Rootbound Witch

Runtime requirements: BepInEx, Jotunn, and ADARC-BackpacksValheim1Compat. The compatibility package installs the official Smoothbrain Backpacks 1.3.8 dependency and applies the required Valheim 1.0 repairs before it is loaded.

Rootbound Witch is a restriction-led Valheim transformation. It is not a collection of free buffs: one armour set becomes the player's entire equipment pilgrimage, plant magic replaces ordinary progression, the forest recognizes the wearer, and every major gift has a cost.

This is the first local trial build for the current Valheim 1.0 client. It does not replace vanilla Root armour or modify a world save.

Required on every machine

• Valheim 1.0
• BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2350
• Jötunn 2.29.2
• ADARC Backpacks Valheim 1 Compatibility 1.0.3 (which installs the official Smoothbrain Backpacks 1.3.8 package)
• Rootbound Witch 0.4.15

Install the same package on the dedicated server and every joining client. MagicPlugin 2.1.9 and DvergerStaves 1.0.9 are optional visual/attack-source integrations: when present, the Crook borrows their appropriate reclaimed-staff body or secondary-cast architecture; otherwise it falls back to live vanilla sources.

The Rootbound equipment tree

The Mask, Harness and Leggings are separate items cloned from vanilla Root armour. They begin at Plains-level protection and persist through four growths instead of being replaced by later armour.

Growth	Target tier	Armour per piece	Full-set armour	Upgrade material family
1	Plains	26	78	Draugr-village remains
2	Mistlands	32	96	Carapace, soft tissue and refined eitr
3	Ashlands	38	114	Ask hide, celestial feather and charred bone
4	Deep North	44	132	Frost core, timberwood and moose hide

Petrified harvesting tools

The complete-set metal refusal no longer creates a solo progression dead end. Two purpose-built tools carry universal harvesting clearance from their first growth while retaining modest starting output:

• PetrifiedRootPick uses the Antler Pickaxe silhouette, with its pale antler fossilized into walnut-brown root.
• PetrifiedRootAxe uses the Bronze Axe silhouette, but its blade is rendered as non-metallic corewood with a restrained wood grain.

Neither recipe contains metal, so both remain legal while Rootbound. Their unusually high tool tier only decides which deposits and trees may be harvested; it does not grant endgame damage. Pickaxe/chop damage and durability increase through four growths using Mistlands, Ashlands and Deep North materials obtained by the preceding growth.

Each piece grants quality-aware static eitr and eitr regeneration. A complete set:

• makes Greydwarves and Greylings treat the wearer as kin;
• makes Dvergers attack on sight from growth two onward;
• rejects metal equipment and animal food;
• increases fire damage received;
• heals near living trees, then changes allegiance to Deep North cold at growth four;
• regenerates stamina faster in its home biomes;
• withers on worked stone and black marble;
• roots a motionless wearer briefly for strong regeneration;
• prevents falling-tree impact damage;
• permits exactly one additional jump before landing;
• removes five Running and five Jumping levels when the wearer personally kills a creature whose live drops contain meat;
• carries a non-colliding branch crown extracted from the live Bog Witch's branch-like render geometry; its size and back placement are configurable;
• at growth four, turns to white permafrost moss over frost-grey skin, gains restrained blue-white crystal growths made from the vanilla ice-staff material, ignores frost damage, and becomes still more vulnerable to fire.

Borrowed Root: the multiplayer field

The complete set emits a 50-metre field. Every other living player inside it receives Borrowed Root, doubling stamina regeneration. The emitting wearer never receives their own aura.

If at least one other player is inside the field, the wearer moves at 85% speed. This is one flat cost and never stacks with recipient count. Two Rootbound wearers may receive one another's fields, but no source can buff itself.

Rootbound Crook

The Crook is a dead Surtling staff visibly reclaimed by a low-poly constricting root, bark knots, asymmetric tendrils and sprouts that distort the old shaft. Its light and ember emission are removed, its core is recoloured as lifeless stone, and the live Staff of the Wild projectile becomes translucent black-green mould dust.

