History VideoGame / Valheim

* BeefGate: While it's possible to go to all the biomes from the beginning, it would serve you well to stick to the biomes of the Forsaken you are currently tasked with as the enemies are progressively stronger in the order of the Forsaken quests. Though there are more traditional hindrances to progress, like needing the Swamp Key to get iron, or the Mountains slowly killing you if you don't have frost resistance, the Mistlands' vision-blocking fog...

** Eikthyr's Forsaken power, the first one you acquire, significantly reduces stamina drain for sprinting and jumping. While nothing flashy, it's one of the most useful powers, letting you explore, outrun enemies, and do corpse runs with much more ease and safety. It's also useful for finding a nice wall for running and jumping against to boost those skills.

** Eikthyr's Forsaken power, the first one you acquire, significantly reduces stamina drain for sprinting and jumping. While nothing flashy, it's one of the most useful powers, letting you explore, outrun enemies, and do corpse runs with much more ease and safety.

* TheNeedless: Although food and drink ''help'', by providing boosts to a character's health and stamina as well as GradualRegeneration, there's no starvation or thirst mechanic. Sleeping is pretty much only to allow a night to pass quickly/wake up rested. Your character ''does'' still need to breathe though.

** The [[GhibliHills peaceful Meadows]] become increasingly dangerous at night as the player progresses through the game. Once at least one boss has been defeated, Greydwarves will start spawning in the biome at night. Later on Skeletons and eventually even Fulings will make an appearance at night.

* NonHumanUndead: According to one runestone, greydwraves are essentially the souls of criminals and murderers animating the stone and wood near the place their body lied. Meanwhile, the Abomination is a giant multi-limbed BotanicalAbomination stated to "be so old it forgot it was dead" (yet is hostile to the greydwarves).

** Sap and magic mushrooms let you can make food that grants your character an eitr bar, which can be spent on using [[MagicStaff magic staves]].

** Most Mistlands-level weapons have names instead of usual labels like "[material] [weapon type]". Most of them are also [[Elemental Weapon]]s.
** Frostner is an earlier example.

* MeleeATrois: With the exception of (some of) the Meadows and Black Forest inhabitants towards each other, creatures from one biome are invariably hostile to those of another, which can be exploited by canny, fast-on-their-feet players.
** This can even happen within the same biome (such as Greydwarves and Skeletons).

* DropTheHammer:
** The Stag-Breaker is a giant maul made from wood and bone, which can be crafted from deer trophies.
** The iron sledge is a giant maul made from iron which replaces the Stag-Breaker later on. [[spoiler:It also requires Ymir Flesh to craft, making it one of the only items in the game you need to find Haldor in order to craft.]]
** Frostner is a slightly smaller (can be used one-handed) hammer reminiscent of Thor's Mjölnir that is so far one of the best endgame weapons as it does both [[KillItWithIce frost]] and [[SilverHasMysticPowers spirit]] damage. [[spoiler:It also requires Ymir Flesh bought from Haldor to craft.]]

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** Wooden arrows don't require feathers to make, and are sufficient to kill most birds in one hit, meaning you don't have to spend feathers in order to acquire feathers.

** Once you obtain a fishing rod, cooked fish becomes like cooked meat but with better stat boosts. Fish bait is inexpensive, and spending an in-game day fishing can get you at least a dozen or two raw fish, which can then be cooked over a campfire just like raw meat.

** Axes are much the same as swords, with the added practical side of being used for wood chopping.

* DemBones: Skeletons are one of the more common enemy types; they can be encountered in Meadows and Plains at night (either spawning from certain stone monuments at first or from anywhere after killing Bonemass), in Black Forests near and inside tombs and ruins, in Swamps pretty much everywhere, and in Mountains also inside ruins. They're tougher and deadlier than most other examples, as a starting character unlucky enough to encounter one when lightly armed and armored (if at all) will get killed by one pretty fast. And apart from 1- and 2-star varieties, they have an elite version called Rancid Bones whose hits will poison you. They are also ludicrously aggressive towards non-undead creatures so any encountered outside Swamps are likely to be found running after or fighting anything they notice.

** [[ExaggeratedTrope Taken to extreme heights with Fulings]]. Regular Fulings are dangerous enough as they are with a base damage of 110, but 2-star versions deal a ludicrous 220 damage a hit. This not only eclipses that of any boss in the game, but is enough to one-shot all but the players with the best, upgraded gear and food.

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Shields are essential tools for melee-focused characters. They provide the absolute best blocking ability (which allows you to convert health damage to stamina damage) and very good returns for parrying (blocking before an enemy hits, which can stun an enemy for a few seconds). Of course, they're separated into three different shield types of which offer differing benefits.

* RareRandomDrop: While most drops from monsters are guaranteed or have at least 50/50 chance, non-boss trophies have 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 chance. Most of them are only useful as decorations, but some are used in crafting, so recipes that involve trophies can become something of a LuckBasedMission.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Meadows sometimes features groups of empty buildings that can be used to set up your own bases or torn down for resources. Sometimes, however, the buildings are [[spoiler:infested with draugr]].

** Obtaining serpent scales. If you kill a serpent in its natural habitat, the scales will sink, and you won't even know they exist as a material unless you've read it elsewhere. An important tool for for hunting serpents properly is the harpoon, and it requires chitin harvested from ocean-dwelling Leviathans, which you can only meet by chance.

* Fishing requires certain types of bait for different types of fish. The only in-game source of this information is trying and failing to use normal bait, and experimentation afterwards.

** Figuring out how to obtain Sea Serpent scales without using a guide is quite an ordeal. If a serpent is slain on open water, its valuable scales will sink and can't be retrieved. In order to obtain them, the serpent must be defeated on land. How do you pull this off? Turns out you can craft a harpoon. However, the harpoon can't be made using stone, flint or metal. Instead, the player must venture out into the open sea to search for Leviathans, enormous yet benign creatures of which only the top of their stony carapaces are not submerged. The player must hop onto the island-like creature and use a pickaxe to mine the Abyssal Barnacles found there, which will yield Abyssal Chitin. With enough of this Chitin, a harpoon can then be made. Finally, the player can set out to find a sea serpent and harpoon it. Once you got one harpooned, you must make your way to the nearest coast all the while making sure the Serpent's struggles don't sink your boat first. Sail too fast, however, and your line breaks, resulting in the serpent swimming off. Once on land you must balance your stamina as you alternate between attacking the serpent and re-harpooning it. Quite often random mobs will come harass you as you drag your catch ashore. If you don't balance your stamina well, your line will break and the serpent slithers back into the ocean, fleeing immediately. Good luck, sailor!

** While each weapon explains what type of damage it deals, some types of armor explain they're resistant to some types of damage without telling which enemies cause that type of damage. Meaning it likely wouldn't occur to anyone that surviving the Plains is much easier when [[spoiler:wearing a Root Harnesk or Serpent Shield]], as they greatly reduce Deathsquito and Fuling javelins.

* GhostAmnesia: The player character is a dead warrior's soul and doesn't remember their life, at most seeing vague dreams of their life and death. Runestones left by previous Chosen state the sxame thing, with some pondering on what they were in life.