Christ, I’m not sure what to make of the post-Eikthyr phase of Valheim. At first I was close to adoration. The world opens up, new materials become available, and suddenly what was a simple survival game becomes something with much more depth. Then you realize just how much grinding lies ahead, and that adoration gets tempered with a healthy dose of resignation.
I’ve spent far more hours than I care to admit chopping trees, mining ore, and ferrying materials back and forth across the treacherous Black Forest. During that time, I’ve made a considerable number of mistakes that I’d rather you didn’t repeat. So here’s my guide to what you should do after taking down that first boss and finding yourself with a shiny new pair of antlers in your inventory.
First Steps With the Antler Pickaxe
Your first reward for defeating Eikthyr is a pile of Hard Antlers, which might not seem immediately useful until you visit a workbench and discover you can craft an Antler Pickaxe (10 wood, 1 hard antler). This unassuming tool is your gateway to the Bronze Age and beyond, so create it immediately.
The Antler Pickaxe allows you to mine stone properly for the first time, but more importantly, it lets you extract copper and tin deposits that you’ll encounter in the Black Forest. Don’t forget to also place Eikthyr’s trophy on the appropriate sacrificial stone to unlock his Forsaken Power, which reduces stamina use while running and jumping by 60% – hugely helpful for the exploration ahead.
I made the error of rushing straight into mining without properly preparing, which led to several frustrating deaths and lost materials. Take your time to repair your existing gear, craft some better food, and maybe even build a small outpost near the edge of the Black Forest before diving in. The enemies there hit considerably harder than the Greylings you’ve been facing so far.
Multiplayer Progression: Valheim Server Hosting by Indifferent Broccoli
The post-Eikthyr grind becomes considerably more enjoyable with friends. While you can host a game yourself, the built-in multiplayer has limitations friends can only play when you’re online, and they’re tethered to your vicinity.
Many players in my situation have turned to dedicated server options like Valheim Server Hosting by Indifferent Broccoli, which keeps your world running 24/7 so friends can progress even when you’re offline. I initially tried running my own server on a spare PC, but after two days of troubleshooting port forwarding issues and watching my electricity bill climb, I gave up and went with a hosting service instead.
The benefits extend beyond convenience – having multiple players dramatically speeds up resource gathering. One person can focus on mining while another smelts and crafts, and a third hunts for food. What might take you six hours solo can be accomplished in two with a decent team. Just make sure to coordinate on priorities; I’ve seen too many multiplayer groups waste time by everyone farming different resources when they should be focusing on a single goal.
Entering the Black Forest
The Black Forest biome is your next major progression area, marked by tall pine and fir trees, mossier ground, and a distinctly darker, blue-green appearance on your map. It’s often adjacent to Meadows areas, so you may have already stumbled across the border during your early explorations.
Your first ventures into the Black Forest should be cautious ones. The biome introduces several new enemies that can quickly overwhelm unprepared vikings:
- Greydwarfs are more aggressive and numerous versions of the Greylings you’ve faced
- Greydwarf Brutes hit like trucks and have substantial health pools
- Greydwarf Shamans throw harmful projectiles and heal other Greydwarfs
- Skeletons appear near burial chambers and resist pierce damage
I’d recommend establishing a small forward base near but not in the Black Forest – perhaps right at the biome edge. This gives you a safe retreat while minimizing travel time. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can build a full base here, but I usually wait until I’ve secured better materials before committing to a large construction project.
Keep an eye out for Thistle plants as you explore – these purple glowing flowers are crucial ingredients for some of the better meals you’ll be cooking soon. They’re easily spotted at night, and unlike raspberries, they don’t regrow once picked, so mark areas with abundant thistle on your map.
Burial Chambers and Surtling Cores
Your primary objective in the Black Forest is to find and explore Burial Chambers – small underground dungeons marked by stone entrances often guarded by skeletons. These chambers contain the Surtling Cores you’ll need to advance to metalworking.
Before venturing into a Burial Chamber, craft several torches (1 wood, 1 resin). The chambers are pitch black inside, and a torch serves as both light source and a decent weapon against the skeleton inhabitants. I learned the hard way that you can dual-wield by equipping your torch first, then your weapon – this lets you see what you’re fighting while still dealing decent damage.
Within the chambers, you’ll face regular skeletons, poisonous Rancid Remains (green skeletons), and skeleton-spawning Evil Bone Piles. Club-type weapons work best against them, as they resist pierce damage from spears and arrows. The chambers are composed of several small rooms connected by hallways, and I find it helpful to leave doors open to track where I’ve already explored.
