungeon & village reset: Every 3 in-game days, dungeons and outdoor places with enemies or loot (Charred Fortress, Fuling and Draugr villages, camps, ruins) get their enemies, empty loot chests and pickables back, and outdoor ones their broken walls, huts and totems. Only when nobody is in or near them. Builds inside a place's reset zone are deleted when it resets (see Reset zones); older builds within 30 m of an outdoor place, or an older ward, still hold its reset.
• Reset zones: Build within 15 m of the edge of a dungeon, village, fortress, camp or ore node and you're warned while placing: "Reset Zone: anything built here will be deleted when this area resets." Pieces placed there are deleted with their contents (no refund) when that spot resets. The zone grows with the place (a fortress's is bigger than a village's) and wards don't protect inside it. Builds from before this version are never deleted. Buffer and on/off in F7 › Admin.
• Terrain healing: Ground you dug or raised goes back to natural after 3 in-game days untouched, never within 30 m of a build or inside a ward.
• Worldmend, Carved Trails, Area Copy: Admin tools: the hammer Reset tab restores an area to its generated state, hf_trail carves walkable ramps, hf_areacopy copies or moves areas.
• Saga Keeper: Steam achievements work in a modded game (cheats still block them).
• Jarl's Authority: Dev commands and cheats as F7 switches (off by default), host or admin only.
• Server sync: Install it on the server too: settings marked SERVER in F7 then apply to everyone.
• Game fixes: Treasure chests remember you found them (vanilla counted them again on every open), a broken recipe can't empty the crafting list, and items aren't dropped from your bag at login.

Controls

Hotkeys can be changed in F7. Shift+E means the game's alternate-use key (Shift by default) together with Use.

Improvements over vanilla

These are the things Hearthforge changes from the base game. Each one can be switched off in F7, except the game fix.

• Mining: once 5 pieces of a copper deposit are broken, the rest breaks at once and drops all its ore (same total; 40% of it as tin ore). Vanilla leaves you chasing the last chunks and digging out the base.
• Weapons: Runeforge Imbues turn part of a weapon's physical damage into Frost, Blood, Lightning or Spirit at the forge, black forge or galdr table (Shift+E). Vanilla has no way to change a weapon's damage type.
• Portals: vanilla always waits at least about 10 seconds (a 2 s fade plus an 8 s minimum). Bifrost ends the trip as soon as the destination has loaded. Item restrictions stay the same.
• Ship deconstruction: asks for confirmation, refunds the full recipe, and puts the materials and cargo in one floating crate instead of scattering them in the water.
• Sun shafts (Graphics, off by default): a slider makes the rays softer or stronger; the game's own sun shaft toggle still turns them off.
• Offline time: production keeps running while the world is shut down (up to 2 hours). In vanilla, it stops.
• Tames: they don't damage your pens or crowd into one spot, they come through portals with you, and you can turn their sounds up or down.
• Chests: Quick Stack, crafting and building from nearby chests, and Ward Organize replace a lot of walking between chests.
• Stations and building: Bulk Load fills a station in one go, and you can use doors and chests without putting your hammer away.
• Resting and death: become Rested the moment you rest (fire and shelter as usual), and keep your skills and items when you die (no tombstone). All configurable.
• Game fix: treasure chests in crypts and similar places now remember that you've discovered them, so the discovery stat isn't counted again every time you open them.

Server flyer

How to make yourself admin

Hearthforge uses Valheim's own admin list, so this works on rented servers too.

1. Find your ID: your SteamID64 (a 17-digit number, e.g. from your Steam profile URL or steamid.io), or for Xbox/Game Pass the Xbox_... ID shown in the server log when you join.
2. In your host's file manager, open the server's save folder (where the worlds_local folder is) and add the ID on its own line to adminlist.txt.
3. Restart the server once.
4. In game, press F7 › Admin › Staff to manage admins and moderators from then on (added admins are written to the same adminlist.txt). Players' IDs are listed on that page.

Uninstalling

Run hf_prepare_uninstall in the console first. It moves items out of the extra slots and rows into the vanilla grid.

