Mistlands Checklist and guide

Spoilers optional. A list of things and a short guide on how to navigate and survive in Mistlands.

Intro

Let's get started

The Mistlands biome was finally introduced properly to Valheim on December 6. Since then, it has garnered appreciation and complaints. IGS released the first balance patch to address some concerns with new monsters and items exactly two weeks later on December 20.

If you're going to start playing on a new world, you can skip the rest of this section.

If you're going to keep playing on an exist world, you'll need to be aware of how new content impacts your experience. I've been playing on the same world since almost the beginning of early access without any hiccups, but different worlds and different players are affected differently.

1. Areas or regions you have explored previously won't be fully updated when new content is introduced
   
2. Structures which are spawned when a region is first generated (tar pits and frost caves for example) won't appear in previously explored regions
   
3. Previously explored but partially unimplemented biomes (Mistlands, Ashlands, Deep North) will be partially regenerated when the biome is implemented properly, but some features may be missing

Keep these in mind if you're going to continue playing on an existing world for a long time.

Finding Mistlands

You'll know when you find it, even if you had "discovered" the biome before the update

Sailing

The only thing you really need to merely find Mistlands is a ship, and even this may not be required in some worlds (share the seed or screenshots?).

I'd recommend heading out with the Longship (100 Iron nails, 10 Deer hide, 40 Fine wood, 40 Ancient bark), mostly for its larger cargo hold. To build one you likely must have killed the Forest Forsaken as well as explored the Swamp biome and several dungeons, but you can also make the trip with a Karve (80 Bronze nails, 10 Deer Hide, 30 Fine wood, 20 Resin), for which you must have defeated Eikthyr. You'll need to sail or otherwise travel to approximately halfway towards the edges of the world to find Mistlands biomes.

Mist ahoy!

If you've made it this far, you probably already know that there is mist in Mistlands (what a shocker) and that they are mostly covered by perpetual and almost opaque layer of mist, easily distinguishable from the "outside", and preventing players from seeing further than their arm's reach. Foggy weather in the Plains can get you in some serious situations sometimes, but it's got nothing on the mist.

Very powerful monsters also lurk in the cover of the mist. If you've struggled with the fulings and other things in the Plains biome, it's probably not a good idea to head in just yet, especially if you have not defeated the Plains Forsaken.

The following sections will list useful items you want to familiarize yourself with as well as acquire in some amounts to make venturing into Mistlands easier for you.

About priorities

In this guide you'll see various lists. A numbered lists implies order of priority, in which you should construct things or spend your limited inventory slots on. An unnumbered list is a generic list of items that are necessary or important.

Meadows checklist (and Forsaken powers)

Imagine your base here

There aren't many useful resources in Meadows that cannot be acquired in other biomes, but resin and fine wood are always useful. It's a good place for your main base, but most importantly, the Sacrificial stones will always be present in the Meadows biome, so this short section will be mostly about how to use them. Feel free to skip this part if you're already familiar with all the powers.

Since surviving in this biome and defeating Eikthyr can be considered something of a tutorial for the game, there isn't much more to say here.

• Fine wood (for portal)
  
• Resin (for various items, just keep some in your base and don't spend all of it on torches)

Forsaken powers

Meadows Forsaken Eikthyr

Useful power if you prefer mobility over durability. It can really save your life and make it easier to get across the elevation and through other obstacles in all biomes, Mistlands included. It's usually nonessential to your survival and progress, but Eikthyr's power can make for a good choice if another viking already has the Swamp Forsaken power at the ready.

Forest Forsaken The Elder

Almost completely nonessential and redundant power. It's only useful if you want to deforest the forest.

Swamp Forsaken Bonemass

Probably the most useful power in the game. If you're unsure, you should always take this one with you wherever you go. It's not fun to be ganked by 2* fulings or other such enemies which can appear suddenly from nowhere, especially during night.

Mountain Forsaken Moder

If you have your base and sacrificial stones near shoreline, you can take this power, activate it, then swap to the Swamp Forsaken power so you can get the combat-oriented buff to use by the time you reach Mistlands or any other location. It's not useful in the new biome by itself.

