Valheim Mountains and Moder: a group guide for servers

The Mountains are cold, steep and full of things that hit hard, and they hold the silver a group needs for its next tier. The order that works on a server: brew frost resistance mead for everyone before the first climb, build a portal camp just below the snow line, send the wishbone wearer and two miners with iron pickaxes after silver while the rest watch for wolves and drakes, and haul the ore down by hand because portals will not take it. Wolf fur capes end the cold problem for good, frost caves are an optional dungeon worth a group trip, and Moder is fought on a peak with bows after three players have each carried a dragon egg up the mountain. Her death unlocks the Plains raids, so wait for everyone.

What changes in the Mountains#

The Swamp tested whether a group could stay together. The Mountains test whether it can stay alive while spread out, because silver hunting naturally splits people across a slope. Three things make the biome hard.

Cold. Without frost resistance, the Mountains freeze you. The freezing effect drains health steadily and cuts regeneration, so a player who goes up unprepared slowly dies standing still. Night and blizzards make it worse.

Creatures that do not care about your positioning. Wolves come in packs and run faster than you. Drakes fly, spit frost, and pick off players on exposed ledges. Stone golems are slow but can kill an iron-armoured player in two or three hits. At night, Fenrings appear - fast, aggressive and dangerous to anyone alone.

Terrain. Mountains are steep, with cliffs, narrow ridges and long falls. Fall damage is real, carts are useless on most slopes, and every route down with ore is a walk.

None of this is a problem for a group that moves deliberately. All of it is a problem for the player who wanders off after a wishbone ping alone.

Gear and preparation#

Before the first climb:

Frost resistance mead is the stopgap. Brew it a session ahead, because fermentation takes time, and brew enough for every trip. The permanent fix is the wolf fur cape, made from silver, wolf pelts and a wolf trophy - one of the first things to make once silver arrives. Lox capes, from the Plains, also give frost resistance, but the Plains come after.

If the group has not yet killed Bonemass, it has no wishbone, and the Swamp and Bonemass group guide is where to start. If two teams want to hunt silver at the same time, summon Bonemass again for a second wishbone; one wishbone only helps the player wearing it.

A mountain camp that survives the night#

Build a camp just below the snow line, where it is not freezing, on the side of the mountain the group will mine first:

• A portal, tagged clearly. People can teleport in and out freely; only silver and dragon eggs stay on the mountain.
• Beds under a roof, a fire, a workbench and repair station. A death high up means a short walk back rather than a trip from home.
• Chests for silver, so miners can unload and keep working while porters carry ore down.
• A wall or raised earth around the camp. Wolves will find it. Drakes will too once Bonemass is dead.

On a server, keep the camp small. It sits in a zone that someone has to simulate whenever they are near, and a camp that grows into a fortress becomes one more expensive place on the map. Base placement for shared servers covers how to space forward camps, and portal hub design helps once the group has a portal to every biome.

If the coast is close to the mountain, put the camp near the shore. Silver that only has to come down to a boat is far easier than silver that has to cross a forest on foot.

Finding and moving silver#

Silver veins are buried under the snow, mostly on higher slopes. The wishbone pings when its wearer is within range of one, and the pings come faster the closer you get. When the pings are rapid, dig straight down with the iron pickaxe - the top of the vein is usually a few metres under the surface.

A mining team of three works well:

1. The wishbone wearer leads, finds veins, marks them on the map and digs the first hole.
2. Two miners with iron pickaxes take the vein apart. A silver vein is large and gives a lot of ore.
3. A guard (or the wearer, once the vein is found) watches for wolves and drakes. Miners at the bottom of a pit cannot see what is coming.

Silver ore is heavy. Each miner will be full long before the vein is done, so a porter running ore to the camp chest - and later down to the boat or the main base - keeps the miners mining. Megingjord, the belt Haldor sells, raises carry weight and is worth buying for whoever carries ore.

Under default rules, silver ore and silver bars cannot go through portals. The routes are a walk down to the coast and a boat home, or a walk to a base built on the same landmass. Ore logistics with ships and carts covers staging bases and when the effort tips towards -modifier portals casual, which lets metal through. That modifier is a launch argument and applies to the whole world on the next restart; portal rules and teleport restrictions has the values.

