Changelog

0.6.0

The Communion Rite is now a channeled struggle — you free a Dvergr by holding it through the rite while the corruption fights back.

• Hold to commune (no longer instant). Subdue a Dvergr to low health, then hold your Block button with the crosshair on it for a few seconds to complete the rite. The tooltip reads Hold [Block] — Communion.
• You can still fight while you do it. The rite runs on Block on purpose — your shield stays up, so you can keep blocking and dodge-roll through the vulnerable channel. A quick roll won't break it.
• It can fail. Lower your guard, stray too far (~4 m), or take an unblocked hit and the corruption reclaims the Dvergr — it turns hostile again and must be re-subdued. A blocked hit does no damage, so shielding up protects the rite.
• An accelerating pulse of light marks the ritual on both you and the Dvergr, quickening as it nears completion — no cluttered progress bar.
• G is now Feed only. Recruiting moved to the Block button; G still feeds an already-recruited companion. New settings under Recruitment: CommunionChannelSeconds (5), CommunionMaxDistance (4), CommunionBreakOnDamage (on).

0.5.0

Tournament formats, level-gated events, live standings — plus important fixes to how competitive data is saved.

• Three bracket formats — the host can now run a tournament as single elimination, double elimination, or round robin. Pick the format on the F7 panel with the new Type button (cycles through the three) before starting, or as the last argument of the start command.
• Level-gated entry — an optional setting (Tournaments / RequiredEntrantLevel, default off) restricts a tournament to companions of an exact level, so you can run events like a "Level 3 only" bracket. Entries that don't match are turned away.
• Companion name + level on the bracket — the tournament board and the F7 panel now show each entrant's companion level next to its name, in the entrant list and in every pairing.
• Live standings — while a tournament runs, the bracket view shows a standings table with each entrant's win–loss record (sorted for the active format — by wins for round robin, alive-first for elimination), and marks who's eliminated.
• Entrant cap — a configurable maximum (Tournaments / MaxEntrants, default 4); starting a tournament without a size, or with a larger one, now uses this cap.
• Full heal on summon — a companion is restored to full health the instant it's summoned for a match, so every round is a clean fight regardless of prior damage.

Fixes

• Competitive data was being silently lost — on the current game runtime, the engine's JSON serializer dropped list data (tournament entrants, ladder records) when saving and syncing. The result: a tournament could show 0 entrants to everyone even after players joined, and it wouldn't survive a server restart; ladder records were similarly at risk. Replaced with a dedicated serializer — entries now persist and sync correctly. If you run tournaments or ladders on a dedicated server, this fix is the reason to update.
• Tournament panel error after relogging — opening the F7 panel after a world reload could throw and come up half-built; it now rebuilds itself cleanly.
• Clicking the panel no longer swings your weapon or moves you — while the F7 panel is open, attack, movement, block, jump and camera are now fully blocked (a previous gate missed the attack/movement path on some setups, including when another input-hooking mod was present).
• View Bracket now refreshes — opening the bracket asks the server for the latest state first, so it can't show a stale, empty board.

0.4.0

Competitive UI + escrow tournaments — the ranking and tournament systems now have real in-game screens, and tournament entry works by locking a companion's totem into a slot.

• Ranking board (F6) — a read-only screen showing both the duel ladder and the party ladder (rank, rating, owner, W/L, team size). de_ladder / de_party_ladder still work.
• Tournament panel (F7) — status, entrants, and one-click controls: Lock Totem → Enter, Withdraw, View Bracket. Opens like a proper menu: mouse cursor free, camera and player actions blocked while it's up.
• Enter by totem — you register a companion by locking its Communion Totem into a slot. The totem is held (escrowed) for the tournament; when the admin activates a round your companion is summoned automatically to fight its assigned opponent, then resealed back into the totem (keeping any XP it gained). Totems are always returned — on withdraw, admin release, cancel, or when the tournament ends.
• Assigned pairings — a summoned companion only fights its own bracket opponent, so several matches can run at once without crossing over.
• Admin controls (admins only) — every setup command as a button: Start 1v1 / Start Party / Begin / Activate Round / Cancel, plus per-entrant Forfeit and Release. Admin actions are verified by the server, so they now work from a remote admin client (not just the host). New console subcommands: de_tournament withdraw | activate | release <name>.
• Party names — name your team with de_party_name <name>; it shows on the party ladder, the ranking board, and in announcements.
• Discord announcements (via the optional ServerGuide mod, with a webhook configured): every duel win (1v1, party, and tournament matches), every new #1 on either ladder, and the tournament champion.

