Vikings for Hire

Hire Viking companions and workers. Build settlements. Pay your debts... or else.

Wandering Vikings now roam every biome. Talk to them, hire them for coin (or on a promise), take them into battle, or settle them at your base as lumberjacks, miners, farmers, cooks and more. Every Viking has a name, traits, loyalty, friendships and grudges. They level up and wear the gear you give them. And they really remember who didn't pay them.

Also on: Nexus Mods (images and full version history) · Thunderstore · Hexium — screenshots: Wiki → Screenshots — same files everywhere.

Languages: English, Latin American Spanish and Russian (follows the game language).

Status: actively developed. Please report bugs with your BepInEx/LogOutput.log (Thunderstore Mod Manager / r2modman: Settings → Browse profile folder → BepInEx).

New in 1.3.9: settlement raids, safer companions and readable speech

Foreign settlements no longer appear on the world's first day or anywhere in the Ashlands. At valid locations their chance now accumulates every 2 minutes until one appears, so an established world cannot stay empty simply because attempts were wasted near a base or lost to bad luck. The configured minimum distance from every settlement is still respected.

All non-hostile Vikings, including wanderers, avoid walking into Ashlands lava. If one still falls in, they return to the last safe ground instead of repeatedly collapsing there. Bridges, rocks and basalt platforms over lava remain usable.

Companions no longer disappear when entering a dungeon. They now transfer only after the destination floor is loaded. Existing Vikings with an old non-persistent world record are repaired automatically, and Y recall can recover an unloaded companion that the server still considered loaded by another peer.

NPC auto-looting and harvesting no longer play pickup sounds from a settlement simulated far away.

Friendly freeholder settlements can now be attacked, including their buildings. The whole settlement fights back; every friendly resident you or your companions kill lowers your global reputation.

Each hired trader can have a personal trading place. Choose Assign trading place in that trader's dialogue, then use any chair, stool, bench or throne inside the settlement. Different traders can use different furniture.

Nearby NPC dialogue now uses one shared queue, so Vikings do not speak over each other, and every line stays visible long enough to read.

The Y wheel now opens even if every nearby companion is knocked out. At Ease makes companions stop following and rest near the order point; they use free seats, tire and grumble during long service, and fatigue lowers mood. When you sleep, companions with free beds sleep too and wake fully rested with at least 80 mood.

Break orders now prioritize the exact object under the crosshair, so ore and rocks make Vikings use pickaxes instead of tools for nearby objects. Compatibility with Valheim Level System armor evaluation is fixed. If an NPC who gave you an active errand dies, the errand is cancelled without a failure or reputation penalty, even if you were offline.

Resident food needs are optional and disabled by default. Set FoodNeeds = true to make workers eat once per day from settlement chests not marked private. Hungry residents lose mood and grumble. FoodGluttony (1–10, default 1) controls portions per resident per day and increases feast food requirements by the same amount. Honey remains a separate need and is never counted as ordinary food.

New in 1.3.8: world spawn, localization and fixes

Foreign settlements can no longer appear within 200 m of the Sacrificial Stones. The exclusion check covers the complete terrain-shaping radius, including the outer slope, so a settlement cannot bury or block the central altar in a new world.

The mod is now fully localized into Latin American Spanish: interface, tutorials, jobs, dialogue and Viking speech. Select Spanish in Valheim to use it.

Workers and feasts now use ordinary Honey from settlement chests. Ranged NPC combat, PvP companion mortality and repeated pickup sounds from NPC auto-looting are fixed.

New in 1.3.0: settlement navigation rewritten from scratch

Most of this update went into one thing. The old navigation used the game's own navmesh, which is built for monsters walking over open terrain, not for player houses: it does not connect stairs through a floor opening or steep stepladders (no second floor), treats doors as solid walls (Vikings got stuck in rooms), cuts corners into sharp turns (they spun in place) and is not reliably rebuilt when you build or remove something (they climbed stairs that were already gone). Inside a settlement the mod now scans everything into its own map (ground, every floor, stairs, doorways) and Vikings walk smooth paths over it, between floors too. Where you walk is remembered as a trail and Vikings prefer it.

Also: farmers sow tilled ground over the whole base; work status names what is missing ("nothing to load: flax"); Vikings step off the bed after waking; a Viking stuck sitting stands up before walking. Full list in the changelog.

