Get Up u Coward

A Valheim mod for those moments when your Viking needs a helping hand.

Instead of dying immediately, you fall into a downed state and belly crawl while a 60-second rescue timer runs out. Enemies stop targeting you, and further damage cannot finish you off. A friend can help you up by holding E for five uninterrupted seconds, restoring 30% of your current maximum health.

The host and every joining player must install the mod and its dependencies. This release targets player-hosted games on the installed Valheim/Unity 6 build. Dedicated servers have not been validated.

Screenshots and gameplay

Hold on for rescue

Keep your gear and crawl toward safety while the bleedout countdown continues.

Crawl while downed

Use normal movement to crawl while you wait for a friend.

A friend can help you up

The rescuer kneels and uses their hands while holding the interaction button. A completed five-second rescue restores 30% of maximum health.

Choose when to give up

Hold Jump for three seconds to accept normal death, or release it to keep waiting. The give-up progress bar is yellow.

Playing

• Downed: use normal movement to crawl. Combat, sprinting, jumping, items, building, and portals are unavailable. Food and inventory remain with you, and skills are not lost merely from going down.
• Rescue: look at a nearby downed player, get within 2.5 metres, and hold your interaction button, normally E. Your Viking kneels and reaches toward the fallen player while helping them up, visible to everyone using the mod. The same binding is used after rebinding controls; gamepad Use is supported too.
• Keep holding: releasing the button, looking away, leaving range, losing line of sight, attacking, taking damage, or becoming downed cancels the rescue. Interrupted progress is lost. One player can rescue a target at a time.
• Beat the timer: the bleedout countdown continues during rescue. If the two finish together, bleedout wins.
• Give up: hold Jump, normally Space, for three seconds while downed. A progress indicator prevents accidental surrender.
• Normal death: bleedout or giving up creates the usual gravestone and applies the world's normal death rules. There is no self-revive, even if you are alone or everyone is downed.
• Reconnect: the saved remaining timer resumes when the character next loads with the mod. Time spent offline does not count. Rescue progress is not saved.

The rescue HUD uses Valheim's Norse headings, interaction font, and native meter artwork, with an ImageGen dark-wood and bronze frame and matching downed, revive, and give-up icons. A separate countdown shows how long you have left, while the lower meter shows your current hold progress. The HUD follows the game's UI scale and hide-HUD setting. Generated artwork is embedded in the DLL; no separate texture folders or asset packs are required.

The procedural crawl uses a low belly pose, alternating arm pulls and opposite knee movements, and ground contacts for hands and feet. Physics uses Valheim's normal standing capsule, so crawling does not let you fit through smaller openings. Gravity, terrain friction, encumbrance, and buoyancy remain controlled by the game. Custom player-avatar mods and other death-overhaul mods have not been tested.

Configuration

After the first modded launch, use Thunderstore's config editor or edit:

BepInEx/config/com.dominic.getupucoward.cfg

The host's settings synchronize through Jotunn for the session. Client settings are restored after leaving. Restart the game after editing the file externally. Enemies ignoring downed players and timer-only damage rules are fixed gameplay behavior.

Removal

Revive or finish dying before removing the mod. Disable/remove it through Thunderstore, or remove its dedicated plugin folder if manually installed. The mod does not replace game files, inventory formats, or world formats. Its namespaced character custom data is ignored by the vanilla game.

Technical references

• Jotunn synchronized configuration
• Jotunn network compatibility
• Thunderstore packaging

Original mod code is distributed under the MIT license. Valheim, BepInEx, Jotunn, and their assets belong to their respective owners and are not redistributed here.