Bjørn's Hitching Post

Installation requirements

Where	Install the mod and its dependencies?
Dedicated server or player hosting the world	Required
Player building posts, attaching/releasing animals, or viewing ropes	Yes
Other players joining the world	No
Single-player	Install in your own mod profile

Modded participants must use 0.2.3, BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351, and Jötunn 2.30.2. Unmodded players need neither this mod nor its dependencies. Version 0.1.0 is incompatible with 0.2.3 and still requires every client to install it.

What unmodded players experience

Unmodded players can join and see the animals and an ordinary vanilla wooden pole. They do not see the custom decorations, name, build recipe, controls, or post ropes. Saved/networked posts use the existing wood_pole prefab, so no unknown assets are needed on their machines. Decorations add no extra collision geometry.

When no compatible modded simulator is nearby, tethered animals are held stationary under server ownership. They remain confined, but AI, combat, and active taming simulation pause. Roaming within the tether and taming resume when a modded player returns, or when the modded host is actively simulating that area. Vanilla timers based on world time may catch up on resuming; this does not add off-screen taming. Vanilla clients cannot enforce this mod's restraint rules.

Marked posts also stay under compatible ownership to preserve resource refunds. Unmodded users cannot reliably remove/damage a held post or interact with a held animal when its server-side object is not loaded. Use a modded player to manage posts. This is a mixed-group mod, not a fully featured server-only experience.

Using the post

1. With the mod installed, build Bjørn's Hitching Post from the hammer's Furniture menu near a workbench. Cost: 10 Fine wood + 10 Bronze nails.
2. Hit an eligible animal with the Abyssal Harpoon. The modded harpoon holder temporarily takes simulation ownership. Their eligible-animal hit applies the real harpoon effect without damage or knockback. Friendly pets can be harpooned without enabling PvP on a modded client.
3. Bring it within five meters of the post while your harpoon line remains attached.
4. Look at the post and press Use (E by default). Only a creature carrying your active harpoon tether can be transferred. On entering an area, allow a moment for ownership to move from the server before interacting.
5. Your player line ends and a rope connects the animal to the post. Multiple animals can share a post, each within five meters of its base.
6. Shift + Use releases that post's animals. Release before riding or transporting an animal away.

Food, calmness, and the normal taming duration are still required. Actively simulated animals can become alarmed, attack, and damage the post. The post has 1,000 health. Post ropes consume no player stamina. Player-held harpoons retain normal stamina and release rules.

The harmless-harpoon enhancement applies to modded participants; do not assume an unmodded player's harpoon hits are harmless. Unmodded players cannot initiate the mod's transfer interaction.

Eligible creatures

Eligibility uses the game's Tameable component or a young creature's Growup path to a tameable adult. Players and bosses are excluded.

• Boars and piggies
• Wolves and wolf cubs
• Lox and lox calves
• Asksvin and asksvin hatchlings
• Moose and moose calves
• Hens and chickens

Tameable summoned companions also qualify: Skeleton_Friendly and spiritcaller variants of boar, wolf, moose, and bjorn. Their native lifetime/dismissal logic is not rewritten, but simulation pauses under the stationary fallback. Ordinary wild bjorn, deer, necks, trolls, eggs, and other non-tameable creatures cannot be hitched. Star levels do not restrict eligibility. Modded creatures must expose the same components; custom species themselves may require additional client mods.

Persistence, permissions, and upgrading

Attachments are saved with the animal and transferred when it grows. Ward checks use the interacting player's identity. Outside wards, nearby modded players can release a post's animals. A destroyed post's links are cleared after a 15-second missing-post grace period to tolerate late packets.

Install for testing

Server: install this package plus BepInExPack Valheim and Jötunn through your server host's Thunderstore mod selector. Check that the host installs both dependencies. Restart the server after installation. For manual installation into an existing BepInEx setup, copy the included plugins/BjornsHitchingPost folder into BepInEx/plugins and install the listed dependencies separately.

Modded players: install this package through Thunderstore Mod Manager/r2modman in a separate Valheim test profile. The manifest declares both dependencies. Launch through that profile. Other players may use stock Valheim.

References

• Jötunn creature component catalog, generated from Valheim 1.0.7, including Deep North animals.
• Jötunn network compatibility: this version uses ServerMustHaveMod and patch-version matching for modded participants.
• Thunderstore package requirements.
• Local Valheim 1.0.16 assemblies were inspected for harpoon, growth, ownership, serialization, and ward APIs.

Unofficial community mod; not an Iron Gate product. Game and dependency DLLs are not redistributed.