Cheb's Necromancy
Cheb's Necromancy adds Necromancy to Valheim via craftable wands and structures. Minions will follow you, guard your base, and perform menial tasks like woodcutting, farming, mining.
This mod was formerly called Friendly Skeleton Wand, but was renamed since it as grown into something so much more.
Confused? Try the wiki.
About Me

I'm a YouTuber/Game Developer/Modder who is interested in all things necromancy and minion-related. Please check out my YouTube channel and if you like the work I do and want to give back, please consider supporting me on Patreon or throwing me a dime on Ko-fi. You can also check out my website where I host information on all known necromancy mods, games, books, videos and also some written reviews/guides.
Thank you and I hope you enjoy the mod! If you have questions or need help please join my Discord.
Bisect Hosting
I'm partnered with Bisect Hosting to give you a discount when you use promocode chebgonaz.

Reporting Bugs & Requesting Features
If you would like to report a bug or request a feature, the best way to do it (in order from most preferable to least preferable) is:
a) Create an issue on my GitHub.
b) Write to me on Discord.
c) Write a comment on the Nexus page.
Requirements

• Valheim
• BepInEx
• Jotunn
  

Installation (manual)

• Drag the contents of the plugins folder from inside the archive to your BepInEx plugins folder in the Valheim directory.
  

Cheb's Valheim Library
Cheb's Valheim Library (CVL) is a DLL that contains shared code across my mods. For example, both skeletons from Cheb's Necromancy and mercenaries from Cheb's Mercenaries inherit the ChebGonazMinion type from CVL. This permits mercenaries to be commanded by a wand, and vice versa.
My mods are bundled with the latest CVL at the time of their release, but if you want to upgrade, you can get the newest CVL here.
Features
Detailed info in the wiki. Here's the short version:

• Almost everything is configurable. Minions too weak/overpowered? Tweak them.
• Player vs Player (PvP) settings can be configured as of 4.5.0.
• Craftable items at the workbench and forge:
  
  • Skeleton Wand: Summons skeleton warriors, archers, miners, and woodcutters.
  • Draugr Wand: Summons draugr warriors and archers.
  • Orb of Beckoning Summons skeleton mages and can be thrown to direct minions to go somewhere. It also sticks to enemies so that minions will chase after an enemy.
  • Spectral Shroud: A cloak that increases your Necromancy level, looks cool, and attracts spirits to it. If you're powerful enough, they will serve.
  • Necromancer Hood: A cool hood to match the cloak.
  • Necromancer's Backpack: An optional integration with AdventureBackpacks (Nexus, Thunderstore), which offers a Necromancy backpack that doubles as a Spectral Shroud.
    
• While holding a Skeleton Wand, Draugr Wand, or Orb of Beckoning you can control the minions:
  
  • B will make a minion.
  • H will cycle minion types (eg. switch from Warrior to Archer) created by B.
  • F will make all nearby minions follow you.
  • T will make all nearby minions wait.
  • Shift+T will make minions roam.
  • G will teleport all following minions to your position (useful if stuck or to get them on boats)
    
• A new Necromancy Skill which increases the quality of your minions and allows you to upgrade them.
• Minion health increases with Necromancy level.
• Minions ignore collision with the player so you won't be trapped.
• Minions do not deal damage to player structures and are not affected by sharpened stakes.
• Minions remember who created them and cannot be commanded by other players.
• Upgrades: Having additional items in your inventory when you summon can create an upgraded version of a minion. As a safety measure to prevent you from accidentally consuming stuff, hold Left Shift when creating a minion to permit these resources to be consumed (or set to None in the config if you want no checking whatsoever):
  
  • Boar scraps, Deer Hide, Scale Hide -> leather armor
  • Troll Hide -> Troll armor
  • Wolf Pelt -> Wolf armor
  • Lox Pelt -> Lox armor
  • Bronze -> Bronze armor
  • Iron -> Iron armor
  • Black Metal -> Black Iron armor
    
• Some minions require more than bones:
  
  • Guck -> poison skeleton
  • Surtling core -> skeleton mage
  • Flint -> skeleton lumberjack
  • Hard Antler -> Skeleton Miner
    
