Lyngbakr

A leviathan so old that forests grow on its back. Find it, moor your boat, and build a home that swims the world.

What it does

Every world gets one Lyngbakr: a vast, unsinkable leviathan that roams the open ocean at walking pace. His back is real land. You can dig and build on it, farm it and live there while he carries you around the world.

• A living island. His back is real, editable ground copied from a patch of your own world. Each world gets its own Lyngbakr with 2 to 3 neighbouring biomes from Meadows, Black Forest, Mountains, Plains and Mistlands. Trees, rocks, ore and grass are placed by the game's own rules, so it looks like vanilla Valheim.
• Dig, level and farm. Pickaxe, hoe and cultivator all work. Crops grow and your edits are saved. You can dig down, but never through him.
• Build anything. Everything you build rides along, with no jitter, and structural support works as usual. Doors, workbenches, beds, fires and portals all work.
• Peaceful. Nothing hostile lives on Lyngbakr. Hostile creatures never spawn on or around him, and fish stay out of his way. Peaceful animals from his deck's biomes, like deer and hares, wander onto his back now and then.
• He roams the whole world. He picks far destinations he can actually reach, plans the whole route through open sea first, and follows it around islands and coasts. If he stops making progress, he gives up and picks somewhere else. If he's ever in a landlocked sea, he hauls himself across the shallows to get out. Sleeping through the night doesn't fling him across the map.
• Moor your boat. Bring a boat alongside him (within 20 m) and step off the helm. The boat is moored and holds its spot loosely, riding the swell like at any dock. It travels with him even when nobody is near. Take the helm to cast off.
• Hidden until found. He doesn't show on the map until you've been within 150 m of him. After that, his own map icon follows him wherever he swims. This is per character and per world.
• Beds and logging out. Set your spawn point in a bed on his back and you wake up on him, wherever he's gone. Log out on him and you log back in on him.

How to find him

He appears in deep, open ocean, 2.5 to 8 km from the world centre, the first time a world is loaded with the mod. He's big and slow, so sail the open sea and look for a forest on the horizon that moves. Once you've found him, lyngbakr in the console tells you how far away he is and in which direction.

Installation

Install with r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager; BepInExPack Valheim is installed automatically as a dependency. No Jötunn needed.

Manual install: put Lyngbakr.dll and the lyngbakr file (his shaders) together in Valheim\BepInEx\plugins\Lyngbakr\.

Multiplayer: every player and the dedicated server need the mod, all on the same version. His speed and deck settings come from the server, so all players see the same Lyngbakr.

Removing the mod: anything built on Lyngbakr's back belongs to him and is lost without the mod. Empty your chests first, then (as the host) run lyng_remove confirm in the console, save and quit. Otherwise his trees, rocks and builds are left floating in the sea where he last was.

Like other mods, this marks your game as modded, as Iron Gate asks of mod authors.

Settings

BepInEx\config\com.chase.lyngbakr.cfg (r2modman: Config editor)

Console commands

Press F5 (start the game with -console).

lyngbakr          how far away he is and which way (after you've found him)
lyngbakr_reveal   (cheat) mark him as found for your character
lyng_tp           (cheat) teleport onto his back (turn on god mode or fly first)
lyng_seed <n>     (cheat) reshape his back with a new seed, for everyone; builds and plantings are kept
lyng_scenery      (cheat) scatter his trees and rocks again
lyng_remove       (cheat, host) before uninstalling: remove him and everything on him from the world
lyng_near         list the objects around you and whether they ride on him (for bug reports)
lyng_portals      list the portals on him; 'lyng_portals remove <name>' clears one you can't see, so a new one with that name connects
lyng_seamap       save a map of the sea he can swim in, with his route, to BepInEx\LyngbakrSeaMap.png
lyng_scout [from] [to]   try deck seeds on your screen only and list those with Plains, Mistlands and a Yggdrasil root

Known limitations

• One Lyngbakr per world.
• Tested in single player. Multiplayer and dedicated servers are supported but haven't had much testing yet, so bug reports are welcome.
• Mods that change building, terrain editing or ship physics haven't been tested alongside it.

1.0.5

• Fixed an issue where ownership of things on Lyngbakr was lost after traveling off him, so you couldn't pick items or break pieces on his back.

1.0.4

• Lyngbakr only sets off for places he can actually reach. He plans his whole route through open sea first and follows it closely, so he no longer circles a spot near a coast forever. His sea now covers most of the world's open water, linked through channels and the open ocean around the edge.
• If he stops getting closer to where he's going (about 3 km of swimming without progress), he gives up and picks somewhere else. Boxed into a small bay, he heads for the nearest big stretch of sea, crossing shallows if he must. Destinations are always at least 1 km away.
• He keeps swimming while nobody is near him. Before, he could stay frozen in place on a dedicated server after the last player near him left.
• Portals on his back now keep working wherever he swims. Before, a portal on him could vanish or stop working once he'd moved on, and its name stayed taken, so a new portal with that name wouldn't connect.
• Boats moored alongside and everything built on him stay with him after long trips away and after teleporting back.
• Peaceful animals from his deck's biomes (deer, hares and the like) now wander onto his back now and then, up to 8 at a time and never inside your base. Hostile creatures still never spawn on him. Turn it off with Deck / PeacefulAnimals.
• Creature spawners (such as skeleton spawners copied from the world) are never put on his back, and any already there are removed.
• New commands: lyng_seamap saves a map of the sea he can swim in, with his route; lyng_portals lists the portals on him, and lyng_portals remove <name> clears one you can't see; lyng_scout tries deck seeds on your screen only and lists those with Plains, Mistlands and a Yggdrasil root.
• Server and players must all update together: his route is worked out on every machine.

1.0.3

• Vulkan and OpenGL (-force-vulkan, native Linux): the deck now uses Lyngbakr's own terrain shader there too, so its textures stay put as he swims instead of sliding. (Mac still uses the game's terrain shader.)

1.0.2

• Portals on Lyngbakr: arriving through a portal on his back now puts you at that portal, instead of in the sea under him.
• Dedicated servers: fixed the server and the nearest player overwriting each other's copy of Lyngbakr. He no longer freezes, jumps back or drifts off without you, and deck edits and chests on him are no longer at risk.
• Multiplayer: every player now always knows where he is. His map icon follows him from anywhere, and logging in or respawning in a bed on him puts you back on him.
• His trees and rocks now appear the first time you reach him, not only after a reseed.
• Smoother motion: no more small jolts for players standing on him when position updates arrive.
• Dying no longer leaves a second, stuck copy of his map icon.
• Vulkan, Linux and Mac: the deck no longer renders black. It uses the game's own terrain shader there.
• New command lyng_remove: run it as the host before uninstalling, so his trees, rocks and builds aren't left floating in the sea.
• New command lyng_near: lists nearby objects and whether they ride on him, for bug reports.

1.0.1

• README: added a GIF of Lyngbakr in action. No gameplay changes.

1.0.0

• First release.