Latest changes (1.0.5)

• Armor stands: press Shift+S while looking at an armor stand to swap your gear with it 1-for-1, weapons and shield included. Nothing is lost: if anything doesn't fit, nothing changes.
• F7 Admin category: admins (from the server's own adminlist.txt) get a Staff page (online players, Admin/Moderator roles, kick, ban, unban, add staff by ID, world reset and day/night controls) and a Server Settings page with every server-synced option. Players no longer see server options. Your saved settings are kept.
• World renewal (server): trees regrow from their stumps, rocks and one-time pickables come back, dungeons reset (creatures, empty loot chests, pickables), outdoor places with enemies or loot chests (Charred Fortress, Fuling and Draugr villages, camps and ruins) reset the same way and also get their broken walls, huts, totems and pots back, and terrain edits away from builds slowly heal. Each runs only where nobody is nearby and never inside a ward: trees not within 8 m of a build, rocks, pickables, terrain and outdoor places not within 30 m of one. Boss altars, traders, Hildir's places and the start temple are never reset. Each waits 3 in-game days by default and can be switched off in F7 › Admin.
• Reset zones (server): every reset spot (dungeon, village, fortress, camp, ruin, respawning ore deposit or mineable pile) has a reset zone: the place's own size plus a 15 m buffer beyond its edge, so a fortress's zone is bigger than a village's and an ore node's is about 15-20 m. While you place a build piece inside one, the placement HUD says "Reset Zone: anything built here will be deleted when this area resets." (and the first piece shows it in the middle of the screen). Pieces placed there after this version are deleted with their contents when that spot resets: no crate, no refund. Every removal is logged on the server (piece, position, builder). Wards don't protect inside a zone. Builds from before this version are never deleted and still hold the reset as before (8 m for trees and 30 m for terrain unchanged). Admins: ResetZone.Enabled, ResetZone.Radius (5-30 m buffer) and ResetZone.DeleteBuilds in F7 › Admin.
• Day & night length: set the length of the day and the night in real minutes (server setting; defaults 30-minute days and 15-minute nights, vanilla about 21 and 9).
• Social window (Shift+O or /social): a WoW-style window with Friends, Party, Guild and Who tabs: sortable columns (name, level, biome, rank/note, last online), Show Offline, a details pane and the usual buttons (Add Friend, Send Message, Invite, Remove). Friends have requests, notes, biome and last seen. The guild roster has ranks, a message of the day, member and officer notes, and guild colours: the guild master picks two colours (or copies their own Armoire dye) and members wear them on armor they haven't dyed; leaving the guild removes them. Who can filter by name, guild, level range and biome. Everything is kept on the server. New commands: /friend, /unfriend, /gpromote, /gdemote, /social help.
• Player level 1-60: your level comes from your skills (up to 40 levels) and the bosses you've defeated (up to 20: Eikthyr 1, The Elder 2, Bonemass 2, Moder 3, Yagluth 3, The Queen 4, Fader 5). A boss only counts if this world has defeated it too. Admins can change the weights in F7 › Admin.
• Ward Guard: wards now push hostile creatures out by default and protect your buildings inside the ward from monster damage. One ward radius setting (1x to 3x the vanilla 32 m) sets both the protected area and the ward's own area. Old values outside that range are clamped and logged.
• Placeable Traders: the placement preview now shows the trader, and placed traders stand upright on the ground or on a building floor, so you can put them in a shop.
• Coin Purse fix: coins above 999 in your purse were cut back to 999 every time a character loaded (an old bug, not new in this update). The full amount now loads, amounts above 65,535 are saved safely, and any coin stack over 999 outside the purse moves into the purse or into new stacks of 999 instead of being cut. Coins put into the Wanderer's Pack go in as stacks of 999. Admins can give coins back with the console command hf_givecoins <amount>. Coins already lost before this update are not restored automatically.
• Wanderer's Pack: crafting and building use what's in your pack, and Sort and Quick Stack include it.
• Brewmaster: Add Honey and queued batches take honey and mead bases from nearby chests when you don't carry them.
• Tame Volume: now covers every tame sound (calls, footsteps, eating, looping sounds), and 0 mutes them fully.
• Signs: text size fix, hover key hint aligned, and rune symbols now show instead of boxes.
• Everflame: the hot tub stays lit.
• Worldmend: the hammer Reset tab is shown to admins only.
• Help text fixes in F7.
• Keys: Armor Stand Swap is now Shift+S (S alone walks backwards as usual) and the Social window is Shift+O (O alone stays Ward Organize). If you had set your own key for either, it is kept; the log notes what changed.
• Feature list: the READMEs now list every feature by category (mining, crafting, building, farming, tames, travel, sailing, combat, interface, social and server).

The full history is in CHANGELOG.md.

Bugs & suggestions

Found a bug or have an idea? Tell us on the Hearthforge Discord. Please include your Hearthforge version and, for bugs, the BepInEx/LogOutput.log file.

AI disclosure

Parts of this mod's code and documentation were written with the help of an AI coding assistant (Grok Bot). It was reviewed, built and play-tested by the author.

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Organixxed. All rights reserved. See LICENSE. You may use this mod through its official Thunderstore listing. Don't modify it or re-upload it.