Burial Chambers contain several valuable resources:
- Surtling Cores – glowing red cubes you’ll need for smelting equipment (the main prize)
- Yellow Mushrooms – excellent food ingredients
- Skeletal remains – providing bone fragments and occasional valuables
- Treasure chests – containing amber, coins, and sometimes rubies
You’ll need at least 10 Surtling Cores to get your metalworking started, which typically means exploring 2-3 Burial Chambers. Mark their locations on your map – both the ones you’ve cleared and those you haven’t – to keep track of your exploration.
Mining Copper and Tin
With your Antler Pickaxe in hand and some Surtling Cores collected, it’s time to start mining the metals that will propel you into the Bronze Age: copper and tin.
Tin deposits are relatively easy to find – they appear as small, shiny rocks with black streaks near water, both along the coast and by inland water sources within the Black Forest. They’re quick to mine and provide tin ore at a decent rate.
Copper deposits are more challenging to identify at first. Look for large, slightly rounded rock formations protruding from the ground with copper-colored veins running through them. These deposits are massive and contain substantial amounts of ore, but they take significantly longer to mine out completely. A tip that took me embarrassingly long to discover: copper deposits extend underground, so dig down around them to uncover the entire vein.
Both ores are exceedingly heavy – 30 units weigh 300 weight, which will quickly encumber you. I recommend establishing a temporary outpost near rich mining areas with multiple chests for storage. The process of mining, smelting, and crafting with bronze will involve countless trips back and forth, so minimizing travel distance is crucial.
When mining copper especially, be prepared for Greydwarf attacks. They seem unnaturally attracted to the sound of pickaxes on rock, and nothing is more frustrating than being interrupted mid-swing by a mob of angry forest creatures. I typically clear the area of Greydwarfs before starting to mine, and occasionally take breaks to deal with new arrivals.
Setting Up Your Metal Production
Once you’ve gathered at least 20 stone, 10 Surtling Cores, and a decent amount of copper and tin ore, it’s time to establish your metalworking setup. This is when the game truly opens up, but it also introduces a new level of complexity to your resource management.
First, build a Charcoal Kiln (20 stone, 5 Surtling Cores) near your base. This structure converts wood into coal, which fuels the smelting process. The kiln can process 25 wood into 25 coal at a time, and doesn’t require constant attention – just load it up and come back later.
Next, construct a Smelter (20 stone, 5 Surtling Cores) nearby. The smelter converts your raw ore into usable metal, requiring 2 coal for each ore processed. Feed copper ore into the left side and coal into the right, and after about 30 seconds per ingot, copper will emerge from the spout.
With your first copper ingots in hand, you can build a Forge (10 wood, 4 stone, 4 coal, 6 copper). Like the Workbench, the Forge needs to be sheltered to function. This is where you’ll craft all your metal tools, weapons, and armor moving forward.
The bronze-making process requires careful planning. Each bronze ingot requires 2 copper and 1 tin, meaning you’ll need twice as much copper as tin overall. I typically prioritize copper mining for this reason. The smelting process itself is time-consuming, so I usually set it running and then occupy myself with other tasks nearby – gathering wood, hunting, or building – rather than standing around waiting.
A particularly annoying aspect of Valheim’s progression is that metal ores and ingots cannot be transported through portals. This means you’ll either need to establish your entire metalworking operation near your mining sites or spend a lot of time hauling materials back and forth. The cart becomes an invaluable tool here, despite its tendency to get stuck on the slightest terrain variations.
Bronze Age Equipment Essentials
With your metal production up and running, it’s time to decide what bronze equipment to prioritize. Bronze is consumed in substantial quantities for tools, weapons, and armor, and you won’t have enough for everything right away.
My recommendation is to craft items in this order:
- Bronze Axe (4 wood, 8 bronze, 2 leather scraps) – This isn’t just a better weapon; it allows you to chop birch and oak trees for Fine Wood, opening up many new crafting options including portals. This should absolutely be your first bronze item.
- Bronze Pickaxe (3 core wood, 10 bronze) – The bronze pickaxe mines significantly faster than the antler version and is required for mining silver later on. Core wood comes from pine trees in the Black Forest.
- Bronze Shield (4 wood, 10 bronze) – The bronze buckler provides excellent protection and allows for parrying, which when timed correctly will stagger enemies and allow for critical hits.
- Bronze Weapon – Choose based on your playstyle: the Bronze Sword (2 wood, 8 bronze, 2 leather scraps) offers good balance, the Bronze Mace (4 wood, 8 bronze, 3 leather scraps) deals blunt damage that’s effective against many enemies, while the Bronze Atgeir (10 wood, 8 bronze, 2 leather scraps) provides reach and area attacks.
- Bronze Armor – The full set consists of the Bronze Helmet (5 bronze, 2 deer hide), Bronze Plate Cuirass (5 bronze, 2 deer hide), and Bronze Plate Leggings (5 bronze, 2 deer hide). While offering excellent protection, the complete set reduces movement speed by 10% and requires a substantial investment of 15 bronze.
