Valheim Plains guide: Fuling villages, flax, and more

Valheim
Valheim (Image credit: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas)

Out of all of the different biomes in Valheim, the Plains are by far the most dangerous. From its deadly wildlife to its aggressive and plentiful Fuling warriors, the Plains is a location that you shouldn't even think about exploring until you've gotten the best gear and supplies that you can from previous biomes like the Mountain and Swamp (make sure to check out our Valheim Swamp guide and Valheim Mountain guide for more information on those biomes). Here's a detailed overview on everything you need to know about the Plains biome, including how to find it, how to prepare for it, what kinds of enemies (and resources) you'll find there, and more.

Valheim Plains guide: How to find the Plains

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

Finding the Plains isn't easy, as it usually generates towards the outer edge of worlds across many oceans. Therefore, you're going to need a sea-faring vessel. A karve works, but I highly recommend building a full longship for this journey since it has much more health, meaning that it has the best chances of surviving the long journey to Plains biomes. It also has 18 storage slots, which allow you to bring tons of stacks of helpful supplies such as food and building materials.

Related: Valheim sailing guide: How to build and sail every ship

Plains biomes are identifiable by their tan-colored fields of dry grass and red flowers, as well as their forests of birch trees. Large stone pillars and the distinctive hide and bone structures of Fuling villages also signify a Plains biome.

Valheim Plains guide: How to prepare for the Plains

Source: Valheim Wiki (Image credit: Source: Valheim Wiki)

The Plains are deadly, but you'll have a much better experience trying to survive in it if you come to it prepared. Here are some of the supplies and pieces of gear that we highly recommend you bring with you on your first trip.

  • You're going to want a full set of wolf armor, a drake helmet, and an upgraded silver-tier weapon and silver shield. All of these recipes mainly require usable silver, which you can make by mining and smelting silver ore from the Mountain biome.
  • Maces are great in the Plains since their high knockback can help with crowd control, which you may need when fighting Fuling groups. Atgeirs are a good option as well, as they have excellent range and their special attack does sweeping area-of-effect damage. They are weak against the Plains boss, however.
  • Bring a Draugr Fang bow with frost arrows, obsidian arrows, or silver arrows. It's typically much safer to kill many of the Plains' enemies from afar due to how often they stay in groups.
  • Bring the best food you can make, and plenty of it. I recommend lots of sausages and turnip stew (make serpent stew if you've been lucky enough to kill sea serpents), as well as cooked meat, cooked fish, queen's jam, and honey. Eating hearty meals keeps your health and stamina high, which you're going to need when you land in the Plains.
  • Make stamina and health mead, as they will help immensely when you get into sticky situations. Check my guide on all mead recipes and how to make them for details on how to make both.
  • Fill your longship with several stacks of wood and stone as well as the resources needed to make a stonecutter, as when you arrive, building a durable and defensible forward operating base is the first thing you should do.

Valheim Plains guide: Survival tips and tricks

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

These tips and tricks will help you survive and thrive while you explore the Plains.

  • Build a Portal (10x Greydwarf Eye, 20x Fine Wood, 2x Surtling Core) at your home base and give it the "Plains" tag. When you arrive at a Plains, immediately place another down and also tag it with "Plains" to connect the two. This will allow you to return to your home base quickly if you need to run from enemies or get more building or combat supplies from home. It's also a great way to transport certain Plains valuables back home, such as cloudberries, barley, flax, or lox meat.
  • Build a fortified forward operating base that you can use for reliable shelter. The Plains may be incredibly dangerous, but you can improve your chances of surviving there by creating a safe fallback position for yourself where you can rest up and prepare between adventures.
  • It's worth noting you can attach structures to the massive stone pillars in the Plains, as they count as foundations. You can use this mechanic to build a large base up high, which will keep it safe from the Plains' enemies. Just be wary of foes wandering into the area when you're building a way up to the higher part of these pillars.
  • Never leave your base without a shield in your hotbar; blocking and parrying enemies in the Plains makes fighting them significantly easier.
  • You can tame the massive Lox beasts by leading them into an enclosure (making it out of stone is recommended since they can break out of wood) and then feeding it cloudberries. You can't currently do anything with tamed Lox yet, but in future updates it's likely that you'll be able to breed them for their meat and pelts. Therefore, taming at least two of them now is a good idea.
  • While exploring, always keep an eye on your immediate surroundings. Fulings patrol the biome in groups, and if a squad is headed in your direction, you can't afford to be taken off guard.
  • Never run directly away from Fulings that are throwing spears or shooting arrows at you, as getting hit in the back by one will do massive critical damage to you.
  • Use the Bonemass power that significantly improves your physical defense if you're severely outnumbered in a fight in the Plains, as it can often save your life.
  • Try and keep your inventory as free as possible as you explore, as you'll want to have room for the Plains' valuable items.

