The Black Forest Is Trying to Kill You. Here's How to Survive.

Stepping Into the Darkness

You hear the Black Forest before you see it. The cheerful birdsong of the Meadows fades, replaced by creaking pines and the distant snap of twigs. The canopy closes overhead, filtering the light into scattered beams that barely reach the forest floor. Ferns carpet the ground between mossy stumps and fallen logs, and somewhere in the shadows, a pair of glowing blue eyes is watching you.

This is the second biome most players explore, and the one that teaches Valheim's most important lesson: preparation matters. The Meadows let you get away with leather armor and a wooden club. The Black Forest will punish that kind of optimism with a troll club to the face.

Before You Go

Craft a full set of leather armor from deer hide before setting foot in the forest. Bring a crude bow with plenty of wood arrows, a club or flint weapon, and a wooden shield. For food, cooked deer meat and cooked boar meat give you a solid health pool, while honey and raspberries cover your stamina needs. You should have already defeated Eikthyr and crafted the Antler Pickaxe, because mining copper and tin is the entire reason you're here.

The Black Forest typically borders the Meadows, showing up as darker green patches on your map. Hug the coastline if you want a gentler introduction, since tin deposits line the shore and you can retreat to open ground when things get hairy. Going straight through the interior means denser enemy spawns and less room to maneuver.

Creatures That Want You Dead

The Black Forest is densely populated with hostile creatures, and noise attracts them. Every swing of your pickaxe and every tree you chop is an open invitation. Understanding what you're up against makes the difference between a productive mining trip and a frantic sprint back to your portal.

Greydwarfs and Their Variants

Standard greydwarfs roam in packs, throw rocks at range, and slash at you up close. Individually they're manageable, but they rarely come alone. They spawn from pink, vine-covered nests scattered across the biome. Destroying these nests drastically reduces greydwarf numbers in the area, so prioritize taking them out near your base or mining spots.

Greydwarf Shamans glow green and are the most dangerous of the trio, not because of their damage, but because they heal allies for 20 HP over 4 seconds and spray unblockable poison. Always target Shamans first in a group fight. Greydwarf Brutes are the heavy hitters, wielding stumps as clubs. Parry their slow, telegraphed attacks for a devastating counterattack window. Brutes can drop ancient seeds, which you need three of to summon the boss.

All greydwarfs are weak to fire damage. Carry a torch as a backup weapon, or bring fire arrows once you can craft them. They also drop greydwarf eyes and resin, both of which you'll need in large quantities for crafting portals and upgrades.

Trolls

Trolls are the real threat of the Black Forest. These massive blue giants deal enormous damage and can destroy your buildings in a few swings. They come in two varieties: unarmed trolls that use ground pounds and log-wielding trolls that alternate between overhead smashes and sweeping side attacks.

Trolls are weak to pierce damage, making the bow your best friend. Keep your distance, fire arrows into them, and use trees as cover. A sneak attack headshot with the bow deals significantly more damage, so crouch and line up that first shot carefully. Once you learn their attack patterns, you can actually use trolls as excavators: lead them to a copper deposit, dodge their attacks, and let them mine for you. Their swings deal pickaxe damage to the terrain.

Kill five trolls and you can craft a full set of Troll Leather Armor. When upgraded once, it matches bronze armor's protection rating, and the full set bonus grants +15 to your sneak skill. Many experienced players skip bronze armor entirely and run troll armor through the entire biome, saving their bronze for weapons and tools instead.

Skeletons and Burial Chamber Dwellers

Skeletons guard Burial Chamber entrances and fill the dungeons inside. They're weak to blunt damage, so your club or mace will shatter them in a few hits. They tend to swarm in tight dungeon corridors, so watch your back. Ghosts and Rancid Remains also lurk inside the chambers, though they're rarer. The Stag Breaker two-handed hammer is particularly effective in dungeons because its AOE attack damages enemies through walls and doors.

Mining Copper and Tin

Mining is the central activity of the Black Forest. Copper and tin are exclusive to this biome and together they produce bronze, the material that defines this entire phase of the game. You need the Antler Pickaxe (crafted from Eikthyr's hard antler drop) to mine either ore.

Tin: The Easy One

Tin deposits are small, shiny rocks found exclusively along shorelines in the Black Forest. Lakes, rivers, ocean coastline: if there's water in a Black Forest biome, there's tin nearby. Each deposit yields a modest amount of ore and they're quick to mine. Tin is the easier resource to gather, so focus your early trips on copper and grab tin along the way as you travel the coast.

Copper: The Grind

Copper deposits look like large boulders with subtle bronze-colored streaks. Here's what catches new players off guard: the deposit extends far underground, much larger than what's visible on the surface. If you mine straight down from the top, you'll spend hours chipping away at a fraction of what's actually there.