• New craftable structures:
  
  • Neckro Pylon: Spawns undead Neckro Gatherers from Neck Tails. These have a container on its back and wander around gathering up items for you. It's like a walking vacuum cleaner. When full, the Neckro will find a nearby container and dump the items inside.
  • Refueler Pylon: Fills your smelters with ores/coal; kilns with wood; fireplaces with wood and meat; and torches etc. with resin, guck, eyeballs, whatever.
  • Bat Beacon: Spawns bats to defend your base.
  • Spirit Pylon: Spawns spirits to defend your base.
  • Farming Pylon: Automatically harvests your crops. Combine with Seed Totem (Nexus, Thunderstore) to then automatically replant those seeds for an automated base.
  • Repair Pylon: Consumes resin to repair your structures.
  • Treasure Pylon: Organizes your chests in a rather chaotic way. By default only works on the basic wooden boxes but can be told to sort other things too via config. The idea is that Neckros haul all this stuff back, then the Treasure Pylon organizes it.
  • Phylactery: The player who creates the phylactery will be saved from death by being teleported to the phylactery rather than killed. Each rescue costs one dragon egg and if there are no dragon eggs loaded into the phylactery, then the player will die normally.
    

Config
Attention: To edit the config as described, the Configuration Manager is the most user friendly way. This is a separate mod. Please download and install it.
Press F1 to open the mod's configuration panel.
You can also edit the configs manually. Almost everything can be tweaked to your liking. For a complete list of all configuration options, please look here.
Known issues

• Players with Radeon cards may experience weird issues. I don't know what's causing it, but it's linked to the particle effects. You can switch them off by turning RadeonFriendly = true in the config.
  

Known Incompatibilities

• Soft incompatibility with slope combat fix because it can mess up worker minion aiming. Not a big deal - especially if you never use miners/woodcutters. As an alternative, you may consider Slope Combat Assistance because it only affects the player.
• Soft incompatibility with Ward is Love because it will identify workers as enemies and yeet them. As an alternative, you may consider using Better Wards.
• Soft incompatibility with Item Drawers Mod because the Neckro Gatherers try to pick the items out of the drawers.
  

Source
You can find the github here.
Special Thanks
A special thanks to the people who've helped me along the way:

• Developers
  
  • Dracbjorn - Extensive work on the configuration files & parsing (including server-sync); general help & testing.
  • CW-Jesse - Refinements and improvements on networking code and minion AI; general help & testing.
  • WalterWillis - Improvements to Treasure Pylon & Testing.
  • jneb802 - Finding and fixing a wrongly named sprite.
    
• Artists
  
  • Ramblez (aka Thorngor on the Nexus) - Most of custom textures and icons.
  • piacenti for the skull prop that I use as part of the phylactery.
    
• Translations
  
  • S970X - German language localization.
  • hanawa07 - Korean language localization.
  • 007LEXX - Russian language localization.
    
• Other
  
  • Hugo the Dwarf and Pfhoenix for advice and help for fixing the frozen minions problem.
  • Vapok and jdalfonso4341 for help with Adventure Backpacks integration.
  • redseiko for helpful advice on the official Valheim modding Discord.
  • Ogrebane for the spell effect sound.
  • Jetbrains for kindly providing me with an Open Source Development license for their Rider product which makes development on this project smooth and easy.
    

Changelog

Date | Version | Notes --- | --- | --- 07/01/2024 | 4.5.0 | PvP with friends as exceptions implemented via console commands.