Valheim Plains guide: Plains enemy list

Source: Valheim Wiki The Fuling enemy in the Plains. (Image credit: Source: Valheim Wiki)

There are several different types of enemies in the Plains, and all of them are very dangerous. Here's what you need to know about each foe you'll encounter there, as well as some quick tips on how to take each enemy down effectively.

  • Deathsquito: These bugs may not seem deadly at first glance, but they do huge damage with their stinger. To take them down, hold up your shield as they circle you and make sure to block them when they fly in to attack. Then quickly retaliate with a weapon strike to take them down. Alternatively, you can try to snipe them from afar with a bow.
  • Fuling: Fulings are the main enemy of the Plains, and due to their lack of weaknesses, pack mentality, and high damage, they're quite difficult to deal with. Try to pick them off one-by-one from afar with your bow. If you get rushed by a group of Fulings, run away from them for a second and then quickly try to do damage to the first one that reaches you before the others catch up. Also, never try to block or parry a one or two star-level Fuling, as they do way too much damage for even the strongest of shields to handle. Dodge roll against these Fulings instead.
  • Fuling Berserker: These lumbering brutes are similar to Trolls in that they deal lots of damage and have lots of health, but can be dodged quite easily once you learn their animations. You can parry their normal club swings, but parrying their downward smash attacks are ill-advised. The best way to deal with them is to snipe them from afar. Fuling Berserkers only spawn in Fuling villages.
  • Fuling Shaman: These support enemies don't have a lot of health, but they use their magic to create shields for other Fulings that you'll have to break through before you can actually damage them. Therefore, make sniping any Fuling Shamans you see a top priority. Also, they have a chance to drop Fuling Totems, which you're going to need eventually. Like Fuling Berserkers, Fuling Shamans are exclusive to Fuling villages.
  • Lox: These bison-like beasts aren't aggressively hostile, but they'll attack if you get close and can do huge damage. However, their attacks are slow and can be easily dodged. It's best to snipe them from afar, although melee combat is definitely viable as long as you dodge properly. Both their meat and their pelts are valuable, so make sure to snag these items after every kill.

Valheim Plains guide: Important Plains resources

Source: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas Growing flax and barley in the Plains is crucial, as you need these resources to make the best food, armor, and weapons in the game. (Image credit: Source: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas)

There are many valuable resources available in the Plains, and many of them are necessary for crafting endgame-level food, armor, and weapons. Here's a list of all the valuable items you can find in the Plains.

  • Birch trees: Huge forests of birch trees grow in the Plains naturally, giving you quick access to plenty of fine wood.
  • Cloudberries: Groups of bushes with plump cloudberries on them can be found all over the Plains biome. These berries can be used to make excellent consumables such as Lox meat pie and stamina mead, and they respawn after 300 minutes (real-world time).
  • Lox meat: Lox meat is the best meat in the game in terms of the health and stamina boost it gives when cooked and eaten, and it can also be combined with other items to make some of the best meals in all of Valheim. You can get it by killing Lox.
  • Lox pelt: The pelts of Lox you kill can be used to make a lox cape, which provides better protection than any other cape available. Also, they can be used to create rugs for your bases that boost their Comfort value, which ultimately results in you getting a stronger Rested bonus whenever you rest at your base.
  • Flax: This rare resource can only be found in Fuling villages naturally, and you can combine it with iron from the Swamp to create padded armor, which is currently the best protection in the game. It can also be used in some weapon recipes as well. Before crafting with it, though, you should use a cultivator to grow more of it at your Plains base (it won't grow anywhere else).
  • Barley: Like flax, barley is found in Fuling villages. However, Barley is much more common. You can use it to create barley flour, which can then be used to make bread. You can also combine it with bloodbags, Lox meat, and cooked fish to make advanced meals. Like flax, it can also be grown exclusively in the Plains.
  • Needles: These items drop from Deathsquitos and can also be found in chests in Fuling villages. They can be used to make powerful needle arrows as well as the Porcupine mace, which is easily one of the best Valheim weapons.
  • Black metal scraps: This is the best metal in the game, and as such can be used to make some of the best weapons. It occasionally drops from killed Fulings, and can also be found in the chests that spawn in Fuling villages.
  • Fuling totems: These items are used to spawn Yagluth, the boss of the Plains biome. You can occasionally find them in Fuling villages, and they also have a rare chance to drop from killed Fuling Shamans.

