Faust, Lord of Investigation

A server-side mod for V Rising dedicated servers that answers on-demand investigation / information queries — about players, castles, plots, objects, and server activity — delivered as structured data for its companion client Raphael, Lord of Wisdom to render as in-game panels, overlays, dashboards, and graphs (and also available as plain .faust chat commands).

Faust is designed to be run alongside Raphael. Raphael is the client that turns Faust's data into a usable UI — the Player Positions map, the All-Plots castle table, the Server Stats dashboards, the Clans tab, and the player-activity charts. Faust is the server brain; Raphael is the screen. You can use Faust on its own from chat, but the experience these two are built for is the pair.

Faust is, first and foremost, an administrative and moderation tool — the global, authoritative view of your server. On top of that, admins can grant parts of it to players: as a strategic tool on PvP servers and a community-building tool on PvE servers. Everything is controlled per feature — your server's admins decide what, if anything, players can see (Off / Admin-only / Players), and may attach an optional item cost — the Faustian toll — a cooldown, an unlock, or a location requirement when they want to. Sensitive intel defaults to admin-only. Admins also control what Faust collects in the background, so it never costs server performance.

⚠ Pre-1.0 — for testing

This is a pre-1.0 release, published for testing. The full investigation feature set and the per-feature admin-control surface are implemented and working in-game, but Faust is still being validated and refined — by running it, you're helping test it. Back up your server save before adding any mod, and expect commands, config keys, wire shapes, and behavior to keep evolving before 1.0.

Run it with Raphael, Lord of Wisdom. Faust ships its data to Raphael; that pairing is what's being tested, and it's how you get the UI Faust is built for.

💬 We want your feedback

Faust is all about information — so tell us whether the information is right, useful, and presented well. Is a number wrong or confusing? A chart missing a cut you'd want? An intel view you wish existed? A feature you'd like to grant players differently? That feedback directly shapes 1.0.

• The Shadow Realm Discord — the primary place for bug reports, feedback on the data, and requests for new features / enhancements. Come tell us what you need.
• GitHub issues: https://github.com/KDavidP1987/Faust-Lord-of-Investigation/issues — written-up bugs and ideas welcome too.

Repo: https://github.com/KDavidP1987/Faust-Lord-of-Investigation Status: pre-1.0 · server-side only · investigation feature set complete, in live testing.

What it does

Faust holds the authoritative, global view of the server that a game client can't see (clients only receive what's near the local player). It gathers that view, gates it per feature, optionally charges an item cost for it, and ships it to the BloodCraftHub UI (or answers in chat). Best paired with BloodCraftHub for point-and-click panels, overlays, and graphs — but every query also works from chat.

Investigation queries:

• Castle & plot info — a plot's owner, region, size, decay state & time, and the owner's online / last-online.
• Plot availability — open building plots across the whole map, largest first.
• Full castle map — every territory (claimed + open) in one list: owner, region, size, state, decay, online (admin-default).
• Decay watch — claimed castles ranked by who's closest to decaying (with the owner's last-online): spot abandoned plots and cleanup targets (admin-default).
• Player info — online state, last-online, and (tracked by Faust over time) total playtime, session count, logins per week, and peak play hour.
• Online player positions (admin-default, PvP-sensitive) — now with each player's region.
• Enemy castle resource totals — sum everything stashed in a castle (admin-default; a natural one to price or restrict to PvP).
• Server stats — a playtime leaderboard and a server-population history, ready for graphs.
• Activity analytics — chart-ready breakdowns of when people play (by hour of day and day of week), daily active players + play-minutes, new arrivals per day, how long sessions last, and a per-player daily trend — server-wide or per player.
• Clan composition — how many players are in clans vs going solo (with the currently-online split), plus a per-clan roster: size, who's online, how many castles they hold, and the leader (admin-default).
• Population health — active-player counts (DAU/WAU/MAU), retention, who's drifting away, the population peak/average, and where everyone is (players + castles per region).

Every feature is independently controlled by the admin. You decide, per feature, what (if anything) players can see and on what terms. Per feature you can set:

• Who — off, admin-only, or all players.
• A price — an item cost per use (the Faustian toll).
• A time-lock — a flat cooldown, or a usage window per period (e.g. "a 10-minute window, once per day").
• PvP/PvE — usable only on the matching server mode.
• A progression unlock — opens only after a player defeats a configured V Blood or Dracula.
• A place — usable only within range of a configured object (an altar/station/landmark).

