PackBeasts

Saddlebags for every mount: craft a set, hang it on a saddled lox, asksvin, moose or horse, and it carries a chest of its own, so it finally earns its keep on a trip.

New: the Riding handle, a tiny saddle for every other tamed creature. Put it on your boar, wolf, bear or troll and ride it.

How to use

1. Craft Saddlebags at a workbench (8 Leather scraps, 4 Deer hide, 10 Bronze nails). The recipe shows up once you've had bronze nails, about when you can make OdinHorse's horse saddle.
2. Tame an animal you can ride and put a saddle on it.
3. Put the Saddlebags on your hotbar, look at the animal and use them (press their hotbar number), the same way you put on a saddle. A leather bag now hangs on each side, strapped to the saddle.
4. Look at the animal, or ride it, and press G: the normal chest window opens with 4×2 slots. Its hover text shows [G] Saddlebags and how many items are inside.
5. Shift + G takes empty bags off again, and you get the Saddlebags back.

Every rideable creature can carry bags: Lox, Asksvin, Moose (and the spirit caller's moose), OdinHorse's horse, and any creature another mod lets you saddle, including mods you add later. You can add creatures that can't wear a saddle in the config too; they only need to be tamed.

Riding handle

A small leather grip that works like a saddle on any tamed creature that can't wear one: boars, wolves, bears, Ulvs, trolls, skeletons, and anything a taming mod (like LetMeTameYou) lets you tame.

1. Craft a Riding handle at a workbench (4 Leather scraps, 2 Deer hide).
2. Tame the creature, put the handle on your hotbar, look at the creature and use the handle, the same way you put on a saddle.
3. Look at the top of its back (or its shoulders or head, wherever the handle is) and press E to ride. You steer and run like on a lox, with the same stamina bar. Shift + E there takes the handle off again ("Remove handle"). Looking lower at the creature still lets you command, pet or name it.

• It barely shows: just a small leather grip in front of where you sit.
• You hold it: while you ride, the grip's bar is in your hands and its two straps reach down to the pad on the creature, following your hands as they move with the riding pose. A weapon or tool you hold is put away when you get on and taken out again when you get off. Other players see their riders holding it too.
• It stays put: the handle and your seat are fixed to the creature's own body and move with it when it walks or runs. The grip doesn't rock with breathing and steps, and on upright creatures (Fenring, troll) it sits on the neck, not on the head, so it doesn't swing when they look around.
• Fitted to each creature: for every creature in the game, the spot, the height of your seat and the riding pose were worked out from the creature's real model in its idle pose. On narrow backs (boar, wolf) you ride leaning forward like on an asksvin, on medium ones upright like on a moose, and on very wide ones, or sitting on the shoulders of upright creatures like trolls and skeletons, like on a lox. Creatures from other mods are fitted from their skeleton.
• Pick the spot: on the back (default), on the shoulders, or on the head, for all creatures or per creature (Spot per creature, for example Troll:Head).
• Your mounts keep their saddles: lox, asksvin, moose and modded mounts like OdinHorse's horse use their own saddle, as before.
• No saddlebags hang on a riding handle. A creature you've listed under Creatures can still carry bags, but they don't need or show a saddle.
• If the creature dies, the handle drops on the ground, like a saddle. When you get off, you land beside the creature, not on top of it.

Riding

On any mount, with a riding handle or a saddle (lox, asksvin, moose, a modded horse):

• All its attacks: left click uses the animal's quick attacks and right click its heavy ones, a different one each press when it has several. A troll punches on left click and slams the ground or throws a stone on right click; a lox bites and stomps; a fenring claws and leaps. Which is quick or heavy comes from how often the animal uses each on its own.
• Jump makes the animal jump. Crouch gets you off, and so does E while you look at nothing.
• Stamina: attacks and jumps use the mount's stamina (the bar beside its icon): a quick attack 8% of it, a heavy one 15%, a jump 5%, less with riding skill. A tired mount doesn't attack until it has rested. Stamina refills from empty in about 30 seconds of rest (twice that when the mount is hungry), instead of the game's slow refill.
• A troll can pick up a log: fell a tree, ride your troll to the trunk, look at it and press E. The troll picks the log up and fights with it like a log-carrying troll, swinging it from the side and from above. It keeps the log, also after you log out.
• Use things while riding: open doors and chests, pick berries and mushrooms, pick up items and use a workbench without getting off. Your own mount is skipped when you look around.

Jump and attack, and using things, can each be turned off (6 - Riding); then the game's own rule applies, where jumping, attacking or dodging gets you off.

Safety

• Animals that already had items in their bags before the bags had to be crafted keep their bags, so nothing is ever out of reach.
• If the animal dies, everything in its bags drops on the ground, and so do the bags themselves.
• You can't take the bags off while they hold anything, and you can't take the saddle off (Shift + E on the saddle) either.
• When an empty saddle comes off, the bags come off with it.
• PortablePals: an animal kept in a palstone keeps its bags and what's in them. PackBeasts adds anwo_pb_bags,items to PortablePals' Mod ZDOs setting for you.

