HardHeim

Odin's world, just brutal.

HardHeim is a Valheim difficulty mod built with BepInEx and Jötunn. It makes progression more demanding through heavier copper ore, a custom death penalty for skills, and dark crypts that require a handheld light source.

Features

• Copper Ore Weight: Configure the weight of copper ore on the server.
• Surtling Core Weight: Configure the weight of Surtling Cores on the server (defaults to 150 kg).
• Crypt Surtling Core Scarcity: Burial Chambers contain at most 1 Surtling Core (configurable spawn chance, defaults to 30%).
• Custom Death Penalty: Skills below level 50 use percentage-based loss; skills from level 50 use fixed reductions, with a smaller reduction at level 60 and above.
• Dark Crypts and Caves: Ambient lighting, environmental light, fog, and dungeon light sources are disabled indoors, making handheld lighting necessary for exploration.
• Enhanced Handheld Lights: Player torches and Dvergr lanterns have adjusted light intensity and range while inside dark interiors.
• Lighting Note: Camera zoom can affect the perceived brightness and range of handheld lights because Valheim adjusts light detail based on distance.
• Lightning Strikes: During thunderstorms, players out in the open (not under a roof) risk being struck by lightning, with a higher chance while on a ship. A struck player's health drops to 10, with a screen message and a visible bolt effect seen by everyone nearby, followed by a per-player cooldown before it can happen again.
• Server Synchronization: Configuration is synchronized to clients, and every player must have the mod installed.
• Storm Ship Damage: Ships take configurable damage during severe storms, but are protected in shallow water so they do not take damage while close to shore.

Installation

The easiest way to install HardHeim is using a mod manager like r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager.

Manual Installation

1. Ensure you have BepInEx and Jötunn installed.
2. Download the HardHeim.zip archive.
3. Extract the contents and move HardHeim.dll into your Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/ folder.

Configuration

After launching the game once, edit the generated configuration file:

BepInEx/config/com.valheim.hardheim.cfg

• Ore Weights -> CopperOre: accepts 0.1 to 1000 (default 50).
• Ore Weights -> SurtlingCore: accepts 0.1 to 1000 (default 150).
• Crypt Loot -> SurtlingCoreChance: percent chance 0 to 100 (default 30).
• Storm Ship Damage -> ShallowWaterDepth: storms do not damage ships when the seabed is close below them; this protects boats in shallow water and near shore.
• Lightning Strikes -> Enabled: toggles lightning strikes entirely (default true).
• Lightning Strikes -> LandChancePercent: percent chance 0 to 100 per check while on land during a thunderstorm (default 0.5).
• Lightning Strikes -> ShipChancePercent: percent chance 0 to 100 per check while on a ship during a thunderstorm (default 1).
• Lightning Strikes -> CheckIntervalSeconds: how often the strike chance is rolled per player (default 130).
• Lightning Strikes -> CooldownSeconds: minimum time after being struck before a player can be struck again (default 120).
• Lightning Strikes -> ThunderstormEnvironments: comma-separated environment names that count as a thunderstorm (default ThunderStorm).

Death penalty behavior is built in and is not currently configurable.