Forsaken Ascension

Beta 0.0.28 — repeated boss victories, stronger permanent blessings.

Return to Valheim's bosses for harder challenges, earn upgraded trophies and offer them at the sacrificial stones to strengthen your blessings. All earned blessings can remain active together.

This beta covers Eikthyr, the Elder, Bonemass, Moder, Yagluth, the Queen and Fader. The final Deep North boss is excluded. It was developed around two-player Hard difficulty with optional Creature Level & Loot Control and Epic Loot.

What it adds

Seven boss tracks, each with a normal tier and five starred challenge tiers.
42 trophy variants, with tiered names and appearances.
Permanent, configurable blessings that combine by default; an optional single-blessing mode is available.
Five cumulative move unlocks per boss. Five-star challenges can use every earlier unlocked move.
Boss tier appearances, progression-based health/damage scaling and repeatable beaten tiers.
A challenge selection menu, trophy offering flow and an F8 progression panel.
Configurable offering costs, rewards, participation requirements and passive values.

Install with Gale

For a published package, install through Gale's Valheim mod browser. For a private beta ZIP, select Valheim and a test profile, then use Gale's local mod import option. Required dependencies are declared in the manifest. Launch Valheim through Gale afterward.

Every player and the host/server need the same Forsaken Ascension version. Disable Passive Powers: it conflicts with this mod's blessing system. Epic Loot and Creature Level & Loot Control are optional; neither is required to use the progression and challenge system.

When moving from a manually installed beta to a manager-installed package, close Valheim first, back up the config/progress folder, and move the old manually installed ForsakenAscension.dll outside BepInEx/plugins. Keep only one active copy. Preserve your existing config and progression data.

The DLL belongs under BepInEx/plugins/ForsakenAscension. The main config is BepInEx/config/thema.forsakenascension.cfg. Mod progression and recovery data belong under BepInEx/config/ForsakenAscension; keep that folder with your world/character backups.

Progression loop

Defeat the normal boss and offer its trophy at the sacrificial stones.
Use that boss's summoning altar to choose an unlocked challenge tier and confirm its offering.
Defeat the challenge, collect its upgraded trophy and offer it at the sacrificial stones.
Upgrade that blessing and continue through five stars. Beaten tiers can be refought.

World altar upgrades and challenge unlocks are shared. Personal blessings depend on eligible participation; newcomers do not automatically receive everyone else's earned benefits. Eligible players can claim an already offered tier through the progression interface. Lower tiers never downgrade a stronger earned blessing.

The first naturally generated Queen uses a separate normal-encounter path; higher repeat challenges use the challenge system. Her dungeon behavior remains an important beta test area.

Blessings

These are default normal-to-five-star values, configurable by the host:

Boss	Benefits
Eikthyr	15–40% less running, jumping and swimming stamina use.
Elder	20–70% more chopping/mining damage and 5–20% more health regeneration.
Bonemass	8–25% physical damage reduction and 10–35% less blocking stamina use.
Moder	Favorable sailing wind, +25–100 carry capacity and 5–20% sailing speed bonus.
Yagluth	8–25% fire/frost/lightning reduction and 2–8% outgoing damage bonus.
Queen	15–65% eitr regeneration bonus and 15–40% less sneaking stamina use.
Fader	10–40% adrenaline generation bonus and 5–20% stamina regeneration bonus.

These features are implemented, but live balance and all sailing/adrenaline interactions are not fully validated. Native regeneration restrictions and defense handling remain relevant.

Cumulative boss moves

Each column is the new move unlocked at that star. Normal fights keep native attacks. Specials occur on cooldown, rather than on every attack.

Boss	1 star	2 stars	3 stars	4 stars	5 stars
Eikthyr	Antler Sweep	Forked Lightning	Echo Stomp	Storm Marks	Call of the Forest
Elder	Rootbreaker	Splinter Fan	Bramble Maze	Heartwood Ward	Forest Guard
Bonemass	Double Backhand	Rot Trail	Bone Volley	Carrion Call	Putrid Detonation
Moder	Claw Combo	Raking Breath	Frozen Crown	Mountain Gust	Shattering Winter
Yagluth	Cinder Ring	Sweeping Doom	Meteor March	Scorched Brand	Ember Ritual
Queen	Rending Follow-up	Acid Fan	Predator's Rush	Burrow Ambush	Royal Guard
Fader	Scorching Cleave	Forked Fissures	Ember Breath	Cinder Gate	Ashen Judgment

Break Elder's linked ward roots to remove protection. Break Moder's crystals before their bursts. Breaking Yagluth's emberstones weakens or cancels his ritual nova. Temporary special guards are capped, untameable and loot-free. Hazards have finite lifetimes.

After updating, choose fresh starred challenges to test the latest moves. Already accepted challenges and existing bosses retain their saved difficulty and moveset.

Configuration and difficulty

The packaged defaults use automatic world progression, not a creative-test override:

[Challenges]
ProgressionScalingEnabled = true
ChallengeStrength = 1
ProgressionStageOverride = -1

Starred rematches scale from each boss's own native stats and the highest defeated boss in the host's world. Later bosses have a native progression floor. Hard and applicable native difficulty rules remain relevant; enchantment strength is not automatically measured.

Each Challenges.<Boss> section provides separate health/damage, offering and reward curves. Each Movesets.<Boss> section enables or disables special moves for new challenges. Restart the host after edits. Accepted challenges keep their saved settings.

Epic Loot integration adds opportunities through its existing tables; drops are not guaranteed. Epic Loot's own configuration determines whether those tables produce equipment or materials. This package does not include or replace Epic Loot or CLLC configs.

Beta status and known issues

Fader: Ashen Judgment's final green guide is at 11m, but the damaging band reaches inward to approximately 9.8m on flat ground. Stay well inside the guide while testing. A boundary-alignment fix is pending.
Elder: ward-root health may make ignoring the protection more efficient than destroying both roots, especially solo. Balance refinement is pending.
Several projectile fans/sweeps share geometry. Further differentiation is being considered.
Live attack timing, uneven-terrain readability, Queen dungeon navigation, multiplayer ownership/transport, save/restart recovery and dedicated-server gameplay need broader validation.

The core suite passes 14,318 assertions. Isolated Unity/Mono checks cover scoped hooks, all thirty new remaining-boss scheduler paths, native attack clones, guard prefab spawning/caps, destructible props and Queen navigation on a controlled navmesh. Checks also pass without Epic Loot/CLLC. These are not completed live beta sessions or a guarantee of error-free gameplay. No real ten-player beta panel has been conducted.

Reporting a problem

Include the mod/game versions, boss and star tier, whether the challenge was freshly summoned, host type, solo/co-op, relevant equipment and what happened. Attach the affected profile's BepInEx/LogOutput.log. For progression/recovery issues, preserve the mod's config/progress folder so the saved evidence can be inspected before attempting a refund or reset.

Credits and development

Designed through player requests and developed with substantial AI assistance. Package artwork is AI-generated. Public Thunderstore listings should include the AI Generated category. BepInEx and Jotunn are external dependencies; game assets are provided by the installed Valheim game at runtime. The package does not redistribute the game or dependency DLLs.