Valheim Deep North Guide: Bloodgold, Mörkhalla and Kall

🎯 The core idea

The Deep North is the final biome of Valheim 1.0, and it runs on a fixed chain. Kill Gammeltrolls for Bloodgold, clear the Winding Tunnels under an abandoned village for Frostcore and the Intricate key mould, cast the key in the Frost Foundry, then clear three Mörkhalla dungeons. Each one starts a Jotun invasion that drops one Malicious Blood, and three of those summon Kall Fimbulbringer.

• free costs nothing
• cheap small cost
• setup needs preparation
• grind pays off slowly
• skip the thing to stop doing

This Valheim Deep North guide follows Kysen's full 1.0 walkthrough, uploaded on 10 September 2026, the day after launch. A lot has been patched since: 1.0.10 removed the punch trick for clearing snow, 1.0.15 raised armor mould drops, and 1.0.16 fixed Deep North terrain edits reverting and raids spawning far too many enemies. Each change is flagged in the section it affects. The Valheim wiki on Fandom still marks its Deep North page as unfinished and has no pages for most Deep North items (Bloodgold, Frostcore, the Frost Foundry, the Grappling hook, the Snow shovel, Mörkhalla, the Jotun invasion). Where it has nothing, the facts below come from what the video shows on screen and are credited to it. For where this biome sits in the whole game, see the Valheim progression guide.

What to bring before you sail north

setup Three things from earlier biomes make the Deep North much easier, and all of them are easy to miss.

• Grappling hook. Primary attack fires it and pulls you to where it lands, secondary attack reloads it. You need it to climb into Mörkhalla. The recipe uses Yggdrasil wood, Refined eitr, Mandibles and a Hook, and per the video the Hook only comes from loot chests in the Mistlands. You can't craft or buy it, so grab one before you leave.
• Bigger pockets from Haldor. The 1.0 patch notes confirm Haldor now sells Wider Pockets and Deeper Pockets. In the video, Wider Pockets cost 1,000 coins after Moder and Deeper Pockets 2,000 coins after the Queen. Each adds a full inventory row but no carry weight. You'll want both, because Mörkhalla needs several trips' worth of bag space.
• Capes. Kysen takes a Feather cape for the long drops inside Mörkhalla and a warm cape for walking around outside. One correction: he says the Feather cape won't keep you warm, but the wiki lists it as frost-resistant. The real reason to swap it out underground is that the wiki also lists it as very weak (2x) to fire, and Elakings set you on fire.

The Deep North wiki page says snowstorms deal continuous freezing damage unless you wear frost-resistant clothes or drink Frost resistance mead, so pack the mead even if your cape covers you. That one bottle is the cheapest Deep North survival insurance you can carry.

Embers, the Eternal Pyre and the snow shovel

cheap Fader's drop (Kindled Ribs, called Fader relic before 1.0) plus some stone builds the Eternal Pyre, and the wiki confirms it needs a Stonecutter nearby and takes rain damage, so put it under a roof. It works a bit like a Wisp fountain: Embers float in from time to time and you grab them. Picking up your first Ember unlocks the Snow shovel (Finewood, Flametal and Embers, crafted at the Black forge) and Embers also go into Ember Charges, which you can't skip. Build the Pyre at home before the trip so a stack of Embers is waiting for you.

While you're at home: the patch notes add a draw distance graphics setting in 1.0. If the snowy biome makes your game stutter, turning it down loads less of the world and helps more than you'd expect.

How to get to the Deep North

free The Deep North is the band of land at the far north of the world map. Sail there from your northernmost portal. Unlike the Ashlands, the water isn't hostile, so any boat works. Kysen still recommends a sturdy one, because the sea is deep right up to the ice edge. If your ship breaks there, the cargo sinks out of reach.

Aim north and central. In the video's fully explored map, the islands near the middle of the northern edge are far bigger than the thin strips on the left and right, and the villages and dungeons mostly sit on those big central islands. Expect to bump into ice sheets on the way in. The ice is slippery for you and for every creature, and the patch notes' own line, "on frozen seas and pond alike you had better watch your step", confirms that's a feature, not a bug. Mark your boat on the map the moment you land.

Deep snow, portals and a Deep North base

setup The first thing that will stop you is deep snow. Try to place a portal on the snowfield and you get "Snow is too deep". You have two easy fixes:

• Place your first portal on the ice sheet at the shore, where there's no snow. Kysen does exactly this. A Stone portal is the better pick because it takes more items. (Bloodgold's raw form still can't go through, see below.)
• Clear the snow with the snow shovel, then build on the cleared ground.