Rankings & tournaments require Valheim ServerGuide 0.9.0+, which delivers every message and reward these systems produce — rank-up and "new #1" announcements, tournament join/pairing/champion messages, the prize bundles, and the Discord posts. Without it the ladders still record and F6 / de_ladder still show the standings, but nothing announces or rewards them. The guidance files come bundled in the Lost Scrolls II — Quest pack. (Discord additionally needs DiscordWebhookUrl set on the server.)

0.3.0

Competitive suite — duel rankings, party duels, party rankings, and tournaments — plus map improvements and compatibility fixes.

• Duel ladder (1v1) — every companion-vs-companion duel win is recorded on a persistent, server-authoritative ladder. Each companion has an Elo rating (shown as a rank on its name tag), with wins/losses, streaks, and seasons. de_ladder shows the standings; de_season_reset (host) starts a new season.
• Party duels — gather your nearby Follow-stance companions into a team (K) and fight another player's team. Non-lethal (members are benched, not killed); win by attrition, with team-size-scaled XP.
• Party ladder — a separate persistent ladder for team duels, keyed by owner with the companions that fought for it (de_party_ladder).
• Tournaments — a server-run bracket for both 1v1 and party formats (de_tournament start|join|begin|bracket|forfeit|cancel). Re-seeded single elimination, ordinary player-run matches, a champion prize, and a Hall of Champions (de_champions).
• Map pins — companion pins now use the player icon, tinted and smaller, so allies are easy to tell apart from your own marker (configurable color/size).
• Death markers — when one of your companions dies (with items or not), a named skull marker is dropped on your map where it fell.
• Fixes — the duel "double win" (a win could be announced/counted twice) is fixed; and the companion pack no longer conflicts with BiomeLords' chest-UI positioning (it now defers to BiomeLords, with a manual toggle).

Story, rankings and tournament guidance, and the Companion Handbook are delivered through the optional companion mod Valheim ServerGuide (bundled in the "Quest" pack).

0.2.0

Companion inventory — each recruited Dvergr now carries its own pack.

• Own 4×2 inventory, opened with Y while hovering your companion — a chest-style panel (your inventory + crafting + weight readout) that also carries a rename field and a live HP readout.
• Picks up loot it already carries (empty pack = nothing); combat takes priority over gathering.
• Eats food one at a time for a temporary max-HP boost (with a fed icon), drinks a health mead when hurt (below 35% HP, until 90%), and drinks poison/fire/frost resist meads for the matching resistance (shown as an icon above it).
• 150 weight cap — over it the companion stops picking up and won't attack (but still moves), with an encumbered icon.
• Drops its whole pack on death, and its pack rides along when sealed into a Communion Totem (restored on summon).
• Wood portals won't send you if a following companion is carrying a non-teleportable item (with a message naming the ally + item).
• ComfyQuickSlots compatible — the pack panel no longer hides the extra inventory row.

0.1.0

Initial release.

• Ally recruitment via the Communion Rite — subdue a Dvergr and press the Communion key (G) to free and recruit it. Rogue, Fire Mage, Ice Mage, and Support Mage castes, auto-detected. Recruit state persists across relogs and server restarts.
• Ally leveling — companions earn biome-/toughness-scaled kill XP from 1 to 10 on a rising curve, gaining health and damage plus per-caste bonuses. Gold ★N level badge and a hover readout.
• Commands — feed/heal with a health mead (G, any player), cycle Follow/Guard/Standby stance (E), rename (Y), and private per-player minimap pins.
• Chores — assign allies by caste to vanilla stations (H): Fire Mage smelting, Ice Mage refining, Support Mage cooking/brewing/farming/animal care, Rogue hauling. Persists across relogs and keeps working while you're away.
• Dvergr duels — non-lethal, multiplayer-only companion-vs-companion sparring (J) for bonus XP, with PvP immunity and auto stand-down.
• Communion Totems — seal Follow-stance companions into carriable totems at an Incinerator using Wisps, and summon them back with level/XP/name intact.
• Travel — Follow-stance allies board ships and teleport through portals with their owner.
• Ownership & threat — the recruiting player owns the companion; commands are owner-only (feeding is shared). Guard treats non-owners as threats; attacking a companion draws retaliation; a butcher-knife strike turns it feral.

Vanilla assets only — no custom models, textures, sounds, or asset bundles.

Story and an in-game Companion Handbook are delivered through the optional companion mod Valheim ServerGuide.