Eikthyr
| Eikthyr | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A chained stag with lightning in his antlers, and the first real fight in Valheim. | |
| Biome | Meadows |
| Alignment | Aggressive |
| Faction | Boss |
| Health | 500 |
| Damage | |
| Weak To | - |
| Resistant To | - |
| Immune To | - |
| Stagger | - |
| Tameable | No |
| Trophy | Eikthyr trophy |
| Spawn ID | spawn Eikthyr
|
Chained, antlered and crackling, Eikthyr is the first of the Forsaken and the gate every new Viking has to walk through. He waits inside a ring of standing stones in the Meadows. You summon him instead of stumbling upon him, and in roughly forty seconds he teaches you everything the game has to say about stamina. Most players meet him in leather with a flint spear, and most lose the first attempt.
Behaviour
Eikthyr does not wander and he does not sleep. He stands dormant at his altar until you place the offering, then wakes with a bellow that drags a false night across the clearing and stops the rain for as long as the fight lasts. He fights almost entirely by closing distance. His main attack is a short antler swipe that reaches about four metres and deals pierce damage, and he throws it out roughly every five seconds at whatever is in front of him. Twice in a fight he breaks that rhythm. The charge is a beam of lightning that leaps some twenty metres in a straight line. It is light on raw damage but applies a lightning status that chews through stamina. The stomp is a ten metre ring of the same lightning that catches anyone hugging his flank. He never calls for help and never flees, though the noise of the fight reliably pulls in any Greylings, Necks and Boars loose in the surrounding grass. Once you kill him, you can wake him again as often as you can pay the altar.
Where to Find It
Eikthyr has one home, and it is a built one: a ring of worn standing stones with a Forsaken altar at the centre. It is always placed in the Meadows, usually within a short walk of a starting spawn. A Vegvisir runestone marks the altar's location on your map, and you most often find one in burial chambers. The altar stays inert until you lay two deer trophies on it. Nothing else gates him, so you can fight him inside the first hour of a fresh world and resummon him indefinitely for repeat drops. He has no star variants and his stats never change, so there is exactly one version of this fight. He spawns nowhere else on the map, so the only way to find him is to go looking for the altar. Beating him raises Greydwarf activity in the Meadows, so the world you walk back into is slightly worse than the one you left.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Bring a bow and keep moving. A crude or fine wood bow with flint arrows will take most of his health off before he reaches you, because the arena is wide enough to circle in and he commits hard to every antler swipe. The standing stones are your real weapon. The lightning charge travels in a straight line, so stepping behind a pillar cancels it outright. The stomp only reaches about ten metres, so backing off after each exchange costs you nothing but stamina. Melee works, but only with discipline: with a flint spear or bronze axe, land one hit and roll clear instead of trading blows. A wooden round shield parries the antler cleanly but leaves you empty for the follow up, so blocking flat or simply sidestepping is the safer habit at this tier. He resists nothing, so use whatever you have instead of hunting for a clever answer. Eat three foods and bring more arrows than you think you need. Before you begin, drop a campfire, a workbench and a bed just outside the ring, because this is a war of attrition and a rested Viking in leather wins it comfortably.
Drops
The three hard antlers are what you are here for. They make the antler pickaxe, and nothing else in Valheim opens up until you own one.
| Item | Image | Base | 1 Star | 2 Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eikthyr trophy | 
|
1 | - | - |
| Hard antler | 
|
3 | - | - |
Forsaken Power
Hang the Eikthyr trophy on its stone at the Sacrificial Stones and you can call on his power:
- Running, jumping and swimming cost 60% less stamina.
It is the first power, and the one most players keep coming back to. It turns a long walk into a jog and makes a river crossing survivable before you own a boat.
It lasts five minutes, and every Forsaken power shares one twenty-minute cooldown, so only one is ever active. Anyone within ten metres of you gets it too.
Notes
- Eikthyr is likely a reference to Eikþyrnir, a stag that stands upon Valhalla in Norse mythology.
- With his trophy mounted on an item mount, Eikthyr will sometimes say: "So you were my death? You look so small and soft... Tell Odin he may have broken this form but the wilderness will never submit to his rules..."
- The game files sometimes call Eikthyr "deer".
- The in-game trophies menu has another description of Eikthyr: "Once the king of the forest, the size of the antlers are truly impressive."
- Eikthyr is weak to spirit damage, but early game weapons lack spirit damage to exploit it. By the time spirit weapons are available, fighting Eikthyr should give you no trouble anyway.
- One of the Runestones in the Meadows mentions a "Horned One", which can be assumed to be Eikthyr:
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