Plains Forsaken Yagluth

There's only one serious threat in Mistlands which this power can protect against. If you know there's a 1* or 2* gjall lurking around, you could make use of this, but it's not going to help in most other situations (for now) and can be replaced by fire resistance barley wine.

Mistlands Forsaken The Queen

The first true multipurpose power. You're probably going to like it, but Swamp Forsaken power is still the best because it enables you to do something you couldn't normally accomplish.

Forest checklist

Not much of a forest soon

AKA the Black Forest.

You'll need surtling cores and greydwarf eyes to create portals, and you might also want to bring maximum of one stack of each of the three basic metals made available by exploitation of this biome, but the choice is yours and depends on your world seed, resources availability and other priorities. It's going to be much easier to establish a beachhead base in Mistlands if you bring the essential portal-incompatible materials with you.

You're also going to want plenty of seeds from this biome to grow crops with. They'll be useful later on.

You don't really need to defeat the Forest Forsaken, but it's not possible to progress on your own without doing so, and it's an easy boss anyway, so you should do that.

• Surtlings cores
  
• Greydwarf eyes
  
• Copper, Tin and Bronze, to get started with base construction quickly

Swamp checklist

There's something in the water

You can make ooze bombs out of materials found in the swamp and the previous biomes. They can prove very useful in Mistlands and several dungeons until you can have abundance of things that explode better.

You don't need to bring much iron to mistlands unless you wish to construct a sturdy frontier outpost before you begin proper exploration.

Chains are required for several mid and "end game" construction and gear, so you should make sure to kill every Wraith you see in the swamps.

You don't really need any guck, but you'll want to acquire root and trophies from abominations so you can make the root harnesk. It's going to be very useful later on.

I'd also recommend grabbing any seeds you find in this biome. The crops you may grow with them previously had little use in the game, but that has changed since introduction of Mistlands.

You'll also need to defeat the Swamp Forsaken to unlock some very important materials to purchase from the Trader.

• Ooze bombs
  
• Iron (at least some to get started faster)
  
• Chains
  
• Root to make root harnesk out of

Ocean checklist

You should go "fishing" in the oceans during the night or during a storm, it's your choice

Ocean biome is not yet fully feature-complete AFAIK, so besides them existing as essential pathway for exploration of new landmasses and transportation of metals, they are also the hunting grounds for serpents which come out during the night or when it's stormy. You'll need to find them for food, and optionally a shield if you cannot make the root harnesk available with Swamp materials, but you're going to need the harpoon and some extra effort for that, so you can skip it. Depending on your world seed and priorities, you'll probably need to do at least some sailing before you can fight the Mountain Forsaken.

• Serpent meat to make serpent stew from
  
• An ocean to sail on, so you can reach Mistlands and other biomes, duh

Mountain checklist

Only large enough mountains contain riches

You'll need large amounts of the silver metal and other materials to create Frostner and many other things. You might also want obsidian and freeze glands for arrows. You don't need to create any other expensive weapons or gear made available by this biome, though you might want to create the fang spear since it's not terribly expensive to make, and you'll obviously want some kind of cape for their resistance effects.

You shouldn't rush through this biome, make sure to explore every point of interest and make use of your map markers. The dungeons found in mountains can be very fun to explore, but doing so is not explicitly required in order to progress so that's something you can skip if you want to.

If you're progressing on your own, it is still necessary to find and defeat the Mountain Forsaken.

• Any cape with frost resistance
  
• Silver so you can make Frostner and many other useful items, including wisplight

Plains checklist

Get yourself a nice piece of land and settle down for agriculture

This is where things start to get much more interesting. If you're struggling to survive here, you probably shouldn't head into the mist just yet.

You're going to need pretty much all of the new materials and ingredients made available in this biome in order to progress, with the possible exception of tar which is nonetheless used for construction that can provide increased comfort and slightly longer duration benefit from resting comfortably.

You'll want to either hunt or optionally tame a solid number of lox, so you have access to nutritious food. You'll also need to establish a field to grow crops in this biome. Some world seeds can have very isolated "slices" of various biomes which you can easily wall off and prevent enemies from spawning inside, so you could look into doing that because you're going to need to grow a lot of all the crops in the game. You can grow almost everything in the Plains biome.

