Skuld

Skuld

Death no longer erases your skills — it puts them in debt.

Version 1.0.0 — Valheim 1.0 / Unity 6 compatible.

Skuld is a Valheim BepInEx mod that replaces vanilla hard-death skill loss with repayable per-skill debt. When you die on a hard death, the skill levels you would have lost become debt instead. Your actual skill levels stay where they are. While debt remains, earned XP is split between normal leveling and paying that debt down. Once a skill's debt reaches zero, it earns XP at full speed again.

Named after Skuld, the Norn who weaves the future — your fate is not erased on death, only deferred.

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Support & feedback

Bug reports, feature requests, and questions:

• Team Extreme Discord — setup help, testing, and updates
• GitHub — Skuld — source code and issues

When reporting a problem, include your mod version, single-player or multiplayer, and any other skill or death-related mods.

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Features

• Debt instead of loss — Hard-death skill reduction becomes per-skill debt; levels are not lowered
• XP split paydown — While debt exists, earned XP is shared between leveling and debt repayment
• Focus paydown — Voluntary 100% paydown on chosen skills via /focus (your choice, per character)
• Skill panel display — Maroon debt segment on the gold level bar plus red -X debt label
• Configurable visuals — Bar color, text color, and text size ([Visual], client-only)
• Hover progress — Skill row tooltip shows remaining debt and paid-off progress
• Chat commands — Debt overview, lifetime stats, and focus status
• Debt cap — Optional per-skill maximum debt (scales with your level at death)
• Soft-death clarity — Message when a soft death occurs (no debt added)
• Debt cleared feedback — Optional halo + sound when a skill's debt hits zero
• Server config sync — Gameplay tuning from server/host while connected (see Multiplayer)
• Character persistence — Debt survives death, respawn, and save/load
• Private to you — Debt is stored in your character save data, not synced to other players

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How the debt system works

Hard death only

Skuld only applies on hard deaths — the same deaths that trigger vanilla skill loss (roughly one hard death every 10 minutes of real time). Soft deaths do not add debt and do not trigger vanilla skill loss. On a soft death you see: "Soft death — no skill debt".

What happens on a hard death

For each skill with a level above zero, Skuld calculates the vanilla loss amount:

rawDebt = skillLevel × deathFactor

That amount is not subtracted from your skill level. Instead:

1. Current debt increases by the raw amount (subject to cap — see below)
2. Lifetime debt increases by the full raw amount (never decreases)
3. Paid-off baseline resets to the new current debt (paid-off progress starts over for this death cycle)

You also get a short summary message listing which skills gained debt.

Paying debt down

Whenever you earn XP in a skill that has debt, Skuld splits the gain:

• A configurable share goes toward debt paydown (server rule in multiplayer)
• The rest goes toward normal leveling

If the paydown share would exceed your remaining debt, only enough XP is used to zero the debt — the leftover goes to leveling (no XP is wasted).

Default split: 50% paydown / 50% leveling (DebtPaydownShare = 0.5).

Focus paydown (player choice)

Use /focus to voluntarily send 100% of earned XP in a skill toward debt until that debt clears:

/focus woodcutting
/focus all
/focus off
/show focus

Focus is stored on your character (not server config). It clears automatically when debt for that skill reaches zero. Focus does not affect other players.

Three tracked values per skill

| Value | What it means | |-------|----------------| | Current debt | How much you still owe on this skill | | Paid-off baseline | Snapshot of current debt when it was last added on death; used to calculate progress | | Lifetime debt | Total raw debt ever incurred on this skill across all deaths (never shrinks) |

Paid-off progress (shown in tooltips and /show debt):

paidOff = baseline − currentDebt

Lifetime repaid (shown on /show debt lifetime <skill>):

lifetimeRepaid = lifetimeIncurred − currentDebt

Debt cap (MaxDebtPerSkill)

By default, current debt per skill is capped at 3× the raw debt from the most recent death. The cap floats with your level — higher-level skills allow more total debt before the cap bites.

• MaxDebtPerSkill = 3 (default) — cap is 3 × rawDebtThisDeath
• MaxDebtPerSkill = 0 — uncapped
• Lifetime debt always records the full uncapped raw amount, even when current debt is clamped

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In-game display

Skill panel (Tab → Skills)

Skills with debt show:

• A maroon segment on the trailing portion of the gold level bar (debt in skill levels)
• A red -X label at the left edge of the bar (rounded whole number)

Vanilla blue +X set bonuses are unchanged. Skuld does not modify SEMan skill modifiers.

Hover tooltip

Hover a skill row with debt to see exact progress appended below the vanilla skill description:

-1.2500  (1.2500 paid off)  [focused 100%]

Post-death message

After a hard death, a top-left message summarizes debt added (e.g. Debt: Wood Cutting +2.5, Run +1.1).

Debt cleared (optional)