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Valheim plains biome boss Yagluth summoning altar

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Valheim guide: From plains and black metal to Yagluth walkthrough

After the fourth boss, Moder, forge black metal and hunt the fifth boss in plains biomes

Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon
Jeffrey Parkin (he/him) has been writing video game guides for Polygon for almost seven years. He has learned to love just about every genre of game that exists.

In Valheim, after defeating Moder, you’ll pick up some dragon tears, which let you build a new workstation — and that’s their only use. There’s no hint for your next destination, but there’s only one completed biome that we haven’t explored yet.

This Valheim guides begins after Moder and ends at the Yagluth boss fight.

Along the way, we’ll find and explore plains biomes, build a new base and increase comfort, build an artisan table, collect new plains biome resources, raid fuling villages, build a blast furnace and process black metal, add barley and flax to your farm, build a spinning wheel to make linen thread, build a windmill to make barley flour, cook the best food in Valheim, and craft new weapons and armor. Finally, we’ll talk about finding Yagluth’s summoning altar (it’s not pleasant) and collecting the fuling totems you’ll need to summon Yagluth, and then give tips on how to defeat him.


Table of contents


Step 1: Find a plains biome

Valheim plains biome map
Plains biomes are a tan color on your map.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Plains biomes appear as a tan color on your map. They start showing up a little ways out from the center. Most of them touch the ocean at some point, and they tend to be near (or touching) mountain biomes.

Birch trees, which drop fine wood, are the only type of tree in plains biomes. The grass is also a little lighter than other biomes (like meadows).

Build a plains biome camp near the shore

In the plains biomes, you’ll be building a lot of stuff. Beyond just processing metal, you’ll be farming some new plants — flax and barley — that only grow in a plains biome, and processing those into a usable form takes even more equipment. That means setting up a garden and even more infrastructure.

Valheim plains biome building farm
We might’ve gone a little overboard.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

You’ll need a much more permanent camp is what we’re saying. Building one on a shore in a plains biome means you can ship in (or out) metals and ores. This is a pretty big undertaking with the various tables, their associated upgrades, storage, and furnishings. We’re not saying you have to halt all progress and build yourself a mansion, but we are saying you should consider it.

Look for an area with access to several biomes. You’ll need metal from everywhere — tin and copper from a black forest to make bronze, iron from a swamp, and (probably) silver from a mountain. Making a port will help you move a lot of metal by ship, but having a variety of resources nearby will help with quick(er) trips.

Increase comfort and rested effect

Since you’re probably going to spend a lot of time here and we just suggested building a new base camp, take comfort into consideration while building. You’ve got a lot of new furniture available (and a few more pieces coming soon) that’ll increase your comfort above 10 — which translates into nearly 20 minutes of the rested effect.

Valheim comfort rested effect
The furniture you have access to will increase your comfort to nearly the max amount (of 17).
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

The dragon bed (40 fine wood, 7 deer hide, 4 wolf pelts, 10 feathers, 15 iron nails) gives you two points of comfort and the raven throne (20 fine wood, 10 iron nails) gives you another three.

Between torches, beds, tables, banners, and rugs — like the new wolf rug (4 wolf pelts) — you can easily get above 12 comfort. That gives you more than 18 minutes of the rested effect.


Step 2: Build an artisan table

The dragon tears you collected from Moder let you build a new workstation, the artisan table (2 dragon tears, 10 wood). At this point in Valheim’s development, the artisan table is the only use for dragon tears.

You won’t use the artisan table to craft anything, but placing it lets you build a few new things — a blast furnace, a spinning wheel, and a windmill. You won’t build those other things for a while yet, but the artisan table is cheap, so just get it out of the way and store the dragon tears somewhere.

Upgrade weapons and armor

Enemies and animals in the plains biome are tough and pack a punch. Happily, there aren’t any environmental effects to worry about this time.

Eventually, we’ll craft new gear from what we find in the plains, but you have to survive seeking it out first. That means upgrading the weapons and armor you already have so you’ll survive the trip.

The wolf armor set from the mountains is the best available right now. The iron set is very nearly as good. Take some time to upgrade them.

You’ll do a lot of melee combat, so a bow isn’t quite as important here as it was in the mountains. Besides, our guides already suggested you have an upgraded huntsman bow, so you should be set.

As for a melee weapon, put a couple upgrades into your best (or favorite) iron or silver weapon.


Step 3: Learn the new resources and enemies in plains biomes

The plains biome introduces several new resources and enemies that are worth talking about individually.