Changed since the video: Kysen also clears snow by punching and kicking. Patch 1.0.10 removed that ("Punching no longer removes snow"), so carry the shovel. The same patch made landing on snow from a jump clear it. Weapon swings like his scythe aren't mentioned in the patch notes, so we can't confirm they still work.

For a real Deep North base, clear a pad, then build with Timberwood. The wiki lists the Timberwood build set, including the Large Drawbridge, Scalewood walls, the Antler Throne and the Snow Lantern. Patch 1.0.16 fixed terrain edits in the Deep North reverting after you left the area. If an old base has odd seams, the patch notes say a pickaxe, the hoe or walking over the snow fixes them.

Moose, seals and Deep North food

grind Two animals matter here.

Moose. The wiki lists them as aggressive, tameable, with 1,000 health and immune to chop and pickaxe damage. In the video you tame them with Lingonberries, then breed them like wolves or boars. Craft a Moose saddle (Seal pelt, Bloodgold and Timberwood per the video, and the wiki's Timberwood page confirms the saddle) to ride one. You steer by looking where you want to go rather than with the movement keys. In the video a moose shoots across the ice at absurd speed. Kysen guessed it was a bug, and no patch note mentions it, so don't plan a strategy around it.

Seals. They don't attack and can't be bred. Adults drop Seal blubber and Seal pelt. Baby seals only drop blubber. Seal pelt goes into Ember Charges and the Moose saddle, so kill every adult you see.

Forage as you go. Lingonberries are a balanced food on their own (the video's tooltip shows 35 health and 35 stamina) and can be farmed. Kale seeds turn up on the ground and in village pantries. Oat seeds go through the windmill once for Oats and a second time for Oat flour, which several new 1.0 recipes need.

Gammeltroll and Bloodgold

grind The Gammeltroll is the Deep North's elder troll and your only source of the new metal. The wiki gives it 3,000 health, a 220 blunt punch, a 200 blunt ground slam and a 150 blunt throw. It's immune to fire, spirit and chop, resistant to blunt, slash, pierce and frost, and weak to pickaxe damage, with a weak spot in its head like a normal troll. It spawns alone, anywhere above altitude 10.

Kysen's approach: stay behind it, dodge-roll the stomps, and keep hitting. It also throws a barrage of logs, and those logs stay in the world afterwards, so a Gammeltroll doubles as a wood source. He played this in god mode and still calls it tough, so bring your best food.

When its health hits zero it doesn't die. It turns to stone. Only Ember Charges break it (the wiki confirms this). Craft them at a Workbench: per the video, 1 Ember and 2 Seal pelts make 10. Throw a few at its legs and stand back.

The stone troll drops Petrified Tissue. Smelt it in the Blast furnace for Valheim Bloodgold. The video's tooltip says the tissue can't be teleported, so plan boat trips home with it unless your world modifiers allow it.

Barka, frozen Greydwarfs and Timberwood

free Not every tree in the Deep North is a tree. The Barka looks like one until it moves. It slashes, charges and does a two-handed overhead hit, and it's tall enough that its health bar is hard to read in a fight. It drops Frozen Branch, wood, ice and sometimes its trophy.

You'll also find frozen Greydwarfs and skeletons standing in the snow. They're objects, not enemies: smash them with a mace for Ice. The wiki adds that icebergs and ice sheets drop ice when you hit them with a pickaxe. Ice matters a lot, because it feeds the Frigid Kiln.

Timberwood comes from the new Timber trees (the wiki confirms it, internally called Frostwood, weight 2.0 and teleportable) and from the small ruined wooden structures scattered around. Kysen notes an axe does slightly more than a pickaxe on those ruins. Patch 1.0.14 fixed the tool tier of Deep North battleaxes so they can now cut every tree.

Abandoned villages and the Winding Tunnels

setup Deep North villages are the best find in the biome. Check the pantry (it always looks the same) for barrels of seeds, food and moulds. Kysen pulls Oat seeds, Kale seeds, Seed Poteitr and a Nord spear mould from one. Then go into the big main hall. Inside is a hole in the floor that drops you into the Winding Tunnels, the first Deep North dungeon. The wiki's Deep North page confirms the hall's hole and the Elakings and Eyeless One below.

The tunnels are easy to get lost in, so use Kysen's lantern trick:

1. On your first run, go straight down one tunnel only.
2. Pick the Luminous Larva off the walls and smash the roots for Timberwood. That unlocks the Hooded Lantern (Timberwood and Luminous Larva).
3. The lantern is directional. Place each one on your left as you go deeper, with the beam pointing back to the entrance.
4. To get out, keep the lanterns on your right and follow the light.

