Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide - New Items, Cooking Changes

In this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide, I'll explain all of the changes that have come to Iron Gate's Viking survival crafting game and how you can get all of these cool new items.

What is the Valheim Hearth and Home Update?

The Valheim Hearth and Home Update is the latest update to Iron Gate's Viking survival crafting game. It launched on Thursday, September 16, 2021, after several delays, and the update largely delivered on its promises to deliver new building pieces and new content to players.

Spoiler Warning

This Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide is going to talk in explicit detail about new items and game mechanics added in the September 2021 Valheim update. If you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading here!

This update was originally intended to be the first of several new pieces of content for Valheim throughout 2021, But Iron Gate needed more time and pushed back the launch of this update (and consequently, the DLC that was to come after it) to Fall 2021.

As you'll see in this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide, there is a fair amount of new content that's been added to the game including new building pieces, some major changes to the game's food and cooking mechanics, the ability to ride a Lox as a mount (!), and so much more. Let's dive right in!

Valheim Hearth and Home Guide - New Building Pieces and Furniture

One of the biggest additions in this Valheim update is a whole bunch of new building pieces. Naturally, I'll be covering all of the new additions in this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide.

Do keep in mind that the images seen below do not show absolutely everything -- for example, there are many more roofing pieces than you see here.

New Building Pieces

The new building pieces detailed in this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide add a fair amount of class and variety to your home. Aside from a totally new roof style, there are additional decorative ornaments and a ton of new options for windows.

Many of these new building pieces require the new "Tar" resource; you can read about that further down in my Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide.

• Cage Floor 1x1 - Forge, 1 Iron
• Cage Floor 2x2 - Forge, 2 Iron
• Cage Wall 1x1 - Forge, 1 Iron
• Cage Wall 2x2 - Forge, 2 Iron
• Carved Darkwood Divider - Workbench, 2 Fine Wood, 1 Tar
• Crystal Wall 1x1 - Workbench, 2 Crystal
• Darkwood Arch - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Darkwood Gate - Forge, 16 Wood, 4 Iron, 2 Tar
• Darkwood Pole 2m - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Darkwood Pole 4m - Workbench, 4 Wood, 1 Tar
• Darkwood Beam 2m - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Darkwood Beam 4m - Workbench, 4 Wood, 1 Tar
• Log Beam 26 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Core Wood
• Log Beam 45 Degrees -  Workbench, 2 Core Wood
• Raven Adornment - Workbench, 10 Fine Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof 26 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof Ridge 26 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof O-Corner 26 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof I-Corner 26 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof 45 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof Ridge 45 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof O-Corner 45 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Shingle Roof I-Corner 45 Degrees - Workbench, 2 Wood, 1 Tar
• Wolf Adornment - Workbench, 10 Fine Wood, 1 Tar
• Wood Shutter - Workbench, 4 Wood, 2 Bronze Nails
• Wood Wall 1x1 - Workbench, 1 Wood
• Wood Wall 26 Degrees (Inverted) - Workbench, 2 Wood
• Wood Wall 45 Degrees (Inverted) - Workbench, 2 Wood

New Furniture

The Hearth and Home Update has added quite a few new pieces of furniture, too. As with the building pieces, some of these will require the new Tar resource. These new furniture pieces will give you some new options to increase your Comfort score.

• Black Metal Chest - Workbench, 10 Wood, 2 Tar, 6 Black Metal
  • This chest has 32 storage slots, making it the largest capacity storage item in the game.
• Blue, Red and White Banner - Workbench, 6 Leather Scraps, 2 Fine Wood, 2 Blueberries, 2 Raspberries, 1 Cloudberries
• Darkwood Chair - Workbench, 4 Fine Wood, 1 Tar, 5 Iron Nails, 1 Deer Hide
• Hot Tub - Workbench, 20 Wood, 6 Tar, 10 Iron, 8 Stone
• Long Heavy Table - Workbench, 20 Fine Wood, 2 Tar, 20 Iron Nails
• Round table - Workbench, 10 Fine Wood, 2 Tar, 20 Iron Nails
• Sitting Log - 2 Core Wood
• Standing Blue-Burning Iron Torch - Forge, 2 Iron, 2 Greydwarf Eye
• Stone Throne - Stonecutter, 20 Stone, 2 Deer Hide, 2 Wolf Pelt
• White and Blue Striped Banner - Workbench, 6 Leather Scraps, 2 Fine Wood, 2 Blueberries, 2 Cloudberries

