Hildir

0:26 Hildir is the second of Valheim's three traders and the sister of Haldor, the merchant of the Black Forest. She is a Dvergr woman in a red and white dress with a beaded necklace and headband, and where her brother sells tools, she deals in cloth: dresses, tunics, caps and headscarves, plus a few oddities such as sparklers and fireworks. She arrived with the Hildir's Request Update, version 0.217.14 of Aug 22, 2023, after two months on the public-test branch as 0.217.4 (PCGamesN; Steam news). Iron Gate's announcement set up her story in one line: she "has made her way to Valheim at last. But she has had some trouble on the way, and it appears most of her stock has gone missing." Recovering it is her request, and it is the game's only side-quest chain: three special dungeons, each with a mini-boss holding one of her chests.

Quick facts

Finding Hildir

1:04 Hildir is placed the way Haldor is. Every world seed holds ten candidate locations for her, and the first one a player comes within about 300 meters of becomes her permanent camp; the other nine vanish. When that happens a dress (t-shirt) icon appears on the map, so she is usually discovered by accident while sailing or walking the coast. She spawns only in the Meadows, never in the starting Meadows around the Sacrificial Stones (Hildir, Valheim Wiki).

2:11 Her range is the narrowest of the three traders: her candidate sites lie between roughly 3,000 and 5,100 meters from the center of the world, each at least a kilometer from the next, which in practice means the Meadows patches that border the Swamp and Plains rather than the home island (Hildir, Valheim Wiki). Sailing close around coastlines in that ring is the standard way to trip her spawn, since Valheim's landmasses are long and thin and the 300-meter reveal radius reaches inland. Seed-map websites also list trader positions for a given seed (World Map, Generation and Seeds).

The camp

4:11 Her camp is larger than Haldor's: a big covered wagon, several tents, barrels, divans and tables around an iron fire pit, with her two Lox, Blåbär and Hallon ("blueberry" and "raspberry" in Swedish), tethered nearby. Like her brother's it sits inside a shimmering transparent dome that creatures cannot enter, so it doubles as a safe place to rest (Hildir, Valheim Wiki). Her greeting is a dig at her brother: "Welcome to my shop. It's a tad bit more elegant than my brother's."

9:20 The camp changes as the quest progresses. Each returned chest triggers a hand-over animation and gives the camp a visual upgrade, with more goods on display, until the bronze chest brings it to its final form (GlensGames). She also buys the same valuables Haldor does: Amber for 5 coins, Amber pearls for 10, Rubies for 20 and Silver necklaces for 30.

Hildir's request

2:48 On the table in front of her lies a map. Interacting with it ("register chest locations") marks three kinds of special dungeon on the player's map, three of each per world: Smouldering Tombs in the Black Forest, Howling Caverns in the Mountain and Sealed Towers in the Plains (Sealed Tower, Valheim Wiki). Each holds a mini-boss carrying one of her chests. Only one of each kind needs to be cleared; a duplicate chest is refused with a remark that it is not hers.

5:19 The chests are the awkward part. Hildir's brass, silver and bronze chests each weigh 200, stack to one, and cannot pass through a portal (Portal stones, the Ashlands variety, allow them). Carrying one back usually means Haldor's Megingjord belt and a boat if the dungeon is on another island. To hand one in, the player puts it on the hotbar, walks up to Hildir and presses its slot number, which plays a unique animation and unlocks the next tier of her stock. The three dungeons scale with the game: the tomb is Bronze-Age difficulty, the cavern is a Silver-Age Frost Cave and the tower is a Plains fortress, so most players complete the chain across a whole playthrough rather than in one trip.

Smouldering Tomb and Brenna

6:44 The Smouldering Tomb looks like an ordinary Burial Chamber except for the lit standing iron torches flanking its entrance, and it announces itself by name when entered. Inside it is a crypt whose skeletons and ghosts are all one-star or better, and its coffins spawn skeletons when disturbed, which was new for a dungeon at the time (Smouldering Tomb, Valheim Wiki; NickRawcliffe). Loot is the usual Black Forest fare of Surtling cores, yellow mushrooms, bone fragments and coins, and the creatures are covered on Meadows and Black Forest Creatures.

3:43 Brenna, whose name comes from the Swedish "bränna", to burn, is a charcoal-black skeleton wreathed in fire and armed with a flaming version of the Krom. She has 1,200 HP, swings for 60 slash plus 20 fire, and every ten seconds plunges the sword into the ground for a fire nova of 75 fire damage in a three-meter radius. She takes half damage from pierce, is immune to fire and poison, and takes 1.5× from blunt and frost, so Frostner is the ideal weapon and an upgraded Iron mace does the job (Brenna, Valheim Wiki). Her normal attacks parry like any skeleton's; the nova is the one to back away from. She drops the brass chest and a Brenna trophy.