The efficient approach is to mine around the perimeter first, digging out all the dirt surrounding the deposit. Dirt breaks much faster than rock with your pickaxe. Once you've exposed the full deposit and undercut it, the entire thing collapses and you can scoop up dozens of copper ore at once. Mark copper veins on your map with the pickaxe icon so you can return to them later.

Set up a small workbench with a roof near your mining site so you can repair your pickaxe on location. The Antler Pickaxe has limited durability and there's nothing worse than running out of repairs mid-deposit.

Smelting and the Forge

Raw ore is useless until you smelt it. Build a Charcoal Kiln (requires 20 stone and 5 Surtling Cores) to convert wood into coal, then feed the coal and ore into a Smelter (20 stone and 5 Surtling Cores). Copper bars and tin bars can then be combined at a Forge: two copper plus one tin produces one bronze bar. Bronze unlocks an entire tier of weapons, armor, tools, and structures. Prioritize crafting the Forge itself (6 copper bars), a Bronze Pickaxe (for faster mining), and the Cultivator (for farming). Many veterans recommend skipping bronze armor in favor of upgraded Troll Leather and spending your bronze on weapons and the Cultivator instead.

Burial Chambers and Surtling Cores

Burial Chambers are the Black Forest's instanced dungeons: maze-like underground tombs filled with skeletons, bone pile spawners, and treasure. They come in two forms. The common type is a rectangular stone structure with a visible entrance. The harder-to-spot variant is a sloped dirt mound with a cave opening, sometimes nearly hidden by the terrain. Skeletons guarding the entrance are a reliable sign you're close.

Inside, you'll find narrow corridors lined with rooms containing chests (coins, amber, rubies, feathers, arrows) and wall-mounted Surtling Cores. These glowing red cores are the single most important resource in the Black Forest. You need 5 for a Charcoal Kiln, 5 for a Smelter, and 2 per portal (plus greydwarf eyes and finewood). Plan on clearing multiple Burial Chambers, as each one only contains a handful of cores. Aim to collect at least 15 before you stop raiding dungeons.

Build a campfire and sit for 20 seconds at the entrance platform to get the Rested buff before diving in. This gives you faster stamina regeneration and bonus experience for up to 11 minutes, depending on your comfort level. Bring a club or mace for skeletons and watch for bone pile spawners on the ground: destroy them first, or skeletons will keep respawning. Yellow mushrooms grow inside the chambers and respawn after about 4 hours, making them a renewable source of stamina food.

Keep an eye out for Vegvisir runestones inside the chambers. Interacting with one marks the location of the Elder's altar on your map. These aren't guaranteed in every dungeon, so you may need to clear several before finding one. They can also occasionally spawn outside near abandoned stone structures.

Defeating the Elder

The Elder is a towering tree creature and the boss of the Black Forest. To summon him, place three ancient seeds on his forsaken altar (marked by a Vegvisir runestone). Before you do anything, build a portal near the altar so you can return quickly if you die.

The Elder has three attacks. At range, he launches vine projectiles that hit hard and are difficult to dodge in the open. Up close, he stomps the ground for area damage. His third ability summons stationary root tendrils from the ground that attack anything nearby. He's immune to poison, spirit, and stagger, but weak to fire.

The most reliable strategy is to bring a Finewood Bow with 100+ fire arrows and fight at range. Use the stone pillars around the altar as cover, ducking behind them when he launches vines and stepping out to fire during his recovery animations. Keep moving in a wide circle and prioritize destroying any root summons near your position. With upgraded troll armor and good food (deer stew, carrot soup, and Queen's Jam make a strong combo), this fight is very manageable.

Defeating the Elder drops his trophy and the Swamp Key. Mount the trophy on the sacrificial stones to unlock his forsaken power, which increases tree-chopping damage by 60% for 5 minutes. More importantly, the Swamp Key opens Sunken Crypts in the Swamp biome, your next destination for iron.

Haldor the Merchant

Somewhere in a Black Forest biome, at least 1500 meters from the world spawn, a dwarf merchant named Haldor has set up shop. A white bag icon appears on your minimap when you're within about 300 to 500 meters. The best way to find him is to sail along Black Forest coastlines in your Karve and watch the minimap.

Haldor sells several unique items for coins, and you can sell him amber, rubies, and other valuables found in Burial Chambers. His most important item is the Megingjord belt (950 coins), which increases your carry weight by 150. This is an enormous quality-of-life upgrade for mining runs. If you can only afford one thing, buy the Megingjord.

Unlocking Portals

Portals are the single biggest quality-of-life unlock in the game, and the Black Forest gives you everything you need to build them: 10 greydwarf eyes, 20 finewood, and 2 Surtling Cores per portal. Place two portals with matching names (case-sensitive) and you have instant fast travel between them. Build a dedicated portal hub at your main base and always carry portal materials when exploring. One critical limitation: you cannot transport metal ores or bars through portals. Copper, tin, bronze, and all other metals must be moved by foot, cart, or boat.