Date | Version | Notes --- | --- | --- 22/12/2023 | 4.4.2 | Permit PvP - if enabled, minions will attack players and creatures that are not their owner. 29/11/2023 | 4.4.1 | Fix issue of configs not syncing reliably 22/11/2023 | 4.4.0 | Fix problem of phylactery not reliably working by overhauling its checking mechanism to be done via RPCs between server and client. 10/10/2023 | 4.3.2 | hildr's request changed Text to TextMeshProUGUI (the new Unity UI text), which broke the wand keyhints. This is now fixed 07/10/2023 | 4.3.1 | add custom two-sided shader that was missing from chebgonaz bundle which caused a pink wand 06/10/2023 | 4.3.0 | update for hildr's request; fix issue related to bat icon
23/08/2023 | 4.2.0 | update for new valheim patch 02/08/2023 | 4.1.1 | strengthen null checks in Phylactery patch 30/07/2023 | 4.1.0 | add phylactery that consumes dragon eggs when you die and teleports you back to its location 28/07/2023 | 4.0.0 | Workers should behave more realistically with gradual destruction of rocks, trees, etc. 23/07/2023 | 3.7.1 | Fix problem where the minion state wasn't getting localized in the hover text 22/07/2023 | 3.7.0 | Remove configurable Neckro Gatherer container size because containers have not been configurable since 3.3.1 (it resulted in a bug - see issue 100 on GitHub); add Russian translation 21/07/2023 | 3.6.2 | fix bug where onePerPlayer was set to true for character drops, which would result in incorrect resource amounts getting refunded 20/07/2023 | 3.6.1 | Add config option to make draugr quiet; update CVL to 2.1.1 13/07/2023 | 3.6.0 | Try to make workers behave better; update CVL to 2.1.0 to prepare for upcoming changes 21/06/2023 | 3.5.2 | Treasure pylon checks that Piece is not null before processing container 16/06/2023 | 3.5.1 | Option to toggle smoke effects off wraiths (some players getting blinded out here) 12/06/2023 | 3.5.0 | Update for new Valheim version 24/05/2023 | 3.3.2 | Functions created in 3.3.0 moved into Cheb's Valheim Library for Cheb's Mercenaries 24/05/2023 | 3.3.1 | Come up with a solution for issue 100 by removing ability to set custom container sizes. 18/05/2023 | 3.2.3 | Extra safe-guarding against null objects on m_piece and GetInventory when Neckro Gatherer is attempting to find containers. These things shouldn't ever be null as far as I understand - but other mods can do wild things apparently. 16/05/2023 | 3.3.0 | Make Orb behave like modern wands; Permit alternative materials for minion making via piping 12/05/2023 | 3.2.2 | Configurable item cost for Neckro Gatherers 11/05/2023 | 3.2.1 | Unbundle DLL to fix bug of wands not working; ignore collision with carts 02/05/2023 | 3.2.0 | Commandable workers; If a woodcutter is swinging, but missing, the damage gets dealt anyway; remove tooltier stuff for simplicity and streamlining. People can use 3rd party item-alteration mods instead 21/04/2023 | 3.1.0 | Battle Neckro and possible fix to frozen minions 17/04/2023 | 3.0.7 | Cycling minion selection for greater control 13/04/2023 | 3.0.6 | fix Farming Pylon to no longer say Armor stand on hover text; merge ChebsValheimLibrary.dll into ChebsNecromancy.dll for user convenience 11/04/2023 | 3.0.5 | add container whitelist to Neckros & limit their selection to just player made containers 11/04/2023 | 3.0.4 | upgrade ChebsValheimLib to 1.0.1 to fix ToolTier 09/04/2023 | 3.0.1 | Refactor to be compatible with Cheb's Mercenaries; bug fixes 05/04/2023 | 2.5.15 | Miners prioritize copper, silver, and tin over rocks 05/04/2023 | 2.5.14 | Fix bug where bones get consumed even when not enough are in the inventory; fix config descriptions 31/03/2023 | 2.5.13 | Character.m_tamed is also checked when looking for hostiles so that things like tamed animals aren't detected; Configurable teleport durability cost & cooldown 28/03/2023 | 2.5.11 | don't log error if NPC is using the Orb of Beckoning 28/03/2023 | 2.5.10 | improve repair pylon behaviour; upgrade to jotunn 1.11.2; make neckro update more null resistant 27/03/2023 | 2.5.9 | fix a null object exception for structure friendly-fire code; ships ignore minion impact damage; fix problem of duplicate resource drops on death if crate is enabled 25/03/2023 | 2.5.8 | miners pop an entire rock/node in one whack because completely mining the fragments seems impossible 25/03/2023 | 2.5.7 | permit multiple miners