Digging silver is also terraforming. Every pit is a stored terrain edit in the world file. One group mining a mountain is fine; leaving dozens of deep pits across the slopes, close to where people build, adds to the cost of those zones. Mine where the silver is, not next to the camp, and do not flatten mountain tops for decoration. Terraforming on servers explains how terrain edits are stored and what they cost.

Silver unlocks the wolf fur cape, wolf armour, the silver sword (strong against undead), the silver shield, the Draugr fang bow and - with freeze glands from drakes - the Frostner mace and frost arrows. Obsidian, found on mountain surfaces and mined with a pickaxe, makes obsidian arrows. Crystal comes from stone golems and from crystal formations in the snow.

Frost caves as a group#

Frost caves are dungeons cut into the mountainsides, added in the Frost Caves update. They are dark, cold inside, and populated by Ulvs, cultists, bats and, deeper in, Fenrings. The loot includes Fenris hair and red jute among other things, used for the Fenris armour set and decorations, and the caves are a good source of the materials for that set.

Because they were added after release, frost caves only appear in zones that were generated after that update. An old world whose mountains were all explored before then may not have any; old worlds and new biomes explains why and what the options are.

A frost cave is a dungeon, which matters on a server in the same way a sunken crypt does: the player who enters first simulates the interior, so send the most stable connection in first, and a group inside a dungeon is never the target of a base raid. Inside:

• Bring light. Torches, and plenty of them. The caves are very dark, and fighting cultists in the dark is how groups wipe.
• Bring frost resistance. The cold follows you in.
• Stay together. Ulvs come in packs and cultists cast fire at range. A group that splits up in a cave gets picked apart one at a time.
• Fight at choke points. Corridors let one shield hold the front while others hit past it.

Frost caves are optional for progression - nothing in them is required to summon Moder - but a group that clears a couple has better armour for the Plains.

Wolves, tames and server load#

Wolves are both the Mountains' worst enemy and its best reward. A tamed wolf follows you, fights for you, and defends a base against raids. To tame one, trap or lead it somewhere it cannot reach you - a pit, a fenced pen, a raised platform - and drop meat for it to eat. It becomes calm, then tame after a while. Fed tames breed, and the cubs grow up into tame wolves.

That last part is what makes wolves a server issue. Every tame is a creature the zone owner has to simulate all the time, whether it is following someone or standing in a pen. A group with a dozen wolves spread across bases is fine. A pen with forty breeding wolves becomes the slowest zone on the map, and whoever is nearest to it pays the price. Tames also die in raids, and a dead tame is gone for good. Some rules groups settle on:

• Cap tames per player, or per base. Pick a number and stick to it.
• Stop feeding once a pen is full, so breeding stops.
• Keep pens away from the main portal hub and crafting area, so the busiest place on the map is not also the zone with the most creatures.
• Tell tames to stay rather than follow when you go somewhere you would not take a dog - a frost cave, a ship, a boss fight.

Tames, breeding and server load covers wolves, boars and lox in detail.

Dragon eggs and the Moder fight#

Moder is summoned with three dragon eggs at her altar on a mountain peak. Her location is shown by a Vegvisir in the Mountains; as always, reading it marks only the reader's map.

Dragon eggs lie in nests on high, exposed peaks, guarded by drakes. They are heavy and they cannot go through portals, so each egg has to be carried from the nest to the altar. In practice that means three players each carrying one egg and very little else, with the rest of the group escorting them past wolves and drakes. Plan the route before setting out, ideally keeping to ridges where nothing can approach from above.

Moder checklist- 3 dragon eggs, carried by three players along a planned route- frost resistance mead for everyone, plus spares- the best bows the group has, and a lot of arrows each- shields for everyone; she breathes frost and fires ice shards- iron or silver armour, and a wolf fur cape if made- three good foods, eaten just before summoning- a portal near the altar, and beds at the mountain camp- a world backup taken before the fight

The fight is mostly ranged. Moder flies around the peak, breathes frost in sweeping lines, and fires volleys of ice shards. She lands from time to time, which is when melee players get their chance. She is immune to frost, so frost arrows are wasted on her; use your best ordinary arrows instead.