Defeating the Plains Forsaken can be a double-edged sword. It's necessary to do so to gain better visibility in Mistlands, but destroying him will also accomplish what I like to say "upsetting the balance of power" in the world and allow new monsters to seek you and your base out. As there's little benefit in slaying this Forsaken until you are ready to head into Mistlands, I would recommend not rushing it. Take your time in the Plains, the previous dungeons and so on, and build up your defenses. Fuling assaults can be devastating to the unprepared, but if you can defeat them they will make for an amazing source of metal and coin so you don't need to look for it in the Plains.

• Black metal ingots, tools and shield
  
• Barley and flax to grow them yourself, and to make barley flour and linen thread
  
• Padded armor
  
• Lox meat and cloudberries for various foods

Checklist for reaching Mistlands

You'll explore faster and transport more in co-op by using multiple ships

Here are all the things I recommend constructing, crafting, equipping and/or taking with you before beginning proper exploration of Mistlands:

Gear

Your best gear, but especially:
Frostner
Black metal shield
Black metal axe
Huntsman bow or better, with frost or poison arrows
Padded armor with root harnesk
Any cape with frost resistance
Wisplight (and megingjörd)
You should also have backup gear to replace most of these because you will die

Consumables

Your best food, like:
Serpent stew
Lox meat pies OR fish wraps
Bread OR blood pudding
Fire resistance barley wine
Medium healing mead

Materials

Most of these should go in the hold of your ship, except portal materiel and wisps
Enough surtling cores for smelter, charcoal kiln and blast furnace
Stack of black metal ingots
Chains, unless you know your destination is adjacent to a Swamp
Other portal materials
Enough basic metals to establish base structures like smelter, etc.
Stack or so of wisps

Miscallenous

Bonemass power
Sense of direction
Map marking system

Optional

Not everyone is going to need these, but they can be very helpful
Fang spear for hunting hare and destroying stray leeches, and to acquire bronze in dungeons
Ooze bombs
Medium stamina mead
Other weapons you are skilled with
Headphones
Meeting recommended system requirements
Shield-siblings

Checklist and tips for surviving Mistlands

It's a matter of perspective, and inner peace

Wisp fountain

This first part is actually continuation from the previous section, since you need to do this before entering Mistlands: Once you've constructed the forebodingly titled "Wisp fountain", you may not notice anything interesting about it first. However, as both Hugin and the wisp fountain prompt implies, you'll have to wait for night or dark weather for wisps to arrive.

Once you've constructed the wisplight, you'll have to equip it as accessory. That means you won't be able to benefit from megingjörd or any other accessories, but there will be some ways to work around this limitation slightly later on, for which you'll want several wisps as soon as you head out into the mist.

1. Torn Spirit
   
2. Wisp
   
3. Wisplight

Sprouts and roots

Depending on how you are entering the Mistlands, you'll find different things. But the first thing you actually need from this biome is Yggdrasil wood, and that's why you brought the black metal axe here. If you didn't do that, you might as well turn back now and come back later. As soon as you manage to do some woodcutting, you'll see why you brought the wisps along.

But there are some things out there you cannot cut down even with black metal. You'll need something "fashioned by more capable hands". Yes, yours are not the only pair of hands out there anymore... But what you can make yourself is the new black metal pickaxe! So make sure you grab enough wood before you head back to base. About half a stack will get you started.

1. Black metal axe
   
2. Yggdrasil wood
   
3. Wisp torch
   
4. Black metal pickaxe

Island hopping

If you entered Mistlands from coastal side, you'll probably run into the kind of jagged and splintered terrain many players have been complaining about. This is why you brought at least one higher tier stamina food, so you won't drown or get caught by a monster when out of stamina too easily. As soon as you find a safe enough looking spot to go ashore, you should start looking for potential outpost location. Abandoned (or "abandoned") structures serve well to this purpose.

The first creature you're likely to meet in Mistlands is a hare. It's a bit uncommon kind as far as hares go, and very much worthy of hunt. You can use any ranged weapons to do so, including throwing spear, but you may also be able to corner them or catch them in shallow water. At around this point you should also run into some mushrooms. Prioritize them over all other creature loot until you can grow them yourself, which you should try to do as soon as you've established an outpost in the biome.