to whack same rock; overhaul rock whacking logic for lumberjacks and miners; remove collision on draugr heads 23/03/2023 | 2.5.6 | make miners lerp as they mine so that they have increased odds of being able to connect a blow with a stone; fix null object 23/03/2023 | 2.5.5 | pylons suspend their work while players are sleeping 23/03/2023 | 2.5.4 | Neckros return home before searching for containers 23/03/2023 | 2.5.3 | whitelist for treasure pylon container access 22/03/2023 | 2.5.2 | fix dumb exception 22/03/2023 | 2.5.0 | treasure pylon 21/03/2023 | 2.4.4 | optimize workers by staggering update intervals (50 Neckros/lumberjacks/miners no longer attempt to scan at the same time); add custom cape emblems for armored skeletons; add wolf, lox and troll leather armor varieties 16/03/2023 | 2.3.11 | repair pylon consumes resin more intelligently; repair pylon permits multiple customizable fuel types 15/03/2023 | 2.3.10 | implement maximum time allowed between dropoffs for Neckros 14/03/2023 | 2.3.9 | upgrade jotunn; mess with references; fix logic error 14/03/2023 | 2.3.8 | combine crates to reduce pollution 13/03/2023 | 2.3.7 | forget position of current enemy so they don't start chasing after it after teleporting 13/03/2023 | 2.3.6 | even if disabled still load assets from asset bundle 11/03/2023 | 2.3.5 | guardian wraith shouldn't drop fragments anymore 11/03/2023 | 2.3.4 | fix possible null object 08/03/2023 | 2.3.3 | improve miner/woodcutter 08/03/2023 | 2.3.2 | hitting minions with wand dismisses them; add leeches as summon to orb; neckro hivemind; refactor count code; slight speed increase by not searching parents for ZNetView; fixed performance drop for new Miners and Woodcutters after game has been running for a while 03/03/2023 | 2.2.3 | Hotfix Neckro null object 03/03/2023 | 2.2.2 | Remove unnecessary attack collider on Spirit Pylon Ghosts that was causing unwanted collisions with player; if Neckros don't see any other items to pick up, they can return their inventories before they're full 02/03/2023 | 2.2.1 | Add CW-Jesse's network optimization for Neckros 02/03/2023 | 2.2.0 | Add Repair pylon 02/03/2023 | 2.1.2 | Add delay to Neckros before they pick up an item; make Neckros pick up items one by one 01/03/2023 | 2.1.1 | Add bonus minions for necromancy level if configured to use limits 28/02/2023 | 2.1.0 | Add porcupine skeleton & draugr warriors; add fire, frost, silver, and poison arrow skeletons; only following skeletons respond to the wand's wait command; armor materials consumed in order of best to worst 28/02/2023 | 2.0.8 | Fix a problem where recipes for items and structures wouldn't sync with server 27/02/2023 | 2.0.5 | Neckro only says it's picking up items that it actually successfully picks up, rather than all candidates 26/02/2023 | 2.0.4 | Fix bug in Neckro where the remainder of an item stack could get deleted if not fully deposited 25/02/2023 | 2.0.2 | Fix worker skeletons 25/02/2023 | 2.0.1 | Fix poison skeleton 25/02/2023 | 2.0.0 | Big refactor & reorganization of things 24/02/2023 | 1.9.2 | fix issue about wand not commanding minions to follow reliably if they're roaming; include item layer when matching Pieceables for Farming Pylon; general code refactor/clean; Refactor harmony patches to be more friendly to other mods 23/02/2023 | 1.9.1 | Change some Prefix patches to Postfix for better mod compatibility 22/02/2023 | 1.9.0 | Add Farming Pylon; Add miner skeleton; Fix rare null object in Neckro update function 21/02/2023 | 1.8.8 | Add owner name and status to minion hover text 20/02/2023 | 1.8.7 | configurable bones drop chance; configurable follow distance and run distance; archers now cost arrows 19/02/2023 | 1.8.6 | Support for Adventure Backpacks by Vapok. 16/02/2023 | 1.8.4 | Add optional Radeon Friendly switch to the config which disables all effects to permit Radeon users to play without graphical glitches. 15/02/2023 | 1.8.2 | Skeleton woodcutters can be crafted using flint; Refueler pylon optimized and can now also cook 14/02/2023 | 1.8.1 | Skeleton woodcutters added 12/02/2023 | 1.8.0 | Orb of Beckoning working; remove old attack target code from wand 12/02/2023 | 1.7.9 | Fix bug that caused coroutines to occur twice on pylons - resulting in performance impacts and limits bypass. 