Drake

0:38 The Drake is a small, legless, ice-blue flying wyrm of the Mountain biome in Valheim that circles the high slopes and spits balls of ice at anyone who comes near. Drakes are the male offspring of Moder, the Mountain's dragon boss, and are most often found hovering around the rocky nests that hold her eggs. They never land, so a bow is the only practical weapon, and their fire weakness makes fire arrows the classic answer. Every drake drops a Freeze Gland, the key to the game's frost weapons, arrows and stamina food. The Mountain's other creatures are compared on Mountain Creatures (Drake, Valheim Wiki).

Quick facts

Drake attack: the frost spit

3:01 A drake has a single attack. Hovering five to fifteen meters away, it spits three balls of ice that fly at 15 meters per second with a spread of 10 to 20 degrees; each deals 90 frost damage and applies Frost, a slow lasting about two seconds. After each burst the drake flies a small circle and fires again six seconds later (Drake, Valheim Wiki). A shriek announces it before it comes into view.

6:49 Samo notes that a drake met without frost resistance is deadly, while the Wolf Fur Cape, the Wolf Armor chestpiece or a Frost Resistance Mead halves the damage and armor reduces it further, "making it feel like more of a snowball fight". Without that resistance, being Wet makes it worse, because wet Vikings take extra frost damage; frost resistance overrides the penalty (Wolf fur cape, Valheim Wiki; Weather, Cold and Wet; Armor and Capes).

Where drakes spawn: slopes and Dragon Eggs

3:41 Drakes appear only on the tall mountains, above about 100 meters of altitude, in twos per zone. Each world also holds 200 Drake Nests, rings of rock and ice on flat high ground, and each nest has up to three guard spawn points, each filled with a 66 per cent chance; these guards are one-time spawns that never return once killed (Drake Nest, Valheim Wiki). A drake gives up the chase more easily once it is 200 meters from where it spawned.

7:47 At the center of every nest sits a glowing Dragon Egg. Three eggs placed on Moder's altar summon her; each egg weighs 200 and cannot pass through a portal, so players look for nests near the altar or haul them by cart and boat. According to the wiki a taken egg regrows in its nest eight hours later (Dragon Egg, Valheim Wiki; Portals).

How to kill a drake

0:14 Because drakes never land, melee weapons are useless and every strategy is archery (Bows, Crossbows and Arrows). Injected Clarity waits for a drake to stop and hover before it attacks, shoots, and dodges the ice; better still is to open from stealth, since an undetected shot gets the sneak-attack bonus and kills a drake with 100 health outright.

2:28 A player arriving from the Swamp can bring down drakes with a Finewood Bow and fire arrows, which exploit the fire weakness and are cheap. With better gear the calculus changes: the wiki points out that obsidian arrows, crafted from the Mountain's own Obsidian, out-damage fire arrows despite the weakness, 52 against 44, and a Draugr Fang or Huntsman Bow shortens the fight further. Drakes and Stone Golems are hostile to each other, and since a golem is immune to frost and cannot reach the sky, the two can keep each other busy for a long time (Drake, Valheim Wiki; Stone Golem).

Drake drops: Freeze Glands and Drake Trophies

7:28 Every drake drops one Freeze Gland, and one in ten also drops the Drake Trophy. Every frost weapon of the middle game needs glands, and the Staff of Frost of the Mistlands needs them too, which makes drakes worth farming long after the Mountain is cleared (Freeze Gland, Valheim Wiki).

Sources: Frost Arrow, Eyescream, Frostner, Staff of Frost and Wolf Armor, Valheim Wiki.

Frost Arrows are the standard answer to fire-immune enemies such as the Serpent, and Eyescream is the Mountain's best stamina food (Food and Cooking; Frostner; Magic and Staves). Beyond the helmet, the trophy makes Frosty Fishing Bait for the Northern Salmon of the Deep North, and with a corked vial and three resin it fills the frost Bottled Blob of the Call to Arms Update, a throwable that releases a Frost Blob (Trophies, Bait and Blob Bombs, Valheim Wiki; Fishing). The helmet needs two trophies, so a full Wolf Armor set takes twenty drake kills on average.

"A cold wind blows from the mountains": the drake raid

6:31 After Bonemass dies, drakes can raid a base in any of five biomes: the Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountain and Plains. "A cold wind blows from the mountains." keeps three drakes in the air at once for 150 seconds and wraps the area in Freezing, draining health and stamina regeneration from anyone without warm gear or a frost mead. Walls do not stop flying attackers, so buildings and tamed animals are exposed, and the wiki warns that rain or the Swamp's Wet effect multiplies the frost damage. The raid is retired once Moder is defeated (Events, Valheim Wiki; Raids and Events).

Design and lore

1:27 Iron Gate's art lead Robin "Grimmcore" Eyre told Kysen in 2021 that the drakes were among the first creatures he made for the game. The team wanted players to sense they might one day meet the drakes' mother, so it scattered hatchlings across the mountains, removed their legs to make them look infant, and avoided the classic four-limbed fantasy dragon; the drakes were red at first but turned blue because it seemed odd that they did not breathe fire. Moder is Swedish for "mother". The creature was announced as the "Dragon Hatchling" and renamed before release, and the game files still call it Hatchling (Drake, Valheim Wiki). A runestone names them the small males of an ancient frost-wyrm kin sprung from Ymir's body, guardians of the eggs, while the far larger females are rarely seen (Lore and Setting).

History

Drakes have circled the Mountain since the early-access launch of Feb 2, 2021 (Development History). Patch 0.148.6 of Mar 23, 2021 raised the Drake Trophy drop rate, the Mistlands Update of December 2022 gave the Freeze Gland a new use in the Staff of Frost, and the Call to Arms Update of September 2025 added the frost Bottled Blob (Version history, Valheim Wiki). The Valheim 1.0 Release of Sep 9, 2026 listed no change to drakes (Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Iron Gate).

Frequently asked questions

How do you kill a Drake in Valheim? Shoot it with a bow while it hovers, ideally from stealth; fire arrows exploit its weakness, and obsidian arrows deal slightly more total damage.

What does a Drake drop? One Freeze Gland every time and a Drake Trophy one time in ten. Drakes never have stars, so the drop never multiplies.

What are Freeze Glands used for? Frost Arrows, Eyescream, the Frostner mace and the Staff of Frost.

Do Drakes respawn at their nests? No. Nest guards are one-time spawns, although drakes keep spawning elsewhere on the high slopes and the Dragon Egg regrows.

Can you tame a Drake? No. Drakes cannot be tamed, though they were the fan favorite in Kysen's 2021 community vote on which creature players most wanted as a pet.

Sources

• Drake, Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Drake Nest and Dragon Egg, Valheim Wiki
• Freeze Gland, Frost Arrow, Eyescream, Frostner and Staff of Frost, Valheim Wiki
• Wolf Armor, Trophies and Bait, Valheim Wiki
• Events, Creature level and Version history, Valheim Wiki
• Drake, Valheim Wiki (Fandom)
• Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Iron Gate Studio, Sep 9, 2026
• The Valheim Drake - Mob Spotlight, Kysen (video)
• Complete Guide to Valheims Mountains Biome!, SnazzyGames (video)
• 30+ Need to Know Valheim Tips for the Mountains!, Samo (video)
• Valheim - How to Kill Drakes, Injected Clarity (video)
• Have YOU Mastered Valheim Raids?, SnazzyGames (video)