Things that make the difference for a group:

• Spread out. Her breath sweeps across a line; four players standing together all take it.
• Watch the edges. The altar sits on a peak. Getting knocked off a cliff is a common death.
• Send the best connection first. The player with the steadiest connection should summon her and stand in the arena first, so the boss zone is simulated by them. A boss that flies is especially prone to rubber-banding on a poor connection.
• Keep a spare mead running. The fight is long enough that a single mead might not last.

Bosses scale with nearby players, so a full group meets a tougher Moder than a solo player does - enemy scaling with player count explains how much. She drops dragon tears and her trophy. The tears build the artisan table, which you need for the windmill and the spinning wheel in the Plains. Her power, taken at the starting stones, puts the wind behind you while sailing, which makes it the best power for any long voyage. Each player selects it at the stone themselves; see forsaken powers in multiplayer.

Mountain raids and what Moder unlocks#

From the moment Bonemass dies, the drake raid can hit any base where a player is at home. Drakes fly over walls and spit frost, so the only real defence is archers: a raised platform or tower with a roof, two players with bows, and tamed wolves to tidy up the ones that land. A wolves side event, with wolf packs at a base, appears in this era too; the exact pool of side events has changed between versions, and raids and events on servers explains how the server picks one.

Killing Moder retires the drake raid and enables the Fuling raid. Fulings break walls and come in large numbers, which is a much bigger threat to a wooden base than drakes are. Before the Moder fight, everyone should have at least a stone or earth wall around the parts of their base they care about. The Plains and Yagluth group guide covers defending against them.

If raids are spoiling the game for a casual group, the raids modifier turns them down or off on the next restart, and -setkey playerevents makes each player's raids follow their own progress rather than the world's - useful when one player is still in the Black Forest while the others hunt silver.

Server habits for the Mountains#

1. Back up before Moder. The fight has a lot of ways to go wrong, from a cliff to a wipe to a solo kill nobody wanted. A backup before the summon is the clean way back. Server backups and world corruption explains how and where.
2. Save after a big haul. A long silver session is a lot of progress between automatic saves. An admin can type save in the console to force one, and a shorter -saveinterval keeps a crash from costing much.
3. Watch the world file grow. Mountains, frost caves and wolf pens all add to it. A world that is now months old and holds many bases benefits from a scheduled restart once a week.
4. Keep death rules clear. A tombstone on a cliff ledge or in a frost cave is a real corpse run. Death penalty and tombstones covers the deathpenalty modifier, and groups often agree how corpse runs are handled before the first one.

On RE:NODE, a backup before Moder is one button on the Backups tab and restoring it is another, with backups stored off the machine they protect. The Schedules tab can take a daily backup and run the weekly restart for you, and if a large world ever reaches the plan's memory limit the server is restarted clean rather than left to swap.

FAQ#

Can we portal dragon eggs to Moder's altar?

No. Dragon eggs are not teleportable, like metals. They have to be carried, which is why groups plan an egg route and escort the carriers. Even with portals casual, which allows metal through, check how your game version treats eggs before relying on it.

Does every player need a wishbone?

No, but only the wearer gets the pings. One wishbone serves one mining team. For two teams at once, summon Bonemass again for a second wishbone.

Our base keeps getting attacked by drakes. Is that normal?

Yes, once Bonemass is dead. The drake raid is part of the world's raid table until Moder is killed. Build a roofed archer platform, keep bows at home, and consider the raids modifier if it is spoiling the game.

Are frost caves required to progress?

No. They are optional dungeons with good loot, particularly the Fenris armour materials, but nothing in them is needed to summon Moder or reach the Plains.

How many wolves is too many on a server?

There is no fixed number, but a large pen with breeding wolves is one of the most common causes of a single laggy zone. Cap tames per player, stop feeding once a pen is full, and keep pens away from busy areas.