11/02/2023 | 1.7.7 | Neckro pylons only spawn neckros if a player is nearby and that player takes ownership of the Neckro; fix bug that permitted non-admins to use some commands; optimise draugr & skeleton Awake scaling 10/02/2023 | 1.7.6 | Dracbjorn's config overhaul; optimise imports 09/02/2023 | 1.7.5 | Neckro messages hideable; Neckro messages improved 07/02/2023 | 1.7.4 | refueler pylons can now refuel fireplaces eg. torches, bonfires, etc. 06/02/2023 | 1.7.3 | minions remember if they were following a player after player logs off, then continue following when player returns 05/02/2023 | 1.7.2 | allow minions to roam when holding shift+T; fix bug in ZDO comparison 05/02/2023 | 1.7.1 | allow admins to ignore ownership with commands; fix bug where players wouldnt be found by command; lint the entire project; catch and fix a few instances of MonoBehaviours accidently being instantiated with new -> a big no-no 03/02/2023 | 1.7.0 | minions now remember the necromancy level with which they're created and scale to that; refactor SkeletonWand and DraugrWand code to be more uniform to make diffing easier; fix a bug where minions set to follow automatically would have bugged AI with the 1.6.4 improvements; minion commandability exposed to config; commands issued via E also update ZDO; hover text for interact patched 01/02/2023 | 1.6.4 | minions can be configured to drop their crafting requirements on death; hold position now works in that minions no longer wander around; wait positions are now recorded and stored so that minions return to where they were last waiting after chasing something off 28/01/2023 | 1.6.3 | add optional timer to kill any minion after X seconds; overhaul minion ownership checks to accurately store and retrieve the minion's creator; minions will only obey commands from their creators and ignore others 24/01/2023 | 1.6.2 | minions can be told to follow/wait using E on them; neckros can be killed via terminal command - butcher's knife won't work on them, even with Tameable component added, due to their Container component 20/01/2023 | 1.6.1 | Fix a problem where the Neckro Gatherer could delete items without storing them if its inventory size is set very small like 1x1 17/01/2023 | 1.6.0 | Tier 3 skeleton mages now throw goblin fireballs; poison skeletons have damage tiers and equipment options; add optional durability damage from making minions 16/01/2023 | 1.5.1 | rename to Cheb's Necromancy. No additional changes. 13/01/2023 | 1.5.1 | tone logging down a bit; fix string name on neckro pylon 12/01/2023 | 1.5.0 | add refueler pylon that puts coal into nearby smelters; fix pylons to face toward their Z axis (it was backwards before); add neckro gatherer pylon; neckros gain 150hp and can't attack; neckros no longer afraid of fire; update icons with brilliant designs by Ramblez; finally fix transparency issue 11/01/2023 | 1.4.3 | item and structure recipes exposed to config file; defensive spikes (standard & dverger)  no longer damage minions if they've been placed by the player; add chebgonaz_prerelease_spawnneckro command to let players test with new neckro gatherer. 09/01/2023 | 1.4.2 | Neckro Gatherer now brings items back to empty containers and stores them 09/01/2023 | 1.4.1 | Fix minions not remembering their armor values 09/01/2023 | 1.4.0 | Minions no longer damage player structures; armor values actually applied to skeletons (although not remembered on logoff/login again - will fix soon); add necroneck gatherer 07/01/2023 | 1.3.0 | Add server sync so that clients must use the configuration options of the server 07/01/2023 | 1.2.1 | Add black iron armor; permit skeletons to use black iron armor; rebalance spirit pylon by introducing a delay and a limit (both configurable) 06/01/2023 | 1.2.0 | Fix bug of skeletons not remembering their weapons properly; fix problem of tier 3 melee weapon not being stronger than tier 2; add debug commands for players to kill all their skeletons or summon them all 05/01/2023 | 1.1.1 | Add left shift as key to unlock extra resource consumption; allow deer hide to be used for leather armor skeletons 04/01/2023 | 1.1.0 | Armored Skeletons and Skeleton Mages! 02/01/2023 | 1.0.25 | Fix bug where Poison Skeleton's HP is lower than it should be after leaving area and coming back 02/01/2023 | 1.0.24 | Add Poison Skeleton (requires Guck in inventory); Guardian Wraith despawns when entering portal; Alert range of all entities raised to 30

