The Complete Written Valheim Guide including Ashlands (2024)

This guide was last updated on August 4, 2024, and is fully compatible with the current 0.218.19 version!

Welcome to the The Complete Written Valheim Guide for all biomes including Ashlands! This is a comprehensive walkthrough of the entire game, including how to survive, progress, defeat the bosses, and unlock all content including the new Ashlands expansion.

Color Coding: I tried to streamline the colors in this guide. Green is for information. Light Blue is for resource reference. Red is for important/alert information or enemy definition. Purple is for item reference. Dark Blue is for location tags. Orange is for action references.

For those who want to jump straight to the Ashlands portion of this guide, click here.

Valheim originally entered public test in February of 2021. We’re now approaching nearly three and a half years of this amazing game, and the developers have finally released the next to final expansion, the Ashlands. And to say it’s brutal is an understatement. The expansion builds upon and extends the magical play style introduced with Mistlands and features burning fortresses, new materials, weapons, building pieces, and more. The Ashlands expansion did very little to change the other biomes and instead focuses on the new biome and fire burning mechanic, which can be toggled on and off.

Recommended Seed

For those who want the seed this guide is based on, the value is: rWB2FyTrfi. But this guide was written to support any map seed that has a reasonably sized starting island with Black Forest.

Recommended Difficulty Setting

Now that we’re able to adjust the World Modifiers for each game, players can set the core mechanics to be easier or harder. For those who want to complete a solid playthrough and have a balanced mix of challenge, exploration and building, I recommend normal difficulty with Death penalty set to Casual. The reason for this is because I believe the on death skill loss part of Valheim just wastes time. Players either want hardcore play or to have fun. Fun means being able to die, laugh about it, and continue. One can set the difficulty to be whatever they want, but this is my recommendation.

Mods

There are numerous mods that enhance the Quality of Life (QoL) of Valheim without acting as any type of cheat. While one could argue Packhorse allowing the player to increase their carry weight through learning to carry more, or having all fires never go out could be a cheat, I think they are solid QoL enhancements that just make the game more enjoyable without ruining the core. In the end, it’s up to the player. Feel free to download all the mods based on the below information and then disable or remove the ones you think change the core game too much.

All of the mods I use are available via https://valheim.thunderstore.io/ except for Willybach’s HD Valhiem (the High Definition Texture Pack), which must be manually installed; I included a link below. I also recommend using the Thunderstore Mod Manager as it beautifully manages different profiles and seamlessly installs and upgrades mods.

For those who want to create a Thunderstore Profile based on my recommended collection of mods (which will auto-download all of the ones I recommend, except for WillyBach’s HD Valheim and Seasonality HD Textures), you can use the following key: 01911ea4-0564-64b6-bb8d-2638338d7cc7. Note this does NOT include the Seasonality HD Texture Pack because it’s too big for the code. If you’re going to use Wallybach’s HD Valheim mod, make sure you download and install the Seasonality HD Textures Pack through the Thunderstore.

Installing Wallybach’s HD Textures has changed with Ashlands. Not only do we need to manually download and install the core HD Texture Pack, we also need to install Wallybach’s HD Terrain mod. This one is a bit different as a manual install. First, if you’re using Windows 11 do NOT use the built-in Zip/7z file browser. It’s terrible and hangs all the time. Download the standalone 7z application from https://www.7-zip.org/ and use that. If you are installing Wallybach HD Textures (which I recommend since it’s awesome), the latest texture file doesn’t have a directory structure. All the files need to go in <DRIVE>:\Steam\steamapps\common\Valheim\valheim_Data\StreamingAssets\SoftReferenceableAssets\Bundles. If you’re using Thunderstore, you’ll need to manually install the HD Terrain file (if you have the Nexus app you can use that to auto-install HD Terrain). If you open the file, do the following:

1. Copy HD Terrain\BepInEx\config\aedenthorn.PostProcessing.cfg into C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderstore Mod Manager\DataFolder\Valheim\profiles\Valheim Standard Mod\BepInEx\config
2. Copy the 2 DLLs and Folder from HD Terrain\BepInEx\Plugins into C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderstore Mod Manager\DataFolder\Valheim\profiles\Valheim Standard Mod\BepInEx\plugins

If you’re not using Thunderstore, you can manually copy the files into the Steam directory BepInEx structure seen above. Once you do this, you should be good to go.

I find the collection of mods from this key to be the best overall fun factor and balance for the game. To use this key, start the Mod Manager and on the profile selection page, click “Import / Update” then “Import New Profile” and then “From Code”. Enter the above code, name the profile, and the system will download the mods automatically. You can now use this profile every time you want to pay. Caution: if you play with the extended skills and character slots, do not play a character you’ve used the mods with in vanilla mode or you will lose all of the mod special enhancements.

One of my favorite features of Seasonality is how the water freezes during winter, which allows you to run over all water, including the Ocean! The good news is you can still sail in the icy water.

I am listing all of the mods I use below. While this may appear to be a sizeable list, all of the mods work together in perfect synergy without conflict and fundamentally enhance nearly every aspect of the game without cheating. If you are re-playing Valheim again, these mods will make the game feel completely different, and better.

Core Mod List

1. AzuAreaRepair – Repair pieces in a specified area around the player when using the hammer to repair.
2. AzuAutoStore – This mod pulls nearby items from the ground into containers. Optionally, use a hotkey to store items in your inventory into containers.
3. AzuClock – Simple clock for in-game time.
4. AzuExtendedPlayerInventory – In my opinion a must-have. Offers extra slots for equipping gear and saves inventory space. What the game should offer by default.
5. AzuHoverStats – Wonder how much of a Copper Vein is left? How many hits to fall a tree? This mod lets you know.
6. Blacksmithing – Adds a skill that increases the durability of armor and weapons and other perks for blacksmithing.
7. Building – Adds a skill that increases the health of pieces built by you.
8. Cooking – Adds a skill that increases health, stamina, eitr and HP regeneration for cooked food.
9. CraftingFromContainers – Allows you to make use of resources in nearby containers when crafting, building, using smelters and kilns, refueling fires, cooking food, etc.
10. Digitalroots_Slope_Combat_Assistance – Addresses the sloped combat issue of Valheim.
11. Eternal_Fire – Keeps fires lit and burning without needing to fuel them.
12. Evasion – Adds a skill that reduces the stamina usage of dodging.
13. Exploration – Adds a skill that increases exploration radius and movement speed.
14. Farming – Adds a skill that makes crops grow faster and increases item yield for harvesting crops.
15. Foraging – Adds a skill that increases item yield while foraging and makes berries and mushrooms respawn faster.
16. InstantMonsterLootDrop – Slain monsters instantly drop their loot. No more waiting!
17. Lumberjacking – Replaces the wood cutting skill with a Lumberjacking skill.
18. MassFarming – Xeio’s mod to assist with large scale farming in Valheim
19. Max_Dungeon_rooms – Raises the chance to spawn larger dungeons.
20. Mining – Adds a skill that increases damage dealt while mining and item yield from ore deposits.
21. MistBeGone – A simple plugin that removes the Mist from Mistlands.
22. Official_BepInEx_ConfigurationManager – Allows you to press F1 and configure the mod settings.
23. PackHorse – Adds a skill that increases the maximum carry weight.
24. PlantEverything – Allows your cultivator to plant berry bushes, thistle, dandelions, mushrooms, previously unavailable tree types, and other decorative flora.
25. Ranching – Adds a skill that makes taming animals faster and increases item yield of tamed creatures.
26. Sailing – Adds a skill that increases the health of ships, sailing speed and exploration radius while sailing.
27. SpeedyPaths – Gives more purpose to paths. Increases player speed on paths and constructions. Reduces stamina consumed while sprinting on paths.
28. SteadyRegeneration – Removes the healing ticks of food and makes you slowly, but constantly regenerate HP instead.
29. TargetPortal – Lets you target any portal, instead of having to connect two portals via a tag.
30. UseEquipmentInWater – Allows you to use your Equipment while swimming in water.
31. Seasonality – Dynamic seasons by altering textures and colors, providing an immersive environmental experience that changes with time.
32. Seasonality_HD_Texture_Pack (HD Texture pack you can install through Thunderstore but only if you’re using the below Wallybach’s HD Valheim textures).
33. Wallybach’s HD Valheim (HD texture pack – needs to be installed manually, not in Thunder Store) and Wallybach’s HD Terrain (Required for HD Textures)

As of 0.218.19 and August 4, 2024, all of these mods are compatible.

Mod Configuration

Below is an overview of the adjustments we want to make to the mods so we have a more balanced gameplay experience. We also enhance our rendering distance so we can see further! To access the BepInEx configuration menu, press F1 while in-game.

DeezMistyBalls or MistBeGone

I’ve done multiple playthroughs of Mistlands, and my favorite mod is MistBeGone. The Mistlands is such a beautiful design, with this mod you can see the Biome in all of its glory. And I didn’t find the removal of the mist to make it any easier. It just made the experience much more majestic and enjoyable.

For those who still want the mist, but want to increase the Wisp’s fog clear radius, use the DeezMistyBalls mod. I recommend setting the clearing range to 25.

Sailing

The default exploration radius is too big and can cause the player to miss discovering the Merchants, so we want to lower it. Change Exploration Radius Factor to 3.0.

A note about No Map and No Portal Runs

Players can now choose whether or not they want to disable the game map, and even portals. Doing this creates what is probably the most immersive and difficult environment of any sandbox exploration game currently on the market. Note this guide assumes the player has a Map and Portals. While the majority of this guide can still be very helpful without a Map or Portals, a whole guide could be written specifically for those adjustments. In my opinion, only Veteran players who know what they’re getting themselves into should play with No Map and/or No Portals.

Having said that, let’s get started!

PART I – THE MEADOWS

Starting out for experienced players is rather easy; the most challenging thing is getting a lay of the land and deciding where to build a main base.

As mentioned, for this walkthrough, I use the seed: rWB2FyTrfi

I also go into the World Modifiers and turn on Fire Hazards. Note this means fire will burn wood, so you need to be careful where you put your fire and what you have around it. You can also use fire arrows to burn down trees! I generally play through on Normal difficulty, but players can customize their experience here, which includes turning off the map and even portals (if you want a truly immersive and difficult experience).

As I mentioned above, I recommend also setting the Death Penalty to Casual. There’s just no reason to take such hard hits on Skill Loss or having to spent hours rebuilding gear just to fetch your old gear. I really believe if one wants to play like that, they should just play Hardcore.

I’ve included a video below that covers how the new Fire Hazard system works.

Phase I – Establishing your Temporary Base

When you start the game, depending on the world layout, you’ll probably spend your first few nights (or more) in a temporary location; usually a prebuilt structure that you repair. This is where one usually builds their first covered workbench, bed, campfire, food cooking stilts, etc.

1. When you start the game, get the location for Eikthyr at the starting Sacrificial Circle, and make sure you get the mushrooms and berries behind the boss stones (and eat them).
2. Note you can use your Torch and it will keep annoying Greylings from you. You can also use the Torch as a weapon.
3. Eat the mushroom and berries and gather enough wood and stone to make a hammer and campfire to get your starting rest bonus.
4. Stone is generally on sloped areas and Wood is spread around the ground.
5. Examine your map and decide on a direction to go! Our goal is to find a location on the water near black forest so we can quickly farm and refine copper and tin to bronze.
6. Build a hammer. If you come across a structure and it’s before 1pm on the time, go ahead and build a workbench and disassemble it (to get the wood). This is also how you can get Queen Bees without a bow.
7. If you can’t find much wood on the ground, just punch the small trees.
8. While exploring focus on gathering stone and wood to craft a stone axe. Pick up any berries, mushrooms, and dandelions.
9. Mark berry patches on your map.
10. Mark Oak Trees on your map.
11. Make sure you mark your base(s) on the map so if you change your bed you don’t lose the locations of other bases.
12. Craft and use a Club for combat since we want to raise our mace skill. Do not use your Axe to fight because the skill ends up being one of the weakest for combat. Focus on the Club to raise your Mace skill.
13. Gather Flint as soon as possible on the shore of water.
14. You can cook boar, neck and deer meat on an open flame by quickly crafting a cooking station over your campfire. This meat gives a great bonus to health and stamina.
15. I also like to work on my Sneak; getting it to 9 or so ensures you can sneak up on Deer.
16. Keep a lookout for the Runic Stones for Boar. These are great places to gather leather scraps and Boar Meat, and do respawn. I mark them on my minimap as “PR” or “pig rock”.
17. Mark any abandoned towns on your map; they’re good for boar and berries!
18. Once afternoon approaches, look for an abandoned building in a good location with lots of boar and deer around. Next (or close) to water is also a good idea. Stay away from the Black Forest.
19. Establish a temporary base of operations. Inside the building, you want to build: a Workbench, a Chopping Block, a Flint Axe, a Hoe, and a Flint Spear, gather wood, and repair the structure.
20. Also build a Bed (claim it but don’t sleep yet), a Campfire, and 4x Cooking Stations over the campfire. Cook any Boar or Deer meat you have and eat it.
21. Spears are one of the best starting weapons in the game because you can throw them at deer. Plus they do bonus damage to all creatures in the Meadows and Black Forest except Skeletons (use a Club for them). I recommend putting a spear in the Z slot since we’ll be filling 1-8 with our standard layout that we’ll take all the way to Mistlands.
22. Always make sure you have a rest bonus. If necessary, drop a Campfire down and sit for 15 seconds to get it.
23. You do NOT want to be caught outside at night.
24. If you haven’t done so yet, start exploring and gathering resources to upgrade your Workbench with a Chopping Block so you can make a Crude Bow and Fire Arrows. Your main focus is killing Boar so you can make a bow.
25. When drawing back on your bow, you can right-click to cancel it!
26. As soon as you craft a Bow, start hunting Deer for meat and hide and hunt Seagulls for feathers.
27. Kill all the deer you can; we need their trophies to craft Stagbreaker when we go into the Black Forest!
28. Craft a Leather Chestpiece, Legs and Helmet. At this point, I also recommend crafting a Wooden Shield and upgrading it to +1.
29. Make sure you cook the deer and boar meat you find.
30. While running around look for bees nests and get those Queen Bees! I recommend gathering at least 3.
31. Remember, it’s worth upgrading your Flint Axe to +2 for treecutting speed. We’ll need this when we move to the Black Forest.
32. As soon as you can craft your bow and at least 40 fire arrows, you are ready to kill Eikthyr. You’ll need 2 Deer Trophy heads.

Let’s do this!

Phase II – Killing Eikthyr

You wany to kill Eikthyr as soon as possible. You can easily do this once you have Leather Armor and Fire Arrows. The goal is to get the Antler Pickaxe to help with adjusting the ground when you find your new base location. He is ultra easy. Just use Fire Arrows and run him around the center stone table. Dodge his AoE attacks. When he’s dead, hang his head at the Sacrificial Circle and activate the power!

Craft the Antler Pickaxe. If you are playing Hardcore, definitely upgrade your Shield, Armor, Crude Bow, Hammer and Hoe +1.

