As you begin your journey of survival in the tenth world known as Valheim – building a campfire is the biggest necessity of them all. A campfire not only provides you with warmth but more importantly you need one near your bed in order to sleep – otherwise, as many Vikings have encountered, you’ll be faced with the message “Bed needs a nearby fire” when attempting to sleep.
Most importantly, a bed provides you with a respawn point, and sleeping in a bed provides you with a ‘Rested’ buff for a short period after you wake. In order to use a bed, it must be surrounded by some kind of shelter. In Valheim, shelter protects you from the elements, creatures within the world, and protects your fire from the same threats – too much wind and your fire will go out, same with rain. A fire also rapidly removes ‘Cold’ or ‘Wet’ effects, which decrease health and stamina regeneration.
Once you’ve made yourself a basic shelter, your first project is placing a campfire within it. Campfires can only be built on the ground, natural rock or stone structures. To build a campfire you’ll need a bit of stone, some wood, and a hammer to build with. Once you have all of that, go to the miscellaneous crafting tab where you’ll find the different types of heat sources and cooking stations you can build.
Smoking Kills
Throughout the world and the many dangers that lurk within it, seemingly everything in Valheim wants you dead. Of the countless ways you can die, it was surprising that smoke is another one of those things that can kill you. So, keep that in mind while building your shelter. You’ll need proper ventilation to avoid smoke inhalation and subsequent death. Of course, you never want to go stepping into your campfire either. Fire hot.
You’ll have a lot of options to play around with while building your shelter. Starting out you can have something as simple, although crude, as leaving a hole in your roof for the smoke to escape or having openings in the wall on either end below your roof.
One of the most basic examples allows you to add it to your home without having to restructure, aside from one wall. Choose the location next to the house and place your campfire, building three walls around it and continuing until you have your column, you can then use a 26 ° thatch roof with the angled corner pieces to finish the chimney. You’ll want to remove the interior piece of wall connecting your house and fire as you will need to keep it refueled or to access your cooking station.
There you can see it stays functional, allowing you to use your bed, giving the ‘Fire’ effect and while keeping your building smoke free and the fire protected from the rain. Another thing to consider is the more campfires you have, or the hearth for example, the more smoke that is produced so you will have to create a ventilation system accordingly.
Conclusion
Ultimately, you have a lot of options and thankfully the building system lets you enjoy some creativity building your chimney to your desired appearance, (while seeing the pretty cool smoke physics as it bellows out!) or by keeping it simple yet functional!
Building a campfire is one of the first and most important things you’ll do in the world of Valheim. Without one, survival isn’t possible… And neither is sleeping which is just about as important as survival is, one might say it’s a key component.
With all of that said, I hope you’re able to successfully construct your first fireplace in Valheim. If you’re still having trouble, let me know in the comment section and I would love to help!
