ASKA Fox

Ragnar is the Bear. Aska is the Raven. You are an actual fox.

Adds a third selectable player character: a four-legged fox with its own appearance, animations and woodland-shaman playstyle. Build a village, gather supplies, craft, fight and do the usual Viking things. Having paws does not lock you out of the normal player actions. How gracefully you perform them is another matter.

Features

A playable fox: select Fox alongside Ragnar and Aska, with a character card and fox previews in character selection and the load menu.
Coat and eye customization: six coats (Red, Gold, Silver, Arctic, Brown and Black) and six eye colors (Green, Amber, Blue, Brown, Gray and Violet). Each fox character saves its own colors.
Animal animations: bites for combat and tree/stone strikes, pawing for crafting and harvesting, pickups, eating, drinking, hit reactions, jumping, a low scurry dodge, sitting, sleeping, waking stretches, idle antics and emotes.
Mouth and paw item displays: equipped tools and carried items use the mouth; work items can appear at the paws. Some combinations will still look ridiculous.
Animal audio: uses ASKA's existing wolf calls and paw footsteps in place of the human voice and footsteps while the fox appearance is active.
A lower third-person camera: framed for the fox, with an adjustable height offset.
Optional first-person compatibility: with Aska First Person Camera installed, its F5 view follows the fox's head. Its normal camera controls and settings still apply.

A woodland shaman with terrible hands

Shamanism is the fox's specialty, supported by gathering and skinning bonuses. It moves faster than a human and sprints in quick bursts, with higher stamina drain to match.

Starting base values, before food, skills and other modifiers:

Attribute	Value
Vitality / stamina	150 / 160
Strength / dexterity / intelligence	2 / 6 / 3
Normal movement / sprint speed	6 / 10
Base sprint stamina cost	16 per second
Shamanism	Starts at 10; 1.5x XP
Gathering	Starts at 10; 1.3x XP
Skinning	Starts at 5; 1.25x XP
Crafting, blacksmithing, carpentry and building	0.25x XP

The technical-skill drawback is slower learning. It does not impose an additional recipe ban or a permanent work-speed penalty. Native skill requirements still apply, and your villagers can handle the skilled work.

Fox villagers

Open the Eye of Odin's recruit selection and tick Make fox before confirming a newcomer. That recruit arrives as a fox with randomized coat and eye colors.

The recruit keeps its normal name, perks, aptitudes, proficiencies, needs and jobs. Fox villagers do not receive the player fox's special stats, starting skills or speed bonuses. Leave the checkbox off to recruit a human normally.

Requirements and installation

ASKA on Windows x64.
BepInEx 6 for Unity IL2CPP, Windows x64. Build 788 is the recommended tested setup; Thunderstore's standard loader dependency currently supplies build 755. BepInEx 5 and the Mono loader are not suitable.
Optional: Aska First Person Camera for the F5 first-person view. The fox works without it.

Manual installation

Install BepInEx 6 IL2CPP in the ASKA game folder, next to ASKA.exe. Run the game once to let the loader initialize, then close it.
Place AskaFox.dll in BepInEx/plugins/AskaFox/. Keep the included artwork credits with the mod.
Start the game and select Fox during character creation, or load an existing fox save.

When updating, replace the previous AskaFox.dll rather than keeping duplicate copies. If you used the old Wolf prototype, remove AskaWolfPrototype.dll as well. You do not need to delete your other plugins.

Controls and settings

F10: toggle fox/human appearance for the current session. This also switches camera presentation and animal sounds; it does not change your selected character's stats.
F5: toggle first-person when the optional first-person mod is installed, using that mod's configured key.
F8: development animation preview while standing still. Move or attack to leave the preview.

The Fox config is BepInEx/config/com.aska.wolfprototype.cfg. The old filename is retained for compatibility.

Under Camera, ThirdPersonHeightOffset defaults to -1 metre; set it to 0 for the normal camera offset. FirstPersonCompatibility enables the optional fox-head integration. First-person grass is, unfortunately, fox-height grass.

Co-op

Install the same ASKA Fox version on the host and every joining player's game, using matching ASKA versions. Fox identities, colors and animation state are synchronized. First-person is optional for each player.

Co-op has received limited player testing. This first release is not a claim that every NPC job, interaction or multiplayer situation has been tested; dedicated servers and host migration are not verified.

Rough edges

This is an early release. Animation timing, item placement and some transitions still need polish. Swimming and climbing use approximations, and there are no dedicated fox animations for every ranged, cart or boat action. NPC job animations may also need further mapping.

The playable Wolf prototype is retired; old Wolf saves are unsupported. Current fox saves retain their existing identity. Keep the mod installed to retain fox presentation; saving after removing it can lose fox-specific appearance information.

For bug reports, include your ASKA version, ASKA Fox version, whether you were host or client, what you were doing, and BepInEx/LogOutput.log. A screenshot or short clip is especially helpful for animation and item-position issues.

Credits

Quaternius — Ultimate Animated Animal Pack: CC0 fox model, rig and original animation foundation, adapted for this mod.
BepInEx and Harmony: mod loading and runtime patching.
JosiahSiegel: Aska First Person Camera, supported through optional compatibility.
ASKA / Sand Sailor Studio: the game and the existing animal sounds used at runtime.

This mod was made with AI assistance, including code, animations and artwork. pls no hate. See ARTWORK-FOX.md for detailed asset provenance. ASKA's game assets and the optional first-person mod are not bundled with ASKA Fox.