Phase III – Packing up & Scouting for your Main Base

With nearly all games, you will be able to find a location on your starting island that serves as the main base for your entire game, but depending on the seed, this can require quite a bit of exploration. Make sure any body of water you come across isn’t a huge lake; so many times players build bases and ships on a large body of water only to find it’s a large lake and they can’t get anywhere.

With the Packhorse mod, your character should be able to carry quite a bit of weight by now. Time to pack up some wood, stone, queen bees, flint, any hides, food, and other items and carry it with you. I generally leave the workbench, bed, fire and structure intact in the temporary base but break down everything else. Make sure you’ve upgraded your Flint Axe since it will help cut trees down a lot quicker.

I always build my main base in the Black Forest, near Copper Ore nodes and right on the ocean. You can place Campfires around your base to prevent spawns. Let’s get to it!

PART II – THE BLACK FOREST

The Black Forest is the first biome where the players must be cautious. It’s here we will gather Surtling Cores, Mine Copper Ore, Smelt Ore, Make Bronze Weapons and Armor, and upgrade our gear!

At this point, I’m going to start listing the Additional comfort items for each biome. You’ll want to build these at your main base to increase your rest bonus. Below is our starting list from the Black Forest: Bed, Campfire, Banner, Deer Rug, Chair, Table, and Armor Stand. Yule Tree for Christmas time. Maypole during the Summer (or if found).

This is where the game starts to get challenging, and we encounter the first true nemesis of every player – the Troll. This guide actually does not focus on killing trolls and using their armor; but you are welcome to if you would like. The only issue is if you kill just one troll, “The Ground is Shaking” event unlocks and can be triggered any time. As such, do not kill a troll until you have dug a trench around your base! It’s the most devastating attack at the beginning of the game because two trolls can obliterate your base. I kite the Trolls and pull them away from my base. That’s the best way to handle it until you can tank them with maxed Bronze Weapons and Shield. So for the most part, I ignore trolls until I have full Bronze Gear and Armor. Then I can easily kill them as I come across them.

Remember to kill all deer you come across. You’ll need their trophies and hide to upgrade Stagbreaker and build ships later!

I also like to make paths with the Hoe to all of the points I go to. With the path mod, we can run 15% faster as we return into areas like the black forest. Plus it’s just fun to define where you’ve been!

The FuelEternal mod makes it so any light source you build doesn’t require refueling. This is very cool because you can now create lit paths that will forever stay lit. Feel free to throw down campfires and standing wood torches!

I recommend slot layout of:

1. Bow
2. Club
3. Shield
4. Hammer
5. Hoe
6. Axe
7. Pickaxe
8. Stagbreaker

And as mentioned, you can put a Flint Spear in your Z slot. It destroys Greydwarves.

The Ekthyr Ability is perfect for scouting; take high stamina food (berries, honey) and run as far as you can. Just make sure you don’t get caught away from your base during the night!

Phase I – Scouting for your base in Black Forest

1. Begin to scout the Black Forest area next to the largest nearby body of water.
2. As you scout, mark Crypt Entrances and Copper Ore nodes.
3. Feel free to engage Skeletons with your Club and Shield.
4. If you encounter a Troll while scouting, I recommend just running away. However, if you are comfortable, they are easy to take down with Fire Arrows and kiting. Just know if you kill a Troll, the game will enable “The Ground is Shaking” Troll event, which can destroy your base if you don’t have trenches dug.
5. A Flint Spear will kill Greydwarves the quickest.
6. Mark the purple Greydwarf Spawners you come across, but don’t destroy them.
7. If you come across a Troll Cave, I usually build a Campfire in front of it so a Troll won’t spawn outside.
8. You want a base location near 3x Copper Ore nodes.
9. Sometimes, you’ll find the perfect base location where a Stone Tower is. No problem! Just dig under it with the Antler Pickaxe and collapse the whole thing! You’ll get lots of great materials…
10. If you need to build a quick base to rest, make it 3×3, put the fire in the middle and the bed next to it.

Phase II – Establishing your Base Foundation

Once you’ve found the location for your main base on the water and within the Black Forest with at least 3 nearby Copper Ore nodes, it’s time to start leveling things out and creating the proper foundation. If you were unable to carry everything you want to move, you might have to make a trip back to your previous temporary base to pick up additional materials.

1. I recommend making your main base 8×8 in size (you can measure with wooden floor panels), however later on in the game we will expand the base to 8×16. So you ultimately want to clear an area that can be 8×16 in size for future expansion and to support placing our Charcoal Kiln and Smelter for ore refinement.
2. The first goal is to find the proper slope angle that will match foundation and for when you dig moat base defenses. To do this, dig a slight trench along the edge so you can see where the straight line is and build the foundation from that point (at the right angle).
3. Next, level a 8×16 sized area with your Hoe. You might need to raise (or lower) some terrain to make things flat. Mine nearby rocks to support the cost of raising terrain. Make sure the area is completely flat so you can put wooden flooring in the 8×8 clearing and have a 4×8 clearing behind your base.
4. Also make sure you don’t put the base foundation too low and by the water because if it’s right next to the ocean and there’s a storm, it will flood!

Phase III – Building the Base & Crafting a Stagbreaker

Recommended Food: Deer Meat, Boar Meat, Berry/Yellow Mushroom.

Now that you’ve finished the foundation for your base, it’s time to gather resources to start building! Remember, if it’s starting to get dark, build a 3×3 little house with a fire and bed so you can sleep through the night. You do not want to be in the Black Forest at night at this point.

Since our base is in the Black Forest, there should be Pine Trees all around. Cut a few down to get some Core Wood so you can start building. I use Core Wood for everything except the flooring and roof.

You’ll probably need to build an interim shop area where you can have a Workbench so you can repair your items as you work.

Once your new base structure is complete, rebuild your Workbench and Chopping Block within the base. You can now craft a Stagbreaker. This is the best weapon in the game for Crypts in both the Black Forest and Swamp. Creating the weapon takes 5 Deer Trophy, 2 Leather Scraps and 20 Core Wood. You’ll want to upgrade it +1 as well.

Next it’s time to craft a collection of Storage Containers for you to store materials in. Lay them out how you prefer.

Remember to place Campfires around your new base to prevent Greydwarf spawns.

Note the Stagbreaker is also a great small bush/tree clearing tool. Walk in the middle of those pesky vision-blocking little trees and smash away.

Phase IV – Scouting for Crypts

Start scouting the Black Forest. Mark Crypt Entrances. You can also mark any additional Copper Ore Nodes. Be especially careful of 2-star Skeletons, especially the archers. The best way to protect yourself from the archers is to put an object between you when they shoot. For 1-2 star Melee skeletons, just walk backwards while they swing; you’ll be just out of range. Then hit them with your club or Stagbreaker.

Grab all the Carrot Seeds, Blueberries and Thistle you see!

Phase V – Crypt Running

You have to run crypts to get the Bone Chips you need to upgrade your Stagbreaker, and the Surtling Cores required to build a Kiln and Smelter. Every Crypt is different. One may give you all 10 cores while another may only have 1 or 2. Either way, you’ll need to run as many crypts as necessary to secure 20 Surtling Cores. Technically, you can get started with Smelting with only 10 cores, but it’s better to have two Smelters and Kilns set up at the same time. Since we’re jumping straight into Bronze, don’t worry about upgrading your Leather Armor unless your playing Hardcore.

The Stagbreaker is your primary Crypt weapon. You can kill Skeletons behind doors and knock them back. It’s easy to see if one or more Skeletons are in the room behind a door because yellow damage numbers will pop up when you smash the ground. Always swing before entering a room to kill whatever is in there before you open the door. If you find yourself being rushed by Skeletons at the entrance, jump down from the entry platform on the right, and the Skeletons can’t get to you (they can get up on the entry platform now). If you encounter a 2-star Skeleton Archer in the entry area just leave the Crypt because it’ll probably kill you.

While you’re in the Crypts, make sure you loot all of the treasure you can (Amber, Rubies, Pearls and Gold). You’ll need the loot to buy items from the Trader later on. As mentioned, I recommend getting 20 cores to start with, but only 10 are necessary to begin refining Copper and Tin into Bronze.

While in the Crypts, be sure to get all of the Yellow Mushrooms you can for food! They replace the Berries we were eating earlier for Stamina.

Make sure you click on any Red Rune in a Crypt you come across so you can get the location of the Elder!

For those of you who like to mark everywhere you’ve been, you can make paths from your base to the Crypts with your Hoe as you venture into the Black Forest.

Kill any Greydwarf Spawners you find because you’ll need 3x Ancient Seed to summon the Elder later on. Once you have 3 seeds, don’t destroy any other spawners, because they can function as good farming locations for Greydwarf Eyes and Wood.

Phase VI – Mining & Upgrading Gear to Bronze

Once you have your cores, build the Smelter and Charcoal Kiln on top of the smelter, and you’re ready to go!

The first thing you want to do is mine Tin. Run along the shore of the Black Forest and get as much as you can carry. Go back to your base and start refining it.

Now it’s time to head out to the Copper nodes you found. I recommend making a path to them as you’ll be running back to your base a lot.

I prefer to run back to my base (since I built it close to the black forest and the copper nodes) to repair because I can then re-stock the smelter and such when I come back to repair. This ensures the copper and tin are refining while I’m off doing my next round of mining. However, if your node is too far, just build a covered workbench by the node and as soon as you get 1 copper, run back and make 1 Bronze bar, then 20x bronze nails, and build yourself a cart you can load up by your repair station.

Always make sure you have a rest bonus while mining!

If you want to be a mining machine, eat: Yellow Mushroom, Honey & Blueberries. But be cautious, you’ll have low hits and a Troll can quickly make a snack out of you!

Place Campfires around the node (I usually put 4-5) to prevent spawns.

The best way to mine Copper is to find the edges of the node using the Hoe and then dig as deep as possible around the edges until they curve inward. Then you can start mining from the middle.

Be sure to keep all the stone you mine and store it at your base. You’re going to need it!

You need 36 Copper Ore and 18 Tin Ore to make the Bronze Axe and Bronze Pickaxe. But we also need 6 Copper Bars to make the Forge, so we need 42 total Copper Ore to really get things started.

As soon as you craft the Bronze Axe, start cutting down Birch Trees for Fine Wood in the Meadows.

Note the Bronze Ategir is probably the best overall weapon for the Black Forest, however it doesn’t perform nearly as well in the Swamp. The difference in using a Mace in the Black Forest (and leveling up that skill) in my opinion is a better choice. If you plan on spending a lot of time in the Black Forest, the Ategir is definitely the way to go, or if you can get one, an Abyssal Razor (covered below).

Below is the recommended Crafting Order.

• Bronze Axe (4 Wood, 8 Bronze, 2 Leather Scraps)
• Finewood Bow (10 Finewood, 10 Corewood, 2 Deer Hide)
• Bronze Pickaxe (3 Corewood, 2 Bronze)
• You can build a Cultivator (5 Corewood, 5 Bronze) at this point if you want to start farming Carrots. There’s a section below on Farming.
• Build Anvils to upgrade your Forge.
• Upgrade Bronze Pickaxe to +2.
• Build a Adze (10 Finewood, 3 Bronze) to take your Workbench to level 4.
• Upgrade your Stagbreaker to +3 (10 Corewood, 4 Deer Trophy, 2 Leather Scraps, 20 Bone Fragments).
• Note, we skip building a Tanning Rack at this point because it costs so many resources. You can build it anytime later when you get the materials. The Swamp is full of Leather Scraps.
• Build a Cauldron (10 Tin) so you can make more food.
• Bronze Armor (Chest, Pants, Helm)
• Bronze Mace
• Bronze Buckler
• Build a Forge Cooler to upgrade your Forge.

Ultimately, you want 2 smelters and kilns, and we have portals to build, so while you’re running additional crypts, focus on getting those additional Surtling Cores while you loot all of the treasure you can for when we meet the Trader.

I prefer to mine while wearing leather because I can run it back to my base much quicker, but if you’re paying Hardcore, definitely wear Bronze Armor in case you’re visited by Trolls.

Make the following additional upgrades:

• All Bronze Armor (+3)
• Bronze Mace (+2)
• Bronze Buckler (+2)
• Finewood Bow (+4)
• Stagbreaker (+3)
• Hoe (+3)

One thing I will often do is set my Portal to the starting Circle up first so I can use that location to farm Wood and Finewood. It’s very easy porting back and forth to the base if we need more Coal, etc.

With these upgrades, you’ll be ready to fight The Elder! Of course we won’t be using our Mace or Shield, but that’s for the upcoming Swamp.

Phase VII – Garden (Carrots)

Time to build our first garden! You should have found Carrot Seeds by now. Build the Cultivator at the Forge.

Make a 12×12 plot near your base and either put a moat around it, or raised walls. While you can surround it with a raised wooden border (Core wood 3x high), it won’t be nearly as secure. If you’re not playing Hardcore it’s easier to do that, and works. But just know an event like The Ground is Shaking can easily destroy any walls or wood you have surrounding it. There’s nothing worse than losing your first batch of growing Turnip Seeds to an event.

Phase VIII – Base Defenses & Dock

As mentioned, the moment we kill our first troll, it unlocks the troll event. This can be devastating to a base. For this reason, we need to dig our base defenses before we really start running crypts and encountering trolls.

Time to dig a moat! We want our entire base to be surrounded by a moat or have vertical walls at least as tall as your character. You can use horizontal wooden beams (from Pine or normal wood) to act as a sort of Cattle Guard, which allows us to cross over the moat with ease, but monsters won’t be able to do it.

This is when you also want to build a basic Dock. Corewood is almost always required because of the vertical length of the poles which you’ll need to secure deep in the water to get far enough out where a boat doesn’t have an issue running aground.

Phase IX – Portal

You only need one portal at your base because of the mod we’re using which allows us to portal between any portals. I name my base portal… BASE!

Phase X – Preparing for the Swamp

Before we go and kill The Elder, it’s time to craft a Fermenter, and start making Poison Resistance potions. Do this and have one Fermeting while we go and kill the elder.

We also need a total of 6 more Surtling Cores. These are for portals at The Elder, the Starting Circle (if you haven’t put a portal there yet) and our landing point in the Swamp.

Phase XI – Killing The Elder

Food to use: Minced Meat Stew, Deer Stew, Carrot Soup. Make sure you have rest bonus.

You should have located the Elder with your crypt runs. You’ll need 3 Ancient Seeds to summon him.

When it comes to the location of the Elder, it can be difficult at this stage in the game to know whether or not he’s on another island. For this reason you want to stock up on materials that allow you to create a Workbench, Karve and Portal. Also take at least 80 Fire arrows. With at least a +3 Finewood Bow, you should make short work of the Elder. Unless you know the map, there could be a lot of water between you and the elder location. When you find his spawn location, set up your portal behind a rock or something so the Elder’s attack’s can’t destroy it. I name all of my boss portals… the name of the boss!

Scan the surrounding area before you summon to make sure there’s no Trolls, Skeletons or Greydwarf Spawners that might aggro you during the fight.

