Valheim: How to Find and Summon Eikthyr, the First Boss

Eikthyr is the gate that keeps you stuck in the Meadows. Until the giant stag with chained, electrified antlers goes down, you cannot craft the antler pickaxe, and without a pickaxe there is no copper, no tin, and no bronze. The good news is that summoning him is a fixed, repeatable process with exactly one offering requirement.

Quick answer: Put two Deer Trophies on your hotbar, stand next to Eikthyr’s Forsaken Altar in the Meadows with your cursor on the stone table, and press the hotbar number for each trophy. The message “You make the sacrifice” appears, the sky darkens, and Eikthyr spawns.

Eikthyr summoning requirements in Valheim

There is only one item cost, and it never changes. Everything else is a matter of standing in the right place and using the right input.

Requirement	Detail
Offering	Two Deer Trophies, consumed per summon
Where	Eikthyr’s Forsaken Altar, a large stone table in the Meadows
How to locate it	Interact with a glowing red Vegvisir runestone to mark the nearest altar on your map
Input	Trophies on hotbar slots 1–8, cursor on the altar, press the matching number key
Repeatable	Yes, as often as you like, provided you bring two more trophies

How to get two Deer Trophies

Deer Trophies drop from the ordinary deer that wander the Meadows, but the drop is not guaranteed. Expect roughly one trophy for every five deer you kill, so plan on hunting more than two. Deer with a star next to their name have better odds, so it is worth chasing a starred stag if you spot one.

Deer bolt the moment they notice you, which makes a melee-only hunt slow and frustrating. A crude bow and a stack of wood arrows solves that, and sneaking up from behind for a stealth shot deals far more damage than a normal hit. The hide you collect along the way also feeds straight into leather armour, which you will want for the fight itself.

Player swinging an equipped axe from hotbar slot 2 while moving through the Meadows in Valheim — Running the wooded Meadows with a weapon ready in hotbar slot 2 while hunting for deer. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Where to find Eikthyr’s Forsaken Altar in the Meadows

You do not have to search blindly. Every world places a small glowing red runestone, a Vegvisir, next to Eikthyr’s Sacrificial Stone in the circle where you first spawn. Reading it drops a marker for his closest Forsaken Altar onto your map.

Walk to the ring of Sacrificial Stones at your spawn point and find the Vegvisir beside Eikthyr’s stone. It is unmistakable, a low stone slab carved with red markings that glow.

Valheim player walking up to a glowing red Vegvisir runestone in the Meadows — The glowing red Vegvisir runestone in the Meadows, the object that registers Eikthyr’s altar location. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Interact with the runestone to read it. Eikthyr’s icon is added to your world map at the nearest altar, and you can open the map to confirm the marker is there.

Valheim world map showing the Eikthyr boss icon added after reading the runestone — After reading the runestone, Eikthyr’s boss icon appears on the world map alongside your own marker. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Travel to the marker. The altar is a large stone table ringed by rocks and trees, with another Vegvisir of its own and a deer statue nearby. Reading that second runestone throws up the hint “HUNT HIS KIN”, which is the game telling you the offering is deer.

Note: Worlds contain more than one Eikthyr altar, and they tend to sit in the wooded stretches of the Meadows rather than out in open fields. If the marked altar is inconveniently far, another runestone you stumble across later may point you at a closer one.

How to place the Deer Trophies on the altar

The offering is not made from your inventory screen. Trophies have to be assigned to the hotbar and used at the altar like a consumable.

Open your inventory and drag both Deer Trophies into hotbar slots, anywhere from 1 to 8. Note which numbers you used.

Stand next to the stone table and point your crosshair directly at it. Distance matters here, so get close rather than aiming from across the clearing.

Press the number key for the first trophy, then the number key for the second. Each successful offering produces the on-screen line “You make the sacrifice”, and the trophy is removed from your hotbar.

Valheim gameplay at the Meadows altar clearing while the offering is being made — Standing at the altar clearing in the Meadows as the Deer Trophies are offered from the hotbar. Image: Iron Gate Studio

How to confirm Eikthyr has been summoned

There is no ambiguity once the second trophy lands. The message “Eikthyr summons the storm” appears, the weather turns, any rain stops and the area goes dark under his aura. A boss health bar labelled EIKTHYR appears at the top of the screen and the stag materialises next to the altar.

The fight begins immediately, with no grace period to run back to base for supplies. If you are not fed and equipped when you press that second number key, you are fighting him underprepared. During his spawn animation he cannot hit you, so free damage from a bow is available if you are already holding one.

Player aiming a bow from hotbar slot 3 at Eikthyr as the boss health bar appears — A bow selected in hotbar slot 3 and trained on Eikthyr as the boss fight starts. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Why the summon doesn’t trigger

When nothing happens at the altar, it is almost always one of a handful of specific problems rather than a bug.

Only one Deer Trophy was offered. Two are required, and the first one alone does nothing visible beyond consuming it.
The trophies are still sitting in your inventory. Assigning them to hotbar slots 1–8 is what makes them usable on the altar.
Your crosshair is not on the stone table, or you are standing too far from it.
You are carrying the wrong trophy. Only the Deer Trophy works here, not boar or neck trophies.

Summoning Eikthyr again after the first kill

Eikthyr is not a one-time encounter. Like every boss in Valheim, he can be summoned as many times as you want, and the cost is the same two Deer Trophies each time. That is worth knowing because each kill drops one Eikthyr trophy plus three Hard antlers, and those antlers are what the antler pickaxe is built from.

Take the Eikthyr trophy back to the Sacrificial Stones at spawn and hang it on the hook on his stone. Interacting with the stone afterwards grants his Forsaken Power, which cuts run, jump, and swim stamina costs by 60 percent for five minutes. Killing him also changes the world around you, since his rallying event stops and Greydwarfs begin spawning in the Meadows at night.