New in 1.2.0: modules

The mod is now a core plus optional modules, all in one archive:

• ValheimNpc.dll is the core and is always needed: the Vikings themselves, hiring, traits, mood, levels, the roster, the windows.
• ValheimNpc.Companions.dll: companions follow you and fight beside you, orders and the Y wheel, squad HUD, ships and portals.
• ValheimNpc.Settlement.dll: your settlements, the banner, jobs and work, homes, "lives without you".
• ValheimNpc.Factions.dll: foreign settlements. Freeholder villages are friendly, outlaw camps are hostile, and bandits roam the roads.
• ValheimNpc.Traders.dll: traders, orders, debts.
• ValheimNpc.World.dll: world events such as bounty hunters, errands, the hermit, duels, refugees, the wandering smith and the aurora.

Delete the modules you don't want; they work in any combination. With no modules at all, everything is enabled, just like before. In multiplayer, the server and all players need the same set.

Performance: the "PerformanceMode" setting (High / Balanced / Low) and a "Measure load" button in "8 - Debug" that writes a timing table to LogOutput.log.

Features

Wandering Vikings

• Peaceful travellers appear in every biome, with random looks, Norse names and biome-appropriate gear (from flint axes in the Meadows to Deep North gold). Some of them are archers or mages.
• Press E to talk: hire for coin, promise to pay later, pay them to vouch for you, or ask for an errand (fetch items, hunt creatures, bring a trophy). Complete it and they will join you at half price.
• Trust (-100..100) is stored on your character. Keep your promises: break one and the Viking turns on you with +200% damage and armor. Sink low enough and bounty hunters come for you.

Companions

• One squad slot for each boss defeated in the world (Eikthyr gives 1, The Elder gives 2, and so on).
• Squad orders with the game's own radial menu (Y): follow, formation, wait, guard, patrol, attack (a target or a spot), passive/aggressive, retreat, collect loot, chop trees, break rocks, ore, stumps and foreign buildings (never yours), and "Do as I do": whatever you hit, they help you hit.
• Combat roles: melee, tank (taunts, takes less damage), archer, healer (heals, revives fallen allies and keeps her distance; a coloured glow lets you spot her), mage (carries a real Wisplight that clears Mistlands fog), berserker.
• They level up (up to 20), carry a 200-weight bag, and wear the best gear you put in it. (Parrying and dodging were tried, but checking every nearby swing and arrow for every viking several times a second cost too much performance, so they are switched off in 1.2.0.)
• Downed instead of killed: revive them with E, or they get up by themselves.
• They follow you through portals (same rules as you), into dungeons, onto ships and on horseback. They catch up if left behind, and you can summon the whole squad from anywhere.
• They never push you or block corridors: players walk through them.

Settlements and workers

• Place a Settlement Banner (Hammer, Misc tab) anywhere. Give a Viking up to three jobs and he becomes a worker at that settlement: lumberjack, miner, gatherer (incl. honey), farmer, stoker, repairer, cook, brewer, sorter, hunter, animal keeper, guard.
• Workers use real tools and tool tiers, fell trees away from your buildings, sort their haul into your chests (like goes with like), sleep at night in their own beds, and grumble when they lack a bed, warmth or honey.
• During a raid, everyone in the area defends the base.
• Roster (J): every Viking you own, anywhere in the world, even in unloaded areas. See where they are, what they are doing and their health. Click a row to show them on the map, dismiss them remotely (their bag comes back to you), and cancel your current errand.
• Map pins, a squad HUD and small status icons above heads (sleeping, injured, cold, no honey, idle...).

Traders

• About one in ten wanderers is an unarmed trader with a proper trade window: his biome's goods (and the earlier biomes') on the left, what he'll buy from your bag on the right.
• Invite him to your settlement: he runs his stall by your banner and needs a bed. His daily fee is 1 coin in the Meadows, 2 in the Black Forest, 3 in the Swamp, and so on, and it goes on your tab.
• Let the tab reach 30 days and he comes to collect. He follows you everywhere, and if you still don't pay... he kills you. Then he waits a day and does it again. Paying even part of it sends him back to his stall.

