Swamp Runestones
The 12 runestones the Swamp holds, about 505 words of them, in the order the game numbers them. Read together rather than one at a time in the dark, they stop being flavour and start being an account.
Runestone 1
Heed 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 warning and go now to make my dwelling on higher ground.
Runestone 2
Linger not, traveller. The air is pestilent and the water poison. The Draugr walk here and the thing I will not name stirs below the surface, a bitter mass of bone and sin. Tread carefully and quickly until you feel the sun on your face once more.
Runestone 3
In this gloomy region you may yet find something which shines. War-flesh, warrior's gold, bread of the forge... Bright iron is here for those who will take it!
Runestone 4
You who pass, remember me. I am a man whose home was once in the mountains of Midgard, carried here when I thought to earn my rest, to find a life after life in Valheim. There were seven of us before the Greydwarfs came. Now Oden will not hear me and the seas refuse me. Soon this stone will be all that remains.
Runestone 5
Beware the surtlings, embers of a great fire long ago stamped to ashes. They are drawn to the swamp in numbers but their lights can be seen from afar. Keep to the high ground.
Runestone 6
In centuries past, the Draugr walked these lands just as you do now. Pity them, caught between the living and the dead in a shadow of the world they once knew. To destroy them is a mercy.
Runestone 7
Below the mist and murk
Bone speaks to bone
Remembering flesh.
Runestone 8
For long ages, Oden's eye was turned from Valheim. Yet while the Gods ignored it, other creatures crept or fell through cracks into the forgotten world. Trolls, goblins and men found their way along these secret paths. Kingdoms rose and fell, and are buried deep beneath the ground.
Walker among the dead, you tread a grave with every step.
Runestone 9
At this place I killed seven of the draugr and ended their long years of fighting and misery. Now who will end mine?
Runestone 10
I am Gudrun, no man's wife, no father's daughter. Only my name remains to me. But sometimes when I wake I feel the weight of a babe at my breast and I cry. Great Freya take pity on me.
Runestone 11
Fear not that the Gods have abandoned you. Valheim drifts from the world tree and the Vanir cannot come in arms to this world but still they watch from afar. Keep them ever in your mind. If your faith is strong, they may send you a sign.
Runestone 12
There is no death that does not bring new life. As worms feed on the battlefield, so did the great corpses of Oden's enemies bring new life to Valheim. Lesser creatures fed on their flesh, fattening themselves on the ancient magic that still clung to them. Their spirits trickled into the earth to renew the soil, or sought out new bodies for themselves.
Do not scorn the dead, you who are dead yourself.
These 12 stones are what Valheim chose to write down about the Swamp, and reading them in one sitting is not something the game lets you do — they are scattered by the world generator, so your world shows them to you in whatever order you happen to walk. The text is Iron Gate's own, in your language, reproduced in full rather than summarised.
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Swamp lore
Where do you find runestones in the Swamp?
They are placed by the world generator, so there is no fixed spot — but every one of the 12 the Swamp holds is reproduced above, so you do not have to find them to read them.
Do runestones do anything besides tell a story?
No. Reading one records it in your compendium and nothing else — no buff, no unlock, no map marker. They exist to be read, which is why having them all on one page costs you nothing in the game.
How many runestones are there in the Swamp?
12 here, running to roughly 505 words of text. That is the whole of what the game says about this place in its own voice, gathered into one page rather than scattered across a map you would have to re-walk to read.
Are the runestones translated?
Yes — Iron Gate wrote them and ships them in 9 languages, and this page reproduces whichever one you are reading in rather than paraphrasing the English. A summary of a runestone would be strictly worse than the runestone, so nothing here is rewritten.
Do runestones have to be read in order?
No, and in play you will not find them in one. They are placed by the world generator, so the 12 in the Swamp arrive one at a time and usually at a bad moment. Read together they make a continuous account of the people who were here before you, which is the order this page puts them in.