Valheim Raids: Every Event, What Triggers It, and Why Running Away Does Not Work
Valheim raids are not random punishment — they are a checklist, and you meet most of it by standing near your own base. Every 46 minutes the game rolls a 20% chance of an event, then looks for a player who is in the right biome, not in a dungeon, and within 40 metres of at least three base structures. That last condition is the one you can actually control. And the reflex most players have — run away and wait it out — does not end a raid; it pauses it. Here is the whole system.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish these mechanics. The trigger conditions, event list and durations below come from the community Valheim wiki, and can change with any patch.
What Has to Be True for a Raid to Start
The roll happens on a fixed cadence: "Every 46 minutes there is a 20% chance for a random event."
Then the game checks each player against four conditions:
| Condition | Detail |
|---|---|
| Biome | The player must be in a biome that event uses |
| Not in a dungeon | Being underground disqualifies you |
| Near a base | Within 40 metres of at least 3 base structures |
| Event available | Gated by which bosses have died — see below |
Then it picks a random valid event and a random valid player, and starts the raid at that player's position.
The 40-metre rule is the practical takeaway. Raids target players standing near bases. If nobody in your group is near a base when the roll happens, the raid does not fire at all.
One event ignores that rule entirely: "You are being hunted…" — the wolves event. It does not require you to be near a base, which is exactly why it feels like it ambushes you in the open.
The Full Event List
The elegant part of the design: most raids are enabled by one boss and permanently retired by the next. You never fight an outdated raid.
| Event | Start message | Creatures | Enabled by | Disabled by | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| army_eikthyr | "Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest." | Boars, Necks | World start | Eikthyr | 90s |
| army_theelder | "The forest is moving…" | Greydwarves, Brutes, Shamans | Eikthyr | The Elder | 120s |
| army_bonemass | "A foul smell from the swamp…" | Draugr, Skeletons | The Elder | Bonemass | 150s |
| army_moder | "A cold wind blows from the mountains." | Drakes — also applies Freezing | Bonemass | Moder | 150s |
| army_goblin | "The horde is attacking!" | Fulings, Berserkers, Shamans | Moder | Yagluth | 120s |
| army_gjall | "What's up, Gjall?!" | Gjall and Ticks | Yagluth | The Queen | 90s |
| army_seekers | "They sought you out." | Seekers, Seeker Broods | Yagluth | The Queen | 90s |
| army_charred | "The undead army marches." | Charred Twitchers, Marksmen, Warriors | The Queen | Fader | 90s |
| army_charredspawners | "The dead have been summoned." | Monuments of Torment | The Queen | Fader | 90s |
Then there are the permanent ones — enabled once and never retired:
| Event | Start message | Creatures | Enabled by | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| foresttrolls | "The ground is shaking." | Trolls | Troll + The Elder | 80s |
| blobs | "A foul smell from the swamp…" | Blobs, Oozers | Bonemass | 120s |
| ghosts | "You feel a chill down your spine…" | Ghosts, Wraiths | Bonemass | 150s |
| skeletons | "A skeleton surprise!" | Skeletons, Rancid Remains | Bonemass | 120s |
| surtlings | "There's a smell of sulfur in the air…" | Surtlings | Surtling + Bonemass | 120s |
| wolves | "You are being hunted…" | Wolves | Bonemass | 120s |
| bats | "You stirred the cauldron." | Bats | Bat + Bonemass | — |
Note the compound requirements. Some raids need two things dead: foresttrolls needs a Troll and The Elder, surtlings needs a Surtling and Bonemass, bats needs a Bat and Bonemass. On a world-based setup, both must have died on that world — by anyone.
Two events deserve a specific warning. army_moder applies Freezing to the area, so a drake raid is a cold problem as well as a combat one. And army_charredspawners leaves Monuments of Torment that do not despawn when the raid ends — that raid leaves permanent structures on your land.
Why Running Away Does Not Work
This is the single most useful mechanic in the article, and it is the opposite of most players' instinct:
"For most events to end, a player must stay in the active event area until the timer runs out. The event timer is paused if there are no players in the event area."
Leaving does not end a raid — it freezes it. Come back and it resumes exactly where it stopped, with whatever is still alive still there.
So the fastest way through a raid is to stand in it. Durations are short — 80 to 150 seconds — and the timer only runs while somebody is present.
The wolves event is the exception again: "You are being hunted…" keeps its timer running whether or not you are there.
On a shared server this changes the group decision. If a raid starts and everyone scatters, nobody is burning the clock — the raid is simply waiting. One person holding position ends it for everyone, which makes a defensible spot near the base genuinely worth building.
World-Based vs Player-Based Raids
World-based raids are the default, and on a shared server they have an obvious failure mode: raid availability is set by what the world has killed, so a new player faces raids earned by veterans.
The PlayerEvents modifier switches this, and the difference is precise:
| Mode | What decides which raids you get |
|---|---|
| World-based (default) | Which enemies have been defeated in the world. Compound raids need both mobs dead on that world |
| Player-based | Which Forsaken powers and materials that player has acquired, plus some checks on which enemies they personally defeated |
Player-based is usually what a mixed-progress group actually wants. It stops a newcomer being hunted by Gjall because someone else killed Yagluth, and it keeps raids meaningful for the veterans at the same time.
Two related settings worth deciding together, both covered by the same world-modifier system: EventRate, which scales the frequency, and NoBossPortals, which disables portals while a boss is active.
And remember raid availability is driven by global keys. You can inspect exactly what your world has recorded with listkeys, and remove a single flag with removekey — useful if one early troll kill has enabled a raid your group is not ready for.
Practical tips
- Every 46 minutes, a 20% chance — then the game needs a valid player.
- You must be within 40 m of at least 3 base structures to be a raid target. Away from base, no raid.
- Being in a dungeon disqualifies you.
- Leaving pauses the timer, it does not end the raid. Standing your ground is the fast way out.
- "You are being hunted…" ignores both rules — no base needed, timer keeps running.
- Each boss retires the previous raid as it unlocks the next.
army_moderapplies Freezing;army_charredspawnersleaves permanent Monuments of Torment.PlayerEventsmakes raids match each player's own progress — usually right for a mixed group.
Running your own Valheim server
Raids are world state driven by world settings, which makes them a decision to take once for the whole group rather than per session — and PlayerEvents in particular only makes sense on a persistent world where people progress at different rates. A gamever Valheim server keeps that world and its settings running around the clock for up to 10 players, takes one-click backups before you change anything, and updates automatically so client and server versions never drift apart.
Conclusion
Valheim rolls for a raid every 46 minutes with a 20% chance, then requires a player who is in the right biome, not in a dungeon, and within 40 metres of at least three base structures — so being away from your base is genuine raid avoidance. Which raids can fire is governed by global keys: most events are enabled by one boss and permanently retired by the next, from "Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest" through to the Charred armies gated between The Queen and Fader, while trolls, blobs, ghosts, skeletons, surtlings, wolves and bats are enabled once and never retired. Some need two kills — foresttrolls wants a Troll and The Elder. The mechanic worth changing your behaviour over is that leaving the area pauses the event timer rather than ending it, so the quickest way out of an 80–150 second raid is to stand in it — with "You are being hunted…" ignoring that rule along with the base requirement. And for a group at mixed progress, PlayerEvents ties raids to each player's own achievements instead of the world's.
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