Use Fire Arrows and hide behind the pillars. When he does his vines attack, stand still behind a pillar until the vines are complete and then run to the next pillar. If you run while they are spawning, they will appear in front of where you are going.

Once you kill the Elder, put the Swamp Key in your X slot (since you never really use X), go back to your base, get enough resources to build another portal, and run to the Circle to hang the Elder’s head, but do NOT activate his special power.

Set up a portal and name it CIRCLE for future boss head-hanging visits. It’s also a good place to come to farm wood if you don’t want to deforest around your base too much.

Phase X – Boat & Trader

Check on your Poison Resistance Potions, and if one set is complete, ferment another.

If you haven’t crafted Bronze Nails yet, you’ll need to do this to craft the Karve.

Before we head to the swamp, we want to find the Trader. Note you can skip this step if you have the Packhorse mod (by now it’s probably enhanced our carry weight to the point of having a Megingjord). Regardless, the Megingjord Belt will increase your carry weight by150, which will allow us to carry a lot more Iron Ore when we go to the Swamp.

If you didn’t already do this for the Elder, it’s time to build your first Karve! That is unless you know you can run to the Trader on your land. Either way, you’ll need a Karve to go to the Swamp (more than likely).

When you head out to find the trader, take materials to create a Workbench and Portal. Once you locate him, build a portal. Go back to your base and get all of the gold and jewels you’ve collected and sell them to see if you have enough for the belt. If you don’t, you can run additional Crypts in the Black forest, or just head to the swamp and get the loot from running Sunken Crypts.

If you had to take your boat to the Elder, remember to destroy your Karve in SHALLOW water when you land at your destination so you can rebuild it at your home base dock again to head to the swamp.

PART III – THE SWAMP

This is the first real dangerous area the player enters. Poison and ranged Draugr are the most dangerous things as getting shot in the back by a 2-star Draugr can kill your character with one hit, and poison without resistance can easily result in death.

Additional Comfort Items: Dragon Bed, Lit Hearth, Stone/Raven Throne.

We also have the Abomination. The good news is your upgraded Axe and Shield can handle it just fine, but you still need to be careful as it will take a bit of time to kill it before you upgrade to an Iron Axe. To fight the Abomination, simply stand underneath it, block its downward attack and swing away! It’s actually pretty easy, as long as you don’t get aggro from other swampies. Just keep an eye on your stamina.

If you just landed in the Swamp and an Abomination appears, that’s natures way of telling you to get out of there. Get back in your boat and try to get away and find another landing point.

Don’t go into the swamp without Poison Resistance Potions. Without them, one bite from a Leech can kill you.

Now that we’re finally sailing around the world, make sure you mark any Leviathans you come across in the ocean – you’ll need the Chitin on their backs later on if you want to craft a Abyssal Harpoon! If you want to try a different weapon, you can also use the Chitin to craft an Abyssal Dagger, which destroys everything in the swamp except for slimes (use Maces for them) and can even be used against Moder in the Mountains. The dagger is just a very fun and fast weapon to use.

Phase I – Finding Swamp and Establishing Portal Base

Make sure you have the materials to build a Workbench, Chest and Portal (20 Finewood, 10 Greydwarf Eyes, 2 Surtling Cores, 20 Wood). Also have a full stack of Fire Arrows. Right before you land in the swamp drink a Poison Resistance Potion.

Note I put the Poison potion in my Z slot so all I need to do is press Z to activate it.

When you first find the Swamps, sail a bit and make sure the swamp area is sizeable, and choose a landing point that’s within visual range of a Crypt.

The Hoe is your best friend in the Swamp. Make sure you use it to raise the ground and make paths from your base to the Crypts.

As soon as you land, clear the area, build your Workbench, Chest and Portal, and go back to your base. If you want to light things up a bit, get materials to make another Workbench and Standing Torches (Wood and Resin). We are going to craft these as we path through the swamp so we can more clearly see where we’ve been and where we need to go.

One of the most important things you are looking for next to Crypts and Iron Ore are Turnip Seeds. They are very rare. You must find these before you head to the next Biome, so keep your eyes open! If you do find the seeds, go back to your base and plant them immediately (but do not use them; instead replant them). Make sure they’re protected and can’t be destroyed by Greydwarves or an invasion event.

If you encounter Flame Geysers, mark them on your map and dig them out so they’re surrounded by water. This will cause the Surtlings to automatically die when they spawn, and it makes a great Surtling Core farm you can revisit later.

Kill all of the Leeches you see, which is very easy with the Stagbreaker. We need their Bloodbags for food!

Stay away from the Plains, which will often be next to a Swamp. A single Deathsquito will kill you in one hit at this point.

About Turnip Seeds

Turnip Seeds are one of the most important food progression items in the game, and are required to craft the next tier of food. The good news is they are in the Swamp. The bad news is it’s possible for an entire swamp biome to not have a single one. They are very rare, and there are cases where I haven’t seen a single one between two large swamps. But there are other times where I’ve come across a patch of 3 in a small Biome. It’s all very random, but can also be frustrating. I recommend going Turnip hunting only after you’ve completed your first Iron run and have a shiny new set of Iron Armor and weapons.

Once you find these seeds, go back to your base, plant them, and when the 3 seeds grow into Turnips, plant those 3 to get more seeds. After that process you will have enough turnips and the ability to plant and grow more seeds to unlock the required crafting station defined below in more detail.

Phase II – Sunken Crypts

Make paths from your portal to the crypts so you create a mini-road network in the Swamp. This will make for easier travel and ensure leeches don’t get you as the ground is very easy to raise.

You need to gather at least 128 Iron Ore from your first run to craft all the base Iron gear to start.

Stagbreaker is king in the Crypts. Whack the ground when you’re halfway through a muck pile; that will kill whatever is on the other side (within proximity) including the Draugr Spawn Piles and Slimes. Use your Mace+Shield for 1v1. Use Stagbreaker for groups. Grab all precious jewels (Amber, Pearls, etc.) you find. Ignore Ancient Bark for now as it will just weigh you down, and it’s very easy to acquire later on. Grab all the Iron Scraps and Chain you find, and 10 Withered Bone, but no more than that.

Your Karve can hold 4x stacks of 30 iron ore. Your character should be able to carry at least 30 more by this point as well. When you’re full of at least 130 Iron, Sail back home for your first Iron run!

If you’re playing with Portals, the quickest way to transport Iron Ore is to destroy your Karve in shallow water at your base once its unloaded and then rebuild it at the Swamp base. Note the fastest way to destroy your Karve is with a Fire Arrow, but you’ll lose the Finewood.

Don’t approach the areas that have the Skeleton and Draugr Spawners. Instead, shoot them at a distance with Fire Arrows. You’ll want to keep some intact for later on as they are excellent for raising Blood Magic.

Phase III – Base Iron Gear

Time to upgrade our gear! It’s going to take some time to smelt the Iron, so you can do things around you base while you wait for it to process. I recommend farming wood and fine wood.

When crafting it, you can choose the visual Style of your Banded Shield!

Craft order: Iron Chest > Pants > Helm > Banded Shield > Mace > Axe > Pickaxe.

Go ahead and craft one batch of Iron Nails so you can unlock the Armor Stand. You can put your old armor on it.

As mentioned, if you haven’t found Turnip Seeds before you’ve completed your Iron Armor and Weapon set, once the above is complete, go looking for them!

Also, Poison damage depends on your armor. Once you’re in Iron Armor, Poison does a lot less damage, so you probably won’t require potions anymore unless you’re on Hardcore.

On your second run of 120+ Iron Ore, you can upgrade all of your gear and have enough left over to start upgrading your base.

Upgrade Order: Chest (+3) > Legs (+3) > Helmet (+3) > Shield (+3) > Pickaxe (+2) > Mace (+3) > Axe (+2). If you are playing Hardcore, you’ll want to upgrade everything to Max.

You can also craft a few of the new Reinforced Chests if you need more storage space, but don’t build too many because our goal is to get our iron armor up to the point where our survival is a ton better the next time we’re in the swamp.

Do not craft a Huntsman bow – we don’t need it! … yet.

Don’t forget to tend to your carrots. And if you found Turnip Seeds, plant them, and remember to re-plant the first harvest of turnips into more seeds. The goal is to craft the Spice Rack, but we want to be able to plant and replant turnips so soon we have more than we need.

You can now craft the Stonecutter! Build one and you can start building with stone around your base! Put a roof over it so you can craft a single Grinding Stone. This will unlock the Grinding Wheel upgrade for the Forge. Go ahead and build it next to your forge.

Phase IV – Scouting, Crypts, Abominations and Turnips

Build Forge Bellows and Smith’s Anvil to get your forge to Level 6.

If you see the green Guk nodules on Swamp trees, mine it. We’ll need it for the Draugr Fang bow once we start smelting Silver. When you’re done upgrading all equipment, you should have 61 Armor. A +3 mace is fine, we don’t need +4.

By this point, if you haven’t found Turnip Seeds, you’ll need to focus on finding them because we really need the upgrade provided from Turnips. Once you have 3 Turnips and more seeds planted, build a Spice Rack near your Cauldron so you can craft the new food: Sausage, Black Soup, Muckshake and Turnip Stew.

If you need more Chain, you can hunt for Wraiths at night (additional Chain is needed for the Plains-tier shield).

Start making Frost Resistance potions!

If you have the gold, buy the Dverger Circlet and Thunder Stone from the Trader. The circlet helps with building and gathering resources at night, and the Obliterator gets rid of unwanted items.

You can use this time to hunt Abominations so you can gather Roots to make the Root Harnesk, which we will be using in the Mistlands. You can also try out a complete set of Harnesk Armor, which will give you +15 to your bow skill. You can come back to the Swamp later on if you would like as well.

Phase V – Bonemass

The food you want for this fight is: Black Soup, Sausages and Muckshake.

You should have received the location of Bonemass running the Crypts. If not, you need to run more crypts to get it!

Once you find his location, load up on the materials to make a workbench and portal and head out! When you get to his spawn point, build a Workbench and Portal a fair distance from where he’ll spawn, and name it properly.

It’s my opinion that next to Elkthyr, Bonemass is the easiest boss in the game. Our +3 mace destroys him. Block his easily telegraphed attacks to gain the extra parry damage, run when he spews, and kill his adds as he spawns them.

Before you summon him, run around and make sure there’s no mobs or abominations that will aggro you during the fight. Level out the area if there’s lots of water around. Make sure you take 10 Withered Bone to summon him. Don’t forget to use your Poison Resistance Potion! With a +3 mace and shield, I can kill Bonemass in as little as 3 minutes, often getting 6 swings in between each of his attacks.

When he’s dead, hang his head in the circle and ACTIVATE THE BONEMASS SPECIAL. It’s the best in the game!

If you haven’t done it yet, don’t forget to craft iron nails to unlock a bunch of new things to build.

Before we go to the Mountains, it’s time to craft an Iron Atgeir and put your Stagbreaker in a storage chest. Upgrade it as high as you can. This is our wolf killer, and it replaces our Stagbreaker. It is also our first step in leveling up our Polearm skill. Make sure you keep your mace and shield as you’ll need them to deal with Stone Golems, but the middle-button attack of the Atgeir will stagger anything less than a 2-star wolf.

If you haven’t used the Atgeir before, I recommend taking it into the Black Forest and finding a Greydwarf Spawner and using it against groups. Get a feel for its special (middle mouse button) attack, and how long it takes to swing, how to aim, etc. The last thing you want to do is run into the Mountains with an Atgeir that you’ve never used before and encounter your first group of Wolves.

You can start building stone structures now if you want to take a break but we’re going to get a TON of stone from our mining in the mountains; it’s up to you!

PART IV – THE MOUNTAINS

Welcome to the frosty fun zone of Wolves, Drakes, Golems, Caves of Cultists and Silver veins!

Additional Comfort Items: Red Jute Carpet.

First, let’s discuss the You are being Hunted event, which is the most dangerous event in the game and activates after you kill your first wolf; and once activated, it can trigger anywhere. Having this event trigger when you’re in the mountains still in Iron gear can lead to certain death unless you act quickly. First, I recommend taking a stack of 10 Ooze Bombs (crafted at the Workbench with Swamp materials) with you when you first venture into the mountains. The damage from Ooze Bombs does not stack. Throwing two at once has no more affect than just one. Throwing two of these back to back will melt any group of wolves. But be warned, it takes time. So it’s only effective if you can use it while standing on a structure or jagged rock where the Wolves can’t reach you. If you are caught in the open when this event happens, the best reaction is to activate your Bonemass Ability and raise a pillar of earth with your hoe underneath you to raise you. 4 stacks should be enough. Use Ooze Bombs by throwing them down and melting the wolves. Unless you are in a position to continually fight, you generally don’t want to kill the wolves until The Hunter is Over appears. As such, always have 10 stone and 10 wood on your character. You only have around 5 seconds to build your workbench and the pillar underneath you. However if you practice a bit, you can easily respond the moment the event pops up. The only real risk is being knocked off your pillar by a Drake, so prioritize killing Drakes as soon as you see them.

Phase I – Scouting & Wolf Cape

Make sure you have the Bonemass Ability ready before going into the mountains!

Remember that Frost Resistance Mead we put in the Fermenter? Time to tap it and get those potions! Depending on your map, if the mountain with Silver requires a boat to reach, you generally want to build a portal at the base of the mountain closest to the sailing route back to your base; this is where you need to get your ore to from the top of the mountain to transport it. The reason you want a portal here is because when you sail back to your base, you’ll want to destroy your ship and use the portal to build it at the mountain water base. It’s much faster than sailing it back.

Ferment a second batch of Frost Resistance Potions in case you aren’t able to craft the cape after going through the first batch.

Make sure you are loaded on Food and Rest before heading up into the mountains, have your Bonemass special ready, and a stack of Ooze Bombs.

Once in the mountains, equip the Wishbone you got from Bonemass and use it to locate Silver Veins, mark them, and kill both Drakes and Wolves.

Silver Veins begin at the altitude where you encounter Drakes. Hunt Wolves for their Pelts and Trophies, and mine Obsidian to make the new arrows. Your Iron Atgeir will easily stun Wolves with the special attack. Also open chests in structures to see if you can find Onion Seeds. If you find them, get them planted as soon as possible back at your base and start replicating them as you did with Turnips.

When you first enter the mountains, you should probably avoid Stone Golems, but if you’re experienced in fighting them, you can kill them with the Mace and Shield we used in the swamp, but it requires precise parry blocking and dodging. Additionally, if you have trouble with a Stone Golem, you can activate your Bonemass Ability; but be aware if you get the hunted event while it’s on cooldown you can be in serious trouble. Ultimately, it’s best to wait until you get Mountain Armor before you take on Golems. Also note they respawn in the same area, so if you want to farm them for their shards (which are used to build glass) you can mark them on your map.

Kill every Drake you see; we’ll need Frost Arrows in the Plains and Mistlands, and we need 2 trophies to make the Mountain tier Helmet.