• Primary attack: copied from the live StaffGreenRoots item, but every cast germinates three roots in a triangular formation and costs eitr only—never health.
• Secondary attack/right bumper: a short-range root field. Hostile creatures are stopped for the configured duration and receive the Crook's poison damage; no blunt damage is copied into the field.
• Quality two or higher marks its wielder as a forest threat to Dvergers.

Frosted Root

FrostedRoot is the Crook's Deep North sister weapon. It consumes one Rootbound Crook plus FrostCore and Frostwood at first growth, removes the Surtling core geometry entirely, and turns the reclaimed wood, root coil and sprouts into visibly pale snowbound material.

• Both attacks retain the ordinary empty fireball-throw gesture; the hand emits no false summon effect.
• Primary attack: six live Moder ice projectiles fall from 20 metres above the aimed point at triple the former speed.
• Secondary attack/right bumper: the Crook's proven immobilizing root field, recoloured as ice and dealing the weapon's quality-aware frost damage instead of poison.
• Base damage: copied from the live Deep North StaffFrostOrbs item.
• Upgrade damage: +20 frost damage at each quality above the first, for +60 over the live Deep North baseline at quality four.
• Maximum quality: four; every growth remains in the Deep North material family.

Rootbound Charm

The charm is built from the live Jormundling trinket body and replaces its effect with:

• +40 Elemental Magic;
• +40 Blood Magic;
• +40 maximum eitr;
• feather fall (terminal fall speed and fall damage protection);
• a seven-minute Forsaken-power cooldown when the power is activated while the charm is equipped.

Forsaken-power duration is not changed.

Rootbound Wisp

RootboundWisp is a direct Wisplight continuation. It preserves the live Wisplight's light and mist-clearing behaviour, remains in Valheim's Utility slot, and adds exactly 150 maximum carry weight by default. The Rootbound Charm remains in the separate Trinket slot, so both can stay equipped together. Its workbench conversion consumes one Wisplight and three Roots; the vanilla Wisplight is not modified.

Mycelial Crook

MycelialCrook is the third reclaimed staff. Its Surtling core is removed and replaced by a softly glowing yellow mushroom crown.

• Primary attack throws the red mushroom itself, then plants a persistent, harvestable red mushroom on the directly aimed surface.
• Secondary attack uses the same throwing gesture and plants a persistent yellow mushroom whose networked 22-metre light is intended to illuminate a room alone.
• Both casts are non-damaging and cost eitr only.
• The workbench recipe consumes one Rootbound Crook, ten red mushrooms, ten yellow mushrooms and ten Sap.

Bog Witch and Kvastur

While the complete armour set is worn, the Bog Witch offers a Rootbound Kvastur Scroll for 350 coins.

• Primary attack summons one owned Kvastur companion. Summoning again replaces the player's earlier companion.
• Secondary attack/right bumper uses a live axe's downward-strike control path and executes only that player's owned companion through Valheim's ordinary death lifecycle.
• Summoned Kvastur have no loot table and cannot be used to multiply drops.
• Ownership is stored on the networked summon so players cannot recall one another's broom.
• Summon and recall input executes only on the attacking player's owning client. Other peers receive the resulting network creature but never create additional hostile copies.

Buying the Kvastur scroll also records a persistent, per-character forest-recognition key. Once recognized, the same full-set shopper can buy a Rootbound Galdr Charter for 750 coins. Buying the charter permanently exposes personal-inventory copies of every currently loaded recipe whose base craft requirement equals the highest live Galdr-table level. The Charter itself also controls one strengthened Abomination companion, so it remains a functional instrument after purchase rather than inert proof of the unlock.

