Hearthbound

Open a fallen friend's tombstone to bring them back to it.

When someone dies in Valheim, they wake up at their bed with nothing, and have to make the long naked run back to their gear. With Hearthbound on your dedicated server, a friend standing at the tombstone just presses E on it, the fallen player gets asked if they want to come, and they're brought straight there.

Your players don't install anything. It runs only on the server.

How it works in game

1. Someone dies. Their tombstone stays where they fell, as usual.
2. A friend goes to the tombstone and opens it (E). The tombstone opens as normal, and the fallen player sees: "Bjorn can bring you to your tombstone. Crouch or type !yes to accept".
3. The fallen player crouches or types !yes in chat within 20 seconds. !no, or doing nothing, says no.
4. A short countdown ("Taking you to your tombstone in 3..."), then they're teleported there, with a loading screen like a portal.

Your own tombstone works exactly as in the normal game.

Limits keep it from replacing portals:

Every number is a setting.

Install

You need a Valheim dedicated server with BepInEx on it (BepInExPack for Valheim).

1. Download Hearthbound-<version>.zip from Releases.

2. Unzip it. Inside is a plugins/Hearthbound folder.

3. Copy the Hearthbound folder into your server's BepInEx/plugins folder, so you end up with:

   <server>/BepInEx/plugins/Hearthbound/Hearthbound.dll
   

4. Start the server. In the server log you should see:

   Hearthbound 1.0.0 loaded
   

Don't run it alongside another mod that does something on tombstone emotes or opens, such as ServersideQoL's PhoenixPersons: both would react.

Settings

Settings live in BepInEx/config/com.cocopuff2u.hearthbound.cfg. The file appears after the first start. Edit it any time: Hearthbound picks up the change a second after you save, and says Settings reloaded in the log.

Boss names

BossLocations uses the game's own names for each boss's place:

Messages

Every message players see is in the [Messages] section, so you can reword or translate them. They can use {rescuer}, {player}, {minutes}, {seconds}, {left} (like "2 more today", or nothing with no daily limit), and {yes} / {no} (the chat commands). Leave one empty to not show it.

MessagePlace picks where they show: Center (default; big, middle of the screen) or TopLeft (small, out of the way of an open tombstone).

Good to know

• Ores and metals come along. The game's own teleport doesn't check what you carry, the way portals do. Right after a death there's usually nothing in the bag, and the time limit keeps it that way; if this matters on your server, keep MaxMinutesSinceDeath short.
• The tombstone has to have something in it. An empty tombstone can't be opened (the game removes it).
• The daily count is kept in BepInEx/config/hearthbound.uses. Delete the file to reset everyone's count.

How it works (for the curious)

When a player opens a container, their game takes it over and marks it "in use", and that change is sent to the server like every other object update. Hearthbound watches for that on tombstones only: it sees who opened whose tombstone, reads whether the opener was crouching (also part of the player's normal updates), and moves the fallen player with the game's own teleport message, the one the goto console command uses. Chat also passes through the server on its way to other players, which is how !recall is heard.

It does nothing between rescues except one quick check on each object update and each message the server passes on: is this a tombstone that just opened, or a chat line someone is waiting for? That's a couple of number comparisons for everything else. The self-test measures it on a real server, with and without Hearthbound hooked in.

Building from source

./build.sh --managed "<Valheim dedicated server>/valheim_server_Data/Managed"

Needs the .NET SDK (8 or later). The zip lands in dist/.

License

MIT