Admins can also block or schedule any feature live (a countdown or a daily time window) with no restart.

Installation

Faust is a server-side mod — install it on your V Rising dedicated server, not on player clients.

Via Thunderstore Mod Manager / r2modman (recommended)

1. Open the mod manager and select V Rising → your dedicated-server profile.
2. Search for Faust under the Mods tab → Install.
3. Ensure its dependencies are installed in the same profile (they install automatically): BepInExPack_V_Rising and VampireCommandFramework.
4. Launch the server through the mod manager's profile.

Manual install

1. Install BepInExPack V Rising (1.733.2 or compatible) into your dedicated server.
2. Install VampireCommandFramework into BepInEx/plugins/.
3. Drop Faust.dll into BepInEx/plugins/.
4. Start the server once to generate BepInEx/config/kdpen.Faust.cfg, then edit and restart.

Stop the server before replacing Faust.dll — a running server file-locks the DLL.

Dependencies & compatibility

Companion client — Raphael, Lord of Wisdom: the client-side mod that renders Faust's data into in-game UI — the Player Positions map, the All-Plots castle table, the Server Stats dashboards (population / recency / peak / regions), the Clans tab, and the per-player activity charts. Faust is built to be used with Raphael — it's the screen for Faust's server brain. Technically Raphael isn't a hard dependency (every Faust feature also works from .faust chat), but the intended experience is the pair. Grab Raphael from The Shadow Realm.

Faust is also a sibling to the author's other server-side mods Uriel, Lord of Hosts and Beelzebub, Lord of Gluttony; each is independent.

Commands

All commands are chat commands prefixed with .faust. Type .faust for an overview or .faust help [players|castles|server|admin] for a topic menu. Most queries are intended to be driven by the BloodCraftHub UI, but each works from chat too.

Playtime/frequency stats accrue from the moment Faust is installed (the game only remembers your last login, so Faust logs sessions over time). Each query obeys its per-feature access, item cost, and cooldown (config below); an empty or not-found lookup is never charged.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/kdpen.Faust.cfg — a global block plus one block per feature. Config changes take effect on server restart.

Features (<feature>): playerpositions, castleinfo, playerinfo, plotavailability, allcastles, decaywatch, objectscan, castleresources, stats, clans. Every feature defaults to AdminOnly — Faust is an admin tool first; open up whichever ones you want to share, per server.

Collection controls — what Faust gathers in the background

Separate from who can read a feature, you control what Faust passively collects, so it never costs server performance. Almost every query reads live state on demand (zero idle cost); only the session/population history accumulates over time, and you can bound or switch it off:

Faust's data is stored in BepInEx/config/Faust/ — on the server, not in the world save — so it survives a world wipe. That's deliberate: the same players return, so their playtime/stats stay relevant. When you do want to reset it (or it grows too large), use the data commands below.

Live admin controls (no restart)

Admins can override features at runtime — these persist across restarts:

A feature can also require a progression unlock before players may use it — set Unlock = FinalBoss (defeat Dracula) or Unlock = BossKill:<vbloodGuid> per feature in the config.

Feedback & community

Built and tested alongside the The Shadow Realm V Rising community, hand-in-hand with its companion client Raphael, Lord of Wisdom. This is a pre-1.0 testing release, and your feedback — on whether the information is accurate, useful, and well-presented, and on what intel you wish Faust surfaced — directly shapes what 1.0 becomes. Bug reports, ideas, and enhancement requests all welcome.

• The Shadow Realm Discord (primary — bugs, feedback & feature requests): https://discord.gg/usC9QgBrXK
• Raphael (companion client): available from The Shadow Realm (link above)
• GitHub issues / source: https://github.com/KDavidP1987/Faust-Lord-of-Investigation/issues

Acknowledgements

• VampireCommandFramework — by deca — the chat-command framework (hard dependency).
• BepInEx — the loader that makes V Rising modding possible.
• KindredCommands — by odjit — open-source territory/heart/owner and info-command patterns Faust builds on.

License

Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0) — copyright © 2026 Kristopher Penland. Faust adapts AGPL-licensed server-side techniques from odjit's KindredCommands and is released under the same copyleft license; full source is on GitHub.