Valheim Plains guide: Fuling villages

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The majority of the best resources from the Plains are found in Fuling villages, which you can identify by structures that are made out of stone, bone, and deer hide. Successfully conquering these villages is very difficult, but also very rewarding.

Here are some tips that will help you raid Fuling villages efficiently and effectively.

  • Don't even think about attempting to tackle a Fuling village without eating plenty of good food first. You're going to need large boosts to health and stamina during the fight.
  • Try and snipe as many Fulings as you can from afar before going in for melee. Many villages have over 20 Fuling in them, so fighting them all at once would be suicidal.
  • Prioritize killing Fuling Shamans, as the shields they give to other Fuling make fighting them significantly harder.
  • Kill regular Fulings before trying to fight Fuling Berserkers. You'll likely get swarmed if you try to kill the Fuling Berserkers first, and since they have a slower movement speed, it's usually easy to kite the normal Fulings away and kill them first.
  • Using frost arrows or the Frostner club is a good way to crowd control Fulings if all of the ones in the village aggro on you. These weapons deal frost damage that reduces movement speed, giving you more room to work with.
  • You can also use Ooze bombs from the Swamp to poison groups of Fulings, which is useful for when you're being swarmed.
  • If there's a nearby Black Forest or Swamp biome, you can try to lead Greydwarves, Trolls, Skeletons, and Draugr into the Fuling village. These enemies will fight each other, and while the Fulings will usually come out on top, they will be weakened and easier to kill.
  • Keep an eye out for Deathsquitos. They may wander near the village during your raid attempt, and if they aggro onto you while you're fighting Fulings, you can often get pricked in the back by them.

Valheim Plains guide: Yagluth boss fight

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

Yagluth is the final boss of Valheim currently, and fighting him is a true test of your skills. To find him, you'll need to search for a runestone that will reveal his location. These are found near Stonehenge-like structures you can come across in the Plains. Then, to summon Yagluth at his altar, you'll need five Fuling totems. Here are some quick tips that will help you effectively fight Yagluth.

Related: Valheim Boss Guide: How to find, summon, and defeat every boss

  • Yagluth is heavily resistant to piercing damage and is immune to poison, so avoid using spears, atgeirs, and poison arrows against him. He's also resistant to arrows in general, so melee combat is preferred for this fight.
  • The key to beating this boss is to never run out of stamina. All of his attacks can be avoided by sprinting to the side, but if you run out of stamina while attacking, you won't be able to do this. Therefore, don't get greedy when doing damage. Drink stamina mead if you have to.
  • Drink fire resistance wine right before the fight, as several of Yagluth's attacks do fire damage.
  • Drinking health mead helps counteract the ticking fire damage that Yagluth's attacks cause.
  • If any Fuling or Deathsquitos wander into the area, back off from Yagluth and deal with them first.
  • Don't run too far away from Yagluth, as the game will interpret this as you running away from the entire fight and will reset his health.

Any questions?

Do you have any further questions about the Plains? Let me know, and I'll happily answer them down below.

Valheim is available for $20 on Steam through Early Access. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend getting it as it's one of the best survival games for PC right now. If you do pick up the game, don't miss our beginner's guide to your first days and beyond in Valheim.

Brendan Lowry

Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he's been an avid fan since childhood. He's been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you'll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he's not writing or gaming, there's a good chance he's either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once. Follow him on X (Twitter).