Black Forest

The Black Forest is the first biome that fights back. Dense pine forest, darker and tighter than the Meadows, and often sitting close enough to spawn that you stumble into it before you are ready. This is where the loop gets real: mine copper and tin, smelt bronze, build a forge, and survive the Trolls long enough to summon The Elder. The reward is bronze gear, the Surtling Cores that power your tech, and the Swamp Key that opens the next tier.

What lives here

Greydwarves are everywhere, including Shamans that heal and ranged-cast and Brutes that hit hard. They are manageable in ones and twos but swarm at night and around Greydwarf spawners. The real threat is the Troll, a slow giant that will flatten an under-equipped Viking and your base with it. Skeletons and Ghosts wait inside Burial Chambers. Learn to parry here. A timed block staggers a Troll and turns the scariest enemy of the early game into free hide.

Do not brute-force a Troll head-on with starting gear. Kite it, use trees to break its line, and parry or dodge the club swings. Troll hide is worth the fight: the Troll armor set is a strong, light, sneak-friendly kit that carries you well into the Swamp.

What you gather

The headline materials are the two metals. Copper comes from large deposits, partly on the surface and partly buried, which you mine with the Antler Pickaxe from Eikthyr. Tin sits in small deposits along shorelines. Two copper and one tin smelt into one bronze bar at the Forge, your first metal tier. Pines give Core Wood for smelters, kilns, and portals. Burial Chambers hold Surtling Cores, which you need for those same stations, plus the Ancient Seeds that summon the boss. Round it out with Thistle, carrot seeds, and Mushrooms for food.

This is also where you want to find Haldor the trader. He sells the Megingjord belt for carry weight and other staples, and locating him early makes the whole mid-game smoother.

Bronze and your forge

Bronze unlocks the Forge, and the Forge unlocks everything metal. Set up a smelter fed by Coal from a Charcoal Kiln, haul your copper and tin home by foot or boat, and remember you cannot portal ore or bars. Bronze buys you a real sword or mace, a bronze axe (which finally cuts Birch and Oak for Fine Wood back in the Meadows), better armor, and the bronze pickaxe. Get a bow with fire arrows or plenty of arrows before the boss.

Beating The Elder

The Elder is summoned at its altar by offering 3 Ancient Seeds, which drop from Greydwarf Shamans and Brutes or are found in Burial Chambers. The fight is a ranged duel. The Elder is a giant tree creature that fires homing root projectiles and stomps up roots beneath your feet, so use the stone pillars in the arena for cover and keep moving. It is weak to fire, so fire arrows shorten the fight considerably.

Killing The Elder drops the Swamp Key, which opens the Sunken Crypts where the Swamp’s iron is locked away. Hang the Elder trophy on the Sacrificial Stones to unlock its Forsaken Power: a 60 percent boost to tree-chopping, which pays for itself every time you log wood.

When to move on

You are ready for the Swamp when you have a full bronze loadout, the Troll armor or bronze armor, a bow with good arrows, the Swamp Key in your pocket, and poison resist mead brewed and ready. The Swamp is the classic difficulty wall, and it punishes anyone who arrives without a mace and poison protection. Do not skip the mead.

Related: the Elder boss guide, the Meadows you came from, and the full-run progression cheatsheet.