Deep North progression

Eternal Pyre costs 10 stone and one Fader Drop at a Stonecutter, and it lures Embers the way a wisp fountain lures wisps. Embers are the one Deep North prerequisite you cannot get in the Deep North, and everything downstream needs them.

Wider Pockets unlocks after Moder and Deeper Pockets after the Queen. They are the only permanent inventory expansion in the game, they carry across worlds because they are stored on your character rather than the save, and you will want both before a Mörkhalla run.

Portals will not place on deep snow. A Snow Shovel clears it fastest, but a weapon or your fists clear it too, so the shovel is convenience rather than a gate. Build the portal on the sea ice on your first trip: it is flat, it is already clear, and there is almost nothing living on it.

A Seal always drops 2 to 3 Seal Pelt, a Baby Seal only has a 10% chance of a single Seal Blubber and is not worth the walk. Two pelts and one ember make ten Ember Charges at any workbench.

A Gammeltroll has 3,000 health, resists all three physical types, ignores fire entirely and is weak to pickaxe. Killing it is not the end: the body petrifies where it stands and only an ember charge breaks it open for Petrified Tissue. Petrified bone piles scattered around the biome give the same material with nothing to fight, so mark those instead if you would rather skip the fight.

Petrified Tissue goes into a Blast Furnace for Bloodgold. Ice comes off black ice shards and the frozen creatures standing around the biome, and five of it fuels one Liquid Frost in a Frigid Kiln. Both are the currency for everything that follows.

You need twenty Frost Cores in total, ten for the kiln and ten for the Frost Foundry. Moulds drop from Elaking at 20% and from the Eyeless One at 50%, so the brute is the one to hunt. Bring lanterns and place them pointing back the way you came.

A mould plus bloodgold makes a cast at the Black Forge, and the Frost Foundry cooks the cast into the finished item using Liquid Frost as fuel. Every weapon, shield and armour piece in the tier runs through this two-stage chain, so a stocked kiln matters more than a stocked forge.

A Cast: Intricate Key costs 5 bloodgold and one Mould: Intricate Key at a level 4 Black Forge, and the mould is consumed with it. The key is consumed again by the door it opens. Three Mörkhalla runs therefore cost three moulds and fifteen bloodgold, which is the single most commonly misquoted number in this biome.

Each Mörkhalla ends at the Malicious Ice at the bottom. Breaking it starts a Fimbulvinter somewhere random in the world, and the invasion sits there until you go and end it. Collect Memorial Coal on the way down while you are in there.

Fight to the core, break it, and the Jotun withdraw. One Malicious Blood per invasion.

Burning Memorial Coal at a North Memorial Place summons a Fallen Warrior with 750 health. It has an independent 50% chance of each essence, so about a quarter of the time you get both and about a quarter of the time you get nothing. Frostfire Essence and Thunderblood Essence are what turn Nord gear into its final form.

Three Malicious Blood in the bowl opens the way into the Prison. Kall arrives twelve seconds later.