Nero

A very good boy for your Viking adventures.

Nero is a spawnable dog built on the vanilla Wolf: same AI, same animations, same follow/guard behavior — with a completely custom dog model. He's a bit smaller than a wolf, he arrives already tamed, he's invincible, and everyone on the server can see him on the map.

Vanilla wolves are not modified in any way. Nero is registered as his own creature.

Spawning

Console spawning only (no natural spawns):

1. In a world, press F5, type devcommands, then:

spawn Nero

He spawns tamed. His owner (see OwnerName below) interacts with him (E) to make him follow / stay; everyone else gets to pet him.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/com.tronn.nero.cfg

Setting	Default	Description
General / Scale	0.85	Nero's size relative to a vanilla wolf
General / Invincible	true	Nero takes no damage from anything. To remove him: enable devcommands and hit him yourself — only a direct player hit with devcommands on gets through
General / DamageMultiplier	0.25	Damage Nero deals to enemies (1.0 = full wolf damage)
General / MapPin	true	Show Nero on the map/minimap for every player running the mod
Ownership / OwnerOnly	true	Only the claiming player can command him
Ownership / OwnerName	Flyn	Only this character (case-insensitive) may claim and command Nero. Empty = first to interact claims him

How it works

The mod clones the Wolf prefab at runtime (via Jötunn), then rebuilds Nero's mesh from raw data and binds it to the wolf skeleton by bone name — no asset bundles, so it is resilient to game updates. All movement, combat, and tame behavior is the vanilla Wolf's.

Manual installation (non-mod-manager)

Copy the plugins/Nero folder into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/ so you have:

BepInEx/plugins/Nero/Nero.dll
BepInEx/plugins/Nero/nero_mesh.bin
BepInEx/plugins/Nero/nero_albedo.png
BepInEx/plugins/Nero/nero_normal.png
BepInEx/plugins/Nero/nero_map_icon.png

Requires BepInEx and Jötunn.

Dedicated server installation (Bisect Hosting etc.)

The mod syncs — server and all players need it (it declares network compatibility, version-strict to the minor: everyone must be on 1.4.x).

1. BepInExPack_Valheim and Jötunn on the server
2. Upload the plugins/Nero folder from this zip into the server's BepInEx/plugins/ (replace the old one)
3. Update the server's BepInEx/config/com.tronn.nero.cfg (or delete it and let it regenerate) so DamageMultiplier, Invincible and OwnerName match the new defaults
4. Restart the server; players join with the same mod version installed

Known issues (v1.4.0)

• The death ragdoll briefly shows a wolf shape
• Nero uses wolf sounds (howls included — he's proud of it)
• Jaw doesn't open separately during bite/eat animations
• The map pin shows Nero's live position while his area is loaded for you; otherwise it stays at his last known spot

Credits

Model: custom dog model (Meshy). Built with BepInEx + Jötunn.