I personally prioritize weapons and tools over armor, as improved offensive capabilities often reduce the need for defense by ending fights more quickly. If resources are limited, crafting just the bronze chest piece provides a good balance of protection and material efficiency.
Don’t forget that all bronze items can only be repaired at a forge, so check durability before venturing far from your base. There’s nothing worse than having your pickaxe break in the middle of a lucrative mining expedition.
Food, Farming, and Fermentation
The Black Forest phase of progression is also when food preparation becomes genuinely important. Better food means more health and stamina, which directly translates to improved combat performance and resource gathering efficiency.
With your first tin, craft a Cauldron (10 tin) and place it over a fire. This opens up new food recipes combining ingredients you’ve gathered. Some particularly useful early recipes include:
- Queens Jam (8 raspberries, 8 blueberries) – A balanced food providing decent health and stamina
- Carrot Soup (3 carrots, 1 mushroom) – Excellent stamina food once you have carrots growing
Speaking of carrots, with a Bronze Axe and some bronze to spare, craft a Cultivator (5 core wood, 5 bronze). This tool allows you to plant the Carrot Seeds you’ve likely found in the Black Forest, turning those previously useless items into a sustainable food source. Plant your first harvest of carrots, then plant some directly in the ground (not as seeds) to harvest more seeds for continuous farming.
If you haven’t done so already, destroy beehives in abandoned structures to acquire Queen Bees, then construct Beehives (10 wood, 1 queen bee) near your base. The steady supply of honey is useful both as food and as an ingredient in mead.
The final piece of your food production setup is the Fermenter (30 fine wood, 5 bronze, 10 resin), which transforms mead bases created in the cauldron into powerful meads – essentially potions that provide various beneficial effects. The most immediately useful is Mead Base: Minor Healing (10 honey, 5 blueberries, 10 raspberries, 1 dandelion), which ferments into healing potions that can save your life in tough situations.
Fermenting takes about two in-game days, so start your brews well before you plan to tackle the next boss. I learned this the hard way by arriving at the Elder’s altar without any healing potions, only to be promptly turned into kindling.
Preparing for The Elder
With bronze equipment crafted, good food prepared, and a supply of healing potions fermenting, it’s time to start thinking about confronting the second boss: The Elder.
The first step is finding his altar. Throughout the Black Forest, look for a specific runestone with a red vegvisir sigil. Interacting with this will mark The Elder’s location on your map, often quite far from your starting area. You might find this runestone in a Burial Chamber or near surface ruins.
Once you’ve located the altar, build a portal nearby (connected to your main base) for quick access. The altar will have an inscription reading “Burn their young,” hinting that you need to sacrifice three Ancient Seeds to summon The Elder. These seeds drop from Greydwarf Brutes, Greydwarf Shamans, and always from Greydwarf Nests – those purple, glowing tangles of vines that spawn enemies.
I strongly recommend building a small outpost near The Elder’s altar with a bed to set your spawn point, storage for equipment, and a fire for cooking and comfort. Fighting The Elder unprepared is asking for trouble – this towering tree-like being throws vines, summons roots, and stomps with devastating effect.
For the fight itself, bring your best bronze weapons (the bow is particularly effective), your best food, and plenty of healing potions. Fire arrows are especially effective against The Elder’s wooden form. The arena typically has pillars that can provide some cover from his ranged attacks, so use the environment to your advantage.
If The Elder’s altar is on another island, you’ll need to build a ship. The Raft (20 wood, 6 leather scraps, 10 resin) is technically sufficient but painfully slow. If you can gather the materials, the Karve (30 fine wood, 10 deer hide, 20 resin, 80 bronze nails) is a much better option, offering greater speed and durability.
Conclusion: Looking Ahead
Defeating The Elder marks the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. You’ll receive a Swamp Key, granting access to Sunken Crypts in the Swamp biome, where iron can be found. The progression pattern repeats – collect new materials, craft better equipment, face new challenges – but with increasing complexity and difficulty.
What I’ve discovered in my time with Valheim is that rushing through progression often leads to frustration. The game rewards methodical preparation and base building between major advancement steps. Take your time, establish efficient resource gathering and crafting systems, and enjoy the journey rather than fixating on the destination.
As the in-game raven Hugin sometimes reminds you: “The forest is moving.” This atmospheric world reacts to your progress, with increasingly challenging events and encounters as you defeat each boss. The post-Eikthyr phase may seem grindy at times, but it establishes the foundation for everything that follows.
So grab your newly crafted bronze axe, venture into the Black Forest, and begin the next chapter of your Viking afterlife. Just watch out for falling trees – they remain more deadly than most enemies you’ll face.