Find a good place for your first Mountain Base that’s near multiple Silver Veins. Note the Mountain Base isn’t really a base as much as just a Workbench, Portal and Chest. Stone structures are great if one is nearby. You can also put Campfires down around your base to prevent Wolves, Drakes and Golems from spawning.

Next, focus on getting the materials we need to craft the Wolf Fur Cape so we don’t have to use potions anymore. To do this you need 6 Wolf Pelt, 1 Wolf Trophy, and 4 Silver. Farm Wolves until you get the Pelts and Trophy. Hunt Wolves for as long as it takes to get the Pelts and Trophy.

Once you start killing wolves, be sure to cook their meat and start eating it!

While we’re going to focus on mining an entire Silver Vein with a single whack of our Pickaxe, our first goal is to get back to our base with just one single load of silver we can carry before engaging in the transportation of a large amount. As such, mine as much as you can carry before heading back to either your boat or your base.

Once you have the first load of Silver you can carry back at your base, refine it and craft a Wolf Fur Cape. If you have enough left over, you can craft a Draugr Fang Bow. If not, don’t worry. You may have to go back to the swamp and farm some Guk to craft the bow.

Phase II – Transport Path from Mountaintop

Now that we scouted the closest mountain with Silver, it’s time to figure out how to get a cart full of nearly 2000 in weight of silver safely down the mountain and to your camp and loaded on your ship. Since every game and map is different, planning and pathing is usually required. You generally want to take the shortest route to either a shipping base at the bottom of the mountain, or route directly to your base. Most games will require you to use a boat to transport your silver, so this means carting the load down the mountain to your base.

If you have a steep incline mountain with no major obstructions, you can often just push the cart down the mountain and watch it roll to the bottom. Even if it breaks, the containers will remain intact. Just make sure it doesn’t fall into the ocean!

You can pull the cart safely straight down a steep mountain without issue; the only problem is if you encounter large rocks. It’s never worth crafting a switchback down a mountain unless you have to go at an angle to get to your base. Verify and/or build this path before you really start mining Ore.

Phase III – Mining Silver and Transporting

Silver Veins are easy to 1-shot. Just dig around and underneath them and a final “whack” causes them to explode in stone and silver goodness. Run the stone and silver back to where you built your mountain portal, put the silver in a chest, and stack the stone in piles. The average silver vein yield is ~80 and takes 5 minutes to dig out.

When you’re mining and transporting Silver Ore, don’t forget to equip your Megingjord Belt!

Try to keep cart under 2000lbs if you have slight hills on way back. Under 2200 if no real hills.

Ultimately, you’ll need to dig up and make 3 full trips of 2000 weight in silver from the Mountains to your Base. This will get you the upgraded gear, covered below.

If you are playing on the Seed presented with this guide, it can be fun to build your own path down from the mountain through the Black Forest to your base. Using a ship to move ore is generally the most efficient, but for those who like to build, it can be fun to create a network of roads.

I recommend building a Portal at the base of the mountain region that you transport the ore-filled Cart to and used as your ship landing area. That way when you transport the Silver back to your base, you can destroy the ship and rebuild it at the base of the mountain on the ocean.

Phase IV – Mountain Gear

Craft and Upgrade order: Wolf Armor Chest (+3) > Legs (+3) > Helm (+3) > [OPTIONAL] Fang Spear (+3). Note the Helm requires 2 Drake Trophies. If you don’t have them yet don’t worry. Hunt Drakes to get them. We’re crafting the Fang Spear to use against Moder (for those who want to melee him, which is the fastest way to kill him).

Note we choose the Fang Spear over the Silver Sword for Moder because it attacks faster with the same stamina cost, and it’s a ton cheaper to craft. Once you craft the Fang Spear, you can retire your Iron Atgeir. Start using the spear on everything except for Golems. Get the skill leveled up.

If you want you can craft a Silver Shield, but I find the +3 Banded Shield works fine until we get our Blackmetal Shield in the Plains.

When I get back to my base and start smelting the Silver, I usually go out and chop down trees to farm Wood and Fine Wood.

You may need to revisit the Swamp to obtain more Guk to craft and upgrade your Draugr Fang bow. You can get 20+ Guk from a good tree.

If a 2-star wolf comes after you, it’s a good idea to immediately activate the Bonemass special.

Phase V – Upgrading Mountain Gear

We’re only going to upgrade our Armor to +3 because the cost of silver is so high to get to +4, but we will want to upgrade our Draugr Fang Bow and Fang Spear to +4 for fighting Moder. You’ll want to build a Forge Tool Rack to get it to level 6. I usually put it on a Corewood pillar.

Phase VI – Mountain Caves

Caves don’t have anything in them we need to defeat Moder or proceed to the plains, but the caves provide materials to unlock some new crafting items, weapons, and Fenris Armor, which provides a movement buff (and is used by many people in the Plains and Mistlands). The good news is a Silver sword wrecks everything in caves. The bad news is the Caves can be quite dangerous without Fire Resistance, and since we don’t have access to Fire Resistance Potions yet (and the Cultists have fire attacks), it can be quite risky to run caves at this time. I personally recommend waiting to run the Caves until after we’ve defeated Moder and entered the Plains (where we unlock the ability to craft Fire Resistance potions with Barley and Cloudberries).

Phase VII – Build new Stone Base

This is a very good time to take a breather and do some base building. Remember all the stone we gathered mining Silver? If you haven’t already, get all of that back to your base!

I generally build a second new stone base next to my old one that is 11×17. The reason we make it this large is so we can fit all crafting stations, including smelting stations, within the base. The easiest way to build the foundation for a stone base is to simply raise the ground with the hoe in a segregated grid-like pattern. You don’t need to flatten everything; you just need to have chunks of ground pop up and support the edges of the Stone Floor.

If you haven’t built the Stonecutter yet, go for it! One advantage to relocating a base is when you tear down your old one, you can rebuild a garden where it stood.

Depending on how much Iron you have and need for the new base design you have in mind, another trip to the Swamp to get a load of Iron might be in order. Just remember you can now build a Longboat if you want to transport a ton of materials in a single haul. It has 18 storage slots compared to the 4 of the Karve.

Valheim isn’t just about exploration, combat, and upgrading your equipment. It’s also about building fun, useful and amazing bases!

Another reason it’s important to upgrade our base before killing Moder is because once we do, the Fuling Raid is unlocked. If that triggers on your old base, it could be devastating.

Before killing Moder, you’ll generally do 2 full Silver runs and another Iron run. Note I refer to making a run in the Karve, so we’re talking about 300 Silver Ore and 150 Iron Ore.

Phase VIII – Moder

Once you’ve upgraded all of your gear, it’s time to take the big dragon down! Make sure you have 100 Obsidian Arrows and are using a +4 Fang Spear.

The best food to use: Sausage + Turnip Stew + (Carrot Soup/Onion Soup)

Once a player is decked out in +3 Mountain Armor, a +4 Draugr Fang Bow and +4 Fang Spear, Moder is actually pretty easy; it just takes a fair amount of time (6-8 minutes depending on melee vs. ranged).

The key to surviving this fight is building a stone terrain pillar at least 8 meters high; this will block the damage from his most dangerous breath attack (while he’s flying). While melee is the quickest (you can kill him in around 6 minutes) the reality is due to his AI and the constant flying and landing in areas you can’t reach, it often requires the player to shoot him down with Obsidian Arrows and a +4 Draugr Bow unless the terrain is flat; in that case, melee is the best option.

I also recommend building numerous Campfires/Workbenches around the area you are going to fight him to prevent spawns. I’ve had multiple Golems, Drakes and Wolves spawn during my fight with him, and such adds can quickly end in death.

If you find yourself in trouble as you’re fighting him, you can activate your Bonemass Ability to lower the amount of damage his melee attacks do, but it’s pretty easy to dodge his breath, swipe and bite attacks (which are all telegraphed by sound and animation).

When he’s dead, grab the Dragon Tears and his Head, hang it at the circle (but don’t activate it) and build the Artisan Table at your base!

Phase IX – Huntsman Bow & Frostner

It’s time to craft and upgrade our Huntsman Bow (+4) (80 Iron, 40 Finewood, 40 Feathers, 14 Deer Hide). We’ll be using this in the Plains to pick off Fulings without drawing aggro from large groups.

When we defeated Bonemass, we unlocked Ymir flesh at the Trader, but couldn’t craft it until we gathered Silver in the Mountains, and since it’s useless against Moder, we didn’t need to consider using it until the Plains.

You want to craft this weapon. It’s the best 1v1 melee weapon for Mistlands against Seekers and Seeker Soldiers prior to the new Tier 6 weapons. Plus, it’s very effective to chill your enemies, and also works great in the Plains against Fulings. To craft and get this weapon to +4 (which is where you want it if you’re going to use it), you will need 5 Ymir Flesh (600 gold), 120 silver, 10 Ancient Bark, and 5 Freeze Glands. Retire your Iron Mace. Frostner is one of the overall best weapons in the game until Ashlands.

PART V – THE PLAINS

Welcome to the Plains! Our goal is to unlock the new foods, obtain the materials to craft the next tier of armor, and farm Blackmetal from Fulings. This requires raids on camps. We’ll also be cleaning out Tar Pits, and shooting the Growths from afar. Make sure you have a +4 Huntsman Bow. You’ll need it!

Additional Comfort Items: Lit Hot Tub, Round/Long Heavy Table.

By defeating Moder, we have unlocked the Horde Event where your base can be raided by Fulings. The good news is raised walls or a moat prevents them from getting into your base, but the spear throwers and Shamen can execute ranged attacks that can damage and destroy not only parts of your base, but your tamed animals.

By building the Artisan Table, we unlocked the Stone Oven. Go ahead and build one, as we’ll need it to make Lox Pies, Bread and other things. Go ahead and also build a Butcher’s Table if you haven’t already.

I always Hoe Path in the Plains, so I can quickly move between points. It takes time, but is definitely worth it.

Never go into the plains without a full stack of arrows. It’s very easy to aggro a ton of mobs, and the only defense you have is to jump on top of a rock and shoot them. There are situations that can arise where you are stuck on the rock, being attacked by multiple Lox and Fulings, and the only way you can kill them is with arrows. Ooze Bombs can also be useful if you find yourself stuck on a rock with a group of the little buggers after you.

Don’t engage Lox until you get a Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield.

Phase I – Establishing a Foothold

The first thing to do find your initial Plains Landing spot. Generally you want it in a safe area (no Lox around) that is within walking distance of one or more Fuling Camps.

As soon as you land, build your base. Put down a Workbench and Portal and go back to your main base and get plenty of wood so you can build the walls. Clear an area of 9×9 and set up a Stakewall with a Wood Gate (just one side) on the sides where you want entry. Make sure this new base is enclosed. You will be growing Flax and Barley in it.

Kill every Deathsquito you see; we need those Needles!

Phase II – Tar Pits

These nasty pools of black goo provide great resources for some great looking building components (new roofs, etc.), but are also extremely dangerous. Even the most experienced player decked out in the best gear can quickly find themselves victim to just a couple of these nasty Growths.

If you have to melee the Growths, use your Frostner. It’s very easy to dodge their spit attack just run perpendicular to the attack and it will miss. After it spits, rush the Growth and whack it with your mace. But be very careful, if you get 2 or 3 on you. You’ll die.

Strategically, the best approach to clear out Tar Pits is to shoot the blobs from afar. Getting aggro from more than one can be fatal, so it’s very important to control any combat with them.

Once a tar pit is clear of these little bastards, build a Workbench at the edge of the Tar and then start digging the draining river so you can retrieve the sticky goodness.

Phase III – Fuling Villages

These little green goblin homesteads provide our final resources for making the next tier of gear and food in the game: Blackmetal Scrap, Flax, and Barley.

Our Fang Spear will make quick work of the Fulings, usually two-shotting non-starred versions. We stagger them quite well with the Spear, too.

While we’re still in Mountain Gear, we need to be very careful while raiding these villages. The reason we use the Huntsman Bow is so we can pick Fulings off from a distance without drawing aggro of the entire group. You can also get get close enough to have just 1-2 of them gain enough interest to start coming in your direction, but not directly aggro you, and then to shoot them (to guarantee they aren’t in the middle of a larger group).

Shamen are especially dangerous as they will not only shield other Fuling, but also shoot devastating fire projectiles that can easily cause you to catch fire and die. The good news is they are often killed with just one surprise crit arrow hit.

We can block and parry base Fulings, base Berserkers, and 1-star Fulings; but not 1-star Berserkers or 2-star anything. At this point, the only way to safely kill 2-star (anything) is to shoot them from on top of a rock where they can’t reach you – either that or use Bonemass Special and try dodging their attacks, striking when you can.

You can opt to build a spire, like we did with Moder, but this time with a ladder so you can stand on top and shoot Fulings from afar. This technique works well if there are no large stones that provide higher ground to shoot from.

Once you’ve cleared a village, you should find Flax and/or Barley patches along with chests containing Blackmetal and other treasure. You will also come across Fuling Totems. We need 5 of them to summon Yagluth later on, the Plains Boss.

As soon as you find Flax and/or Barley, rush back to your enclosed Plains base. Cultivate and get them planted. Flax is used to craft the next tier of armor, and Barley is used for the next tier of food. You’ll want to re-plant the first batch of each before you begin to harvest at least 50% for crafting and the other 50% for planting.

Keep an eye open in the stone structures for the Yagluth location marker.

Want to have some fun? Aggro a group of Growths or Fulings and get them to fight each other! I’ve found 2-3 Tar Pits near a Fuling village. Do a Leroy Jenkins, and pull them all together and run off. They destroy each other. But be careful. It’s quite easy to get hit and killed unless it’s done properly.

Fuling Buildings are one of the best sources of Deer Hide; destroy them to stock up!

Phase IV – Plains Equipment

To craft the first set of Weapons and Food enhancements, we need a total of 63 Blackmetal. If you can collect this amount before your first trip back to base to refine, definitely do that.

As soon as you get back to your base, build a Blast Furnace (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores, 10 Iron, 20 Finewood). This is where you’ll smelt your Blackmetal Ore.

One of the first things you’ll want to build when you refine Blackmetal is the Pots and Pans (5 Iron, 5 Copper, 5 Blackmetal, 10 Finewood) upgrade. This will unlock your Cauldron to level 4 and allow you to make Bread, Lox Pie, Blood Pudding and Fish Wraps.

Next you’ll want to craft 2x Spinning Wheels (40 Finewood, 20 Iron Nails, 10 Leather Scraps). This is what you’ll feed your Flax into in order to make Linen Thread. To finalize our gear, we will not only need Linen Thread and Blackmetal, we also need an abundant amount of Iron. This usually means revisiting the swamps!

When we’re finally ready to harvest our Flax and have enough to re-plant and keep it going, it’s time to craft Padded Armor! To make the Chest, Pants and Helmet, it will take 55 Linen Thread and 30 Iron. Even more to upgrade, but we’ll do that later. First, let’s get the base armor and weapons.

