Where and how to build your first Valheim base

Monsters do not wander into a base by spawning there: creatures appear 40–80 m from a player, and normal spawns never appear inside the area around your workbench and other base pieces. What does reach you is the local wildlife walking in, and raids. That makes the biome you build in the main choice:

Biome	Hardest roaming hit	Raids that can reach a base	Freezing weather
Meadows	Boar 10	12	None
Black Forest	Troll 70	15	None
Swamp	Oozer 115	10	None
Mountains	Stone Golem 110	7	Always
Plains	Vile 150	15	None
Mistlands	Seeker 230	7	None
Ashlands	Fallen Valkyrie 220	4	None
Deep North	Barka 280	6	Always

The counts are raids that kills unlock. Hildir’s quests add 3 more that can reach a base in every biome: one for each of Hildir's Brass Chest, Hildir's Silver Chest and Hildir's Bronze Chest you hand back, possible for good from then on.

• Flat ground by waterFlat ground means fewer foundations to build, and a shore puts your boat at the door later on. Neither is a rule, just less work.

• Wood and stone close byYour first buildings are almost all wood, and the campfire, hammer and stone pieces need stone, so settle where both are easy to reach.

• Raids follow you, not the baseA raid targets a player standing within 20 m of 3 base pieces, wherever that is. An outpost with a workbench, a bed and a fire counts too.

• A workbench under a roofIt needs a roof over it and at least 70% of the space around it covered, counting walls and nearby rock. You can build within 20 m of it, 4 m more per upgrade.

• Give the fire roomA fire goes out when something solid sits right above it or blocks its smoke. Smoke rises, and while your head is in it you are Smoked: 2 damage every 1 s. A high roof keeps rising smoke above your head.

• A bed by the fireYour bed needs a roof and 80% cover to set your spawn point, and a fire’s warmth to sleep in.

Comfort and Rested

Rested speeds up health and stamina regeneration and skill gain. It lasts 8 minutes plus 1 minute for each comfort level above 1. Your comfort level is 1, plus 1 in shelter, plus the best piece of each comfort group within 10 m: a bed, a campfire and a roof make 4 (11 minutes), and the best of every group makes 22 (29 minutes).

Group	Build early	Comfort	Best there is	Comfort
Chair	Wood Chair 4 Finewood	2	Antler Throne	3
Bed	Bed 8 Wood	1	Dragon Bed	2
Carpet	Bearskin Rug 1 Bear Hide, 2 Bear Paw, 1 Bear Trophy	2	Bearskin Rug	2
Leisure	Barber Station 10 Finewood, 1 Barber Kit, 5 Bronze Nails, 5 Troll Hide	1	Hot Tub	2
Banner	Black Banner 6 Leather Scraps, 2 Finewood, 4 Coal	1	Blue Jute Curtain	2
Table	Table 6 Finewood	1	Long Carved Table	2
Fire	Campfire 5 Stone, 2 Wood	1	Hearth	2
Lantern	Later	—	Lava Lantern	2
Display	Item Stand 4 Finewood, 1 Bronze Nails	1	Armour Stand	1
Decor	Later	—	Asksvin Skeleton	1
Garland	Fey Lights 2 Finewood, 1 Thistle	1	Fey Lights	1

“Build early” means the materials come from the Meadows and Black Forest. The comfort guide lists every comfort piece.

Every 46 minutes the game has a 20% chance to start one of the raids your world has unlocked, so with a raid available one starts about every 3 hours 50 minutes of play. It only targets a player standing within 20 m of at least 3 base pieces, and its timer only runs while a player is within 96 m. These are the raids possible before you beat the third boss:

• Eikthyr's army “Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest” Neck Boar From the start, until Eikthyr dies
• The Elder's army “The forest is moving...” Greydwarf Greyling Greydwarf Shaman Greydwarf Brute After Eikthyr dies, until The Elder dies
• Bonemass's army “A foul smell from the swamp...” Draugr Skeleton After The Elder dies, until Bonemass dies
• Troll attack “The ground is shaking” Troll After Troll and The Elder die

What counts as a base piece early on: Bed · Campfire · Charcoal Kiln · Fermenter · Forge · Iron Fire Pit · Portal · Sconce · Smelter · Standing Wood Torch · Ward · Workbench. The raids guide lists them all.

Simple defences

Stakewall

Good for keeping intruders out.

Wood×4 near a Workbench

Sharp Stakes

If someone comes too close, they'll get poked.

Wood×6 Corewood×4 near a Workbench

Wood Gate

A simple wooden gate. To use by itself or as part of a pair.

Wood×12 near a Workbench

A ring of stakewall with a gate keeps wildlife and early raiders away from your workbench and bed, and each of these raids ends on its own after 1 minute 20 seconds to 2 minutes 30 seconds of you being there.

Every piece has support. A piece touching the ground or rock has its material’s full support; each piece built on it gets a share less for every metre, more sideways than straight up, and it breaks below its material’s minimum. Your hammer shows it: blue is full support, then green, yellow and red as it falls toward the breaking point.

So wood goes up further than it reaches out, log beams of core wood lose less than plain wood both ways, and stone, which loses everything sideways, has to stand on something. For a taller hall, put log beams or stone under the wood. The building guide has every material and how rain, water and snow wear pieces down; keep wood under a roof.

1. Gather Greydwarf Eye×10, Finewood×20 and Surtling Core×2
2. Build a Portal near a Workbench
3. Give the Portal a tag of up to 10 characters Tags must match exactly, capitals included.
4. Build a second Portal where you are going, with the same tag Each portal links to one other portal with its tag.

Put your hub portals side by side in one roofed room at home, each tagged after the place it leads to, and keep one spare tag for wherever you are exploring next. Write each destination on a sign above it, and pick symbols from the emoji list for signs and map pins. Ores and metals cannot go through a portal; the portal guide has naming schemes and the full list.