1. Jotun puffs and magecaps
   
2. Use ranged weapons to get Hare meat and Scale hide

Seek and you shall be found

The seekers are out there, and the first time you meet one might come as a shock. Parry their attacks and strike back with the secondary attack of your enchanted mace, or slam them back if there are multiple targets (regular seekers often appear in pairs).

Seeker soldiers pack a bigger punch. But if you're wearing padded armor, even their attacks are greatly mitigated. What you do from there is your choice: You can parry or dodge their attacks, and try to strike them in the vulnerable rear body, or simply pummel them with your mace after parrying.

1. Seeker meat
   
2. Mandibles and Carapace, and trophies, low priority

Tick, tock, boom

If you hear a loud, booming noise, it usually means a gjall is about. You should be able to avoid them easily, or even take them down with ranged attacks without much fuss – this is the only real reason to bring a bow to Mistlands. But if they manage to get close enough to you, they'll alternate between two things: Shooting flaming bile at you or letting loose a small swarm of ticks underneath them. Also, one more thing about noises: The mist also distorts sound, so keep that in mind when you're near the edges of the biome. Fulings and other things sound quite different from within the mist. Mind the distance.

You can dodge or block the blood-sucking buggers coming at you, but you can also evade them simply by using your feet. If you bring down the gjall, make sure you grab its bile bag, as that's going to be useful later on and you'll probably want as many as possible because it's a consumable ingredient. Ticks also yield a useful resource for consumables and they are not as common as the material gained from seekers, so prioritize that over seeker trophies and materials. You can also lure the gjall attack and dismantle various nearby structures (or NPCs) for you, more on that later.

1. Use your bow and barley wine or dip in water to fight gjall, or just escape
   
2. Bile bag
   
3. Blood clot
   
4. Various resources from destructible structures

You're taller than I remember

You'll find various structures of two designs in Mistlands, but their tenants vary. Stone structures are inhabited by beings who live underground; giant remains of both bone and metal are often infested by ticks. You should seek out both kinds. Remember when I mentioned not having the only pair of working hands in Mistlands? Once you find them, you can acquire what you need to root your progress in the Mistlands, but you may need to get violent to do so, or get someone else to be violent in your place. Once you have what you need, you only need to find a suitable location for your new extraction process.

As for the giants, or what's left of them, you'll simply need to do what Hugin literally tells you to do: "Pick their bones and break their domes!" You can accomplish this by making use of the new tool you've made with the wood you've harvested since arriving in Mistlands. Scrap remains will yield more scrap, which is the reason why you brought surtling cores with you or have enough in your base to fetch by portals. Now you'll only need some fuel (wood or coal) and some other base materials for more advanced facilities.

1. Dvergr extractor
   
2. Black metal pickaxe for Soft tissue and black marble
   
3. Scrap iron

Dungeons and dvergr

It varies from player to player whether you manage to get your hands on an extractor early or end up in an infested dungeon first. No matter. This paragraph is about the latter. Some structures are just that; structures. Some serve as entrance to a dungeon, but they can also have more imposing entrances, especially along coastlines.

You are likely to be killed if you enter unprepared. Eat your best food, wear your best gear (you did bring that root harnesk, right?), and fire up the Swamp Forsaken power before entering and make use of your newfound nigh-invulnerability to explore the underground tunnels more casually. Hack away at your enemies with your mace and ransack through their halls with axe. When the power's duration is out, stop engaging and avoid opening up new passages. You should focus on looting when your power is inactive. You can bring down the lanterns and cocoons with well-aimed spear throws. Ooze bombs and especially bile bombs make short work of the swarms.

1. Sealbreaker fragment
   
2. Black core
   
3. Royal jelly
   
4. Various other organic materials
   
5. Bronze and scrap copper

Checklist and tips for thriving in Mistlands

Finally got a reason to upgrade my smithy

Heat the forge

Found some of those cores yet? Surtling cores heat things up, these new ones make things melt down. You'll need 15 in total (5+5+5), so good luck in those dungeons, you're going to need it. Once you've found at least 5 cores, it's time to head back to your main base and overhaul that old smithy you constructed in the early last year. You can make some good stuff with what you've found so far, from arrows to arbalest. There's no reason you shouldn't make them and bring with you when you're heading back for more dungeons. You'll also unlock some new missiles, but you cannot yet make any use out of them.

