Greydwarf
| Greydwarf | |
|---|---|
 | |
| The mossy little brawler that makes the Black Forest feel crowded after dark. | |
| Biome | Black Forest |
| Alignment | Aggressive |
| Faction | Forest |
| Health | 40 |
| Damage | |
| Weak To | Fire |
| Resistant To | Poison |
| Immune To | Spirit |
| Stagger | 30% |
| Tameable | No |
| Trophy | Greydwarf trophy |
| Spawn ID | spawn Greydwarf
|
The Greydwarf is every Viking's first enemy with real teeth. It is a knee-high bundle of moss, bark and bad temper, and it turns the Black Forest into a running fight the moment the sun goes down. One on its own is a nuisance you can punch flat, but the four that arrive behind it while you are felling a birch are how most early characters die. Greydwarfs also drop the eyes every portal in your world is built from, so you will keep killing them long after they stop frightening you.
Behaviour
Greydwarfs hunt in loose packs and close in aggressively, scrambling over roots and rocks faster than their size suggests. Up close they swing a hand sideways through a short arc for 14 slash roughly every two seconds. That is survivable from one Greydwarf and lethal when three of them do it from three directions at once. At range they stop and throw stones for 10 blunt. The stones do little real harm, but they break your bow draw and interrupt eating or repairing at exactly the wrong moment. Greydwarfs do not sleep, do not lose interest and never flee at low health. A fight in the open tends to grow as others wander in on the noise, so fight them with your back against something solid. Their numbers rise sharply after dark, when the biome allows roughly twice as many at once, and the extra night spawns despawn at sunrise rather than wandering home.
Where to Find It
The Black Forest is their home ground, and they spawn anywhere in it, on any terrain, at any hour. Only a handful are out at a time by day and about double that at night, and the night additions despawn at dawn. Their nests are knotted mounds of roots and glowing eyes dotted through the biome. Each nest spawns a fresh Greydwarf every twelve seconds up to a small cap and keeps doing so forever, which is why clearing an area means smashing the spawner rather than the spawns. Once Eikthyr is dead they also start spawning at night in the wooded patches and clearings of the Meadows, in small unstarred numbers, and for many players that is the first sign the world has quietly got harder. They arrive in force during the raid that warns you the forest is moving, which can happen at any point before The Elder is defeated. One and two star versions spawn in the Black Forest proper, with double and triple health and correspondingly harder hits.
Greydwarves also spawn once at fixed points around abandoned buildings in the Black Forest.
| Stars | Spawn Location | Max at Once | Spawn Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | Wanders the forests of the Meadows at night once Eikthyr is defeated, and leaves at dawn. | 1 | Common |
| - | Wanders the open clearings of the Meadows at night once Eikthyr is defeated, and leaves at dawn. | 2 | Common |
| - | Comes with the "The forest is moving..." raid, which stops once The Elder is defeated. | 6 | Very common |
| - / ⭐ / ⭐⭐ | Spawns anywhere in the Black Forest during the day. | 3 | Common |
| - / ⭐ / ⭐⭐ | Spawns anywhere in the Black Forest at night and leaves at dawn. | 6 | Very common |
| - / ⭐ / ⭐⭐ | Comes out of a Greydwarf Nest in the Black Forest. | 3 | Every 12 seconds |
Strengths and Weaknesses
Fire is worth carrying for Greydwarfs alone, since they take double damage from it. A single Fire Arrow or a swing from a lit Torch does what a Bronze Axe needs two or three hits for. That makes the humble Torch one of the best early weapons in the game, and a Campfire or a patch of burning ground will hold a pack off a work site while you finish building. In melee they stagger easily, so a parry with even a wooden shield opens one up for a free killing blow, and the wide sideways swing is slow enough to read comfortably. Skip anything that leans on spirit damage, which they ignore outright, and expect poison to deal only half. The real thing to manage is numbers. Back into a doorway or against a rock face so the pack cannot circle you, save the stone throwers for last, and watch for a Shaman at the back quietly healing everything you have just damaged. Full bronze turns them into a chore rather than a threat, and by iron they are just loot on legs.
Drops
The eyes are the real reason to kill them, since every portal in your world is built from a pile of them. The wood, stone and resin they drop are all welcome early on too.
| Name | Image | Base | 1 Star | 2 Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greydwarf eye | 
|
50% | 2 | 4 |
| Greydwarf trophy | 
|
5% | 5% | 5% |
| Resin | 
|
1 | 2 | 4 |
| Stone | 
|
1 | 2 | 4 |
| Wood | 
|
1 | 2 | 4 |
Level Variants
A creature can spawn at one of three levels, shown as stars beside its name. Each level is rolled separately when it spawns, so a two-star is rarer than a one-star. The difference goes beyond the numbers: a starred Greydwarf is recoloured or larger, so you can see it coming.
| Level | Stars | Image | Health | Damage | Drops |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | 
|
40 | 100% | x1 |
| 2 | ⭐ | 
|
80 | 150% | x2 |
| 3 | ⭐⭐ | 
|
120 | 200% | x4 |
Notes
The name comes from the Grådvärgar, literally "grey dwarves", of Astrid Lindgren's tale Ronja the Robber's Daughter. There they are short creatures with grey fur that attack anyone who shows fear and leave alone anyone who stands up to them.
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