Valheim plains biome lox
A herd of lox in a plains biome.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Cloudberries

Cloudberries are the new collectable fruit in the plains biome. You’ll pick them just like raspberries (meadows) or blueberries (black forest).

You can eat cloudberries raw for a small bump to your health and stamina. More importantly, they’re an ingredient in mead base: medium stamina (10 honey, 10 cloudberries, 10 yellow mushrooms) which becomes medium stamina mead in a fermenter.

Lox

Lox are huge, shaggy creatures from the plains biome. They look like a bantha-dewback hybrid, or an off-brand version of Appa from Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you’ve found Haldor, you’ll recognize these creatures — Haldor has a tame lox named Halstein.

Lox deal a lot of damage and have a huge health pool. When you take them down, though, they drop lox meat and lox pelts.

The lox meat is another pretty good food on its own (after you cook it at a cooking station). It’s better as an ingredient in lox meat pie, but we’re not there yet.

Lox pelts can become a lox rug (4 lox pelts) that increases your house’s comfort and the lox cape (6 lox pelts, 2 silver) armor.

You can tame lox like you tame boars. Feed them cloudberries or barley and fence them in. They don’t work quite like boars or wolves, though. They tend to knock down roundpole fences, so you’ll need to build stone walls. Lox don’t reproduce (yet?).

Deathsquitos

Deathsquitos are fast and deadly mosquitos from hell. With strong armor and a shield, you can survive an attack or two, but never underestimate them.

Luckily, they have low health, so they’re manageable (when you’re not dead). Deathsquitos drop needles when you kill them. Needles let you make needle arrows (4 needles, 2 feathers). They’re also an ingredient in a weapon we’ll get to later.

Fulings

Fulings are goblin-like denizens of the plains biome that live in small villages. You’ll meet three varieties: fulings, fuling shamans, and fuling berserkers. They’re the most important mobs here, so they’ll get their own section (next).


Step 4: Find a fuling village

You’re really in the plains to find the goblin-like fulings. And you’ll face hordes of them because they’re your source for this biome’s metal — black metal scrap. Dead fulings always drop at least one black metal scrap.

Valheim fuling village
A small fuling village.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Head into the plains biome, and start looking for structures. Fuling villages are built of wood and leather. They’re easy enough to spot, and fulings attack when you get close — that’s a pretty big clue that you’re near a village.

Here are some tips for fighting fulings:

  • These tend to be tough fights with multiple enemies, so make sure you eat something hearty beforehand.
  • Before you engage with the fulings, clear out any deathsquitos in the surrounding area.
  • Try not to fight near any lox — you really don’t need them joining the fight.
  • Kite one or two of the regular furlings away from the camp at a time. When they gang up on you, it’s hard to get the advantage back.
  • Ooze bombs (5 leather scraps, 10 ooze, 3 resin) poison all enemies in a small radius, so they’re good for dealing a little group damage.
  • Whenever you spot a fuling shaman, take them out first — they have a shield spell for all of their allies, and they have a devastating fireball attack.
  • Save the fuling berserkers for last.
  • If you die, go collect your things, but don’t rush back in. Start the next raid from scratch — the fulings will reset, so start by luring out only a couple at a time.

After you’ve cleared out a village full of fulings, it’s time to steal their resources.

  • Peppered around their villages, you’ll also a number of chests. These might contain even more black metal scrap as well as arrows, food, coins, or any number of other goodies.
  • Fulings grow this biome’s two new crops: flax and barley. Flax and barley are only found in fuling fields near villages or inside the village’s chests.
  • You’ll also find fuling totems, the item you’ll need to summon this biome’s boss.

Mark villages on your map as you find them, and remember to cross them off as you clear them out.

Build a blast furnace

You can’t process black metal scrap in a normal smelter, so we need to build a new crafting structure: a blast furnace (20 stone, 5 surtling cores, 10 iron, 20 fine wood). You must build this close to your artisan table and on solid ground (or a stone base).

Blast furnaces work like smelters, requiring coal and time to turn black metal scrap into black metal. You load both the coal and black metal scrap on the left side (the side opposite the steampunk gears and bellows), and the finished metal drops out of the spout.

Frustratingly you can’t process, tin, copper, bronze, and iron in a blast furnace — you’ll still need a regular smelter for those.

Farm barley and flax

Barley and flax are great to have — we’ll be using them both extensively for the rest of this biome’s guide.

Valheim farming flax barley carrots turnips plains biome
Farming flax and barley in the plains biome.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

For a steady supply, it’s best to farm your own instead of relying on raiding fuling villages. But barley and flax only grow in plains biomes, so your farm has to be located here. Carrots and turnips do grow in plains (and bees are happy here), so you can just move your entire agricultural operation over.