Breakable vines lead further down, but don't take them until the main tunnel is mapped with lanterns.

Winding Tunnels enemies and Frostcore

grind Elakings are the tunnel regulars. They aren't very tanky but they hit hard and set you on fire, which is why the Feather cape stays in your bag. They drop Elaking hair bundles and sometimes a trophy. The wardrobe shafts along the walls hide groups of Elakings, so break them only when you're ready to fight. They're worth it, because they drop moulds (Kysen gets the Nord greataxe mould from one).

Keep killing Elakings until one drops the Intricate key mould. Don't leave the tunnels without it, because it's your only way into Mörkhalla.

The Eyeless One is blind and bursts out of the ground at you. It hits very hard but can be parried once you learn the timing. It drops Long claws, which unlock a new cast recipe.

Last, pick up every glowing Valheim Frostcore you see. The first one unlocks the Frigid Kiln and the Frost Foundry. Kysen says the kiln alone needs 10, and our progression guide's source puts the foundry at another 10, so collect at least 20.

Frigid Kiln, Frost Foundry and the Intricate key

setup Deep North crafting has an extra step compared with older biomes: you cast items. The stations, with costs as shown in the progression guide's source video:

In Kysen's video, 25 Ice becomes 5 Liquid Frost, and 5 Liquid Frost finishes one item in the Frost Foundry. So a full kiln load covers exactly one cast.

The Intricate key follows the loop every Deep North item uses:

1. At the Black forge, craft Cast: Intricate Key from the mould and 5 Bloodgold.
2. Load 5 Liquid Frost into the Frost Foundry, then insert the cast.
3. Wait for it to resurface and take the key.

Each key opens one Mörkhalla and is used up, and you need three dungeons for the boss, so plan for three keys. Nord weapons work the same way with their own moulds at a higher Black forge level. The progression guide covers that.

Mörkhalla: getting in and finding your way

setup Mörkhalla (often typed Morkhalla) is the big half-ruined fortress you'll spot on the surface. Its gate sits high up the wall. Fire the grappling hook at the wall to get up, then chop through the wooden door. Kysen says an axe is best because the door is wood. You can't build around it, so the old Swamp trick of glitching in with a chair doesn't work. You need the Intricate key.

Inside it's enormous. Kysen flies through in debug mode to show the scale: level after level of doors, each opening onto more rooms. You won't clear one in a single trip, so:

• Bring Hooded Lanterns and point them back the way you came, same as in the tunnels.
• Wear the Feather cape here. The drops are long, and the wiki says it cancels all fall damage.
• Upgrade your pockets first. The loot is heavy and plentiful.

The goal is the Malicious Ice at the very bottom. Don't jump straight down, because the floor is crowded with enemies. Work down level by level.

Deep North enemies and Mörkhalla loot

grind Every enemy in the biome at a glance. Names follow the 1.0 patch notes. Behavior and drops are from the video unless noted.

Patch 1.0.15 made both Jotun warrior types drop medium and heavy armor moulds, so you'll find more armor moulds than the video does. Kysen says Dead Pulp had no use at launch. The wiki has no page for it, so we can't confirm whether that has changed.

Loot to grab: break weapon racks for moulds, open Jotun chests for rare Protection and Battle idols (Kysen finds a Flametal Protection Idol), and smash braziers for Memorial Coal. Pick the gems off the walls too. Kysen sells one Veydris for 135 coins, and the ancient chests also hold Ancient Coins and Black cores. Idols upgrade gear past its normal cap at the Forge of Potential in the Mountains. The wiki confirms one forge per world and a 65% success / 35% destroy chance per attempt, matching the video's "a little over one in three". Patch 1.0.12 fixed refinements wrongly unlocking recipes, so the recipe unlocks you see in the video were that bug.

Jotun invasion and Malicious Blood

grind Breaking the Malicious Ice at the bottom of Mörkhalla starts a Valheim Jotun invasion (the patch notes call the event "The Jotun have found you"). An event marker appears on your map, and it can be anywhere in the world, in any biome. In the video it lands in the Plains, far from the dungeon. Kysen's advice is to have portals spread around the map.

The invasion turns the area into Deep North snow and keeps spawning Jotun until you stop it. Its centre is always on land, though the edges can reach the sea. Fight in to the centre, break the large Malicious Ice, then the crystal inside it. That ends the invasion, returns the land to normal, and drops one Malicious Blood. Leave an invasion running if you want a farm: the Jotun keep spawning and fighting the local creatures.

