N. Lo.

Garbage in the "Game Path" column just means the data shown there is stale and must be refreshed.

This issue cannot be acted upon as it is. Please post your `%appdata%\XIVLauncher\dalamud.log`. (You can also come on the Penumbra Discord server where most of the support is done, but...

Go back to the "Installation" guide, specifically from this step: https://reniguide.carrd.co/#makerootfolder

It's an issue with XLCore's Wine, that could at most be worked around in Penumbra (for example in the way you mention). Using another Wine version, or Proton, can fix...

Run your game with `LC_ALL=C.UTF-8` (or another `.UTF-8` locale, if you have any installed – note that the only one a Steam Deck has by default is `C.UTF-8`) or `LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8`