Draugr

5:54 The Draugr is an undead Viking warrior of the Swamp in Valheim, a bloated, gray-green corpse with glowing eyes and rusted gear that rises from the bogs, the Sunken Crypts and the Draugr Villages of the Meadows. An ordinary Draugr has 100 health and fights with an axe or a bow; the rarer Draugr Elite, marked by purple eyes, carries a sword and has twice the health. Both are neutral to blunt, slash and pierce, take half damage from fire and ignore poison (Draugr, Physgun), so any well-timed weapon works, and both drop Entrails, the ingredient of Sausages. The whole Swamp roster is on Swamp Creatures.

Quick facts

Draugr and Draugr Elite

10:03 Three in four ordinary Draugr carry an axe and the rest a bow. Their shields (none, wooden or banded, a third each) and helmets (none, leather, bronze or iron) are cosmetic, and every Draugr gives a short roar before it charges (Aggressive creature strategies, Valheim Wiki). Archers can be parried, though their timing is harder to read. The Draugr Elite always has a sword, a slower swing than the axe, and is much rarer; NickRawcliffe counts it among the Swamp's more dangerous foes.

Figures from the Valheim Wiki's Draugr and Draugr Elite pages.

Where Draugr spawn

8:43 Up to three ordinary Draugr roam any part of the Swamp, day or night, and more stand at fixed points around its ruined towers and inside the Sunken Crypts, which only the Swamp Key from The Elder opens; Draugr, Elites and blobs are the crypts' only inhabitants. Elites appear naturally only at night, one at a time, in the middle of large swamps, or at rare spawn points by inverted towers. After The Elder dies, a lone Draugr can also walk the Meadows, Black Forest or Plains on foggy nights, vanishing at dawn (Draugr, Valheim Wiki).

0:29 Draugr Villages are the Meadows' surprise: clusters of log houses behind partial palisades, found only more than 2,000 meters from the world center. A great hall holds a body pile, an Elite and up to five Draugr, ordinary houses one archer and two fighters, and towers archers at the top. Draugr cannot open doors, so most stay shut in until the player lets them out (Draugr Village, Valheim Wiki).

0:49 Body piles are the Draugr's spawners: fly-covered heaps of corpses with 100 health in the Swamp, the crypts, Draugr Villages and some Mountain towers. A pile wakes when a player is within 20 meters and every six seconds spawns a Draugr within three meters, until two stand within twenty. Its spawns are 43% axe Draugr, 43% archers and 14% Elites, with a 15% chance of one star and 2.25% of two. A pile resists pierce and fire, takes extra damage from spirit and is immune to chop, pickaxe and poison (Body Pile, Valheim Wiki).

7:50 Draugr also raid. Between The Elder's death and Bonemass's, "A foul smell from the swamp..." can strike a base in the Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountain or Plains for 150 seconds, as long as any raid lasts; Embr counts three Draugr and six skeletons at a time, respawning after five seconds, under a rain that soaks the defenders (Events, Valheim Wiki; Raids and Events).

How to kill Draugr

5:09 The Draugr is the creature that teaches parrying. Its swings are slow and telegraphed, and NickRawcliffe, with level 1 bronze gear and no skills, parries each blow with a Bronze Buckler and finishes the staggered Draugr with a mace. The buckler's 2.5x parry bonus makes the parry forgiving, and a staggered enemy takes double damage, which is why this is the standard Swamp opener (Parrying and Blocking). Because Draugr are neutral to all physical damage, the choice of weapon is free, but fire arrows are half wasted and poison does nothing. Blunt area weapons such as the Stagbreaker and the Iron Sledge are favorites because their shockwave passes through walls and scrap piles.

7:09 In the Sunken Crypts, Draugr cannot climb onto the raised landing at the entrance, so a player standing back from its edge is out of reach and can step forward, strike and retreat again.

9:11 The crypts' muddy scrap piles make shields: carving a gap too small for a Draugr to pass lets arrows and spears go through while Elites and archers behind it cannot reach the player. Some Draugr spawn permanently trapped behind piles or chests and can simply be shot.

12:02 In any room with a body pile, destroy the pile before the Draugr, since killing them first only makes it spawn more. In Draugr Villages the wiki suggests shooting into the houses from a raised position or a rooftop, or luring boars, greydwarfs or trolls in as a distraction.

Draugr drops

21:22 Four Entrails, one Boar Meat and one Thistle make four Sausages in a level 2 Cauldron, a 55-health, 18-stamina food that lasts 25 minutes and is the Swamp tier's staple; tamed wolves eat them too (Sausages, Valheim Wiki; Food and Cooking). A body pile boxed in a pit of braziers becomes an Entrails farm.

8:51 The Elite trophy is the prize: with 30 Iron, 10 Ancient Bark and 4 Ymir Flesh it forges the Iron Sledge, a two-handed hammer that hits everything within four meters, and body piles are the best place to farm it (Iron Sledge, Valheim Wiki; Weapons and Shields). Since the Valheim 1.0 Release rare drops are rolled so that long unlucky streaks are less likely (Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Steam).

Draugr lore

In Norse literature a draugr is a corpse that lives on in its burial mound, guarding the treasure buried with it (Draugr, Wikipedia). A Swamp runestone gives Valheim's version: a proud race built towers to the clouds and delved for metal, challenged the Aesir and Vanir and was destroyed, and its warriors refuse to stay dead. The stone ends with an order to the reader: "Break them, bury them, let them know they are dead" (Draugr, Valheim Wiki; Lore and Setting). The Jotun warriors called Krigen who hold the Gates of Mörkhalla in the Deep North resemble them (Deep North Creatures).

Frequently asked questions

Can you tame a Draugr? No. Draugr are undead and cannot be tamed.

What are Draugr weak to? Nothing. They take normal damage from blunt, slash and pierce, half from fire and none from poison, so parrying and a solid blunt or slashing weapon beat them.

Where do Draugr Elites spawn? At night in the middle of large swamps, from body piles (14% of their spawns), in Sunken Crypts and in the great halls of Draugr Villages.

How do you farm Entrails? Keep a body pile alive and ring it with standing braziers in a pit: each Draugr it spawns burns and drops Entrails, and the pile spawns another every six seconds. Builders first trap two Draugr in a hole, which pauses the pile while they work.

Do Draugr respawn in Sunken Crypts? Draugr placed in a crypt when it generates do not come back once killed, but a body pile inside keeps spawning until it is destroyed.

Sources

• Draugr, Draugr Elite, Body Pile and Draugr Village, Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Aggressive creature strategies, Events and Sunken Crypts, Valheim Wiki
• Entrails, Sausages and Iron Sledge, Valheim Wiki
• Draugr, Valheim Wiki (Fandom)
• Draugr, Physgun
• Draugr, Wikipedia
• Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Iron Gate Studio on Steam
• Press, Iron Gate Studio (Swamp concept art)
• 30+ Need to Know Valheim Tips for the Swamp!, Samo (video)
• Valheim Beginners Guide To The Swamp, NickRawcliffe (video)
• Easiest Valheim Draugr Farm For Unlimited Entrails!, TotalXclipse (video)
• Everything About RAIDS in Valheim!, Embr (video)