Next you’ll want to make the Porcupine (5 Finewood, 20 Iron, 5 Needle, 10 Linen Thread) and Blackmetal Shield (10 Fine Wood, 8 Black Metal, 5 Chain). After that, the Blackmetal Ategir (10 Finewood, 30 Blackmetal, 5 Linen Thread) and Blackmetal Axe (6 Finewood, 20 Blackmetal, 5 Linen Thread). Put your +4 Fang Spear and +4 Frostner in storage for now since we have the Blackmetal Ategir and Porcupine. You’ll be using the Ategir to kill Fulings (it can handle groups with the special) and the Porcupine/Shield to kill Lox. Note you can keep using Frostner if you prefer the style, and the Spear destroys Fulings, so it can come down to preference. I prefer Porcupine and the Ategir.

Upgrading your Porcupine to +4 only costs 12 Iron and 12 Needles. It’s probably the cheapest upgrade for return on damage in the game. So do this as soon as possible to make hunting Lox a lot easier. If you forgot to do it earlier, you’ll need to craft a Grinding Stone at the Stonecutter to craft a Grinding Wheel next to your Forge to make it level 7.

At this point, you will probably have to return to Swamp to get Chain, Iron, etc.

One of the best ways to hunt Chain is to go to the Swamp at night and start whacking on trees as you run around. The Wraiths will come to you!

Start fermenting a batch of the Fire Resistance Barley wine.

Phase V – Plains Food

Time to build 2 Windmills (40 Stone, 60 Wood, 60 Iron Nails) so we can craft Barley Flour. 10 Barley Flour will make 2 Bread Dough, which you then cook in your Stone Oven. That’s going to be our new source of Stamina food. Delicious Bread.

You don’t need to build the Windmills in the Plains even though there’s more wind and they will grind quicker. I just build them outside of my main base. Once they’re built, go ahead and put your extra Barley in. Remember to always keep two full patches of Barley growing back at your Plains base. Put all extra in your Windmills so you have a steady supply of Bread.

Phase VI – Fishing

Because fishing requires so much stamina, I recommend starting to fish after you’ve unlocked Bread and Blood Pudding (which combined gives us 145 Stamina). Head to the Trader to buy your Fishing Rod and starting Bait and have at it! If you’re new to fishing and want to learn about it, you can watch the below Video which covers the new fishing system.

Phase VII – Alotta Lox & Taming

Now that we have a Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield, it’s time to go Lox Hunting. You can shoot just one in a group, and only that one will aggro. Don’t try to do two at once. Parry block their attacks and use the middle mouse special attack of your Porcupine and you’ll drop them quickly. Obtain the skins to make Lox Cape, and the meat to make Lox Pie (or just plain Cooked Lox Meat).

We can also tame Lox and ride them! You can do this two ways:

• Dig a deep trench (at least 5 units deep and 10×10 in size) with a ladder, craft an Abyssal Harpoon (which is unlocked when you mine Chitin from a Leviathan), harpoon the Lox and drag it into the pit. Once it’s in the pit, toss in a bunch of Cloudberries and engage in the standard taming process.
• Build a Stone Enclosure and do pretty much the same as defined above.

Once the Lox is tame, you can build a ramp out of the pit, craft a Saddle, and begin to ride it! Lox are great at killing Fulings and are the best tree farmers in the game. Ride and use their immense size to knock over, trample trees and smash everything in sight!

If you want to take it to the next level, you can even Breed Lox.

Below is a recent video covering the Taming and Breeding of everything in Valheim, including the new Chickens added with Mistlands.

Phase VIII – Preparing Base Defenses for Mistlands Raids

The new They Sought You Out Seeker raid event unlocks as soon as you defeat Yagluth. I want to cover this before we take him out because this new event requires additional defenses to survive, especially since the event can take place before we’ve even entered the Mistlands biome and learned how to fight the mobs. Moats on their own won’t help as the Seekers can fly over them and begin to destroy a base in a matter of minutes. I’ve actually had this event trigger while I was relaxing back in my base and crafting food, all minding my own business.

The best defense against this raid is to build stone walls at least 4x in height on the inside of your base along the moat walls. The Seekers will try to fly into your base, but won’t be able to make it over the walls, and will fall into the moat. You can also double the width of your moat as well. Note any “cattle guards” you have over your moat (where there won’t be Stone Walls) should have Iron Doors installed. Also note a Seeker can break through an Iron Door pretty quick, so if they are trying to get in, they will, and you’ll have to fight them.

The best weapon against Seekers (at this point) is your Blackmetal Ategir. You can stun them and hit them hard. Use your dodge abilities to avoid attacks.

Phase IX – Upgrading your Armor and Weapons

We need to upgrade our Padded Armor and Ategeir to at least +3. For those who are playing Hardcore or want to spend more time in the Plains, you can take them to +4.

Phase X – Yagluth

It’s finally time to take on the Plains Boss, Yagluth. Make sure the area around his altar is clear. If there’s tar pits or lox spawn points, you’ll want to clear them out and build workbenches. A single Lox or Growth spawn can often cause death and failure for the Yagluth fight.

This boss can be a royal pain in the ass. I recommend watching the below video. 10 minutes is around the average, but based on getting aggro from Fulings and other factors, the fight can draw out to nearly 20 minutes. This means you will have to use a second Fire Resistance Potion. Make sure you re-use it the moment it goes away, or you could quickly die. The most frustrating part about Yagluth is he has you constantly running away, so the entire fight is hit and run and hit and run, etc. Arrows are useless, so you need to melee him. Below is a video showing how to use Frostner to defeat him in under 10 minutes. Note the Mace skill level directly impacts how much damage you’ll do.

Make sure it’s not Raining. Below is a breakdown for the process of killing Yagluth:

1. You will use your +4 Frostner. It’s the best weapon against him since he’s undead.
2. Make sure you are loaded on Food (Fish Wraps (or Blood Pudding) + Lox Meat Pie + Bread), rested, it’s morning, etc.
3. Get that Fire Resistance potion from the Fermenter!
4. Grab your 5 Fuling Totems and head to the Altar. Place all 5 totems, but don’t summon yet.
5. Verify there are no Fulings, Lox, Deathsquito or Growth mobs anywhere around the altar.
6. I recommend building Campfires around his spawn area (outside of the big stone hand) to ensure nothing spawns during your fight.
7. Activate your Fire Resistance Potion.
8. Summon him! Note if you stand and attack when he’s summoned, you can get a good 12+ free hits in before he starts attacking.
9. He has 3 attacks: the meteors (which he raises his hand for and calls out), the beam of death, and the explosion. You need to sprint run (in a circle around him) for the meteors and do the same while moving perpendicular to his beam of death. You can take the explosion and blue aura damage without a problem. You’re going to melee him; don’t worry about blocking with your shield. Just whack the hell out of him with your +4 Frostner and run accordingly when he does his meteors or beam of death.
10. He’s quite easy once you get the cadence down. There’s just a lot of running around and it’s very time consuming.
11. Once he’s dead, take his head and the Torn Spirits that drop.
12. Go back to base, take portal to the Circle, and mount Yagluth’s head! But don’t activate his special.

Once you defeat Yagluth, Fulings can now spawn anywhere at night, including the Meadows!

PART VI – THE MISTLANDS

Welcome to a whole new level of danger and challenge. Because exploring, establishing, and progressing in the Mistlands is rather entwined with resources from other sources, many parts of the below guide need to be read in full before beginning your journey.

Crafting your Wisplight

If you’re not using the MistBeGone Mod to remove Mist and want the original experience, now is the time to use the Torn Spirits to craft 3 Wisp Fountains outside of your base and grab the Wisps that come to them at night. Then you can go to your Workbench and craft a Wisplight (1 Wisp, 1 Silver). Equipping this will take the place of your MegingJord Belt. I recommend collecting 20-30 Wisps in order to build Wisp Torches so you can see better in the Mist.

If you are using the MistBeGone Mod you don’t need a Wisplight, although it can be fun to have and use during the night because it will light the area up.

Preparing your Longship

If you haven’t built one already, you’ll want to make a Longship (100 Iron Nails, 10 Deer Hide, 40 Fine Wood, 40 Ancient Bark). Since we’re transporting a number of materials that can’t go through the Portal, most players will depart from their main base even though the Plains base will probably be closer to the Mistlands. If you’re following the same seed as this guide, the map overview lays out the route we will take to get to our landing point.

Preparation your Equipment

After running the Mistlands multiple times and learning from some of the top players, it’s my opinion the below is the best overall collection of equipment a player can have when they enter the Mistlands. Note the Root Harnesk gives us Pierce resistance. Our Blackmetal Ategir and Frostner (or Porcupine)/Blackmetal Shield can manage most everything we’ll encounter (from a melee perspective). Note all weapons and armor should be upgraded to +4. Also remember you must have a Blackmetal Axe in order to cut down Yggdrasil Wood. You’ll need 22 Root, 40 Ancient Bark and 2 Deer hide to craft and max out the Root Harnesk. If you haven’t gathered enough Root, head to the swamp and hunt those Abominations! You can retire your Huntsman Bow.

You’ll need to build the Toolshelf to raise your Workbench to Level 5, which is required to fully upgrade the Root Harnesk.

• Armor: Root Harnesk + Padded Helmet + Padded Legs + Lox Cape
• Weapons: Frostner + Blackmetal Shield + Draugr Fang (Needle Arrows) + Blackmetal Ategir
• Potions: Ooze Bomb (x40) + Fire Resistance (optional Medium Stamina & Healing)
• Food: Bread + Baked Lox Pie + Blood Pudding
• Arrows: Frost arrows (x100).

While this will only give you 82 armor, the resistance against Pierce makes a huge difference when fighting seekers. It’s better than a full padded set.

What’s Up, Gjall?

I want to mention this now just so the player is aware. This is the second raid event that unlocks after you’ve defeated Yagluth. Thankfully, it can only happen in the Mistlands. But this means any base you build in the Mistlands can be targeted by two Gjall that spawn with the event. The best defense against this is to have your Mistlands base in a Dvergr tower you took over, because you can kite the Gjall around it while you shoot them down. You can also set up Ballistas, but you’ll need either the recommended mod or a Gjall trophy to target train them without risking being shot yourself. While this is a very rare event, be prepared it can happen.

Barrier to Entry Overview

The Mistlands has a different and much more difficult Barrier to Entry relative to unlocking and crafting the next tier of gear than any other biome.

The first barrier is obtaining the Extractor, which is how we get sap. This requires we steal from the Dvergr, which can be very risky and difficult. But even when we acquire the Extractor, which we place on roots to get Eitr, it must be refined. I cover this process below.

The second barrier is obtaining Black Cores, which is how we craft the Eitr Refinery and Tier VI stations (Forge and Galdr Table). These are found in the new Dungeons (Infested Mines). This is often a brick wall that many people encounter because dungeons are hard to find, very difficult to clear, and some dungeons can have anywhere between 0-3 cores, requiring the player to discover and explore multiple dungeons just to get the base crafting stations up and running. It’s just like getting a bad crypt in the Black Forest when looking for Surtling Cores… but a lot tougher.

The good news is the Mistlands is full of Iron and some Copper. This is intentional because the new biome is designed for players to build a base in the Mistlands (or on the border). All the player needs to do is have the Surtling Cores to build a Smelter and you’re in business. The problem can be getting Blackmetal to your Mistlands base. Mistlands are usually next to Plains, so we have two choices. We can either transport a volume of Blackmetal on our ship as we find and establish a foothold, or we can build a Blast Furnace in a small base where the Plains and Mistlands border each other, and then go Fuling hunting. It’s up to you.

When it comes to the new crafting stations, this is the recommended build Order:

1. Extractor (10 YWood, 5 Blackmetal, 1 Extractor)
2. Eitr Refinery (20 BMarble, 5 Blackmetal, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
3. Galdr Table (20 YWood, 10 Blackmetal, 5 Black Core, 5 Refined Eitr)
4. Black Forge (10 BMarble, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
5. Black Forge Cooler (5 Iron, 5 Copper, 4 Marble)
6. Rune Table (10 BMarble, 5 YWood, 10 Refined Eitr).

The new Armor only requires materials from the Mistlands, including Iron. The new Ategir (Himmin Afl) requires Silver. Krom requires Bronze (20). Everything else requires Mistlands-specific components.

I cover progressing in the above-mentioned fashion in detail below, but wanted to provide an introduction to what we’ll be doing.

Phase I – Chickens

Go to the Trader and buy two Eggs for 3000 gold. These were unlocked when you killed Yagluth. If you don’t have 3000 gold, you can either choose to run some crypts or wait until later to purchase the eggs as they aren’t a requirement to explore the Mistlands. When you are able to purchase your eggs, convert your old base house into a giant chicken coop. Section off a corner with Core Wood and then build build a Hearth in the middle. Drop the eggs next to the fire in the sectioned area. It will take about 10 seconds to go from “too cold” to “warm”. These will hatch and lay more eggs, which will also hatch. Also drop a stack of 20 Barley on the ground in the section. Soon you’ll have a coven of Chickens! When they start to multiply, create another section and push two chickens into it, wash, rinse, and repeat. It doesn’t take long for your coop to get quite full!

If you don’t have the gold to purchase the eggs, there’s another way. If you’ve found Hildir, go to her map table and examine it. This will reveal the miniboss locations on the world map. The Sealed Tower in the Plains has two eggs at the bottom of the tower in the chest guarded by Zil & Thungr. It’s possible to steal the eggs and escape without killing the bosses, but it’s more fun to do the mini-dungeon and get your eggs for free!

Phase II – Garden of Goodies

Make sure you have plenty of Turnips, Barley and Carrots growing. And I mean a LOT. You’ll need them for food when you switch to the below Mage build.

Phase III – Building Materials

As covered above, the Mistlands is designed for you to have a new base within the new biome. The best choice is to find an abandoned Dvergr structure and start building there, because it’s made out of Black Marble. Once you get the Kiln up, you can farm Iron Scrap and then build a Stonecutter, which will allow you to repair the base. With a little work, you can have a beautiful Black Marble tower as a new base of operations.

When you set sail from your primary base to find the Mistlands, it’s recommended you take the following:

• 2 Surtling Cores, 20 Fine Wood, 10 Greydwarf Eyes, 10 Wood (Portal)
• 60 Blackmetal Bars (For Extractors, Refinery, Table and upgrades).
• 10 Silver to craft and upgrade Himmin afl.
• 6 Copper Bars so you can build a forge and disassemble structures for their Iron.
• 2 Iron Bars for the Stonecutter.

While Iron is abundant in the Mistlands, and you can also find Copper, I find taking these bars on your first sailing trip to save time so you can quickly build a portal to get the other materials necessary in order to tear down structures and obtain their materials.

For food, you want: Bread + (Lox Pie or Lox Meat) + Blood Pudding. If you’re not playing Hardcore, you can always mix in Sausage and Lox Meat if you’re using the pie.

Make sure you have at least 25 Blackmetal Bars at your main base so as soon as you unlock the Blackmetal Pickaxe, you can portal back and make it. We can’t do it with our sailing load because the forge needs to be upgraded and we already have it at our main base.