In case you didn't yet figure out how to use the extractors, they are required to construct sap extractors which will provide you with renewable, organic, ethically and sustainably grown and harvested, antibiotic and insecticide free lifeblood of the worlds. Once you've managed to find out suitable spot to extract from, you'll need to wait and do other things while waiting for extraction to finish. Don't worry about checking back too often: The resource node will renew itself if the storage is full, so you don't necessarily need to go find another one. Once you get to fill your first cup of the stuff, you'll unlock the machine.

This list is unordered, you'll need all of these to proceed.
Black cores
Black marble
Black metal
Yggdrasil wood
Sap

A machine for vikings

You'll need another 5 cores, but you may dismantle the previous station if you no longer have immediate need for it. You'll need the refined resource from the machine to unlock further use of it. Once you've constructed the machine, it's up to you and Hugin to figure out what to do with it. There's a funnel for liquid that leads to bottom part, and a grinder on top. Inspecting the funnel should reveal what goes in there, but the other resource is slightly trickier to come across. Use your head... or someone else's.

After putting your and dead jotun grey matter to good use, you should be looking at some refined eitr. I'm leaving this unspoilered since eitr is such a core concept to the game from here on out. You'll need a whole bunch of it, but not indefinitely; it's not (yet) used as ingredient in any consumables, but one of its parent ingredients is, and you are probably already itching to find additional uses for it. If you've been growing the mist mushrooms well enough and can get a harvest of them, you can bring them all to your cauldron and see the new 'n' tasty things you can cook up. Once you've made all the refined eitr you can (or need), you can dismantle the machine before it becomes self-aware and read the next paragraph patiently so you won't waste your refined eitr on something non-essential.

Use Sap and soft tissue to make refined eitr in the eitr refinery

Flight of the valkyries

Well, not true flight, but close enough. Once you can construct the galdr table, you should do so, even if it means pausing the machine from processing the resources. Take a look at what you can make and what you need to make them: 20 refined eitr will get you started. That's equal to less than one skull and two full extractors (or one twice-filled), so that shouldn't take too long, if you've gotten this far. You can get more soft tissue from the dvergr, but you'll have to fight them for it or loot their abandoned sites. Personally, the former is not for me, so I've only done the latter or sought out the remains on my own.

Before we wrap things up on the manufacturing part of things, you may have noticed that refined eitr is pretty volatile as far as resources go. You don't want them unguarded inside your base. But there's one thing it cannot harm: Petrified remains of its former owners. So head out and mine or blow up some black marble structures, organically or artifically formed, and bring it home so you can contain the machine and avert triggering a resonance cascade inside your base while you're gliding around the Mistlands. If you're going to be jumping around your own base instead, mind the ballista, if you made any, as they won't discriminate between friend and foe by default, but you can designate a creature target for them by using trophies.

1. Feather cape
   
2. Refined eitr for anything else you want
   
3. Black marble for additional protection
   
4. Artificer table for Mechanical spring and ammunition to construct ballista

She has seen enough

There's only a few more new things left, as I'm not going to walk you through the biome endgame here. Provided that you're willing to recycle or find more cores, you can craft the mistwalker and various other useful pieces of gear like carapace shield. So long as you are relying on your trusty root harnesk, you shouldn't need any new armor, but that's your choice. I'd personally recommend saving your refined eitr for the things you can make on the galdr table instead. I'm not going to discuss eitr and its uses any more here either, but I'd recommend trying to gather and prioritize the ingredients for the new foods and mead on your travels.

The final step in making it big in Mistlands is reaching the Mistlands Forsaken (by the usual process of finding vegvisirs in dungeons) and giving them Odin's regards. Many strategies can work there, but as always, preparation is the most important aspect. You'll need to use the best food in the game (that's why we've been growing mushrooms and basic crops as well as hunting the scaly creatures), and several instances of that new gear like the cape you're having so much fun with (I hope). I'd expect you to go through at least 4-5 dungeons to find enough fragments and of course a vegvisir to point to the Forsaken's citadel (yep you read that right), so good luck and Odin's blessings to you. We'll meet in Valhalla!

