Valheim: How to Get Tar

Tar is the sticky black resource that gates every Darkwood build piece in Valheim, from shingle roofs to the hot tub. It exists in exactly one place — the Plains biome — and it is guarded by a slime-like enemy that will poison you and glue you in place if you rush in. Getting a full chest of it is less about combat skill and more about approaching the pit the right way.

Quick answer: Find a tar pit in unexplored Plains, kill the Growths around it for drops, then reach the remaining tar deposits by digging a drainage trench with a pickaxe or flooring over the pit.

Where tar pits spawn in the Plains biome

Tar pits only generate in the Plains, the golden grassland biome you reach late in a normal progression run. They are not subtle. Against all that yellow-green grass, a pit reads as a wide patch of dark brown scorched ground with a pool of black liquid sitting in the middle of it, usually with a few Growths bobbing around in the pool.

The one thing that trips people up is the world generation rule. Tar pits arrived with the Hearth & Home update, and they will not appear in terrain that was already discovered and loaded before that update. If you are running an old save and every Plains region you know is empty, that is why.

Sail or run into Plains you have never uncovered on the map before you conclude your world has no tar. Fresh territory is the requirement, not luck.

When you do find one, drop a map marker on it. Tar farming is a repeat trip, and a portal placed just outside the pit turns a dangerous Plains expedition into a two-minute supply run.

Kill the Growths for your first tar

Growths spawn only at tar pits and behave a lot like the Blobs from the Swamp. They lunge at you, they apply Poison, and their attacks can leave you tarred and slowed. Fighting them while standing ankle-deep in the pit is how these trips go wrong.

They are resistant to piercing damage and weak to fire, so fire arrows are the efficient answer. Pull them from the edge of the pit, keep moving, and stay on solid ground where your stamina and dodges still work. Any ranged option that deals elemental damage does the job just as well.

Player firing a bright elemental attack at an enemy near a Plains tar pit in Valheim — A ranged elemental attack lighting up a target near the pit; hitting Growths from a distance keeps you out of the tar. Image: Iron Gate AB

Every Growth you kill drops a small amount of tar. That is usually enough to unlock the Darkwood recipes in your hammer menu, but nowhere near enough to build with, which is why the pit itself matters.

Harvest tar deposits from the pit

The real supply sits in and around the pool as pickable tar deposits. Some sit on the dry rim and can be grabbed on the spot. The ones out in the liquid are the problem: wade in and you take the “It is stuck in the tar” effect, which slows you to a crawl exactly where Growths are most dangerous, and deposits sunk in the pool can refuse to be picked up at all.

There are two clean ways around that. Drain the pit, or build over it.

Method 1: Drain the pit with a pickaxe trench

Pick a spot on dry ground a short distance from the pool and dig a hole with your pickaxe. The deeper and wider it is, the more tar it can hold.

Dig a trench from that hole back toward the pit until the two connect. Work from the outside in so you are never standing in the liquid while you swing.

Let the tar flow. As the liquid drains along the channel and into your hole, fresh deposits appear along the path, and the drop in the pit level exposes ones that were previously unreachable.

Walk the drained ground and pick up every deposit. This is the highest-yield approach by a wide margin, and a better pickaxe makes the digging noticeably faster.

Method 2: Floor over the pit with a workbench

Place a workbench on solid ground beside the pit so its build radius covers the water line. Nothing gets built without one in range.

Equip the hammer, open the build menu, and select Wood Floor 2×2. This is the piece you will walk on, so bring plenty of wood.

Wood Floor 2x2 highlighted in the Valheim hammer build menu while being lined up for placement — The Wood Floor 2×2 piece selected in the build menu and lined up for placement at the edge of the pit. Image: Iron Gate AB

Lay the first tile from the bank and snap each following tile to the previous one, extending a walkway out over the liquid. Placement fails if the piece has no valid support, so keep the chain unbroken rather than trying to drop isolated tiles in the middle of the pool.

Side-by-side Valheim build previews of a Wood Floor 2x2, one snapping into place and one rejected — Left: the Wood Floor 2×2 snaps into a valid position against an existing piece. Right: the same piece rejected with an invalid placement warning. Image: Iron Gate AB

Walk the platform and collect the deposits below you. You stay dry, you never take the tar slow, and you can retreat along the boards if more Growths spawn.

Travel light and go during the day. The Plains has Fulings and Lox on top of the Growths, and losing a full late-game kit to a pit trip is a long walk back.

Tar item stats and hauling it home

Tar is described in-game as a sticky lump, and it is heavy for a basic material, so plan your inventory space before you start draining a pit.

Weight	Stack size	Teleportable
2.0	50	Yes

Because tar is teleportable, a portal at the pit edge is the single biggest time saver here. Unlike ore, you can dump a full load straight through and come back for more without ever sailing it home.

What tar is used for in Valheim

Tar combines with wood to unlock the Darkwood set, which you build from the hammer while standing in workbench range. It also feeds a couple of non-building recipes.

Darkwood structure: arch, gate, carved divider, beams (2m, 4m, 26°, 45°), poles (2m, 4m)
Shingle roofing: 26° and 45° panels, ridges, inner corners, outer corners
Furniture: darkwood chair, round table, long heavy table
Decoration: raven adornment, wolf adornment
Structures: black metal chest, hot tub
Crafting: tar blob bomb

You will know the run worked the moment lumps of tar show up in your inventory and the greyed-out Darkwood and shingle entries in the hammer menu turn selectable. If the roof pieces still refuse to highlight, you are either out of wood or standing outside a workbench’s build radius — top up both and the whole set becomes available.