Portals

0:00 Portals are the only fast travel in Valheim: paired gateways that a player builds, names alike and walks through to arrive at once at the other. They are cheap, their materials fit in a pack, and they can be set up anywhere a workbench can stand, but by default they refuse to carry ore or metal, a rule that keeps Sailing and Ships and Carts, Mounts and Vehicles at the center of the game from the Black Forest to the Deep North. The Ashlands Update of 2024 added a Stone Portal that accepts everything, and since Hildir's Request Update a world modifier can relax the rule or ban portals altogether (World Modifiers).

Quick facts

Building and naming

0:11 The Portal is placed with the Hammer within range of a Workbench. Its recipe appears once the player carries Fine Wood, which comes from birch and oak felled with a Bronze Axe, and its Surtling Cores come from the Burial Chambers of the Black Forest, so the first portals usually arrive with the bronze age (Valheim Wiki: Portal; Materials and Resources).

Sources: Valheim Wiki: Portal; Valheim Wiki: Portal stone.

1:12 A new portal does nothing until it is given a tag, a name of up to ten characters. Two portals with the same tag link, and the hover text changes from unconnected to connected. Tags are case-sensitive, and each portal links to exactly one partner: if four share a tag, they pair off in the order the tags were set. Two portals left with no tag at all also count as a match and connect as soon as the second is placed (Alessio).

Travel and hazards

1:48 Walking into a connected portal starts a loading screen of about eight seconds, during which the player cannot be hurt, though status effects keep counting down. Portals do not rot in the rain, but creatures can attack them, and a portal wrecked at a remote camp strands anyone who went home through it. Deconstructing one with the hammer returns every material. A portal is also one of the base structures that make an outpost a target for raids (Raids and Events). Since 1.0 the weather catches up at once: arriving in a dry biome removes Wet immediately, and arriving in the Swamp applies it (Kysen; Weather, Cold and Wet).

The metal rule

2:50 A wooden portal will not send a player carrying ore or metal. The attempt is refused with a message that an item prevents teleporting, and every such item carries a no-teleport icon in the inventory. Tools, weapons and armor made of metal pass freely; only the raw materials and a few heavy quest objects are blocked.

Sources: Valheim Wiki: Portal; Valheim Wiki: Bloodgold.

The rule is deliberate friction. PCGamesN's review of 1.0 singled it out as a source of grind, since the first portal "doesn't let you transport ore, so you have to rebuild your forge constantly" (PCGamesN). Ore goes home by ship or cart, or the smelters move to the mine (Metals and Smelting).

2:40 A shortcut that guides recommend is to break the ship down: a boat deconstructed at one end of a portal is carried through as materials and rebuilt at the other, halving the length of an ore run.

The Stone Portal

0:00 The Ashlands Update of May 14, 2024 answered long-standing requests with the Stone Portal, which lets everything through: ore and metal, Dragon Eggs, Mechanical Springs and Hildir's chests alike (Valheim Wiki: Portal stone).

1:06 Its recipe unlocks on picking up a Molten Core, found on stands in the Charred Fortresses and in the Putrid Holes of the Ashlands; two cores, 30 Grausten and 10 Greydwarf Eyes build it at a Stonecutter. It is far larger than the wooden portal, needing a space four walls high, four floor tiles wide and two deep, and since patch 0.218.21 of August 2024 it can stand on any stone floor, not only Grausten.

A Stone Portal links to wooden portals under the same tag rules, but the wooden end still checks the traveler's pack, so a mixed pair cannot carry metal. Metal travels only between two Stone Portals.

World modifiers

1:13 Hildir's Request (patch 0.217.14, August 2023) added world modifiers, and the Portals setting has four positions. Portal items lets everything through, though never tamed animals; Normal keeps the metal rule; No boss portals shuts portals down while a boss is active, and during a fight with The Queen also bars the way out of her dungeon; No portals disables them altogether (Valheim Wiki: World Modifiers).

