I set out this past weekend with a simple goal in Valheim; to defeat The Elder, the second of the bosses, the Black Forest boss, that we might progress past bronze and into iron and related gear.  We had been mining quite a bit of copper and tin and had done some upgrades, but I was already itching for the next stage of the game.

We had previously scoped out the nearest location of The Elder and built a small base with a portal close by.  I had also cleared away some space around where the fight would take place and then fenced a bit of it in.

The Elder’s platform

That wasn’t to contain The Elder so much as to keep wandering mobs at bay.  Our first run at The Elder back in the day was interrupted by skeletons, greydwarves, and a troll, so keeping the locals away is now something I consider.

It was just Potshot and myself this time around, but we were game for the fight.  In past runs we have tended to all just go with the bow and some fire arrows.  I had read since that a player in max bronze armor available and a big shield can tank The Elder, pinning him down while others hit him from range.  So I donned the bronze suit and got out my upgraded bone tower shield and stepped into the ring, summoning our target.

And it worked out.  I had to step away from the roots that The Elder summoned, but otherwise it was a fairly smooth fight.  Only one of my walls damaged by the whole thing.

The Elder goes down

We collected the trophy and the swamp keys he dropped and headed back to the henge to mount the trophy and unlock the next ability.

Trophy mounted successfully

The Elder unlocks improved wood cutting… which I guess could come in handy.  It is, however, not at the top of my list and I held on to the Eikthyr ability, even if I constantly forget to use it when I really need it.

That successfully wrapped up in much less time than expected, we decided we were pretty much invicible and headed to the swamp to get some of that sweet, sweet scrap iron to refine.

And… there were issues.

I died some… we both did

That map doesn’t really explain the depth of our misery and how we set ourselves up for some extra work.

Our closest portal was across that strip of water in a sliver of swamp, complete with its own Surtling flame and spawner.  The spawner is in the water so… free cores and coal!

That Portal requires a boat to get to the swamp

But we had to sail across… or swim across, in with the leeches… to get to the crypt we were first assailing… you can see its outline to the left of the image above… and then to get back to our corpses.  Fortunately, OdinShip mod we were using has an inexpensive small boat, so we were able to keep building them.  (That little hut next to the portal is over a work bench.)  But the whole thing was hard on the boats because there was a swamp abomination hanging around, and he was pretty keen to smash any boat we left parked on the shore.

The Abomination lurking around the crypt

That said, the abomination only killed us one I think.  It was inside the crypt where we found ourselves in a bit of trouble.

We had been flirting with dragur on the edge of the swamp now and then as part of exploring which, along with our quick win against The Elder, made us a little more aggressive than maybe we should have been.  Three dragur in the opening room had me down and running back pretty quickly, though Potshot managed to finish them off.

Later, a bit deeper in, a room with a dragur spawner managed to pop a dragur elite and a one star dragur and it took a while and some corpse runs to get that sorted.

Potshot’s character remains

Multiple deaths and much scrambling about later, we did eventually clear the crypt.

You may see, if you look closely, that our deaths leave behind two tombstones, usually one right on top of the other, though occasionally one on the ground and one way the hell up in a tree.

One of my own deaths

One of them just has the name and the other says “equipment” on it along with the name.

I believe this is due to one of the mods we have chosen, equipment and quick slots, which gives you extra gear and equipment slots.  It drops a tombstone just for those items, since they are not in your inventory.  That is actually kind of nice… so long as, when you’re in a hurry and running from mobs and trying to grab your stuff on a corpse run… corpse runs, still a thing in 2024… and you click on the wrong one and get all your inventory stuff but are still naked and running around with some hostile mob after you.  Comedy all the way.

We managed to get out of there and our first load of scrap iron home.  That crypt also gave us the location of the next boss, which was two swamps over.  So we landed there and began operations… and died some more.

Seriously, I had made it to the fight with The Elder having died twice.  Lots of close calls, but only two deaths.  And then we got to the swamp and started dropping like flies.  But we did get a decent foothold in that swamp.  I also cleared a ruin in the first swamp and put a portal in there so we wouldn’t have to cross the water every time.  Potshot actually swam that channel multiple times and lived.

In hauling scrap iron back I finally ran into one of our old friends, a sea monster.  We had been commenting that we hadn’t seen one so far, but then you get a boat full of scrap iron on a night run back to base and suddenly there one is.

Running with the wind, the monster in pursuit

That run actually had two sea monsters.  But the small boat runs as fast they do if you have the wind at your back, so they just chased me until the hit their limit, then turned away.  I was able to safely get the scrap iron home to our base.

Arriving home with the dawn

So we are now harvesting and gearing up and look at what we can do with stone as a building material once again.

