Moder
| Moder | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A frost dragon on a frozen peak, fought half in the air and half on the ice. | |
| Biome | Mountain |
| Alignment | Aggressive |
| Faction | Boss |
| Health | 7500 |
| Damage | |
| Weak To | Fire |
| Resistant To | - |
| Immune To | Frost, Spirit |
| Stagger | - |
| Tameable | No |
| Trophy | Moder trophy |
| Spawn ID | spawn Dragon
|
Moder is the fourth of the forsaken, a frost dragon coiled on a wind-scoured summit in the Mountains. You summon her rather than stumble on her, and her fight is unlike the three before it. Half of it happens on the ground, swinging at a head the size of a longship. The other half you spend watching her hover out of reach and rain ice on the plateau. Players who climb up in silver with a full quiver usually win. Players who climb up with no answer to frost usually lose.
Behaviour
Moder opens the fight on the ground but does not stay there. On the ground she bites forward through a wide arc and rakes with both claws. Each strike carries enough chop and pickaxe damage to shatter trees and rock along with you. She also breathes a long cold blast that washes thirty metres down the slope for heavy frost damage. Then she beats her wings, lifts out of melee range and switches to the ice barrage. Every few seconds she fires a shotgun spread of sixteen icicles. Each one hits lightly but carries frost, and each leaves a destructible ice crystal where it lands, so the arena slowly fills with jagged cover as the fight goes on. She keeps cycling between the two phases, landing and taking off again, for the whole encounter. She never flees, never summons help and cannot be staggered, so she never stops to let you breathe. The only pauses are the ones you take yourself, behind a rock, while she is busy in the air.
Where to Find It
Moder's altar is a ring of worked stone on a mountain summit with a carved rune stone beside it. Like the other forsaken altars, it pins itself to your map as soon as you find it. To wake her, place three dragon eggs on the altar. The eggs sit in stone nests scattered across the high Mountains, usually on exposed ridges and ledges. Each egg weighs two hundred, so hauling three across a peak is a small expedition of its own, and the best argument for Haldor's megingjord. She is neither common nor rare in the usual sense: each region has one altar, and she is there whenever you choose to feed it. She has no starred variants or event conditions. All that stands between you and her is surviving the mountain long enough to collect the eggs. You fight her on an open, high, exposed platform that is often in a blizzard, though her aura pauses or stops a snowstorm once she is summoned.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Fire is your one real edge. She takes half again as much damage from it, while frost does not register at all. Leave the frost arrows in the chest and climb up with fire arrows in bulk, a draugr fang and as much stamina food as you can carry. The bow pays for itself in the flying phase, since she hovers more or less still while she barrages. The grounded phase is where a melee weapon can start chewing into her seven and a half thousand health, but her bite and claws both hit hard enough that standing square in front of her is a losing plan. Do not bother trying to parry. She cannot be staggered, so a parry is just a slower and more expensive block. Circle to a flank instead, hit the body and move before the cold breath lines up. The breath is the attack that actually kills people: it is long and wide, and the chill slows you down while it eats your health. Frost resistance mead, wolf armour and a rock to duck behind between passes turn the fight from a race into a grind you can win. A full silver kit and a good bow make it safe; with less than that, the mountain will be helping her.
Drops
The ten dragon tears are the whole reason to come up here. They build the artisan table and open the next tier of crafting. Her head, hung on its hook at the sacrificial stones, grants a tailwind while you sail, five minutes at a time.
| Item | Image | Base | 1 Star | 2 Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dragon tear | 
|
10 | - | - |
| Moder trophy | 
|
1 | - | - |
Forsaken Power
Hang the Moder trophy on its stone at the Sacrificial Stones and you can call on her power:
- The wind always blows behind you while you steer a ship
- +300 carry weight
- +10% movement speed
- 50% frost resistance
This is the sailing power. The wind only turns while you are actually at the rudder, so it is a steering bonus rather than a permanent one.
It lasts five minutes, and all Forsaken powers share one twenty-minute cooldown, so only one can be active at a time. Anyone within ten metres of you gets it too.
Notes
- Moder is a dragon with the typical look of a Wyvern. Her eggs are dragon eggs and her tears are dragon tears, which makes the point clear.
- Once she is summoned, Moder's aura pauses or stops any snowstorm already under way.
- The in-game trophies menu has another description of Moder: "Scored with ancient scars, this head was the last sight of countless warriors."
- "Moder" means "Mother" in the Nordic languages.
- "Móðr" means "anger, grief" in Old Norse.
- Moder shares her name with the jötunn daughter of Loki in Adam Nevill's British novel The Ritual and its film adaptation of the same name.
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