Howling Cavern and Geirrhafa

9:35 The Howling Cavern is a Frost Cave of the Mountain marked out by two blue-burning braziers at its mouth, under a spiky ice formation hung with large blue icicles (Howling Cavern, Valheim Wiki). It is stuffed with one-star Ulvs, Cultists and bats, which most guides rate the hardest of the three because of how many enemies can pile on at once; the advice is to bring a shield for the bats, pick sleeping enemies off with a bow and clear every room before the boss. See Mountain Creatures and the Frost Caves Update for the cave itself.

10:16 Behind a wooden door waits Geirrhafa, a white-furred Cultist in a black and red cloak who casts ice instead of fire. He has 3,700 HP and four attacks: a single ice claw (40 slash, 60 frost), a double claw (60 slash plus 70 frost per hit), an unblockable channeled frost cone of 100 frost damage, and an unblockable ice nova, a ground slam that sends out three expanding shockwaves of 90 frost each. He is immune to frost, weak to fire (1.5×) and neutral to everything else (Geirrhafa, Valheim Wiki).

9:49 The fight is a rhythm: the two-handed pull-back telegraphs the frost cone, which travels in a straight line and can be dodge-rolled sideways; the slam means run, because the shockwaves reach beyond a dodge; single-handed claws can be parried, though a parry only staggers him for a moment, so one or two hits per opening is safer than a full combo. His frost slows anyone caught in it, so a dodge-roll out is essential. A Silver sword or better with the Bonemass power active and stacks of stamina and healing meads is the usual kit (Mead and Potions). He drops the silver chest and a Geirrhafa trophy.

Sealed Tower, Zil and Thungr

13:19 The Sealed Tower is not a loading-screen dungeon but a huge black-stone tower standing in the open Plains, with sealed windows, arrow slits and no door at ground level; the only way in is the roof, or a balcony part-way up. Players build a staircase or a run of ladders up the outside, and pieces snapped to the tower's walls hold at any height (Sealed Tower, Valheim Wiki; Building and Structural Integrity). Nothing can be built inside, though campfires can go on balconies. Fall damage caps at 100, so more than 100 health survives any drop.

15:50 The tower has about five floors, the first four alike: dense with Fulings and Fuling shamans, many of them starred, plus traps hidden under straw carpets, rusted iron gates that break in a couple of hits, and Plains chests in the stairwells. The plan is to work down floor by floor with the Bonemass power up, the best raw-damage weapon available (a Black metal sword or Mistwalker) and fire-resistance barley wine (Plains Creatures).

14:57 On the bottom floor wait Zil and Thungr, the first creatures in Valheim designed to fight as a pair. Thungr is a huge Fuling berserker with 4,200 HP whose club swings do 150 blunt and whose rage attack is a triple ground slam of 130 blunt each; Zil, a shaman with 2,400 HP, rides on his back casting fireballs (20 blunt, 100 fire, plus Burning) and a protective barrier that absorbs 100 damage for every ally within six meters. Both are neutral to all damage types and immune to spirit, so raw damage wins (Thungr, Zil, Valheim Wiki). Their trophies say Zil is the elder despite his size, and that each envies the other's gift.

15:54 Thungr's slams can be parried even though they do not look it, and a heavy secondary attack strips Zil's barrier in one hit. When Thungr falls, Zil drops to the ground and fights as an ordinary, very tough shaman: attack while he is not pointing, run sideways when he is, and parry the fireballs for bonus damage (Sealed Tower, Valheim Wiki). Zil drops the bronze chest and both trophies.

Her stock

5:21 Hildir's inventory is almost entirely clothing, in three tiers that unlock with the three chests. Buying everything costs about 10,950 coins. Each garment reduces the stamina cost of tools by 20 percent (headwear 15 percent), so a full dress-and-cap outfit cuts hammer, hoe and cultivator use by 35 percent, which is why builders and farmers wear it; the clothes have no armor value (Hildir, Valheim Wiki).

1:59 The Harvest dress, Harvest tunic and Straw hat were added later by The Bog Witch Update of October 2024; worn together they give a +25 Farming skill set bonus, the game's only farming gear (Farming and Taming; Hildir, Valheim Wiki).