I set out this past weekend with a simple goal in Valheim; to defeat The Elder, the second of the bosses, the Black Forest boss, that we might progress past bronze and into iron and related gear.  We had been mining quite a bit of copper and tin and had done some upgrades, but I was already itching for the next stage of the game.

We had previously scoped out the nearest location of The Elder and built a small base with a portal close by.  I had also cleared away some space around where the fight would take place and then fenced a bit of it in.

The Elder’s platform

That wasn’t to contain The Elder so much as to keep wandering mobs at bay.  Our first run at The Elder back in the day was interrupted by skeletons, greydwarves, and a troll, so keeping the locals away is now something I consider.

It was just Potshot and myself this time around, but we were game for the fight.  In past runs we have tended to all just go with the bow and some fire arrows.  I had read since that a player in max bronze armor available and a big shield can tank The Elder, pinning him down while others hit him from range.  So I donned the bronze suit and got out my upgraded bone tower shield and stepped into the ring, summoning our target.

And it worked out.  I had to step away from the roots that The Elder summoned, but otherwise it was a fairly smooth fight.  Only one of my walls damaged by the whole thing.

The Elder goes down

We collected the trophy and the swamp keys he dropped and headed back to the henge to mount the trophy and unlock the next ability.

Trophy mounted successfully

The Elder unlocks improved wood cutting… which I guess could come in handy.  It is, however, not at the top of my list and I held on to the Eikthyr ability, even if I constantly forget to use it when I really need it.

That successfully wrapped up in much less time than expected, we decided we were pretty much invicible and headed to the swamp to get some of that sweet, sweet scrap iron to refine.

And… there were issues.

I died some… we both did

That map doesn’t really explain the depth of our misery and how we set ourselves up for some extra work.

Our closest portal was across that strip of water in a sliver of swamp, complete with its own Surtling flame and spawner.  The spawner is in the water so… free cores and coal!

That Portal requires a boat to get to the swamp

But we had to sail across… or swim across, in with the leeches… to get to the crypt we were first assailing… you can see its outline to the left of the image above… and then to get back to our corpses.  Fortunately, OdinShip mod we were using has an inexpensive small boat, so we were able to keep building them.  (That little hut next to the portal is over a work bench.)  But the whole thing was hard on the boats because there was a swamp abomination hanging around, and he was pretty keen to smash any boat we left parked on the shore.

The Abomination lurking around the crypt

That said, the abomination only killed us one I think.  It was inside the crypt where we found ourselves in a bit of trouble.

We had been flirting with dragur on the edge of the swamp now and then as part of exploring which, along with our quick win against The Elder, made us a little more aggressive than maybe we should have been.  Three dragur in the opening room had me down and running back pretty quickly, though Potshot managed to finish them off.

Later, a bit deeper in, a room with a dragur spawner managed to pop a dragur elite and a one star dragur and it took a while and some corpse runs to get that sorted.

Potshot’s character remains

Multiple deaths and much scrambling about later, we did eventually clear the crypt.

You may see, if you look closely, that our deaths leave behind two tombstones, usually one right on top of the other, though occasionally one on the ground and one way the hell up in a tree.

One of my own deaths

One of them just has the name and the other says “equipment” on it along with the name.

I believe this is due to one of the mods we have chosen, equipment and quick slots, which gives you extra gear and equipment slots.  It drops a tombstone just for those items, since they are not in your inventory.  That is actually kind of nice… so long as, when you’re in a hurry and running from mobs and trying to grab your stuff on a corpse run… corpse runs, still a thing in 2024… and you click on the wrong one and get all your inventory stuff but are still naked and running around with some hostile mob after you.  Comedy all the way.

We managed to get out of there and our first load of scrap iron home.  That crypt also gave us the location of the next boss, which was two swamps over.  So we landed there and began operations… and died some more.

Seriously, I had made it to the fight with The Elder having died twice.  Lots of close calls, but only two deaths.  And then we got to the swamp and started dropping like flies.  But we did get a decent foothold in that swamp.  I also cleared a ruin in the first swamp and put a portal in there so we wouldn’t have to cross the water every time.  Potshot actually swam that channel multiple times and lived.

In hauling scrap iron back I finally ran into one of our old friends, a sea monster.  We had been commenting that we hadn’t seen one so far, but then you get a boat full of scrap iron on a night run back to base and suddenly there one is.

Running with the wind, the monster in pursuit

That run actually had two sea monsters.  But the small boat runs as fast they do if you have the wind at your back, so they just chased me until the hit their limit, then turned away.  I was able to safely get the scrap iron home to our base.

Arriving home with the dawn

So we are now harvesting and gearing up and look at what we can do with stone as a building material once again.

