LivingFactions

Living Factions

A Valheim mod that adds seven NPC factions to your world. They set up camps, gather wood, stone and food, put up buildings one piece at a time and grow into villages and towns. They trade with each other, fall out, go to war and take each other's settlements. All of this goes on whether you are around or not, and you can take part: trade, bring gifts, make friends, start a war.

Made for Valheim 1.0.20 with BepInEx 5 and Jötunn. It is an early version.

Playing together

Works since 0.4.0, on a dedicated server or with a player hosting.

• Everyone needs the mod: the server and every player. Somebody without it, or with another

0.x version of it (0.6 against 0.7), is not let in.

• On a dedicated server put BepInEx, Jötunn and LivingFactions.dll into the server folder the

same way as into the game. The state of the factions is kept on the server, next to its config.

• The host runs the factions. The player nearest a settlement is the one who builds it.
• Tested with a dedicated server and one guest over Steam. Crossplay servers and two players in

the same village at once have not been tested yet, so tell us how it goes.

• Back up the server world before the first run.

Feedback, bug reports and chat: Discord.

Русское описание ниже.

The factions

| Faction | Who | Where | What they are like | |---|---|---|---| | Raven Clan | humans | Meadows, Black Forest | even-tempered, keep their word | | Wolf Clan | humans | Black Forest, Meadows, Mountain | quick to fight | | Stag Clan | humans | Meadows, Plains | traders, peaceful | | Fuling Horde | Fulings | Plains | raiders | | Dvergr Hold | Dvergr | Mistlands, Black Forest, Mountain | traders, proud | | Greydwarf Brood | Greydwarfs | Black Forest | spread fast, do not trade | | Draugr Court | Draugr | Swamp | hate the living |

Each one starts with a single camp. If there is no room for a faction at first, it shows up later. Settlements you have been to get a pin on the map.

What happens in the world

Settlements grow. Camp, hamlet, village, town, city. A settlement has stores of wood, stone, food, metal and coins, and its people are split between gathering, building and guard duty. It builds what it is short of: houses when it gets crowded, a storehouse when the stores are full, farms and workshops, then a watchtower, a smithy and a market, and later a palisade and a great hall. Only the capital of a faction becomes a city.

The buildings are real. They are made of the normal build pieces and go up in order, so a house that is half done is a floor and a few walls with no roof. While you are away the settlement keeps developing in the simulation and catches up when you come back.

Every people builds its own way. The Raven Clan roofs everything in dark shingles on dark posts, with a raven carved on each end of a home's ridge. The Wolf Clan lays its walls log on log under hipped thatch, a carved wolf looking out over the door. The Stag Clan keeps the thatched gable and gives every door a porch. Fulings live in round huts under hide cones, Greydwarfs den among roots, the Draugr build in stone and the Dvergr roof in dark shingles.

People have a day. They walk to trees, rocks, fields and building sites, work there and carry their loads to the storehouse, where they put them into its chests: open one and the carrots, wood or meat are there. More of them take up the trade the settlement is short of. Between shifts they visit a neighbour or take a walk down the road. By day half the guards walk a round out along the road and back, one stands on the watchtower, some of them are archers. At night everyone sleeps in the beds of their own house, two to a bed.

A thief in the night. Open one of their chests after dark and a count starts: a few seconds if people sleep in that house, half a minute in an empty storehouse. Take something of theirs and stay too long, and the village wakes and the watch goes for you. What you put in a chest yourself is yours to take out again.

Bands on the move. A settlement short of wood, stone, food or metal sends a band of two to six out to where it is plentiful, up to 1.4 km away, weighing the distance against the danger of the way. A raid is a band too: it marches to its target, fights at the gate and carries its loot home. Near you the bands are people walking the land, and killing one costs the band a man.

War campaigns. A warlike faction at war sends scouts, sets up a war camp of tents, stakes and banners more than halfway to an enemy place, garrisons it, and marches on the target from there. Home sends soldiers and food along a supply line, allies of either side may join, and a place that falls may be taken back a day later. Arms cost metal, and a long campaign wears a faction out.

Outposts and moving house. A faction with people to spare puts a small camp where the land gives what home lacks (timber, stone, soil, ore), or a watch post halfway along a long road. People leave a place that starves, or a small one an enemy war camp has come close to.

Woodcutters and the forest. Woodcutters fell real trees, at least 10 m from the buildings and falling away from the village. The trunk is carried off and a sapling of the same kind goes into the stump's place, so a village in the woods ends up in a clearing of young trees, not a bare field.

Boss hunts. Ask a chief about a hunt and they name the next great beast they want dead, with a bounty in coins. Kill it, come back to any chief of that faction and collect. Every boss you kill is news: the clans like you better for it, while the Greydwarfs, the Draugr and the Fulings take the death of their own Elder, Bonemass and Yagluth badly.