Children of the Ancient Heart

An old-school exploration and puzzle quest for Valheim: a cult, a castle on a mountain top, a twelve-floor guildhall under it and something very large at the end.

🌐 Website: hypnomods.pages.dev/coah · 💬 Discord HypnoMODS

BETA: works in single-player, co-op and on a dedicated server, but bugs may still occur. Report them on the Discord HypnoMODS server (please add BepInEx/LogOutput.log).

Works with Better Archery (since 1.1.1): the backpack's row goes above the quiver rows, so arrows and backpack items no longer mix. Note that Extra Slots switches Better Archery's quiver off by itself.

For Mountains and beyond: bring Mountain-tier gear (about 70-80 armor, resistances, potions). No arrow tells you what to do next - explore, read, remember, come back.

At a glance

• Castle on a mountain top (one per world, own path, indestructible) and the Old Cultist Guildhall, a 12-floor dungeon under it
• 6 stone creatures, 3 cultists and 3 named mini-bosses (fire, frost, earth)
• 3 altars, 3 insignia, the Ancient Heart, the Old Mechanism and a 28 m stone colossus
• Astronikus: the boss, in his own cavern; rain of fire, burning floor, 10,000 HP.
• Cwanytyp: a gremlin trader with trophy contracts, rumours, oil and insignia
• Treasure: about 320 buried chests (Wishbone) and up to 300 crates and barrels of lost cargo at sea
• Heart Portal: a buildable portal to any portal of the world
• 4 backpacks: a lighter last row of the inventory, an extra row, portal and ship slots. Made from Leather Scraps and Midnight Thread
• 5 stone carvings (3 m) to build from Astronikus' letter, 50 stone each
• Server is the only authority: it draws, creates and fills everything. Everyone needs the same coah.dll

More pictures

How it goes

1. Find the castle (it shows on the map from about 500 m, or Cwanytyp marks it for you after a round of contracts once Bonemass is dead).
2. Dig up chests and cargo for the insignia and the mechanism's lever, cogwheel and oil; Cwanytyp pays in them too.
3. Repair the Old Mechanism; its portal opens the guildhall.
4. Put each insignia into its altar (E) and kill the three guardians.
5. The Ancient Heart opens the way to Astronikus. He leaves a Heart of Astronikus (builds the Heart Portal).

Spoilers are in COAH-player-guide.html.

Backpacks

Worn in the utility slot. Leather Scraps and Midnight Thread come from Cwanytyp's contracts; the recipe appears once you hold either. All at a workbench:

Backpack	Workbench	Cost	Gives
Basic	3	20 Leather Scraps, 10 Deer Hide, 10 Midnight Thread, 5 Thistle	last inventory row 20% lighter
Enhanced	4	Basic + 15 Scraps, 10 Thread, 1 sack of dust	the same, plus portal slots
Superior	4	Enhanced + 20 Scraps, 15 Thread, 2 sacks of different colours	+1 row, 20% lighter
Masterwork	5	Superior + 25 Scraps, 20 Thread, 3 sacks (blue, green, red)	+1 row, 25% lighter, slots for portal and ship materials

Sacks of magic dust (workbench 4, recipe appears once you hold the key): an altar insignia ground up with 5 Crystal - Frostpeak Aegis + 20 Greydwarf Eye = blue, Emerald Crystal Cluster + 5 Guck = green, Emberforge Key + 10 Surtling Core = red. An upgrade takes the backpack below with it; what lies inside goes over.

Installation

• BepInExPack Valheim is required.
• r2modman: find Content_Ancient_Cult, Download with dependencies, Start modded. Manual: put coah.dll into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/.
• New world: castle, dungeon and chests appear by themselves. Existing world: enable devcommands and run coah world refresh (admin; adds the castle, dungeon and chests that are missing, leaves the rest).
• Multiplayer: the server and every player use the same coah.dll (others are disconnected). Config: BepInEx/config/p0kahontazz.coah.cfg.

Important commands (admin, devcommands)

Command	What it does
coah	list of all commands
coah world refresh	add what a played world lacks (castle, dungeon, chests); nothing is wiped
coah goto castle | dungeon | heart | arena | trader | chest | cargo	teleport
coah castle create [here] | destroy | info	make or remove the castle
coah boss summon | renew	call Astronikus / bring him back as new
coah spawn <creature> [1-10]	spawn a creature (coah lists them)
coah items [list | 1-50]	every item of the mod into your inventory
coah chests info | generate | clear	treasure chests (generate makes them all anew)
coah trader show	Cwanytyp now, without waiting for day 15
coah keys [reset], coah rumor	the key clock, a rumour on the map

Credits

Owner / developer: P0KAHONTAZ. The castle and its blueprints were created and freely shared by members of the Valheimians community; the designs remain the work of their creators. A sincere thank you to the Valheimians builders: without them this mod would not exist. Music of the Sentinels: the author's own.

My other mods

• ImmersiveTrader - 14 traders, contracts, cargo, reputation, scrolls and 47 story quests.
• Roots & Remedies - smoked and dried food, a herb garden and improved potions.
• Advanced Backpack - four backpacks: lighter inventory rows, an extra row, portal and ship slots.
• Advanced Portal - one buildable portal that leads to any portal in your world.

ImmersiveTrader and Roots & Remedies work on their own and together with this mod. Advanced Backpack and Advanced Portal are not compatible with it (they overlap with its backpacks and Heart Portal): do not install them together.

Permissions & Usage

Children of the Ancient Heart code is All Rights Reserved unless explicitly stated otherwise. The released mod may be used for personal, private and non-commercial gameplay, alone or with friends. Redistribution, re-uploading, repackaging, modified or derivative releases, reuse of the code, commercial use or monetization require prior written permission from P0KAHONTAZ. Third-party assets remain subject to the rights and licences of their owners.