• The charter preserves the source recipe's output and ingredient requirements.
• The original Galdr-table recipe is not removed or modified.
• Hand copies appear only while crafting without a station; the inventory item does not need to remain carried after purchase.
• The loaded recipe table is inspected dynamically, allowing compatible modded Galdr recipes to participate.
• The same Charter layer follows live animal ingredients through the loaded recipe graph and reclaims each raw meat or meat-containing food into exactly one Sap.
• Merely spawning or otherwise possessing either purchased item repairs its corresponding character key for testing and migration.
• Charter primary attack costs 85 eitr and summons one owner-bound, two-star Abomination with a 4,800-health target, Mistlands vision, heavy resistances and 20 health regenerated per second.
• Charter secondary attack uses the same live axe downward-strike control path and executes only that player's Abomination. Resummoning replaces it, its drops are removed, and it does not consume the player's separate Kvastur slot.
• Outside combat the Abomination spawns beyond and follows no closer than 15 metres. Its vanilla standing click-groans remain intact, while the repetitive ambient grunt is suppressed only during movement.
• The Charter also exposes RootboundModerSigil only in its stationless personal-inventory recipe layer. It costs one Howling Cavern Cultist trophy, one Smouldering Tomb Skeleton trophy and one Sealed Tower berserker-bros trophy.
• Sigil primary attack calls one owner-bound, non-boss lesser Moder with 1,800 health and 45% of live Moder damage; the familiar axe-strike secondary recalls only the caller's Moder. It has no drops, boss HUD, defeat key or boss event, keeps a 15-metre following boundary, and suppresses its repetitive voice while out of combat.

Rootbound Satchel

The mod uses Smoothbrain Backpacks' supported external-YAML interface and does not redistribute its models or code. On load it installs the namespaced Backpacks.RootboundWitch.generated.yml, enables external YAML, and asks Backpacks to reload it.

The satchel starts at 4x3 slots with 80% carried weight and grows through 5x3, 5x4 and 6x4 using Mistlands, Ashlands and Deep North materials. Its recipe begins with Draugr remains, leather scraps and fine wood.

Trial protocol

Use a disposable local character/world first. Verify content in this order:

1. Confirm the BepInEx log contains Rootbound content registered and no Rootbound exception.
2. Spawn or craft all Rootbound items; inspect recipes at every quality. Spawn PetrifiedRootPick and PetrifiedRootAxe, confirm the full set accepts them, then test each against ordinary and latest-biome resources.
3. Equip the complete set and check Greydwarf neutrality, metal/meat refusal and the double jump.
4. Bring one second player across the 50 m boundary; verify only the receiver gets Borrowed Root and the wearer slows exactly once.
5. Upgrade the set or Crook to quality two and verify Dverger hostility.
6. Test the Crook secondary on a disposable hostile creature; confirm poison, complete immobilization and field expiry with no blunt burst.
7. Spawn FrostedRoot; verify six fast Moder shards on primary and the immobilizing pale frost-root field on secondary. Read the item tooltip at qualities one through four and verify its per-shard and field damage rise by 20 frost per growth.
8. Spawn RootboundWisp; equip it beside the Rootbound Charm and full armour, then verify ordinary Wisplight behaviour and exactly +150 carry capacity without losing the Charm effect.
9. Spawn MycelialCrook; throw both mushroom types, harvest them, relog, and verify the unharvested yellow plant persists and lights the room.
10. Buy and summon Kvastur with two different player IDs; use the axe-like downward secondary strike and verify it kills only the caller's Kvastur.
11. After buying Kvastur, close and reopen the Bog Witch store; buy the Galdr Charter and verify only the highest-level Galdr recipes appear in inventory crafting with unchanged costs.
12. Equip the Charter: primary should replace and summon one strengthened Abomination for 85 eitr; the axe-like secondary should kill it without affecting Kvastur. Verify it follows, fights Mistlands creatures, regenerates and drops nothing.
13. With the Charter key, verify RootboundModerSigil appears in personal crafting only when no station is active and requires the three Hildir-site trophies. Summon, fight beside and recall Moder; confirm no boss bar, event, key or drops.
14. Activate a Forsaken power with and without the charm and compare cooldowns.
15. Test logout/reconnect, portal travel and server restart before using the package on the live realm.

Configuration is synchronized by Jötunn. The mod deliberately performs no automatic profile installation and no save migration.