1. Make some major healing mead from the new ingredients, it's absolutely essential
   
2. Cook misthare supreme and meat platter to carry you through the biome
   
3. You'll get loads of royal jelly after boss so don't hoard it too much, use it!

Full pre-Mistlands spoiler list

You can get some old stuff from within and around the Mistlands also

This is not a full list of EVERYTHING you need to progress in the game. It's only the things you likely or certainly will need in Mistlands.

Fine wood (for portal)
Resin (unless you have it stored already)

Surtling cores (for portal and base facilities)
Greydwarf eyes (for portal)
Copper, Tin and Bronze (for base facilities)

Ooze bombs (they are made out of ooze, duh)
Iron
Chains
Root (for root harnesk)

Serpent meat to make serpent stew

Any cape with frost resistance
Silver and Ymir flesh (from the Trader) for making Frostner and wisplights, and other stuff

Black metal to gear up and for base facilities
Barley and flax, to make barley flour, fire resistance wine, and linen thread
Padded armor, at least helmet and pants
Lox meat for meat pies and platters, cloudberries for meat pie and other food

Torn Spirit, from Yagluth
Wisps, from Wisp fountain
Wisplight, made from wisp and silver

Black metal axe, for chopping wood

Full in-Mistlands spoiler list

Persistence will be rewarded

This is not a list of ALL new items. It's only a list of the crucial items you need to progress.

Yggdrasil wood, for crafting and facilities
Wisp torch, to light your way
Black metal pickaxe, to mine jotun brains with

Jotun puff and magecap mushrooms, you can plant and grow them in mistlands
Hare meat and scale hides from hares

Seeker meat for meat platter, also decent meal on its own, when cooked on grill
Carapace, for carapace shield and some other gear

Bile bags, for bile bombs, which make short work of swarms in dungeons
Blood clot, for new mead and food

Dvergr extractor, to craft sap extractor
Sap, from Yggdrasil roots penetrated with sap extractors
Soft tissue and black marble from jotun remains

Sealbreaker fragments
Black cores, for base facilities
Royal jelly, from seeker drones, used for food and mead

Refined eitr, processed from soft tissue and sap

Black forge, black forge cooler, eitr refinery, galdr table and rune table

Feather cape, it's an essential tool in the biome and at the boss, also provides Frost Resistance!

Thanks for reading!

[Rhapsody]

The Fandom wiki for the game has had some information on damage types of creatures added since creation of this guide.

Root harnesk is still very useful. You'll just need to watch out for gjall when using it, since they deal more fire damage since the latest balance patch. Remember you can dip in water to get fire resistance at virtually any time. The harnesk is still the best armor you can wear inside dungeons and at the boss, even if mature seekers have one attack which doesn't deal pierce damage (and the boss seems to have two).

[Rhapsody]

@OctoberSky I've been playing the same character a lot so they have high movement skills. I wouldn't recommend heading solo into the mist with low skills, without having progressed through other biomes. You probably have to rely on the basic combat skills like parrying with shield instead of going ham with the old or new two-handed weapons or magic.

You won't need super high skills for the boss fortunately, just the feather cape and bow. Eikthyr power may be better choice for both the boss and early mistlands exploration, since it contributes much more to learning lay of the land as well as fighting gjall, but you should still always use Bonemass power before delving into dungeons and when 2-star seekers become more frequent in the overworld.

[Rhapsody]

@JG46&2 I've never resorted to that, I think I've upset inhabitants of two outposts, of which the last survivor expired against seekers. I've managed to acquire about 5 extractors (and dvergr trophy) without actually killing any of them... If you want to target an outpost, I'd recommend finding an understaffed one with just one or two defenders left standing. Well-populated outposts can be helpful if you're ever in a pinch with 2-star seekers or gjall.

[OctoberSky]

Recommended skill levels? I've seen how jumping the terrain is a major stamina drain so jump skill level of X and run skill level of Y is highly recommended.

[JG46&2]

how to kill a dvergr outpost

[Rhapsody]

Hi, please let me know here if I forgot something relevant! Thanks for visiting and any feedback.