1:05 Two presets switch portals off: Hardcore, which also removes the map and deletes items and skills on death, and Immersive, which removes the map. Server admins can set the same rules as the NoPortals, NoBossPortals and TeleportAll global keys (Dedicated Servers; Console Commands, Cheats and Mods).

Portal strategies

0:28 The simplest trick is the emergency portal. One untagged portal waits at home, and the materials for a second, and for a workbench, travel in the pack; in trouble, the player builds both, waits for the portal to light and steps through. The same kit, left tagged, becomes the "pocket portal" for exploring: a forward camp to sleep, rest and unload in, carried away again afterwards (Death and Corpse Runs).

1:34 Established worlds gather their portals into a hub: a room of portals each tagged for one destination, labeled with signs or map pins. The cheaper version is a single home portal whose tag is changed to match whichever remote portal is needed. A portal at the Sacrificial Stones makes it quick to change Forsaken Powers, and short-range pairs join a tower's top to its base or a kitchen to a distant farm.

Portals in the Deep North

3:54 Guides to the Deep North put portal materials in the kit for the first voyage, a Stone Portal if possible. Postmode's guide adds 15 Iron, exactly what the Frost Foundry costs and a metal a wooden portal cannot bring later, and recommends a snowed-in Abandoned Village as the first base, patched up with a fire, a bed and a portal home (Postmode; Crafting Stations and Upgrades).

6:51 The landing needs care. Deep snow cannot be built on until it is cleared ("Snow is too deep"), so Kysen places the first portal on the bare shore ice beside the boat and marks both on the map (Building and Structural Integrity).

16:14 The biome's metal keeps the old rule. Petrified Tissue, blasted out of fallen Gammeltrolls, and the Bloodgold smelted from it cannot pass a wooden portal, so Deep North ore travels home by ship, through Stone Portals, or on a world with the portal modifier relaxed (Shane the Gamer).

History

The wooden Portal, its recipe and the metal rule date from the early-access launch of Feb 2, 2021. Hildir's Request added the Portals world modifier in 2023, the Ashlands the Stone Portal in 2024, and patch 0.218.21 freed it from Grausten floors. The 1.0 patch notes list no portal changes (Iron Gate).

Frequently asked questions

Why can you not take ore through a portal? A wooden portal refuses to send a player carrying ore or metal, and every such item shows a no-teleport icon in the inventory. Finished tools, weapons and armor pass freely; only the raw materials and a few heavy quest objects are blocked.

How do you take metal through a portal? Build a Stone Portal at each end. A mixed pair does not work, because the wooden end still checks the traveler's pack. The alternatives are a ship or cart, or a world set to the Portal items modifier.

How do you connect two portals? Give both the same tag, a name of up to ten characters. Tags are case-sensitive, and two portals left with no tag at all also count as a match.

Can you be attacked while going through a portal? Not during the eight-second loading screen, but the portal itself can be destroyed by creatures, which strands anyone who traveled home through it, and a portal makes an outpost a target for raids.

Where should the first Deep North portal go? On bare shore ice beside the boat. Deep snow cannot be built on until it is cleared with the Snow Shovel, and guides recommend marking both ends on the map.

Sources

• Portal, Portal stone, World Modifiers and Bloodgold, Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Portal, Valheim Wiki (Fandom)
• Hildir's Request patch notes and Valheim 1.0 review, PCGamesN
• Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Iron Gate Studio (Steam), Sep 9, 2026
• Valheim Deep North guide, Postmode
• How to mine the Petrified Gammeltroll for Bloodgold, Shane the Gamer
• How To Make + Use Portals and Valheim 1.0 Deep North Full Guide, Kysen (YouTube)
• 10 Portal Tips in Valheim, Alessio (YouTube)
• How To Craft Stone Portals, Jade PG (YouTube)
• Hildir's Request Patch, GlensGames (YouTube)
• Valheim World Modifiers Guide, NickRawcliffe (YouTube)