You need 3 Malicious Blood for the boss: three keys, three Mörkhallas, three invasions. Patch 1.0.16 fixed a bug that spawned far too many enemies, especially during raids, so invasions are less of a swarm now than at launch.

Aesir Passage, Kall and the Crown of Valheim

setup The boss's runestone is at the bottom of Mörkhalla, and the Memorial site (a stone circle with an altar) has another. If you stumble on the Aesir Passage gate itself, mark it. At the Memorial site, offer Memorial Coal on the altar to summon a Fallen Warrior. Kysen's drops include Frostfire Essence and Thunderblood Essence. He calls their recipes mage weapons, but the patch notes list Frostfire and Thunderblood versions of every Nord weapon (swords, axes, bows and more), so they're full weapon lines.

At the Aesir Passage, offer 3 Malicious Blood in the bowl. The portal opens into the Prison, where Kall Fimbulbringer breaks his chains. Kysen doesn't fight him in this video. Our Valheim Kall boss guide covers his three phases and the loadout.

Kall's drops, from this video's footage: a Crown Jewel and Sacrificial Blood. Place the blood at the spawn stones to unlock the ending scenes. The jewel crafts the Crown of Valheim. Its tooltip shows 50 armor, +5% movement speed, 20% less stamina use, and "the creatures of Valheim will not harm the one who has mastered them". In the video, ordinary creatures ignore the wearer even when attacked, but bosses still fight. It's the perfect reward if you want to keep building after you finish the game.

How this guide was fact-checked

Main source: Kysen, Valheim 1.0 Deep North Full Guide!, uploaded 10 September 2026 (game version 1.0.00/1.0.10). The live patch is now 1.0.20.

Checked against the Valheim wiki on Fandom (20 October 2026), which wins where it disagrees with the video:

• Deep North page (still marked unfinished): creature list, snowstorm freezing, ice from icebergs, the village hall hole to the Winding Tunnels
• Gammeltroll: 3,000 health, attack damage, resistances, petrification and Ember Charges
• Moose: aggressive, tameable, 1,000 health, immune to chop and pickaxe
• Timberwood, Eternal Pyre, Kindled Ribs, Feather cape, Forge of Potential (65/35 odds, one per world)
• Version history 1.0.00 to 1.0.20: item and enemy names (Barka, Krigen, Hexen, Writhan, Memorial Coal, Veydris), pockets, draw distance, and the bug fixes below

Corrections and changes since the video:

• Punching no longer clears snow (1.0.10). Use the snow shovel.
• The Feather cape is frost-resistant per the wiki. The reason to leave it off in the tunnels is its 2x fire weakness, not the cold.
• Frostfire and Thunderblood essences unlock full weapon lines, not just mage weapons.
• Armor mould drops were raised (1.0.15). Terrain edits reverting and excess raid spawns were fixed (1.0.16).
• The Forge of Potential recipe unlocks in the video were a bug fixed in 1.0.12.
• Our progression guide calls the brazier item "Memorial core". The 1.0 patch notes name it Memorial Coal, so that's the name used here.
• Kysen's spoken names are fixed to the in-game ones: Elaking, Barka, Krigen, Hexen, Haldor, Aesir Passage, Mörkhalla, Kall Fimbulbringer.

Attributed to the video only (no wiki page yet): pocket prices, the Hook source, Kiln and Foundry ratios (25 Ice to 5 Liquid Frost, 5 per item), the Ember Charge recipe, Intricate key cast cost, Petrified Tissue not teleporting, Lingonberry stats, all enemy behavior except the Gammeltroll and Moose, Mörkhalla loot, the Jotun invasion mechanics, and the Crown of Valheim stats. The Frigid Kiln and Frost Foundry build costs come from the progression guide's source video.

What this guide doesn't answer

• How to beat Kall Fimbulbringer: his attacks and phases are in the Kall boss guide. This video doesn't fight him.
• Every Nord, Frostfire and Thunderblood recipe: the wiki has no recipe pages yet, and the video shows too few on screen to build a reliable table.
• Full food stats for oats, kale and moose dishes: only the Lingonberry tooltip is readable in the footage.
• Mörkhalla layouts: they are generated, so there's no fixed route to share.
• The ending scenes and Munin's lines: Kysen avoids spoiling them, and so do we.
• Other 1.0 additions (drawbridges, the radial menu, Writhan bird nests in the Swamp): useful, but not part of the Deep North.