In the end, we are going to have one primary base in the Mistlands where we build all of the new crafting stations, but we’ll still have our main base where we do everything else. Even if we have to go to different Mistlands locations, we can transport Black Cores and other materials back to our main Mistlands base.

Phase IV – Foothold & Main Mistlands Base

If you are following the seed for this guide, you can see where we land to set our staging base.

There’s two approaches to landing in the Mistlands. If you are playing Hardcore or want to be ultra-safe, you will want to land in a Biome next to the Mistlands and build your first staging base there. However, more experienced players are generally alright landing right in the Mistlands. Of course there’s always the risk of being jumped by a 2-star Soldier or Seeker, which would be devastating in our Plains Armor. And the last thing we want to deal with is our Ship being sunk with all of our materials on it. So ultimately it’s up to you. Either build a staging area in a nearby Biome, or at a landing site.

And remember. When you land in the Mistlands after a long sailing, you probably won’t have any rest bonus. I’ve landed and all visually looks clear before there’s suddenly 3 seekers and 5 ticks on me. Quick use of Ooze bombs and moving around objects is often the only thing that can save you.

Generally, you will be sailing to the Mistlands. It is possible to find a Dvergr Dock; if so, you can use that to enter the area – just don’t attack the Dvergr unless you are certain you can defeat them (and have fought them before). If not, build a portal nearby.

Your first portal in the Mistlands will probably not be your main base. I call this the temporary Foothold portal. Because of how random the generation of Biomes is, this initial foothold will be different for everyone. Ultimately, you want your first Mistlands portal to be in a good spot where you can explore and return/escape if necessary.

Phase V – Exploring & Establishing a base

The Mistlands is not only unforgiving, it can destroy you like no previous biome if you are unprepared or just have bad luck. Two key recommendations to keep in mind:

1. Never explore the Mistlands without full Rest Bonus.
2. Do not explore the Mistlands at night unless you know what you’re doing and are properly equipped.
3. Sound is critical when exploring the Mistlands. Hearing your enemies first can make all the difference. Also, try not to run. You want to retain your stamina. Many people turn the music off altogether so they can more easily hear things around them.

The very first thing you’ll do is cut down a few trees to get Yggdrasil Wood. You need these to make the Wisp Torches and Blackmetal Pickaxe. As soon as you cut down your first tree, go back to your base and craft the Blackmetal Pickaxe (3 YWood, 20 Blackmetal). With this, you can mine any of the Ancient remains you come across.

If you are playing with the Mist enabled, you can place Wisp Torches without a workbench; do this as you explore to mark where you’ve been and also provide a light map of escape in case you have to run from an encounter. You can also place Campfires to prevent spawns. Ultimately, you can take over the Mistlands in a slow progressive way over time, which is very cool. The cadence to Mistlands is simple if you want to survive: slow and steady.

One of the key things you’re looking for are large fogless clearings in the Mistlands, which are shown on the minimap as dark sections. These areas are clear of mist and are the best places for you to build a base.

Mark these on your map:

• Ancient Roots
• Ancient Structures (Swords, Armor, Bodies)
• Petrified Skull
• Dverger Structures / Excavation Sites (occupied and Abandoned)
• Dungeons

Remember to keep an eye open for an Abandoned Dverger Structure where you can build your base. If you find one in a part of the Mistlands where the mist is cleared, that’s the best.

Note you can build a shelter inside bones, including a bed!

Grab the Jotun Puffs and Magecap you come across. You can mark their spawn points, but they’re so abundant, I didn’t find it necessary.

Kill all of the Hares you come across for their Scale Hide and Hare Meat.

If you come across a Petrified Bone of a skull, dig into the Skull to get Soft Tissue. This is required to make Refined Eitr. You’ll also unlock Black Marble the first time you start chipping away at an ancient body. This unlocks the Mortar and Pestle Cauldron upgrade, which will allow you to make new food. You can get around 70 Soft Tissue from each Skull you harvest.

This guide assumes you’ve secured a base in an abandoned Dvergr tower. When you’ve finally secured your primary base and have your new Mistlands Base portal up, I recommend breaking down a Smelter and Kiln from your main base and building them at your new Mistlands base (usually outside). Don’t forget to have at least 30 Blackmetal Bars at your new base. Since Wood is hard to come by in the Mistlands, bring a number of stacks through the portal and place them in storage near your Kiln. If you didn’t bring Copper or Iron, you’ll need to smelt it to make a Forge and Stonecutter.

Build your stonecutter and repair the structure. This is very important due to how much damage a Gjall can do to Black Marble.

Make sure you have at least 20 Ooze Bombs on your character for when you begin to explore dungeons (covered below).

Phase VI – Fighting the Mistlands Enemies

First rule of fighting in the Mistlands; try not Sprint while you’re in combat. This will waste your stamina and is rarely necessary to evade attacks. Instead, use your dodge and strategically walk in circles around your targets.

Mistland Enemies have weak spots; for Seekers it’s their backside, and for Gjall it’s the pink underside. Hit these areas for extra damage.

Seekers are the new primary enemies, and once you get down how to fight them, it’s not too difficult as long as you can stun them in an AoE attack with your Blackmetal Ategir. All seeker attacks can be blocked and parried with a fully upgraded blackmetal shield, including those from a 1-star seeker. If fighting just 1, use your Frostner and Blackmetal Shield; when you parry, attack with the middle-mouse button, and you’ll kill a Seeker in 2 hits. You can use the same technique with Seeker Soldiers; their attacks can all be parried as well. When you parry, do the special whack with your Mace; rinse and repeat. The most dangerous Seeker attack is the flying lunge, which allows them to fly to you and attack as they land. A 2-star seeker will 1-shot you if this happens from behind. As such, listening for them is critical. Both Seekers and Soldiers can knock you back quite a distance. For this reason do not fight them where they can either knock you off a cliff or into the water (which is a death sentence). You can use Frost Arrows to slow them. As mentioned, you can use Porcupine for 1v1 combat, but Frostner is the best. For groups, you’ll use the Blackmetal Ategir.

The hardest part of dealing with Seekers is when they’re in groups, and they usually spawn in pairs. More than once I’ve had 5 Seekers and 1 Soldier aggro me. Believe it or not, walking in circles is often the best method of grouping them up and stunning them with your Ategir special attack. Just make sure you dodge any leaping seekers, or parry/get away from a Soldier’s AoE attack. If you have a group of Seekers and a Soldier on you, kill the Seekers and 1v1 the Soldier as your Ategir special will not stun the Soldier. It all takes time and patience, just keep running them in circles, using your Ategir special to stun them, and sooner or later you’ll be able to kill all of the Seekers so you can take care of the Soldier (in this example).

If you encounter a 2-star Seeker or Soldier and can’t handle it due to environment or other factors, I recommend activating your Bonemass special and/or pulling them to a nearby Dvergr base.

When it comes to Gjall, the best approach is to fight with your bow (Frost Arrows) from a distance, or kite them around a tower. It’s actually pretty easy to dodge their projectile attack once you understand its speed. It’s best to use a Fire Resistance Potion the second you believe you will engage a Gjall for the first time. This can mean the difference between life and death. If you aren’t in a controlled area that you know and are ready to engage, as soon as you hear that ominous foghorn sound (which means it has aggor’d you), the best action is to run away. Always shoot at the underbelly of the Gjall. That’s where it’s most vulnerable.

Note you can turn off your Wisplight to prevent a Gjall from seeing you!

Ticks are easy; just use your Ategir Special attack and it will 1-shot all of them in radius, including any that have attached to you. You can also dodge roll to get them off of you. Same with the Broodlings in the Dungeons. Note Ticks drop Blood Clots, which are used for crafting equipment and food. Yuk! Ooze Bombs also melt Ticks.

Luring Seekers and Gjall to a Dvergr tower is always a great choice as well because you’ll get the resources, and after a period of time, if the Dvergr are all killed, you can take the tower over!

Kill Hares to unlock rug and uncooked meat platter. They also drop Scale Hide, which is needed to craft numerous Tier VI items. Trouble catching them? Throw an Ooze Bomb!

The Dvergr are the most dangerous of all targets in the Mistlands because of their mages. While the Rogue Arbalest attacks can be blocked, a Fire or Frost mage will make very short work of you. Because we have to steal an Extractor (covered below) if you do want to engage their mages, you will want to activate the Yagluth special ability, which will give you resistance to the elements. Ultimately, I recommend not engaging the Dvergr. It’s strategically better to have them alive and around to help with the Seekers and Gjall than it is to kill them for Soft Tissue, which can easily be acquired through other means.

Phase VII – Stealing the Extractor

Note it’s been recommended by numerous players that one has the option to trade and/or purchaase the Extractor from the Dvergr so the player never has to engage with them. I personally support this idea, and while Iron Gate may not add this enhancement, I’m pretty sure somebody will make a mod that allows you to purchase one from the Trader. I’ll post here if such a mod becomes available.

An Extractor is required to harvest Sap. This will begin the process of unlocking the Tier VI crafting stations and Tier VI equipment. Unfortunately, the Extractor must be stolen from the Dvergr, which means engaging them; and stealing the extractor while surviving can be a difficult task. The problem is if you shoot just one Dvergr, all of them will come after you. While the rogues aren’t too difficult to handle, the Mages will destroy you. Below are the 3 options currently available.

1. Smash and grab. This is easiest at Archeological sites where you can break the container on the wagon and jump over the fence and run. Just make sure you have a clear and long line of running. Also note the Dvergr at the site you steal from will always be hostile to you.
2. PREFERRED. Bring enemies (Seekers, Gjall, etc.) to a Site and let them kill the Dvergr. If you keep doing this over time, the Dvergr will die. For towers where the Extractor box is in the basem*nt, if it’s guarded by mages, just use Bile Bombs, but make sure you stay at the top of the stairs, or they will destroy the wood stairs and 1-shot you in close proximity.
3. Snipe the Dvergr from a distance. This only works in clear areas where they can’t reach you. Find a jagged peak to stand on top, and like taking out a Fuling village, start picking them off.
4. Craft a Cart and ram it repeatedly into the Dvergr Ward, which will destroy it. Once the Ward is down, you can break any bits of the structure you want and steal the Extractor without angering the Dvergr.

Just a quick note that you can raise Sneak around the Dvergr without risk. It’s a great way to get that ability up!

Phase VIII – Setting up Extractors

Once you get your first Extractor, it’s time to set it up on a root, preferably near your new base. When you get your first load of Sap, this will unlock the Eithr Refinery. Build that as soon as possible and start refining the Sap with Soft Tissue; this is best acquired through the skulls of fallen ancients, which is covered above.

Note that roots glow based on the amount of Energy in them, and they will deplete over time. I found cycling a single extractor between 3 roots is a good process. Wait until one dries up, go to the next, and once the 3rd is dry, go back to the 1st.

Phase IX – Infested Mines

Infested Mines are the new dungeons in Mistlands, and they are both very cool and brutal. I would say next to the bosses, they are the hardest content in the game, especially for new players who haven’t geared up and are new to the Biome. There are two types of entrances:

1. At the bottom of a staircase of an abandoned Dvergr Tower.
2. Up a grand flight of Black Marble stairs, with a single blue light at the beginning of the stairs, which is easy to see.

It’s been my experience an entrance with the big stairs going up is always in a fog-clear area while the abandoned tower is usually in the mist.

It’s a good idea to set up a portal outside of the entrance of a Dungeon in case you die; this will allow you to quickly regain access to fetch your body.

When you start running these dungeons for the first time, Ooze Bombs are your best friend. They work against Seekers trapped behind doors and the slime barriers without destroying them. 1 Ooze Bomb will kill all Ticks and Broodlings, and 3 Ooze Bombs will kill all seekers. They aren’t very effective against soldiers, but if you kill the seekers and are only left with a Soldier, it’s pretty easy to take them out.

If you’ve killed a Gjall and acquired its Bilebag and also Sap with an Extractor, you can build a Bile Bomb, which is even more powerful, acting as an AoE attack that will burn your enemies to ash. Ultimately, Bile Bombs are the best weapon to use when exploring Mistlands dungeons.

The main items you’re looking for are Black Cores. 5 of them are required for each crafting station, with the Eitr Refinery being the first one you must build, so to really get started, you need 10 Black Cores (this allows you to build the Refinery and your first crafting station). In the end, 25 Black Cores are required to have all the new stations up and running at the same time, but as covered below, you can swap stations due to limited cores.

The dungeons also have Royal Jelly, which is used to create new food and potions. Make sure you get all of the Royal Jelly you come across as the only way to “renew” it is to kill the Seeker Broods by resummoning and killing the Queen. However there’s so many Mistlands dungeons, it shouldn’t be to hard to get a stockpile that will last you until end game.

There are also Seal Fragments, which are required to gain entry to the new Mistlands Boss. Just grab those when you see them.

Once again, Slow and Steady is what will help you survive. Try not to aggro too many mobs when you first enter. The good news is most dungeons have a large room very close to the entryway, so a strategic approach to the first group of monsters you encounter is to lure them into the large room and use your Ategir to stun them.

Phase X – Black Marble Farming

You can farm massive amounts of Black Marble by locating an abandoned structure, building a Stonecutter and breaking the building down. Some of the structures will even have Iron parts, which you can use a Forge to break down into Iron and Copper Bars. The repair state of a structure doesn’t impact the return on materials.

Phase XI – Farming and Food

It’s very important to keep your Barley, Carrot and Turnip Farm going while you’re exploring and growing in the Mistlands because it’s not only the perfect chicken food, it’s also a key ingredient in many of the foods we will be using in the Mistlands.

We can also start a farm of Jotun Puffs and Magecap in the Mistlands, but it’s important to protect it. I found it easy and safe to start a farm in a fog-clear area of the Mistlands with a Stakewall, which protects it from Seekers. I never had a Gjall come into this area, so it was easy to grow my crops.

Phase XII – Building the new Crafting Stations

After you begin to acquire Black Cores, you’ll want to build the new Crafting stations. Note the initial station doesn’t unlock until you acquire your first Sap from the Collector. Because of the difficulty in finding dungeons and Black Cores, you can craft one of the stations, use it, destroy it, and craft the other. You can even destroy the refiner to build support stations for the other base stations. This will allow you to craft all Tier VI items you want with just 10 Dark Cores before you’re able to secure all of the cores necessary to have the stations and their upgrades all up at the same time.

I also want to comment that you can build these stations in your Main Base; it’s just a lot easier to get Iron in the Mistlands. But if you have a solid Iron and Blackmetal supply at your main base, you’ll need to transport enough Black Marble to build an enclosed section of your base (which is probably stone or wood) to protect it while the Eithr Refiner is running. Plus, it’s just fun to have a Mistlands base.

The first thing you must craft is a Eitr Refinery (20 Black Marble, 5 Blackmetal, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core).

Important note: you want the Eitr Refinery to be surrounded by Black Marble. The reason is the Eitr that comes out emits random sparks that will damage everything they come in contact with. This is why it’s a good idea to set up a Mistlands base, especially since the new forge, etc. don’t require any of the previous stations. They can be built and upgraded separately.

