Valheim — Shrines & Rituals
Odin’s Valkyries brought many warriors to the tenth world, Valheim. The only way they can prove their true worth is by defeating the most powerful enemies that Odin himself exiled. While their ultimate destiny will be decided by the Allfather, there is still a way to acquire favors from the gods on their journey: Conducting rituals by burning trophies of the enemies they conquer in shrines dedicated to the Pantheon.
I’m going to make a small introduction, then share “concepts” I drew with IG screenshots I created to see the rough sizes of different Shrines. Then I’ll take about the offerings. I’ll also include a visual guide at the end, so if you’d like to get a TL;DR, you can quickly skimp through and check that at the bottom!
Introduction
The main idea behind Shrines is to provide a way to get rid of Trophies and similar items that easily pile up, in a thematic way. There are three Shrines the warriors can construct (see picture), each shrine increasing the offering possibilities thanks to more slots.
Disclaimer: The formulas, sizes, construction costs might be changed. I’m presenting the concept with some ideas, not the final result.
Small Shrine
A meagre wooden bowl that can be placed on the ground or placed on a bow with a stone surface that has runes carved into it. It provides 2 slots and requires X to build. It takes a 1x1x1 (width x depth x height) space for purposes of construction.
It only requires a bit of wood to construct and it’s available from the very start!
Medium Shrine
A stone shrine with a larger bowl and runes that depict Odin’s defeat of his enemies. It stands on its own on a surface and provides 3 slots. Considerably larger than the small one, it is close to the size of a smelter at 2 x 2 x 4.
It requires wood, stone, a Surtling core and a few copper bars to construct. As all things annoying, you need the Forge to build it.
Large Shrine
A stone-based, well-adorned shrine that consists of a rune stone and a large offering bowl that will get the attention of the gods. It provides 4 slots and needs to be placed on the ground at the whooping size of 2 x 3 x 5
It requires a wood, stone, a couple of surtling cores plus some amber and amber pearls for decoration! As the “end game” shrine, it requires a stonecutter to build.
Rituals
Offering an item to the gods is simple. Place the item in the shrine, place something to burn it with (usually Resin or Surtling core) then activate the altar (similar to summoning Moder). If you placed items correctly, the offering will burn up and you’ll get a reward.
You can offer stacks of items. So if I mention you need 1X Deer Trophy and 1X resin to get 1X Wood, you would e.g. place 10 Deer Trophy and 10 Resin to get 10 Wood. Of course, stack sizes are a limiting factor, which is why better shrines are required for larger sacrifices.
Formulas
Each ritual has a specific base formula which I’ll list below.
Ritual of Forsaken Power: Boss Power
You proved yourself by defeating that Forsaken. You can now sacrifice Boss trophies to activate that boss’ power for a limited amount of time.
This should be especially useful for single players who don’t normally have the ability to activate multiple powers.
Formula: 1xBoss Trophy+15xResin OR 2x Core= 1 Minute of the boss power.
Multiple boss trophies can be placed. Examples:
15 BossX Trophy + 30 Core = 15 mins of BossX power
5 BossX Trophy +5 BossY Trophy + 20 Core = 5 minutes of both Boss powers
10 BossX Trophy + 150 Resin = 10 mins of BossX Power
Ritual of the Forsaken Sacrifice
You can sacrifice items to summon one boss to get items to summon another.
5x Boss X Summon Item + 1x Boss Y Summon item + 3x Resin= 2x Boss Y Summon items (essentially transforming 5x BossX summons to 1x BossY)
Alternative formula: 3x BossX summon items +3x Resin = 1x Next Boss Summon item. In this case, Bosses are in the order of normal appearance: Eikthyr, Elder, Bonemass, Moder, Yagluth. Yagluth summon items can’t be transformed into something else.
Ritual 3: More Drops of Creature
1x Deer/Boar/Neck/Lox Trophy + 1x Resin = Receive a drop from the item’s drop table. Except for a trophy. e.g. For Necks, this is a neck tail drop.
Same formula but 2x Coal instead of Resin = Chance to drop trophy
One of the above but 1x Surtling Core is added on top= Strong chance to receive two drops
Ritual of Greed
You sacrifice some trophies and some resources to ask for more of that resource.
Basic formula is 1x Resource + 1x Trophy + 1X Resin = ?x Resource
But there are some rules:
- Not every trophy can be used for every resource. I thought of two possibilities here. One possibility is that there are strict pairings (ie Greydwarf Shaman Trophy can be used to get Finewood) Another idea is making it biome-based. So all Black Forest trophies can be used to get all resources found in Black Forest. Possibly harder creatures or higher tier resource have different possibilities.
- Instead of Resin, you can use 1 coal per 2 Resource/Trophy you sacrifice to improve the result.
- Instead of Resin, you can use 1 Surtling core per 5 Resource/Trophy you sacrifice to improve the result even further
Here are the calculations I came up with. These are calculated per item in a stack, so if you sacrifice 20 items, you get a variety of results leading to an average, I noted the averages too:
Resin: 30% lose the item, 40% get the same amount, 15% get double, 10% get triple, 5% get quadruple. On average, you get 20% more resource.
Coal: 20% lose, 40% same, 15% double, 10% triple, 10% quadruple. On average, you get 40% more resource.
Core: 10% lose, 30% same, 30% double, 20% triple, 15% quadruple. On average, you get 70% more resource.
More Details
I already mentioned that the numbers are subject to change. Overall, I have a good feeling since this isn’t supposed to replace regular farming but let you do something with the piling up items.
I’m not sure about the balance implications. I feel like they’d be fine but in case there is the need to limit the number of rituals, Limiting Mechanisms might be placed in many ways. A few examples:
- You may get a debuff that prevents you personally from sacrificing again, similar to Boss Powers.
- Once you start the ritual, you get the reward but “burning” might continue for a while and block the shrine from being used.
- Specific Rituals might also require specific conditions such as being in a certain biome, time zone or weather.
Conclusion & Visual Guide
Overall, I think this concept would add a lot to the game. It can be tweaked, expanded and used in multiple ways. We could add offerings to change the weather, affect the day cycle, protect against events, summon events etc.
Last but not least, here is the visual guide as promised.
I’m curious to hear what you think of this idea, let me know in the comments and if you enjoyed the concept, please consider clapping for the article (you can press the button to clap more!)
See you in the next article!
