Skald

Skald replaces Valheim's Start Game window with its own, and replaces the title screen logo and the menu music with files of your choosing.

It ships set up for the Guys Being Vikings server, so the logo and track you get out of the box are ours. Both are meant to be swapped for your own.

The Start Game Window

Click Start Game as you always have. There is no hotkey and nothing to switch on.

Your worlds and the server list run down the left, and everything about the one you picked fills the right, which is where Valheim gives you nothing at all.

Everything the game's own window can do is here, so you never end up back in it: making and removing worlds, world modifiers, managing saves, hosting options, and the full server browser.

Worlds

Pick a world to see its seed, where it is stored, and whether you are about to host it.

New asks for a name and a seed, with a button to roll a different one.

Modifiers opens the same presets and settings Valheim offers: Casual through Hardcore, Hammer Mode, Immersive, and the individual sliders for combat, death penalty, resources, raids and portals, plus the toggles for things like no build cost and passive enemies.

Saves lists every save with its size and backups. You can move a save between your computer and cloud storage, delete old backups, and delete a save outright.

Remove deletes a world after asking you once.

Servers

The four lists Valheim uses are a rail down the left with live counts, so you can see at a glance how many servers are in each. They are the same lists the game uses, so your favourites and recent servers are shared with it.

Sorting. Sort by name, players, version or whether a server is up, and click again to reverse. Valheim's browser cannot sort at all.

More servers. The community list shows everything that comes back. Valheim's own browser stops at 200.

A Rejoin row at the top for the server you were last on, so getting back in after a crash is one click.

Version warnings. A server on a different game version is marked in the list and the reason is spelled out before you try, rather than after the join fails.

Nicknames and notes. Rename any server to something that means something to you. The name the host advertised stays visible, so a renamed row is still identifiable.

Favourites, and adding by address. Add a server by typing its address, and favourite or drop any entry.

Saved Passwords

Save a server's password once and Skald sends it for you. The password prompt stops appearing.

Passwords live in BepInEx/config/Skald/servers.json, which is its own file and deliberately not the mod's config file, because a config is what people paste into Discord when troubleshooting.

They are encrypted with your Windows account, so the file is useless on another machine or another user. If Windows encryption is unavailable the mod falls back to obfuscating them, says so in the log and in the window, and you should not save a password you use anywhere else.

Saving is per server and opt-in. There is a Forget Key button, and deleting the file forgets everything.

Using Your Own Logo and Music

Put your file in BepInEx/config/Skald/ and set its name in the config. That folder is checked before the one the mod ships with, so your file survives an update and you never have to edit the installed package.

The logo should be a PNG with a transparent background, around 1600px wide. It is fitted into the space Valheim's logo occupies, so any shape works without being stretched. The transparency matters because the logo sits over the forest and the campfire.

The music can be .ogg, .wav or .mp3. Ogg is recommended, as a wav of the same track is around ten times the size.

The Crowd

The vikings around the campfire are generated fresh each time the menu loads, with different hair, beards, colouring and armour. Nothing about them is saved.

They are placed clear of the fire, the rocks and your own character, and out of the line between your character and the camera.

Weedheim is optional. With it installed they carry its bongs and joints and blow smoke. Without it they appear empty handed. Skald does not depend on Weedheim and will not install it.

Turn the crowd off with Enabled under [Revel], or reduce it with Count.

Install

Client side only. Each player installs it themselves. There is nothing to install on a server, and a dedicated server has no title screen.

Compatibility

Any other mod that replaces the menu logo, the menu music or the Start Game window will conflict with Skald. Mods that only add to the main menu are fine, and nothing in game is affected.

The menu ambience is a separate sound and is left alone, so it plays over your music as it did over Valheim's.

Settings

BepInEx/config/gbv.valheim.skald.cfg

Section	Setting	Default	What It Does
[General]	Logo	true	Replace the title logo.
[General]	Music	true	Replace the menu music.
[Logo]	File	gbv_logo.png	Which image to use.
[Music]	File	gbv_menu.ogg	Which track to play.
[Music]	Volume	1.0	Music level, on top of your in-game music slider. Setting it above 1 does nothing if that slider is already near maximum.
[Browser]	Enabled	true	Replace the Start Game window. Off gives you Valheim's back.
[Browser]	Passwords	true	Send a saved password automatically. Turn this off to keep saved passwords but be asked each time.
[Revel]	Enabled	true	The crowd at the campfire.
[Revel]	Count	6	How many vikings.
[Revel]	Radius	3.0	How far out from your character they stand, in metres.
[Revel]	HotTub	true	The hot tub and the two sitting in it.
[Revel]	Props	true	Give them Weedheim's bongs and joints. Does nothing without Weedheim.
[Revel]	Bongs	2	How many carry a bong instead of a joint.
[Revel]	Smokers	2	How many of them blow smoke.
[Revel]	SmokeInterval	30	Seconds between smoke clouds. They take turns, so two never do it at once.

The console command skald_props reports what the crowd was able to find. Run it on the main menu if something is missing.

Is It Safe

Skald only acts on the title screen. It leaves nothing running once a world loads, and if any part of it fails, that part is skipped and Valheim's own window is used instead.

Three things are worth stating plainly, because this is no longer only decorative:

It stores a secret if you ask it to. A saved server password is written to BepInEx/config/Skald/servers.json, encrypted with your Windows account, as described above. Nothing is saved unless you save it.

It joins servers. That is the browser's job, and it joins only the one you click. It does not connect you to anything on its own and adds nothing to the game's own network traffic.

It can delete worlds and saves, because that window can. Every one of those actions is Valheim's own, called exactly as its buttons call it, and each asks you first.

Credits

The bundled menu track is original music written for Guys Being Vikings. It ships so the mod works out of the box and is not released for reuse. Point File at your own track to use something else.