Once the Refinery is built, you can start refining Sap and Soft Tissue to create Refined Eitr, which is necessary to build the new Forge and Table, and craft most Tier VI items.

If you are having issues finding another 5 Black Cores, you can use your Eitr Refinery to make the Refined Eitr that you need, break it down, build one of the below, craft the item, and then rebuild the refinery.

After that, you can choose between:

1. Black Forge (10 Black Marble, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
2. Galdr Table (20 YWood, 10 Blackmetal, 5 Black Core, 5 Refined Eitr)

The forge is for melee weapons, and the table is for magic items (such as the new staffs). You can also use the Galdr table to craft the Feather Cloak, which will let you glide down from tall peaks without taking damage. I cover the recommended steps for progression below.

Phase XIII – Mistlands Gear Progression

I want to preface by saying Magic is king in Ashlands. While the game allows players to embrace magic, melee or ranged, this guide is going to focus on preparing for the Ashlands, so we’re going to become a mage. The Frost Staff is the weapon of choice for when we enter the Ashlands, but in the Mistlands, the Fire Staff destroys Seekers, etc.

The addition of magical Mage gear in Mistlands fundamentally changes everything, mainly due to the addition of the Protection staff and the Dead Raiser staff, which summons skeletons. On top of that, the Fire Staff is devastating, completely destroying groups of seekers in just a few hits, and the Frost staff does high single target damage while also slowing the target. Even cooler is the fact the player can mix things up by using all of these staffs in a single loadout; as such, we can summon skeletons, put up a protective blood shield, and then use either the Fire or Frost staff while our little buddies attack our enemies.

The following part of this guide focuses on becoming a Mage, using the new Elemental and Blood Magic skills.

The transition to this new build is substantial, and requires not only an investment into the new crafting tables, but also investment into new food that provides Eitr (mana) to the player.

Generally, the first Tier 6 item a player wants to craft is the Feather Cape, which is done through the Galdr table. It costs 10 Feathers, 5 Scale Hide, and 20 Refined Eitr. With this cape, you can jump off high cliffs and land safely.

Below is a breakdown of our Beginning Mage build:

• Eitr-weave Robe (20 Linen Thread, 20 Refined Eitr, 10 Feathers, 5 Scale Hide)
• Eitr-weave Trousers (20 Linen Thread, 20 Refined Eitr, 10 Scale hide)
• Eitr-weave Hood (15 Linen Thread, 15 Refined Eitr, 2 Iron)
• Staff of Protection (20 YWood, 4 Blood Clot, 16 Refined Eitr)
• Staff of Embers (20 YWood, 4 Surtling Core, 16 Refined Eitr)

Total Mage Starter Kit: 40 YWood, 55 Linen Thread, 87 Refined Eitr, 10 Feathers, 15 Scale Hide, 2 Iron, 4 Blood Clots, and 4 Surtling Cores.

Once you get your Staff of Embers up and running, killing Hares is cake.

On top of that, we’ll need to switch our food out, finding a balance of Hits, Stamina, but mostly focused on Eitr. Credit to Scarlet for this Mistlands Food Breakdown Sheet.

It is recommended you don’t go down this path until you have the materials to craft everything; to have a solid chance of survival, you’ll want both the Staff of Protection and the Staff of Embers.

At this point, you want to make sure you have a Magecap and Jotun Puffs Farm going because you’ll need to sustain your food. You’ll also need a sizeable Carrot and Turnip Farm back at your main base.

I find the easiest balance starter food as a Mage is: Lox Pie / Misthare Supreme + Stuffed Mushroom + Seeker Aspic. But you won’t be able to summon Skeletons with less than 100 Eitr.

To finalize our Mage build, we’ll want to craft the Dead Raiser staff, upgrade the others, and then craft a Staff of Frost. To upgrade our Staves to Level 2 we need to build a Rune Table. Below is the recommended order of crafting:

• Dead Raiser Staff (Craft): 20 YWood, 10 Bone Fragments, 16 Refined Eitr, 4 Skeleton Trophy.
• Staff of Protection (Upgrade): 10 YWood, 2 Blood Clot, 2 Refined Eitr.
• Staff of Embers (Upgrade): 10 YWood, 2 Cores, 2 Refined Eitr.
• Dead Raiser (Upgrade): 10 YWood, 4 Fragments and 2 Refined Eitr.
• Staff of Frost (Craft): 20 YWood, 4 Freeze Glands, 16 Refined Eitr.
• Staff of Frost (Upgrade): 10 YWood, 2 Freeze Glands, 8 Refined Eitr.

When you use your Staff of Protection to create the defensive bubble, make sure if you’re using the Dead Raiser Staff that your minions are close. They’ll receive the protective bubble, too!

With the Ashlands release, Valheim added the new Unfading Candles (10 Black Marble, 3 Skeleton Trophy, 10 Refined Eitr, 15 Resin) upgrade for the Galdr Table, which allows us to upgrade our Staves to Level 3. Upgrading our Staves is actually quite expensive, but well worth it because we don’t want to even think about going into the Ashlands without our weapons fully upgraded. The total cost of upgrading the Ember, Protection, Frost and Dead Raiser Staves to Level 3 is (60 Yggdrasil Wood, 64 Refined Eitr, 4 Surtling Cores, 4 Blood Clots, 4 Skeleton Trophy, 4 Frost Glands, 10 Bone Fragments).

If you want to focus on melee (which can be very fun), you can upgrade to Carapace Armor and Shield. The Arbalest is also a great sniping weapon, able to do massive damage to Gjall with sneak attacks to its underside. Himmin afl is a lot of fun to use with the electrical damage and AoE. The Mistwalker sword does both Slash and Frost damage. I find Krom to be clunky, but it looks cool and its special attack stabs quite well. Skoll and Hati can be fun for those who like to stealth and 1-shot pounce on their targets. The Demolisher is great for the AoE, but the reality is I find the Ategir to be much better because it doesn’t have a long spin-up time like the Demolisher does (which can get you hit by multiple enemies before you bring it down). Ultimately, I find Magic to be the best end-game weapon combination, capable of killing the Queen in under 10 minutes (solo) when played properly. Plus, once a player raises their Elemental Magic and Blood Magic, the damage increases substantially. That and the burn DoT also melts targets, especially Seekers.

Phase XIV – Traps and Ballista

You can build Mechanical Springs at the Artisan Table, but note they cannot go through a portal. These are used to build Traps and Ballista. Personally, I find both to be pretty much useless in their base design and I don’t use either of them. The only upside is Ballista can take care of a Gjall pretty quickly, but it will also auto-target the player. Then again, killing a Gjall with your Staff of Embers is a great way to raise your Elemental Magic skill.

Phase XV – Mastering Magic

As mentioned, magic is king in the Ashlands. Getting all of the proper gear and food is just part of the process. Skill level is also very important as well. Ashlands makes Mistlands look like a cakewalk, so it’s important the character focuses on raising Elemental and Blood Magic skills both to at least 30.

While the Staff of Embers will be our go-to weapon for both Mistlands and Ashlands, the Staff of Frost can also be very useful for single target damage, so I recommend familiarizing yourself with it. Additionally, the fastest way to raise Elemental Magic is to use the Frost Staff. The best victim? A frost resistant Lox. Find a herd, build an earth platform, and just shoot them from up there.

The best way to level up your Blood Magic is to camp a Draugr spawner in the swamp with your minions. First, make sure your Dead Raiser Staff is at least Level 2. Raise the ground over the body piles with your Hoe to prevent them from being destroyed, and use your Staff of Protection to bubble your buddies and block all attacks. For each level gained in Blood magic, the protection of your bubble goes up by 5 (it starts at 200). This means level 50 Blood Magic will grant an additional 250 protection, more than double the starting value. Having Blood Magic at 100 provides 700 total protection (200 + 500). The damage from your minions also increases with the skill level.

Phase XVI – The Queen (Final Mistlands Boss)

The Queen is yet another tough fight. While the fastest legit kill I’ve seen is with melee, since we’re using a Mage build I’ll focus on that.

To gain entry to her lair, you must craft a Sealbreaker (9 Seal Fragments) at your Galdr table.

For those who want to do melee, the weapons and armor are: Carapace Helmet, Root Harnesk, Carapace Leggings, Feather Cape, Mistwalker Sword, Carapace Shield and Demolisher. The food is: Meat Platter, Misthare Supreme, and Salad. Potions are: Poison Resistance, Major Healing, and Minor Stamina. Surprisingly, using Eikthir as the special during the fight allows for downing the Queen in under 5 minutes, as this video shows. Note that video uses the Double Power Attack, which you can learn how to do here.

Here’s a video showing how to kill her as a Mage. Note this individual doesn’t have Level 3 Staves, and he kills her pretty quick.

Preparing for the Ashlands

Even though we’re a mage, since we’re heading to end-game and you’ll want access to all the gear available, make sure you build a Black Forge, Black Forge Cooler and Vice.

Make sure you build an Artisan Table in your Mistlands Base near your Galdr Table and Black Forge. Then build a Blast Furnace. I put mine outside. You’ll need the Blast Furnace to refine Flametal Ore from the Ashlands, and then you’ll use it at your Galdr Table and Black Forge.

Congratulations! The Queen is dead. You received Majestic Carapace. Go back to your base and build an Artisan Press (5 Black Marble, 5 Bronze, 1 Majestic Carapace) next to your Artisan Table. This will unlock Ceramic Plate, which is quired to sail to the Ashlands (and survive the boiling water).

At this point it might be a good idea to take a break and relax a bit. Build a new Mistlands base. Raise your Elemental and Blood Magic skills. Take it easy, because the moment we go to the Ashlands… all hell is going to break loose. And you will probably die… a lot.

PART VI – THE ASHLANDS

Welcome to the final Biome of Valheim, and it’s no joke. The Ashlands is the hardest and most dangerous content in the game. Unlike other biomes, the player is constantly swarmed with numerous enemies. It’s literally an ongoing warzone. On the plus side, there’s new resources and amazing new armor, weapons and magic. Wait until you try the new Staff of the Wild and Trollstav!

Once again, I highly recommend players turn the Death Penalty to casual. It’s very easy to get knocked into and die in the Lava. And the only way to do a corpse run is to have a complete and upgraded second set of gear you can wear and use. It can literally take hours to make a successful corpse run in Ashlands if the wrong decisions are made. Even with a Casual death penalty, it can be very rough retrieving your corpse.

It is not uncommon to have 10+ mobs on you at once in the Ashlands. Be prepared. It’s brutal.

Phase I – Building the Drakkar & Shield Core

A very special ship is required to sail to the Ashlands. The new Drakkar. It requires Majestic Carapace, which the new Artisan Press allows us to craft at the Artisan Table. When you first craft a set of Carapace, it will unlock the ship and the Shield Core.

To build the Drakkar, it will take 100 Iron Nails, 30 Ceramic Plate, 50 Finewood, and 25 Yggdrasil Wood. Build this first at your main base dock because we’re going to be sailing due south. Next, build a Shield Core (1 Black Core, 1 Surtling Core, 5 Ceramic Plate)

Much like when we headed to the Mistlands for the first time, you want to take materials with you. Load 7 Iron, 5 Copper, 1 Shield Core, 20 Greydwarf Eyes, 4 Surtling Cores, 50 Wood, 100 Stone, and 40 Finewood into your shiny new Drakkar. This will allow you to build a Stonecutter, Shield Generator and two Portals. One for a nearby island or landmass, and the other for when you arrive in hell. It will also give you the materials you need to build earth walls as soon as you land. They are hands down the best defense against the hordes of Ashlands minions.

Phase II – Preparation

Now that you’re ready to head out, it’s important to have the best food and gear combination. Since we’re running a full mage build, you should have a full set of Level 3 Eitr-Weave Armor, and Feather Cape.

You should also have Staff of Embers, Staff of Protection, Deadraiser and Staff of Frost all at level 3. Also note we keep the Feather Cape. It’s still the best, even in Ashlands.

Sadly, the Deadraiser is pretty useless in the Ashlands. However it’s great for leveling your Blood Magic (as covered previously). The higher the level, the more skeletons.

Make sure all of your gear is repaired!

The food I recommend: Yggdrasil Porridge + Misthare Supreme + Seeker Aspic. We could go full Eitr and replace the Misthare Supreme with Stuffed Mushroom, but I find it better to have a balance of health and Eitr for our first landing. That way we can take a few hits if our Protection bubble is knocked down.

Also, make sure your Elemental Magic skill is at least 30. It also helps if your Blood Magic is at least 30 as well.

Make sure you have the Bonemass Ability selected and ready.

Also, I recommend watching this video. It does a great job of explaining how the Mage dominates the Ashlands.

Phase III – Sailing to the Ashlands and establishing a Foothold

You always want to sail directly south from the center of the map. Once the spires come into view, it’s time to prepare.

The Drakkar is very good at bottoming out in shallow water, so make sure you keep the ship far enough from shore so it doesn’t get stuck.

First, find a nearby land mass or island that’s not Ashlands and set up your first portal. This is in case you die, so you can quickly get back and even rebuild a new Drakkar if necessary.

When you’re ready, make sure you have your Rest Bonus and a belly full of food!

Before you enter the outskirts of the Ashlands waters, know they are infested with Bonemaw Serpents. Once again. Make sure you have your complete rest bonus and are full of food.

Make sure your protective shield is up. Do not get in the water. It is boiling and will kill you. And of course, stay away from the Lava.

As you approach the main land mass you will be attacked by Bonemaw Serpents and flying Voltures. The good news is your Frost Staff will decimate them. However your ship will probably take damage. Simply craft a Workbench on a nearby spire and repair. Note we brought 50 wood so we don’t just have the ability to build one Workbench. While you want to break them down if you’re not close to land, leaving a workbench on a spire will ensure mobs don’t spawn around that area.

Slow and Steady is the mantra of entering the Ashlands for the first time. Sail very slowly through the spires, and as you approach land, look for Spawner pyres. You need to take them out from a distance. Reminder, any mob that’s wet takes bonus Frost Damage, so if mobs start swimming out toward your ship, you can tear them down pretty easily.

Once again, destroy any spawners you see. They will be red glowing pillars. Also look out for Lava Blobs. They explode and do terrible damage, but if you trigger them at the right time, they can be used to destroy other enemies around you.

Go into structures and look for Fiddlehead Fern plants. Grab plenty of Fiddlehead. It unlocks new food and is used to craft the Staff of the Wild.

Placing Campfires around is your best defense to prevent spawns. Try to find a structure where you can place your Workbench, Portal and Stonecutter. Raise the ground wherever you need to create barriers. Also place your Shield Generator and put bones in it.

Congratulations! You now have your Ashlands foothold! Don’t forget to mark it on your map!

Below is a chart that shows how tough the enemies of Ashlands are, but also what they are weak, resistant and immune against.

Phase IV – Exploring and taking it slow

It’s now time to explore. Your goal is to gather additional materials. The first thing you’ll do is cut down some trees to get Ashwood. This unlocks a ton of things, including the Staff of Fracturing. However, we’re going to stick with the Staff of Embers and Staff of Frost for now.