Settings (anwo.PackBeasts.cfg)

Setting	Default	What it does
Creatures	Rideable, Lox, Asksvin, Moose, Moose_spiritcaller, rae_OdinHorse	Creatures that can carry bags. Rideable = every creature that can wear a saddle; the names are today's rideable creatures (restart to apply)
Bags must be crafted	true	Animals only carry bags after you put Saddlebags on them. Off = every listed animal has bags (the 1.0 behaviour). The host's setting counts
Saddlebags recipe	LeatherScraps:8, DeerHide:4, BronzeNails:10	Cost of the Saddlebags at a workbench (restart to apply)
Require saddle	true	Animals that can wear a saddle only carry bags while saddled
Open key / Take off key	G / Shift + G	Open the bags; take empty bags off
Columns / Rows	4 / 2	Bag size (restart to apply). If you make the bags smaller, a bag with items in the removed slots keeps those slots until they're emptied
Name	Saddlebags	Title of the bag window
Window close distance	10	The window closes when the animal is further away than this (m)
Show bags on the animal	true	A leather bag on each side of the saddle
Bag size, Bag offset sideways / up / back	1, 0 / 0 / 0	Size and position of the bags on every animal
Bag tilt / turn / tip	0 / 0 / 0	Rotation of the bags on every animal, in degrees: tilt swings their bottoms out (+) or in (-), turn swings their front ends out or in, tip lowers or raises their front ends. Both sides mirrored
4 - Bag look per animal	Lox 2, -0.2, 0, 0 (others set to match)	Size, out, up, back, tilt, turn and tip for each rideable creature (Lox, Asksvin, Moose, ...), on top of the above

Riding handle (5 - Riding handle)

Setting	Default	What it does
Riding handles	true	The Riding handle can be made and put on. Off: no new handles (ones on creatures keep working). The host's setting counts (restart to apply)
Handle recipe	LeatherScraps:4, DeerHide:2	Cost of the Riding handle at a workbench (restart to apply)
Handle spot	Back	Back, Shoulders or Head. On upright creatures (trolls, skeletons) Back and Shoulders both mean the shoulders
Spot per creature	(empty)	Own spot for some creatures, for example Troll:Head, Wolf:Shoulders
Rider pose	Auto	Auto picks the asksvin, moose or lox riding pose by how wide the creature is; or use one of them everywhere
Seat height / Seat forward	0 / 0	Move the rider up/down and towards the head/tail (m), on every creature
Handle size	1	Size of the leather grip (only on your screen)
Show handle	true	Show the grip on the creature (only on your screen)
Hold the handle	true	Riders hold the grip: its bar goes into their hands and the straps stretch to it; what you hold is put away while you ride. Each player for themselves

Riding (6 - Riding)

Setting	Default	What it does
Jump and attack	true	Each player: while riding, jump makes the mount jump, left click its quick attacks, right click its heavy ones; crouch gets you off. Off: jumping or attacking gets you off, as in the game
Use things while riding	true	Each player: open doors and chests, pick things and use stations while riding. Off: you can't use anything while riding, as in the game
Attack stamina	8	Share of the mount's stamina a quick attack costs, in percent (riding skill lowers it, down to half). Set by the host
Heavy attack stamina	15	The same for a heavy attack. Set by the host
Jump stamina	5	The same for a jump. Set by the host
Stamina refill time	30	Seconds a resting, fed mount needs from empty to full stamina (twice as long when hungry); 0 = the game's own slow refill. Set by the host
Trolls pick up logs	true	A ridden troll picks up a fallen log with E and fights with it. Set by the host

Changes to the look settings made in Gale while the game runs show on the animals within a second, and the riding handle settings change right away (a creature someone is riding changes when they get off).

How it works

The riding handle is the game's own saddle with a tiny look: the game does the riding, controls, stamina and taking it off. PackBeasts decides where on the creature it sits and makes the top of the back the place you look at to ride. A mount's jumps, attacks and stamina are handled by the player whose game runs that animal (its owner), so they work for everyone in multiplayer. A troll's log is saved on the troll.

The bags are the game's own chest system attached to the animal. Items are saved with it, multiplayer ownership works like a chest, and two players can't open the same bags at once. Container mods that only use player-built chests (such as AzuAutoStore and AzuCraftyBoxes) leave the bags alone.

Multiplayer

Everyone needs the mod, so that all players see and can use the same bags and handles.

Removing the mod

Items stay saved on the animal but can't be reached until the mod is installed again. Empty the bags first if you plan to remove it. Riding handles on creatures disappear with the mod (take them off first if you want them back as items), and handles in your inventory are removed by the game.

About

Made with Claude (Anthropic's AI model) and tagged AI Generated, as Thunderstore's rules ask. Built for Valheim 1.0.17 (Deep North; also 1.0.16) with BepInEx 5.4.2351 and Jotunn 2.30.2.