I set out this past weekend with a simple goal in Valheim; to defeat The Elder, the second of the bosses, the Black Forest boss, that we might progress past bronze and into iron and related gear.  We had been mining quite a bit of copper and tin and had done some upgrades, but I was already itching for the next stage of the game.

We had previously scoped out the nearest location of The Elder and built a small base with a portal close by.  I had also cleared away some space around where the fight would take place and then fenced a bit of it in.

The Elder’s platform

That wasn’t to contain The Elder so much as to keep wandering mobs at bay.  Our first run at The Elder back in the day was interrupted by skeletons, greydwarves, and a troll, so keeping the locals away is now something I consider.

It was just Potshot and myself this time around, but we were game for the fight.  In past runs we have tended to all just go with the bow and some fire arrows.  I had read since that a player in max bronze armor available and a big shield can tank The Elder, pinning him down while others hit him from range.  So I donned the bronze suit and got out my upgraded bone tower shield and stepped into the ring, summoning our target.

And it worked out.  I had to step away from the roots that The Elder summoned, but otherwise it was a fairly smooth fight.  Only one of my walls damaged by the whole thing.

The Elder goes down

We collected the trophy and the swamp keys he dropped and headed back to the henge to mount the trophy and unlock the next ability.

Trophy mounted successfully

The Elder unlocks improved wood cutting… which I guess could come in handy.  It is, however, not at the top of my list and I held on to the Eikthyr ability, even if I constantly forget to use it when I really need it.

That successfully wrapped up in much less time than expected, we decided we were pretty much invicible and headed to the swamp to get some of that sweet, sweet scrap iron to refine.

And… there were issues.

I died some… we both did

That map doesn’t really explain the depth of our misery and how we set ourselves up for some extra work.

Our closest portal was across that strip of water in a sliver of swamp, complete with its own Surtling flame and spawner.  The spawner is in the water so… free cores and coal!

That Portal requires a boat to get to the swamp

But we had to sail across… or swim across, in with the leeches… to get to the crypt we were first assailing… you can see its outline to the left of the image above… and then to get back to our corpses.  Fortunately, OdinShip mod we were using has an inexpensive small boat, so we were able to keep building them.  (That little hut next to the portal is over a work bench.)  But the whole thing was hard on the boats because there was a swamp abomination hanging around, and he was pretty keen to smash any boat we left parked on the shore.

The Abomination lurking around the crypt

That said, the abomination only killed us one I think.  It was inside the crypt where we found ourselves in a bit of trouble.

We had been flirting with dragur on the edge of the swamp now and then as part of exploring which, along with our quick win against The Elder, made us a little more aggressive than maybe we should have been.  Three dragur in the opening room had me down and running back pretty quickly, though Potshot managed to finish them off.

Later, a bit deeper in, a room with a dragur spawner managed to pop a dragur elite and a one star dragur and it took a while and some corpse runs to get that sorted.

Potshot’s character remains

Multiple deaths and much scrambling about later, we did eventually clear the crypt.

You may see, if you look closely, that our deaths leave behind two tombstones, usually one right on top of the other, though occasionally one on the ground and one way the hell up in a tree.

One of my own deaths

One of them just has the name and the other says “equipment” on it along with the name.

I believe this is due to one of the mods we have chosen, equipment and quick slots, which gives you extra gear and equipment slots.  It drops a tombstone just for those items, since they are not in your inventory.  That is actually kind of nice… so long as, when you’re in a hurry and running from mobs and trying to grab your stuff on a corpse run… corpse runs, still a thing in 2024… and you click on the wrong one and get all your inventory stuff but are still naked and running around with some hostile mob after you.  Comedy all the way.

We managed to get out of there and our first load of scrap iron home.  That crypt also gave us the location of the next boss, which was two swamps over.  So we landed there and began operations… and died some more.

Seriously, I had made it to the fight with The Elder having died twice.  Lots of close calls, but only two deaths.  And then we got to the swamp and started dropping like flies.  But we did get a decent foothold in that swamp.  I also cleared a ruin in the first swamp and put a portal in there so we wouldn’t have to cross the water every time.  Potshot actually swam that channel multiple times and lived.

In hauling scrap iron back I finally ran into one of our old friends, a sea monster.  We had been commenting that we hadn’t seen one so far, but then you get a boat full of scrap iron on a night run back to base and suddenly there one is.

Running with the wind, the monster in pursuit

That run actually had two sea monsters.  But the small boat runs as fast they do if you have the wind at your back, so they just chased me until the hit their limit, then turned away.  I was able to safely get the scrap iron home to our base.

Arriving home with the dawn

So we are now harvesting and gearing up and look at what we can do with stone as a building material once again.