Take it slow. The Ashlands is full of more mobs than any other Biome. Place Campfires as you explore to prevent spawns. Always have your shield up.

The real juicy new weapons don’t unlock until we are able to farm Flametal and infiltrate Fortresses. Speaking of Fortresses, keep an eye open for the green beam that shoots into the sky. Mark them on your map. Fortresses are very dangerous, and covered below. But they are also the best bases in the Ashlands once you taken them over. Rare materials are also found within them, which unlocks some of the best mage items in the game.

The environment of Ashlands has a lot of explosive things. Lava Blobs, exploding nodules on the ground, etc. Be very careful around these, because if any of them go off and knock you in the Lava, you’re dead.

All rocks and structure now provide Grausten, which unlocks the new core building options for the Ashlands.

Structures are your best defense. Second best are the large rocks. As you venture into the Ashlands try to run from one structure to another, and you will need to set up many Portals because it’s quite the journey to slowly make your way inland toward Fortresses and such.

We want to hunt for and gather: Ashwood, Proustite Powder, and also kill Asksvins to get their organs. Once you do, you’ll unlock Basalt Bombs (crafted at the Workbench). These are necessary for farming Flametal, which is a key component in numerous end-game crafting options for equipment and structures.

The Asksvin charge hits very hard. Always keep a bit of distance and walk perpendicular to them while you’re fighting, and the charge will almost always miss.

We want to craft the new Mage Armor set, which has better Eitr regen than our current set (100%). It’s called Embla Armor (130%). To craft the Hood, Trousers and Robes, we’ll need 56 Linen Thread, 55 Refined Eitr, 22 Asksvin Hide and 5 Flametal. Use the Galdr table at your Mistlands base.

When you encounter a Morgen, try to fight it around a pillar and always keep it as distance. You can take them down with your Staff of Frost pretty easily, but one or two star Morgens are deadly. At this point, just run away. When Morgen Sinew drops, it will unlock the Ashen Cape.

The Fallen Valkyrie drops Celestial Feather, which is a very important crafting material. Just use to Staff of Frost to wear it down.

You will be making multiple trips back to the Mistlands to manage your Sap production and other things.

Phase V – Stone Portal

Our top priority is to find Molten Cores to build our first Stone Portal. These allow us to transport Ore thorough the portals, which is a lot more efficient than sailing out of the Ashlands to your Mistlands base. You can take a stone portal to any other non-stone portal. The new weapons, armor and mage gear are crafted at the Gladr Table and Black Forge, which is back in your Mistlands base. We also need a Blast Forge to refine the Flametal Ore into useable Flametal. We only need one Stone Portal to get started, and that requires 2 Molten Core, 10 Greydwarf Eyes, and 30 Grausten.

Molten Cores are found in either Fortresses or Putrid Holes (Ashlands mini-Dungeons). Just like running the Mistlands dungeons with our Plains gear, getting the first two Molten Cores can be very rough.

Phase VI – Putrid (Morgen) Holes

You want your Wisplight for exploring Putrid Holes because they’re so dark.

These are the mini-dungeons of Ashlands. They’re never very big, and often empty. But there’s always a Morgen in there, so make sure you have your shield up. The Morgen often spawns after you walk into the area. The best thing to do is run past it and see if there’s a narrow slit you can go through or a pillar towards the back. If so, you can kite and kill the Morgen. In the back of these mini-dungeons, you’ll find Molten Cores and Treasure Chests (which are very hard to see).

Surprisingly, these small dungeons also have Soft Tissue as forms of blobs on the floor. Hit them with your Staff of Embers and you can take them back to your Mistlands base to refine to Eitr.

Can also find the Vegvisir for a Mysterious Location. That’s the location of Lord Reto’s Tomb. I won’t give it away, but let’s just say you’re in for a very tough fight and will unlock something very special…

Phase VII – Farming Flametal Ore

We need to locate and farm our first Flametal Pillar. To do this, we must use Basalt Bombs to access it. If you touch the Lava, you’re pretty much dead. After you farm a certain amount from the pillar, the Flametal Pillar will begin to sink back into the lava. Get as much as you can and make sure you have a Basalt Platform to jump on for safety.

If you want to be ultra safe, you might want to put down a Shield Generator to prevent any of the falling fire balls from hitting and knocking you in the lava. You can also use the Queen special ability for mining efficiency.

Mining Flametal Ore takes some time to learn. But once you get it down, you’ll be a lot more comfortable with it. If you’re able to time things just right you can get nearly all of it, but there may be some left on the surface of the lava. You can use a Basalt Platform to reach it, or you can tame as Asksavin and ride it over the lava! That’s covered below.

Phase VIII – Taking over Fortresses

In order to unlock the Staff of the Wild and Trollstav, we have to loot Chests only found inside of Fortresses. Until we find our first Jade, it’s rough. So we need to go slow.

First, remove all outside surrounding mobs and put Campfires around the Fortress while you also destroy the 4 Ballistia at each corner with your Staff of Embers. Next, build a Workbench at the base followed by a ground pillar (like we built for Moder) that’s high enough to scale the walls. Make sure you place ladders so you can easily access it and do not build your Workbench or any wood in front of the door. Note you can use your Staff of Ember against the main door and the AoE will damage the mobs behind the door. Before you jump on the Rampart, take out all the mobs on the Rampart, focusing first on Warlocks. Also take out the single mob (usually an archer or warlock) in the center tower area. Once you’ve cleared the ramparts, focus on destroying the Effigies (Spawners). You might need to jump out of the Fortress multiple times due to aggro from adds. Kill the Warlocks first. Then the rest. Whatever you do, don’t jump down into the Fortress area until it’s clear. You’ll die very quickly. Leave the doors intact.

Once you’ve taken over your first fortress, you found your new main base! Relocate your other base, shield generator, stonecutter, etc. to the new Fortress base!

To get back inside your base, use the pillar. Later on we can install Ashwood doors. But for now, replace the wooden ladders with new Graustein Steep Stairs on the pillar. Remember to not connect the stairs to the ledge, or enemies could get in. Always jump into your base.

Look in the Fortress Chest. It should have Jade, Bloodstone or Iolite. What we’re really looking for is Jade. It is used to craft the Staff of the Wild (and other weapons). Bloodstone is used to craft the Trollstav (and many other weapons). Iolite is used to craft Lightning weapons, but there aren’t any new mage lightning weapons. Our goal is to get and use both the Staff of the Wild and the Trollstav. They’re not only a ton of fun, but the most powerful mage weapons in the game.

Guess what! There’s more! While we don’t want to knock down the outer door of the Fortress, we do want to knock down the inner door because there’s at least one more Treasure Chest, a Bell Fragment and possibly the Vegvisir for Fader. Craft a Battering Ram and take that spiky central column wall down! You should find at least one Jade in your first Fortress, but might need to hit a second one. You can also use the battering ram to destroy the center column of the Fortress completely, which opens the entire inner area for building.

Phase IX – Staff of the Wild and Trollstav

Since we’re currently running as a mage, our primary weapon will be a Staff of the Wild. It’s insanely powerful, and the first weapon you want to pursue. The great news is the level of the staff doesn’t impact the number of vines or the damage the vines do, only the initial hit of casting the bolt at a target. With a full bar of Eitr, you can easily lay 4-5 vines down in quick succession. Their damage is based on your Elemental Magic skill.

Next we have the Trollstav. It summons a fiery troll from a meteor that attacks everything in sight… including you. It’s not very useful for exploring and engaging in quick combat while you move between points, but it’s fantastic for boss fights or sieging fortresses. The maximum number of trolls you can control is 2 and their damage is based on your Blood Magic level. While just one upgraded is needed to control two trolls, the additional third level only affects the impact of the meteor.

Phase X – Upgrading the Galdr Table and Black Forge

We can now build a Feathery Wreath (8 Celestial Feather, 1 Asksvin Trophy, 10 Refined Eitr, 3 Ashwood) to upgrade our Galdr Table to Level 4. The Black Forge can be upgraded to Level 5 with a Metal Cutter (5 Black Marble, 5 Flametal, 5 Ashwood, 4 Charred Bone) and a Gem Cutter (5 Flametal, 8 Ashwood, 2 Morgen Sinew, 1 Bloodstone).

Additionally, with all of the Galdr Table upgrades, we can upgrade our Staff of Embers, Staff of Protection and Staff of Frost to Level 4. Ignore upgrading the Deadraiser any further. It’s useless in the Ashlands. The cost to keep your skeletons bubbled and how easy they get knocked in the lava makes it a poor choice, especially with how difficult it is to summon Archers. At this point, the only reason to use a Deadraiser is to raise your Blood Magic skill (as covered above) to make the Trolls from your Trollstav more effective.

Phase XI – New Food and Ashland Farm

Smoke Puffs, Fiddlehead and Vineberry Clusters are the new food types we want to farm. Puffs are scattered about. Fiddlehead come from ferns in ruins, and the Vineberry Clusters grow on the sides of ruins.

Once you unlock Flametal and the Stone Portal, you can take Flametal back to your base and create the Rolling Pins and Cutting Board (4 Flametal, 8 Ashwood, 6 Finewood) upgrade for your Cauldron. We now have a new combination of food: Seeker Aspic + Sparkling Shroomshake + Marinated Greens. This will give you around 130 health and more than 300 Eitr. It’s nuts!

On top of this you can also use the Lingering Eitr Mead, which increases your Eitr regeneration by 25% for 5 minutes. Perfect for fortress sieging or fighting Fader!

Phase XII – Roaming the Ashlands & Building your Fortress Base

In the end, your goal is to raid Fortresses to gather Jade, Bloodstone and Ionine so you can craft and upgrade your end-game gear. To do this you will probably be setting up portals at each Fortress you take over so you can have a staging area to move to the next one.

Once you’re able to set Stone Portals up at your Ashlands Base, Mistlands Base and your Main Base back in the Black Forest, it’s a great time to do some building! Try out all of the new Grausten pieces. While I prefer keeping my main base with rest bonus in the Black Forest because I like the environment and visuals, refining your Ashlands base is quite useful. But you’ll still need to go back to the Mistlands farm to maintain your Magecap and Jotun Puffs. You’ll also have to manage your Flax and Barley farm in the Plains. Everything else you can plant in the Ashlands (if you want) under a Shield Generator.

Phase XIII – Taming Asksvin

While this section is optional, it’s a lot of fun and I highly recommend doing this since Asksvin can be used to run across lava and gather Flametal Ore that fell into it!

These little buggers are the new best and most fun tamable creatures. They hit like a truck and offer great protection to your bases. On top of that, they lay Asksvin Eggs which you can hatch at your other bases, which means you can have Asksvin running around in the meadows. Below is a video that explains the best way to tame Asksvin. You can craft an Asksvin Saddle (6 Flametal, 20 Linen Thread, 4 Morgen Sinew) when you’re ready!

Phase XIV – Final Boss – Fader

Since the Ashlands is currently the final biome, the only reason to defeat Fader is to experience the fight and gain access to his Forsaken Power, which gives 300 extra carry weight and 10% movement speed. It’s really not worth it right now, but being a mage, we can easily cheese him with our Trollstav, as seen in the below video.

PART VII – END GAME

Congratulations! If you’ve done everything mentioned in the guide, you’ve conquered the Ashlands, have maxed out Mage gear, and are kicking ass! But there’s still plenty more to do. There’s a ton of great melee builds to try, with Lightning being the most effective in the Ashlands. So feel free to try different things and see if you prefer a melee or ranged playstyle over the mage. For those who have conquered the Ashlands, I’ve put together a list of additional things you can do to keep you busy.

Building

This is one of the greatest features of Valheim, and the majority of players only scratch the surface. Players have the ability to completely transform the world they are playing in. Build castles, paved roads, docks for ships, defensive structures, and more.

The grausten building blocks are great and can be used to build a 3rd main base area in the Black Forest or anywhere else you want.

Replanting trees with the seeds you picked up is an essential part of the game. You can quickly plant a forest of stacked lumber that, when cut, falls like dominoes.

Trying all Weapons & Improving Character Skills

Have you 1-shot backstabbed a Troll? Snuck into a Fuling camp? How about trained in Polearms and learned to properly kite tough mobs without parry/block, but used the Atgeir spinning attack? Have you crafted a Storm Fang bow or Dyrnwyn flaming sword? Craft different weapons and see how you like the adjusted play styles; also, build your main character. Skill points make a huge difference in damage, movement and other factors. Improve those Block, Running, Jumping and Sneak skills!

And with the plathora of new weapons introduced with Ashlands, allowing for Bleeding. Thundering and Primal upgrades. There’s a lot to play and test out.

Starting over with different play style

After completing the game and trying out different weapons, perhaps you want a different playstyle and to get a feel for the game following that playstyle. Plenty of people do melee or ranged only builds. Try what you’re drawn to!

Hildir’s Quests & Lord Reto

Did you find Hildir, look at her map, and complete her quests? Yes… you get clothes as a reward, but it’s still fun! And Lord Reto in the Ashlands is one tough fight. However if you want the easiest way to immobilize and kill him use Health and Stamina food with Primal Berserkir Axes. Give it a shot!

Playing with No Map

Want a totally different experience? Grab that mod that removes the map and minimap! Building structures and bonfires now becomes a standard requirement in order to track where you are and where you have been, also requiring complete exploration to locate the bosses.

Multiplayer & Dedicated Servers

Think Valheim is fun playing solo? Try playing with friends; even better, play with other people on a dedicated server where everyone is constantly building and changing the world. While there is the option for PvP (which is really most useful for raising skills like Shield Block), the game isn’t really designed for PvP; it’s designed for collaboration. It’s awesome to log out of your server and come back in the next day and see one of your friends started building a huge new castle in that field you once hunted deer in.

Animal Taming & Chickens

Many players overlook the fact you can tame Boars, Wolves, Lox and Asksvin. This includes the ability to ride both the Lox and Asksvin. Plus the Wolves, Lox and Asksvin can make great base defenders for attacking events. It’s also fun to have a bunch of chickens running around your base.

Helping Others

If you join a Discord community and get to know other players, many people often need help recovering their bodies or with boss fights. There’s even a Discord group that specializes in helping people recover their bodies. If you build a character up (legit) and have great skills and gear, you may be perfect for helping other people in bad situations.

Never Cheat

To truly enjoy Valheim, never cheat. Always play per the game’s rules. This is much more satisfying than using cheat codes to faceroll the game.

CONCLUSION

Thanks to the team at Iron Gate for making one of the best games ever! I hope this guide was helpful, and if you have any recommendations for enhancements or changes, please leave them in the comments below. Happy Hunting, Vikings!

External Resource List

• Valheim World Generator Tool.
• Valheim Terraforming Guide (Dec 2022).
• Complete Taming and Breeding Guide (All but Asksvin – Aug 2023).
• Complete Valheim Comfort Guide Level 23 (Dec 2023).
• Complete Valheim Fishing Guide (April 2024).