Valheim beginner’s guide: your first ten days

4 things need no station at all, so you can make them the moment you have the materials: Club (6 Wood), Hammer (3 Wood, 2 Stone), Stone Axe (5 Wood, 4 Stone) and Torch (1 Wood, 1 Resin). The hammer is the one that matters: it opens the build menu, and the workbench in it unlocks everything else.

1. Pick up Wood and Stone A recipe appears in your crafting menu once you have picked up each of its ingredients.
2. Craft a Hammer by hand It costs 3 Wood and 2 Stone.
3. Build a Workbench under a roof It costs 10 Wood and only works with a roof over it and at least 70% of the space around it covered.
4. Build a Bed near it, and a Campfire A bed costs 8 Wood, a campfire 5 Stone and 2 Wood.

• What counts as shelterA roof over you and at least 80% of the space around you covered. The game checks above, sideways and diagonally up, so walls and nearby rock count as well as the roof.

• The workbench needs a roofIt will not work in the open: it needs a roof over it and at least 70% of the space around it covered. You can only build within 20 m of one, 4 m more for each upgrade.

• A bed sets where you wake upIt needs a roof and at least 80% cover. To sleep through the night you also need a fire’s warmth at the bed, no enemy aware of you, and to be dry.

• Keep the fire fedA campfire burns wood and warms you, and nothing solid can sit right above it or it goes out. The first base guide covers smoke, comfort and where to build.

Food is your health and stamina

Eat three different foods and keep them topped up.

Without food you have 25 health and 50 stamina. Each food adds its own health and stamina for as long as it lasts, and you can have 3 different foods at once, so you are never stronger than your last meal. The best three in the Meadows, together:

Cooked Deer Meat + Honey + Cooked Boar Meat = 98 health and 107 stamina, the first running out after 15 minutes.

Food	Health	Stamina	Lasts
Cooked Deer Meat	35	12	20 minutes
Honey	8	35	15 minutes
Cooked Boar Meat	30	10	20 minutes
Grilled Neck Tail	25	8	20 minutes
Mushroom	15	15	15 minutes
Raspberries	7	20	10 minutes

Cooked meat needs a cooking station; berries and mushrooms you just pick up. Food by biome has the best three for every later stage.

Offer Deer Trophy×2 at his altar (Forsaken Altars). Eikthyr has 500 health. The boss prep card has the weapon, armor and food to bring, and the Eikthyr page ranks every weapon against him. What his drops open up:

Copper and tin are the reason to go in: smelt them and the forge combines them into bronze, the metal of your next tools, weapons and armor. Before you can smelt anything you need a smelter:

1. Find Surtling Core in Burial Chambers or Smouldering Tomb
2. Build a Smelter with Surtling Core×5 It costs 20 Stone and 5 Surtling Core.

• The hardest hitter Troll hits hardest here, up to 70 damage before armor, and has 600 health. Early on, walking away is a fine plan.

• Ore stays out of portals Bronze, Copper, Copper Ore, Tin and Tin Ore cannot go through a portal. Carry them, cart them or sail them home.

• Bronze is the next stepBy the time you leave, aim for Bronze Armor: it tops the Swamp armor ranking among what you can bring.

The progression checklist lists what to gather and build in the Black Forest, and every stage after it.

• RestedStay near a fire, sitting or in shelter, dry and with no enemy aware of you, and after 20 seconds you become Rested: 50% faster health and 100% faster stamina regeneration, and 50% faster skill gain. It lasts 8 minutes plus 1 minute per comfort level above 1; a bed, a campfire and a roof make comfort 4, so 11 minutes. See comfort.

• Dying costs skillEach death takes 5% off every skill, except within 10 minutes of your last death. See skills and the death penalty.

• Your tombstone holds everythingAll you carried stays in a tombstone where you died, marked on your map. Emptying it gives you Corpse run for 50 seconds: +5 health every 1 s, +150 carry weight, −75% stamina for running, −75% stamina for jumping, resistant to blunt, resistant to slash, resistant to pierce. Run back light, then gear up.

• Ores and metals cannot go through portals26 items are blocked, mostly ores and metal bars, so you carry them home on foot, by cart or by ship. The portal guide lists them all.

Two small things make a big base easier to live with: label your chests and rooms with signs (50 characters, colours and emoji allowed) and mark your map with pins of up to 20 characters. The Valheim emoji list has every symbol that works on both, ready to copy.