Valheim Boss Order: How to Summon and Beat Each Boss With Friends on a Server

The boss order

There's one boss per biome and they come in this order: Eikthyr (Meadows), The Elder (Black Forest), Bonemass (Swamp), Moder (Mountains), Yagluth (Plains), The Queen (Mistlands), Fader (Ashlands) and, since 1.0, Kall Fimbulbringer in the Deep North, the last one.

In theory you can skip them, but not in practice: what each one drops is what lets you get the materials of the next biome. And since the world remembers which bosses have fallen, the order also decides what attacks you at home (see below).

You find their altars through the large rune stones scattered around the map: reading one marks where that area's boss altar is. On a server, the explored map belongs to each player: if a friend read it, it won't show up for you; have them show you or read it together.

What each altar asks for and what it drops

Eikthyr: two deer trophies on his altar in the Meadows. He drops hard antlers for the antler pickaxe, which is what lets you mine copper and tin: the Bronze Age.

The Elder: three ancient seeds, which come from the greydwarf nests in the Black Forest. He drops the swamp key, which opens the sunken crypts, where the iron is.

Bonemass: ten withered bones, from those same crypts. He drops the Wishbone, which points you to the silver hidden in the Mountains.

Moder: three dragon eggs, found on the Mountain peaks. They're heavy and don't go through portals, so you have to carry them to the altar on foot. She drops dragon tears for the artisan table, which you need for the Plains.

Yagluth: five fuling totems, from the fuling villages in the Plains. He's the way into the Mistlands.

The Queen has no altar: she's locked in a citadel in the Mistlands, and the door opens with the Sealbreaker, made from fragments found in the infested mines of that same biome. Fader is summoned in the Ashlands with a bell made from fragments found around that biome.

Kall Fimbulbringer, the Deep North boss, arrived with 1.0 (September 9, 2026). Iron Gate hasn't yet published how he's summoned or what he drops; what's going around comes from player guides, so take it with a grain of salt.

One trophy counts for the whole group

Each boss drops its trophy once. You hang it on its stone in the starting circle (where you first spawned) and from then on anyone on the server can go there and pick that power: it doesn't have to be killed once per person.

Boss powers are activated with the power key (F, unless you've changed it), last 5 minutes and then there's a 20-minute wait before the next one. When you use one, teammates near you get it too, so in a group it pays to take turns: one casts theirs before the fight and, after 20 minutes, someone else casts whichever helps. Two players with the same power don't stack it; two different powers do.

The first bosses' powers are among the most used: Eikthyr's uses much less stamina when running and jumping, The Elder's chops faster, Bonemass's makes you tougher against hits and Moder's gives you a tailwind when sailing. The game shows what each one does when you pick it at the stone.

Fighting as a group

Valheim makes enemies tougher the more players there are nearby, bosses too: bringing all ten of you doesn't turn it into a walk in the park. What does help is splitting roles: one tanking with a shield, the rest with bows or on the flanks, and someone keeping an eye on food.

On a dedicated server, the enemies in an area are simulated by the computer of whoever gets there first. If the boss stutters or hits don't land, it's almost never the server: let the player with the best connection reach the altar first and the rest follow. How to find the culprit, in Valheim server lag.

With “Portals” on “Hard” in the world modifiers, you can't use portals while a boss is active: if you have to run, it'll be on foot. With “Casual”, on the other hand, everything goes through portals, dragon eggs and metals included (what each modifier does).

Bosses decide which raids attack you

Every defeated boss is recorded in the world, and the raids that hit your base come from that list: after Eikthyr some arrive, after The Elder tougher ones, and so on. On a server, the list belongs to the world, not to each player.

The catch shows when someone joins late: if the group is already past Moder, the new friend's first house can get the raids of an advanced world. That's what the playerevents modifier is for: raids depend on how far each player has progressed and not on the world's bosses.

Before each boss, save

A boss fight is one of the moments where you lose the most: deaths in a row with your gear lying far from base, or a sunk ship. If something goes very wrong, going back to a backup from just before saves the game.

If you're an admin (your ID in adminlist.txt; how to add yourself), type save in the console (F5) before heading to the altar: the server saves the world at that moment. And if you want to roll back, careful: a world backup doesn't bring back what each character was carrying, which is saved on each player's PC.

Restoring a backup, step by step, in Valheim backups and recovering a world.

With NapNodes

1. Make a backup before the boss

   In “Backups”, create one (you can have two of your own, on top of the automatic daily backup every night). The free server has no panel backups: in “Files”, compress the world folder and download it.

2. Player based raids

   If someone joins late, in “Settings” → “World difficulty and modifiers” tick “Player based raids”. It saves by itself and applies on restart.

3. Portals

   In the same block, “Portals” decides whether they can be used with a boss active and whether dragon eggs and metals go through.

4. Share the address

   For those who haven't joined yet, “Home” → “Address to play” → “Copy the link”: the page they get explains how to join in Valheim.

Frequently asked questions