Date | Version | Notes --- | --- | --- 30/12/2022 | 1.0.23 | Guardian Wraith implementation changed: Guardian Wraiths only spawn if enemies are nearby and move immediately to intercept enemy; Guardian Wraiths exist on a timer and perish on their own 29/12/2022 | 1.0.22 | add neck tail to draugr meat; expose ghost timer to config; fix ghost selfdestruct by changing from coroutine to update; add localizations; fix problem with limits not working properly; setting buttons to None in config removes them from GUI 25/12/2022 | 1.0.21 | Fix bug about Spirit Pylon Ghosts not despawning 25/12/2022 | 1.0.20 | Add optional equipment effects; add Necromancer's Hood; permit omission of creatures completely via config 20/12/2022 | 1.0.19 | Max HP of minions is now remembered; Add code to make someone only able to command minions they created; in limit mode, existing minions replaced rather showing a msg 16/12/2022 | 1.0.17 | Nice models for the wands; skeleton equipment and damage scales to necromancy level; nice texture for Spectral Shroud; add config option to disable Guardian Wraith (permits purely cosmetic Spectral Shroud); made draugr optionally cost meat as well as bone fragments to create 12/12/2022 | 1.0.16 | Remove version check that kept annoying people; fix Guardian Wraith bug introduced in 1.0.15 09/12/2022 | 1.0.15 | Cleaned out and fixed up config (it contained one error); allow enabling/disabling of individual features (user request); add German localizations by S970X; fix a problem where minions beyond the follow radius could still follow the player 09/12/2022 | 1.0.14 | Rebalanced skeleton health modifiers 07/12/2022 | 1.0.13 | Add Spirit Pylon for static base defence; add optional minion limits for those who wish it; change skeleton eyes to blue to differentiate from deadraiser (pink) and enemy (red). 05/12/2022 | 1.0.12 | Add Vulkan support for Linux 03/12/2022 | 1.0.11 | Fix more shaders; add Spectral Shroud -> wraiths only summon when you wear it, and get dismissed when you take it off; removed drops from minions 03/12/2022 | 1.0.10 | Implement fix for Thunderstore Mod Manager that (hopefully) permits it to install correctly. 02/12/2022 | 1.0.9 | Fix some shaders that got messed up (white squares instead of particles on effects like arrow hit); allow minions to generate a little Necromancy XP for their master; fixed a null object exception in Guardian Wraith coroutine 01/12/2022 | 1.0.8 | Big Overhaul → Fully custom prefabs used for minions results in finer control: no more Blood Magic experience; removes randomness of the skeletons so you can choose warrior/archer; permits me to add draugr and wraiths that are not hostile when you log back in; permits me to (in the future) give custom equipment and textures/materials to the minions. 29/11/2022 | 1.0.7 | Add Guardian Wraith; ignore minion collision on player 27/11/2022 | 1.0.6 | Function added to teleport minions to you and to tell minions to attack what you're looking at. 27/11/2022 | 1.0.5 | Fixed a bug where after logging out and coming back in your skeletons wouldn't respond to commands anymore 27/11/2022 | 1.0.4 | Amount of bone fragments dropped by creatures exposed to config file; fixed a bug where at necromancy level 0 a skeleton spawned would instantly die 26/11/2022 | 1.0.3 | Default skeleton health multiplier jacked up to 15. 26/11/2022 | 1.0.2 | All creatures drop bone fragments, skeletons can be told to follow/wait, skeletons health scales with necromancy level. 25/11/2022 | 1.0.1 | Fix a bug that let you create skeletons without the wand equipped. 25/11/2022 | 1.0.0 | Release