Lore
Valheim scatters 104 runestones across 8 biomes and you read them one at a time, in the dark, usually with something behind you. Collected here they are a continuous account of who was here before you and what happened to them — around 27181 characters of it, in the game's own words rather than a summary of them.
How Valheim came to be
Long ago, the Allfather Oden united the worlds. He threw down his foes and cast them into the tenth world, then split the boughs which held their prison to the World-Tree, and left it to drift unanchored, a place of exile…
For centuries, this world slumbered uneasily. But it did not die... As glacial ages passed, kingdoms rose and fell out of sight of the Gods.
When Oden heard his enemies were growing once again in strength, he looked to Midgard and sent his Valkyries to scour the battlefields for the greatest of their warriors. Dead to the world, they would be born again…
…in VALHEIM!
By biome
Meadows
12This land is hard and wild but we who are brought here are harder still. Take comfort, traveller, in the gifts before you, the good wood and stone, the fruits a…
Beware the deep trees, beware the true dark. When the night comes, keep close to your fire.…
Swamp
12Heed the words of poor Ulf and do not build your house beside the murky waters. Bad dreams and a soggy bed are all you will find. I leave this stone as a warnin…
Mountain
13Watch for him in moonlight …
Plains
13Where no rain falls …
Here lie the Jotunn, most ancient of all Oden's kin and fiercest of all his adversaries. In life they were bringers of ruin but now, in death, they nurture new …
Ashlands
13Know, child unborn, that this was once the greatest kingdom in all Valheim. Here lived the Sons and Daughters of the King of the Emerald Flame. Beneath his wing…
The Deep North. The final obstacle before I can prove myself worthy. …
Valheim has no cutscenes and no quest log, and tells its story on stones you find by accident — 104 of them across 8 biomes, plus a study of half a dozen creatures, a dream before each boss and a line from each as it dies. Reading them in order is the only way the account holds together, and it is not an order the game can give you. Every word here is Iron Gate's, in the language you are reading the site in.
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Valheim lore FAQ
How many runestones are there in Valheim?
104 carry text, spread across 8 biomes. They are placed by the world generator rather than at fixed points, so no two worlds show them to you in the same order — which is most of why the story is hard to follow in play.
Does Valheim have a story?
It has one and never states it directly. The runestones, the dreams before each boss and what each boss says as it dies together describe a world Oden used as a prison and then abandoned, and the people sent here before you to finish a job nobody explained.
Is the lore in Valheim translated?
Yes, and it is the part of the game that is best translated — every runestone ships in the nine languages Valheim supports, and this page shows them in yours rather than in English with a note.
Which biomes have lore in Valheim?
8 of them carry runestones, holding 104 between them. The distribution is uneven on purpose — the biomes with the most to explain carry the most stones — so a biome that reads as quiet in play usually is quiet in the fiction too.
How much lore text is there in Valheim?
About 27181 characters across the 104 runestones. That is a short story’s worth of writing, delivered a paragraph at a time and almost always while something is trying to kill you, which is why reading it in one place is a genuinely different experience from meeting it in play.