Runestones and Vegvisirs

0:40 Runestones are carved boulders found in every biome of Valheim whose red runes can be read for lore, warnings and hints left by earlier settlers, and Vegvisirs are a special, glowing kind of runestone that marks the altar of a Forsaken boss on the map. Reading an ordinary runestone adds its text to the compendium in the raven menu; reading a Vegvisir adds a map marker, which is how most boss hunts begin. With the dreams and the ravens Hugin and Munin, the stones carry nearly all of the game's story (Runestone, Valheim Wiki; Lore and Setting).

Quick facts

What the runestones say

1:31 Slackabee's catalog counted 87 lore runestones across the biomes and sorted them into settlers' stories, the history of the tenth world, words of encouragement, and creatures and the Forsaken. The settlers recur from biome to biome. Harald loses an eye to Eikthyr, a hand to The Elder and a leg to Moder; Gudrun remembers only the weight of a child; Astrid hears the Allfather's words frozen into pebbles; and the grumbling Ulf moves house biome after biome, leaving practical advice about roofs, swamps and staves. Slackabee also notes that seven of the 99 names given to Dead Raiser skeletons come from these stones.

20:41 Many stones are field notes on creatures. The boar stone says boars can be tamed with roots, the wolf stone asks for an offering of flesh to renew an old covenant, and the lox stone says the beasts roamed the Plains before the Forsaken were exiled; animals spawn near their own stone (Farming and Taming). Others record history: Odin exiling the Vanir and giants, the proud kingdom whose soldiers became the Draugr, the Fuling cities, the Jotunn whose bones lie in the Mistlands, the Dvergr who mine them, and, since 2024, the fall of the Kingdom of the Emerald Flame in the Ashlands.

Altar runestones

Every Forsaken altar has a stone beside it whose few words name the offering (Forsaken Altars, Valheim Wiki):

How Vegvisirs work

12:00 A Vegvisir is smaller than a lore stone and glows. Hugin calls them signposts Odin scattered toward the ritual grounds of the Forsaken, and the first stands among the Sacrificial Stones at spawn, pointing to Eikthyr. Interacting with one marks the boss altar nearest to the stone itself, possibly on another island; if that altar is already on the map, nothing new appears. Most bosses have three to five altars per world, so a second Vegvisir can reveal a closer one. Under the No Map modifier from the World Modifiers the camera swings toward the altar instead (Runestone, Valheim Wiki; Hugin, Valheim Wiki).

Where to find each Vegvisir

Sources: Runestone, Swamp Runestone Tower, Mountain Tower, Stonehenge, Putrid Hole, Valheim Wiki.

14:11 SnazzyGames found Fader's Vegvisir on the tops of Ashlands ruins, more often the larger ones. Yagluth's is often the slowest to find, since only four of the six rock-formation variants can carry one.

17:11 The Ashlands also turned Vegvisirs into a quest chain. A quarter of Putrid Holes hold one pointing to the first of three Mysterious Locations, and each location's own Vegvisir points to the next. The first two hold the tip and blade of Dyrnwyn; the third opens into the tomb of Lord Reto, who carries the hilt (Mysterious Location, Valheim Wiki).

36:55 In the Deep North, Kysen's guide shows a Vegvisir in the stone circle of a Memorial Site, beside the altar where Memorial Coal summons an ancestor spirit; it marks the Aesir Passage where Kall Fimbulbringer is summoned. Others stand at the base of the Gates of Mörkhalla and near the passage, whose own runestone points the player toward halting the Jotun invasion (Postmode; allthings.how; Deep North Locations).

Who wrote the runestones

7:27 The runestones are the work of Lee Williams, a British writer who worked out the tenth-world premise with Richard Svensson of Iron Gate Studio and then wrote the dreams, the runestones and the item descriptions. Speaking to Jiroc the Viking's Podheim in March 2022, he said he kept the text sparse on purpose, because long passages did not suit the game's mood.

10:25 Ulf is Williams's own Viking: his grumbles about swamp houses that collapse and endless attacks come from Williams's own clumsy early games, in which he died often. In Iron Gate's December 2023 profile he said he wrote most of the stones during the first COVID lockdown with the game open on a second monitor, idling where each stone would stand, and cut every draft hard; his favorites are the quiet ones, such as Gudrun's (Introducing: Lee Williams, Iron Gate).

Changes over time

New stones came with most updates: the Hearth & Home Update of 2021 and the Mistlands update of 2022 both list new runestone texts, and the Ashlands update of May 2024 gave the Forsaken their first real backstory (Version history, Valheim Wiki; Ashlands Update). The Black Forest stone that counts Odin's banished creatures read seven in Embr's lore video of August 2024 and eight by 2026, ahead of the eighth boss (Embr; Slackabee). The 1.0 patch notes list new runestones for the Deep North; their texts had not been catalogued by the wikis as of Sep 11, 2026 (Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Steam).

Frequently asked questions

What is a Vegvisir in Valheim? A small glowing runestone that marks the nearest altar of its biome's Forsaken boss on the map when you interact with it.

Where is Bonemass's Vegvisir? In Sunken Crypts, sometimes in a treasure room, or beside ruined Swamp runestone towers, about a third of which have one.

Do you need a Vegvisir to summon a boss? No. Any altar found by exploring works; the Vegvisir only saves the search.

Why did the Vegvisir not show a new location? It marks the altar closest to the stone, and if that altar is already on your map, nothing new is added.

Do runestones do anything besides lore? They give practical hints, such as how to tame boars and wolves, and animals spawn near the stone about them.

Sources

• Runestone, Forsaken Altars and Hugin, Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Swamp Runestone Tower, Mountain Tower, Stonehenge, Putrid Hole and Mysterious Location, Valheim Wiki
• Introducing: Lee Williams, Iron Gate Studio, Dec 8, 2023
• Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived!, Iron Gate Studio on Steam, Sep 9, 2026
• Valheim Deep North Guide, Postmode
• How to Open the Aesir Passage and Summon Kall Fimbulbringer, allthings.how
• Every Runestone in Valheim (Meadows to Ashlands), Slackabee (video)
• Podheim #11: Interview with Writer Lee Williams, Jiroc the Viking (video)
• Valheim's Lore So Far, Embr (video)
• 30+ Need to Know Valheim Tips for the Swamp!, Samo (video)
• Valheim Ashlands! Ultimate Biome Guide, SnazzyGames (video)
• Valheim 1.0 Deep North Full Guide!, Kysen (video)