Personality

• Traits: Sturdy, Strong, Sharpshooter, Berserk, Coward, Swift, Hard-worker, Lazy, Sweet tooth, Sleepyhead, Greedy, Modest, Cheerful, Grumpy, Lucky.
• Loyalty (devoted Vikings hit harder) and friendships and rivalries between your Vikings, with banter and the occasional shouting match.
• They react to your emotes, and raise a toast with you at a feast.

Controls

• E: talk / hire / trade / revive
• Y: squad orders (radial menu); with nobody nearby it summons your squad
• J: roster of all your Vikings
• ': settings (Configuration Manager); section "8 - Debug" has test buttons (spawn a Viking or trader, etc.) for single player, hosts and admins

Requirements

Installed automatically by Thunderstore Mod Manager / r2modman:

• BepInExPack for Valheim
• Jotunn, the Valheim Library
• YamlDotNet (ValheimModding)

Recommended: BepInEx Configuration Manager (for changing settings in game).

Installation

• Mod manager: click Install with Mod Manager (Thunderstore Mod Manager or r2modman).
• Manually: install BepInEx, Jotunn and YamlDotNet, then copy the contents of the plugins folder from this package into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/ValheimNpc/. Updating: copy over the old version.
• Hired Vikings are saved in the world; back up your world before the first run. No new world is needed: wandering Vikings, traders, freeholder villages and outlaw camps all appear around you while you play.

Multiplayer: every player and the server need the mod (the version is checked on connect). Settings are server-synced and only admins can change them.

Uninstalling: hired Vikings live in the world save and will not appear without the mod. Your trust value stays on your character.

Compatibility

Played together with TradersExtended, BetterArchery, CameraMod, FarmGrid, UnrestrictedPortals, EasySpawner and Configuration Manager. The trade window is the mod's own, so trade-overhaul mods don't interfere. Mods that change the vanilla radial menu may conflict with the Y menu.

Русский

Наёмные викинги. По всем биомам бродят викинги. С ними можно поговорить (E) и нанять за монеты или под обещание заплатить позже. Можно взять у них поручение. Их можно взять в бой или поселить на базе рабочими.

• Отряд: одно место за каждого побеждённого босса.
• Приказы через колесо (Y): за мной, строем, жди, охраняй, патруль, в атаку, не нападать, отступаем, собирать добычу, рубить, разломать и «Повторяй за мной».
• Роли в бою: танк, лучник, лекарь (лечит и поднимает раненых), маг (с настоящим туманоразгонником), берсерк.
• Спутники растут в уровнях и носят снаряжение из сумки (парирование и уворот пробовали сделать, но проверка каждого замаха и каждой стрелы у каждого викинга несколько раз в секунду давала слишком большую нагрузку — в 1.2.0 они выключены). Ходят с тобой через порталы, в подземелья, на корабли и верхом.
• Поселения: знамя (молот → «Прочее»). У рабочего может быть до трёх профессий: лесоруб, шахтёр, собиратель, фермер, истопник, ремонтник, повар, пивовар, кладовщик, охотник, животновод, стражник.
• Рабочие раскладывают добытое по сундукам, спят в своих кроватях и ворчат без тепла и мёда. В набег базу защищают все.
• Реестр (J): все твои викинги по всему миру. Отсюда можно показать викинга на карте, уволить его издалека и отменить поручение.
• Торговцы: своё окно торговли. Торговца можно позвать в поселение за плату в день по его биому (Луга — 1 монета, Тёмный лес — 2…). Плата идёт в долг. Долг в 30 дней — торговец приходит за деньгами, а если не заплатить, убивает, и так каждые сутки.
• Характер: черты, верность, дружба и вражда между викингами, реакция на эмоции.
• Доверие: нарушил обещание — кредитор мстит (+200% к урону и броне). При плохой славе приходят охотники за головами.

Модули (1.2.0): ядро ValheimNpc.dll нужно всегда. Модули (спутники, своё поселение, чужие поселения, торговцы, события мира) ставь только нужные, они работают в любом наборе. Если модулей нет совсем, работает всё. В мультиплеере набор модулей у сервера и всех игроков должен совпадать. Подробно — в README.txt в архиве.

Нужны: BepInExPack for Valheim, Jotunn и YamlDotNet (его требует Jotunn). В мультиплеере мод нужен всем игрокам и серверу.

Настройки: клавиша ' (на русской раскладке — Э). Язык мода — как у игры (английский, латиноамериканский испанский или русский).