New Misc Items

Quite a few new Misc items have been added to the game, too -- you can finally live out your finest Scrooge McDuck fantasies and put all of that treasure to good use.

• Cartography Table - Workbench, 10 Fine Wood, 10 Bone Fragments, 2 Bronze, 5 Leather Scraps, 4 Raspberries
  • The Cartography Table allows you to record your map information to the table. Once that's done, anyone else can use the table and copy your information.
• Coal Pile - 50 Coal
• Coin Pile - 999 Coins
• Coin Stack - 99 Coins
• Core Wood Stack - 50 Core Wood
• Fine Wood Stack - 50 Fine Wood
• Treasure Chest - Workbench, 99 Coins, 5 Ruby, 2 Silver Necklace, 8 Fine Wood, 2 Silver
  • Note that this chest does not function as storage -- it's only a decorative piece.

How to Get the Cartography Table in Valheiim

You will unlock the Valheim Cartography Table once you've picked up each of the five crafting ingredients at any one time: Fine Wood, Bone Fragments, Bronze, Leather Scraps, and Raspberries. Once you've done that, you'll only need to assemble the correct amounts of each material to build it.

New Crafting Items

Cooking has had some significant changes as you'll see in a later section of this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide. These changes are reflected, in part, through the addition of several new improvements for the Cauldron.

• Butcher's Table (Cauldron Improvement) - Workbench, 2 Ancient Bark, 4 Core Wood, 4 Fine Wood, 2 Silver
• Iron Cooking Station - Forge, 3 Iron, 3 Chain
  • This best fits over the Hearth.
• Obliterator - Forge, 8 Iron, 4 Copper, 1 Thunder Stone
  • The Obliterator can destroy any items placed within it with the power of lightning. It can also cause lightning damage to anything nearby -- make sure to take a step back after pulling the lever!
• Pots and Pans (Cauldron Improvement) - Workbench, 5 Iron, 5 Copper, 5 Black Metal, 10 Fine Wood
• Space Rack (Cauldron Improvement) - Workbench, 3 Dandelion, 2 Carrot, 5 Mushroom, 3 Thistle, 3 Turnip
• Stone Oven - Artisan Table, 15 Iron, 20 Stone, 4 Surtling Core
  • Breads, pies, etc. now much be baked in the Stone Oven rather than cooked over a fire as before.

New Valheim Hearth and Home Weapons and Shields

There are a handful of new Valheim Hearth and Home Weapons and Shields added to the game, too -- here are the new items you can craft and what they cost.

• Bone Tower Shield - Workbench (Level 3), 10 Wood, 10 Bone Fragmentss, 3 Skeleton Trophy
  • Bone Tower Shield Spawn Code - ShieldBoneTower
• Butcher Knife - Forge (Level 1), 2 Wood, 4 Tin
  • Butcher Knife Spawn Code - KnifeButcher
• Crystal Battle Axe - Forge (Level 3), 40 Ancient Bark, 30 Silver, 10 Crystal
  • Crystal Battle Axe Spawn Code - BattleaxeCrystal
• Iron Buckler - Forge (Level 2), 10 Iron, 4 Ancient Bark
  • Iron Buckler Spawn Code - ShieldIronBuckler
• Silver Knife - Forge (Level 3), 2 Wood, 10 Silver, 3 Leather Scraps, 2 Iron
  • Silver Knife Spawn Code - KnifeSilver

Shields and Blocking Have Changed in Valheim

Iron Gate detailed changes coming to Valheim Shields and the blocking mechanics in the Hearth and Home Update. Those changes are now live, and you're probably going to have to learn how to play a little differently.