Like carrots and turnips, plant flax and barley with a cultivator (5 core wood, 5 bronze). You don’t get seeds from them, though. Instead, these crops drop two plants — 2 flax or 2 barley — when harvested. Replant one to keep your crop going.

Brew some fire resistance barley wine

Some of the fulings you run into swing torches that set you on fire. Luckily, barley unlocks a new recipe.

Make some barley wine base: fire resistance (10 barley, 10 cloudberries), and drop it in a fermenter. You’ll get fire resistance barley wine a couple in-game days later. It reduces your fire damage by half for 10 minutes.

Build a spinning wheel

With the artisan table and some flax, it’s time to build a spinning wheel (20 fine wood, 10 iron nails, 5 leather scraps).

Spinning wheels turn 1 flax into 1 linen thread. They work like a charcoal kiln — put in the flax, wait a bit, and then collect the linen thread from the floor. You don’t need any fuel, but it does have to be placed near your artisan table.

You’ll use a ton of linen thread making new weapons and armor below, so keep growing your farm.

Build a windmill

You can’t eat barley raw, so you’ll have to process it at a windmill (20 stone, 30 wood, 30 iron nails) to turn it into barley flour.

Valheim barley windmill plains biome
Windmills turn to catch the wind, so orientation doesn’t matter.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Like a blast furnace, the windmill must be close to an artisan table and built on the ground (or a stone base). When you build it, make sure you have access to the front and back — barley goes in the back and barley flour comes out the front. The orientation doesn’t matter since the windmill spins to catch the wind.

Windmills only work when there’s wind, and the strength of the wind determines the speed at which they work.

Craft new foods with barley flour

With barley flour, cloudberries, and lox meat, you can make the very best foods (currently) in Valheim.

The best new food for stamina is bread (10 barley flour).

The best food for health is blood pudding (2 thistle, 2 bloodbags, 4 barley flour) — remember that bloodbags drop from leeches in the swamp biome.

The best all-around food (with a big boost to both health and stamina) is lox meat pie (4 barley flour, 2 cloudberries, 2 cooked lox meat).

If you’ve found Haldor the merchant and purchased the fishing rod, you can make one more new recipe. The fish wraps (2 cooked fish, 4 barley flour) is even better for your stamina than bread.


Step 5: Craft black metal and linen items

Valheim padded armor black metal weapons
Turn black metal and linen thread into new weapons and armor.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

We’ve done a lot of work to get here, and it’s finally time to start turning black metal and linen thread (and needles) into usable items.

Craft the padded armor set:

  • Padded greaves (10 iron, 20 linen thread)
  • Padded cuirass (10 iron, 20 linen thread)
  • Padded helmet (10 iron, 15 linen thread)

Since most of the set only uses iron, it may make more sense for you to portal a couple stacks of linen thread back to a swamp camp for easier access to sunken crypts and iron.

You have a new cape available, as well, but the linen cape (1 silver, 20 linen thread) is optional. All capes in Valheim have the same stats — except for the wolf pelt cape and lox cape that grant immunity to freezing. Pick the one you like the look of.

You’ve also unlocked the final tier of weapons now. Like the iron weapons in the swamp biome, don’t waste the time and resources to build them all. They’ve got similar stats, so pick one you like and are comfortable with:

  • Black metal shield (10 fine wood, 8 black metal, 5 chain) — remember that chain comes from chests inside sunken crypts in the swamp biome
  • Black metal tower shield (15 fine wood, 10 black metal, 7 chain)
  • Blackmetal atgeir (10 fine wood, 30 black metal, 5 linen thread)
  • Blackmetal axe (6 fine wood, 20 black metal, 5 linen thread)
  • Blackmetal knife (4 fine wood, 10 black metal, 5 linen thread)
  • Blackmetal sword (2 fine wood, 20 black metal, 5 linen thread)
  • Porcupine (5 fine wood, 20 iron, 5 needle, 10 linen thread)

We’re a fan of the porcupine, mostly because it’s got a good knockback stat that’s helpful for dealing with crowds of fulings. It’s also arguably easier and cheaper to craft, depending on your world’s infrastructure.


Step 6: Collect fuling totems and how to find Yagluth location stone

Valheim plains biome boss Yagluth vegvisir
You’ll (hopefully, eventually) find the Yagluth vegvisir runestone at a stone circle near a fuling village.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

While exploring the plains and raiding fuling villages, keep an eye out for standing stone circles — they look like Stonehenge. Some of them will be full rings of boulder-like standing stones, while others might just be one arch. Finding it is a bit of an endeavor because of spawn rates (or magic math happening in the background).