Fireworks, fire pit and barber

19:29 The non-clothing items are materials. The Iron pit plus one Wood builds the Firepit iron, a campfire that can stand on wooden floors. The Barber kit (600 coins, available as soon as she is found) unlocks the Barber station, built from 10 Fine wood, 1 Barber kit, 5 Bronze nails and 5 Troll hide; it needs no roof, and interacting with it changes hairstyle, beard and hair color mid-game, helmet off. Since 1.0 every hairstyle and beard is available at character creation, but the station remains the only way to change them afterwards (Barber station, Valheim Wiki; Furniture and Decoration).

6:14 Basic fireworks, unlocked by the bronze chest, are dyed at a workbench with a Meadows or Black Forest ingredient: Blueberries for blue, a Greydwarf eye for cyan, Guck for green, a Turnip for purple, Raspberries for red and a Dandelion for yellow. They are thrown into any fire like a Surtling core and are single-use. Sparklers work as a torch that cannot be repaired.

Crafting extensions and other additions

20:26 The update also raised the ceiling of the two Mistlands stations. The Vice, or Vice Grip, extends the Black Forge (5 Iron, 8 Copper, 2 Mechanical springs) and the Unfading candles extend the Galdr table (10 Black marble, 3 Skeleton trophies, 10 Refined eitr, 15 Resin), each adding a level and therefore another upgrade tier for Mistlands weapons, armor and staves (Black forge, Galdr table, Valheim Wiki; Crafting Stations and Upgrades; Magic and Staves). Alongside came eight hairstyles, five beards, hair visible under helmets, a quick-stack button for chests, manual snapping with Q and E, four music tracks and the World Modifiers system (PCGamesN).

9:49 Each returned chest also adds a raid to the world's pool, independent of boss progression: "She's hot on your tail!" brings Brenna and skeletons after the brass chest, Geirrhafa and a wolf pack follow the silver chest, and Zil, Thungr and a Fuling horde follow the bronze one. Every creature in these raids spawns with at least one star (Raids and Events).

History

Iron Gate began work on the update in January 2023, opened it on the public-test branch as 0.217.4 on Jun 15, 2023 and shipped it to everyone as 0.217.14 on Aug 22, 2023, on PC and Xbox together; a two-week "Trial of Tyr" speedrun contest on a fixed seed and the new Hard preset marked the launch (PCGamesN; MMOs.com). Her stock has been touched once since, by the Bog Witch's farming set, and she is unchanged in Valheim 1.0; the third trader, The Bog Witch, followed her pattern of a biome-locked camp with a ten-site spawn.

Frequently asked questions

Where do you find Hildir in Valheim? In the Meadows, but never the starting Meadows: her ten candidate sites lie between roughly 3,000 and 5,100 meters from the center of the world, so she is usually found by sailing the coasts of that ring. Coming within about 300 meters of one fixes it as her permanent camp and puts a dress icon on the map.

What does Hildir sell? Clothing, in three tiers unlocked by her three chests: dresses, tunics, caps and headscarves, plus the Barber kit, the Iron pit, sparklers and fireworks. The garments have no armor value but each cuts the stamina cost of tools by 20 per cent.

How do you complete Hildir's request? Read the map on her table to mark three Smouldering Tombs, Howling Caverns and Sealed Towers, clear one of each, and carry the chest back. To hand one in, put it on the hotbar, stand in front of her and press its slot number.

Can Hildir's chests go through a portal? No. Each weighs 200, stacks to one and will not pass a wooden portal, so the trip usually needs Megingjord and a boat. The Ashlands Portal stones do allow them.

Which of Hildir's mini-bosses is hardest? Most guides say the Howling Cavern, not for Geirrhafa himself but for the one-star Ulvs, Cultists and bats that can pile on before him. Zil and Thungr have the largest health pools, 2,400 and 4,200.

Sources

• Hildir – Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Brenna, Geirrhafa, Zil, Thungr – Valheim Wiki
• Smouldering Tomb, Howling Cavern, Sealed Tower – Valheim Wiki
• Barber station, Black forge, Galdr table – Valheim Wiki
• Patch 0.217.14 – Hildir's Request – Iron Gate on Steam News
• Patch 0.217.4 – Hildir's Request (Public Test) – Iron Gate on Steam News
• Valheim Hildir's Request update patch notes – PCGamesN
• Huge Valheim update Hildir's Request is live – PCGamesN
• Valheim's Hildir's Request update arrives – MMOs.com
• Ultimate Hildir's Request Valheim Guide – NickRawcliffe (YouTube)
• Valheim: Hildir's Request Patch – New Features and New Dungeons – GlensGames (YouTube)
• The Ultimate Guide To Hildir's Request – FireSpark81 (YouTube)
• How to Find the Traders in Valheim – Embr (YouTube)