
Runebourne
Rune spirits that farm, plant, fell trees, haul, mine and craft for you, and sea serpents that carry cargo.Runebourne
Summon rune spirits that farm, plant, fell trees, haul, mine and craft for you, and tame sea serpents that carry cargo between your harbours.
Early Access. Runebourne is playable from start to finish, but it is still being tested. Back up your world before you install it (see Before you install).
Getting started
- Build Skald's lectern from the Hammer (Misc tab). Read it to see what each biome opens and what to do next.
- Craft the command wand at a workbench (Wood 5, Resin 2, Flint 2). Right-click with it to open the Runebourne build menu, where every shrine and structure is.
- Build a worker's shrine, then craft that worker's summoning stone. Look at the shrine and press the stone's hotbar key to summon the worker.
- Press E on a shrine to set it up. With the command wand, left-click a worker and then click chests to link them.
Workers, upgrades and recipes unlock as your world progresses: beat a biome's boss and enter the next biome. The lectern shows what is open now.
Workers
| Worker | Shrine | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Herdwarden | Herdwarden shrine | Harvests your spare boars, deer, wolves and lox and keeps the number you set alive. Named animals and young are safe. |
| Seedsower | Seedsower shrine | Plants, harvests and replants crops and berry bushes. Two per shrine. |
| Grovetender | Grovetender shrine | Plants saplings and fells grown trees. Two per shrine. |
| Haulwright | Haulwright shrine | Carries items along routes you set, from a pick-up chest to a drop-off. Relays stretch its reach to far bases. |
| Orebringer | Orebringer shrine | Mines ore deposits and sunken crypts in range and delivers to your chests. Fit a pickaxe to the shrine. |
| Runekeeper | Any crafting station | Crafts, smelts and cooks at up to three stations near its home station (six with a Runekeeper chime). |
Each shrine has upgrades in the build menu that add workers, speed or cargo space.
Sea serpents
Craft a Lightning rune at the forge. Wear down a wild sea serpent below 10% health, equip the command wand and use the rune: there is a 50% chance to tame it. Ride it (E), or build two Serpent depots on the water, ride from one to the other with Record route, and switch it to carry cargo. It then sails the route on its own, taking items from each depot's pick-up chests to the other depot's drop-off chests.
Also in the build menu and at the forge
- Deephold: a chest that stores one kind of stackable item in bulk (75 stacks, more with upgrades). Workers use it like any chest.
- Field rune: clears, levels and tills the ground around you for a farm.
- Rune of Renewal: refills a mined-out sunken crypt near an Orebringer shrine.
- Feeding trough: hungry animals nearby eat from it; Haulwrights can stock it.
- Chest names and filters: name any chest, and choose which items workers may put in it.
Requirements
- Valheim 1.0.20. A later game update may break the mod until it is patched.
- BepInExPack Valheim
- Jotunn and YamlDotNet
Install Runebourne on every player's game and on the server. Everyone must have the same version.
Before you install
- Back up your world. Steam keeps worlds in
AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local(or in Steam Cloud). - Removing the mod deletes its things. Without Runebourne, the game removes its shrines, workers, structures and items from your world as you visit each area, along with anything they hold: worker cargo and everything in a Deephold. Reinstalling does not bring them back. Items in ordinary chests are kept.
Known issues
- Multiplayer and dedicated servers are not tested yet. The mod is built for them, but expect more bugs there than in single player.
Reporting a bug
Report bugs at bugs.yohanb.tech. Reports and attached logs are private.
Include your Runebourne version, what you were doing, what you expected and what happened instead, and attach your log:
BepInEx\LogOutput.log in the game's folder (or your mod manager's profile folder). Send it right after the bug,
before restarting the game, because each start overwrites the log.
License
Copyright © 2026 yohanbh. All rights reserved. You may download Runebourne and play with it, alone or on a server. Please don't re-upload, modify or reuse it, in whole or in part, without permission.