Here’s how it works: In a plains biome, there is a chance (based on your seed) of a fuling village existing in any given location. There is also a chance of a stone circle existing near that village. And, finally, there is a seemingly much smaller chance (based on our testing and research) that the Yagluth vegvisir runestone will be in that stone circle.

All of those chances add up to a very low spawn rate for the Yagluth vegvisir.

Finding it will take a lot of exploration. Even with the fly mode cheat active, we flew around for two hours before finding the Yagluth vegvisir. Playing without cheats, finding this runestone could take a really, really long time.

Valheim plains biome boss Yagluth summoning altar
Yagluth’s summoning altar in a plains biome.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

The Yagluth summoning altar is in the center of a huge, underground stone hand — you’ll see the fingers poking up through the ground. If and when you find it, there’s a runestone that reads “and his dying soul was split and shared among all his kin.” This refers to fuling totems. There are slots for five of them on the summoning altar.

Valheim fuling totem
A fuling totem in a fuling village (next to a fuling shaman).
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Fuling totems come from fuling villages. You’ll see them glowing on their bone stands. Fuling totems can be teleported.


Step 7: Summon and fight Yagluth

What really matters when facing Yagluth is preparation. Because he doesn’t drop an important item, there’s no reason to rush your fight with him. So let’s collect and craft all of Valheim’s best gear before taking him on.

Weapons

A blackmetal sword is your main weapon against Yagluth, along with a blackmetal shield to block some of his damage. You can also bring a fully upgraded draugr fang bow (10 ancient bark, 20 silver, 2 deer hide, 10 guck) — guck comes from those green sacs on trees in the swamp biome — with you along with some needle arrows, but they won’t do much damage, so you should only use them if you need to heal.

A player with a Blackmetal sword in Valheim Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Armor

You need padded armor for this fight which takes iron to craft rather than black metal, the metal you get from the plains. The good news is, a fully upgraded set of padded armor is slightly less expensive than previous armor tiers.

Food

At this point in the game you should have gotten some pretty impressive barley production going, which means you’ll have access to all the best food in the game. For the fight, eat and bring along blood pudding, fish wraps, and lox meat pies, which gives you a ridiculous amount of health and stamina.

Meads

Fire resistance barley wine is a must for Yagluth, since he frequently summons flames around himself during the fight. With the extra resistance you should be able to take quite a bit of damage without needing to run from the fight. Bring as many medium healing meads and stamina meads as you can in case you need one in a pinch.

Another useful tool here can be the tasty mead, which reduces your HP regeneration in exchange for much faster stamina regeneration. This is obviously dangerous, but the extra stamina regen can be helpful in dealing more damage to Yagluth, or to let you run from some of his attacks. Using this mead is purely personal preference, however.


Yagluth boss fight tips

Yagluth’s attacks

  1. Yagluth’s fist glows blue, and he raises it into the air before slamming it down and dealing damage in a small area around him. This is really slow and easy to dodge.
  2. Yagluth’s fist glows red, and he summons a rain of player-targeting meteors. These aren’t difficult to dodge, provided you start running as soon as he summons them. Don’t stop running until the rain is over.
  3. Yagluth rears his head back, shooting fire in a straight line as he rotates. You can technically block this for a short time with a shield, but you’re much better off running to the side of it. Don’t try to run away because the range is extremely long. You can use the pillars of his summoning platform to block the fire, but the beam of fire destroys other terrain like rocks as soon as it hits them.
Several players fight Yagluth in Valheim Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Attacking Yagluth’s weaknesses

You’ll mostly need to fight Yagluth up close. Use your shield and sword and focus on getting three-hit combos. He has plenty of health, but the fight shouldn’t be as long as others in the game.

With fully upgraded armor and fire resistance barley wine active during the fight, there isn’t too much about Yagluth that should scare you. You can probably comfortably tank his blue fist attack — and keep hitting him in the process — but avoid his fire beam and meteors. If your health ever dips too low, just run away and let it regenerate while dodging attacks and firing an occasional arrow Yagluth’s way to make sure he doesn’t regain his own health.

Additional enemies can also join the fight, because enemies like deathsquitos and fulings tend to wander around the plains. Deal with these as soon as you see them, but keep watching Yagluth’s attacks so you know how to dodge, even if you’re distracted.

Yagluth drops

Yagluth drops a Yagluth trophy and a power that gives you extra resistance to elemental damage. On top of that you get three “Yagluth thing” items. These are placeholders and, as of the game’s current patch, have no use at all.