There are all sorts of calculations behinds the scenes, but it boils down to this: there are now two ways to set up your character for battle. If you prefer to do a straight-up block, you're going to want to focus on buffing your Health. Those of you in the opposite camp who prefer to Parry and Dodge should increase your Stamina instead. Trying to Block with low Health and high Stamina isn't a great idea, and trying to Parry with high Health and low Stamina isn't a great idea, either.

We may see tweaking and adjustments to these numbers in the coming weeks and months, but this is the way things are for now. Keep it in mind when you go into battle, and consider testing out both sides of this new Blocking dynamic to see which style suits you best.

Food and Cooking Changes in the Valheim Hearth and Home Update

Cooking and food have changed, too, and this is going to be one of the more important parts of this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide. Pretty much every single food item has had its stats changed, partially to better line up with the changes to Shield and Blocking mechanics.

Raw Food and Cooked Food is now essentially split into three categories: High Health, high Stamina, or Balanced. You're likely going to be changing what your favorite foods are going forward, and you're probably going to want to have a wider range of available food for general use and for battle, too.

Valheim Hearth and Home Cooking Recipes and Food Effects

With the recent changes to food in Valheim, you'll find that food is now split into three categories: Health Foods, Stamina Foods, and Balanced Foods.

Valheim Health Foods

Health Foods give you more Health than Stamina.

Valheim Stamina Foods

Stamina Foods give you more Stamina than Health.

Valheim Balanced Foods

Balanced Foods give you an equal amount of both Health and Stamina.

* The Bukeperry causes you to vomit up all of your food and allows you to "reset" your buffs. It also adds the "Feeling Sick" debuff for 15 seconds; you comically projectile vomit for most of the buff's duration and have to deal with -100% Health and Stamina regeneration.

How to Get Tar and Build Darkwood Items in Valheim

The new "Darkwood" items added in this update aren't made of a new kind of wood; rather, they're made of wood combined with a new "Tar" resource. Tar can be found in pools in the Plains. If you're playing on an old save, you'll only be able to find Tar in the Plains biomes you haven't visited yet.

Let's start with the Tar pools. Aside from being in the Plains -- the most dangerous biome in the game -- they're also populated by black slimes called "Growths". Growths will poison you and also hit you with the new "Tarred" effect (erroneously spelled "Tared" in the game for now) which slows you down pretty badly.

You can get some Tar from Growths, but the bulk of it is contained in the pools. Unfortunately, you're unable to actually pull it out of the pool. You'll have to dig a trench with your pickaxe to drain away the liquid Tar. Once the Tar blobs are on dry ground, you'll be able to pick them up and get to crafting.

How to Ride a Lox and Get a Valheim Mount

Another neat addition in the Valheim Hearth and Home Update is the ability to ride a Lox. Yes, you read that correctly -- you can now ride Loxes.

First, you're going to need to beat Moder. That unlocks the Artisan Table, and that allows you to build the Spinning Wheel. You'll then need to grow some Flax in the Plains and make it into Linen. It takes 10 Leather Scraps, 20 Linen Thread, and 15 Black Metal to make a Lox Saddle.

Once you have a Lox Saddle, you'll need to tame a Lox -- the procedure works the same way as it does with Boars except you feed Cloudberries to a Lox rather than Mushrooms. You can then slap a saddle onto a tame Lox and ride it around.

Loxes will defend themselves to a degree, so don't worry too much about the odd Deatthsquito or Fuling. That said, your tamed Lox can die -- don't recklessly charge into a horde of enemies or you're gonna have a bad time.

How to Build an Obliterator in Valheim

The final major addition I'll cover in this Valheim Hearth and Home Update Guide is the Obliterator, a brand-new item that allows you to destroy your garbage.

To start, you're going to need to find the Merchant -- he sells a critical item called a "Thunder Stone". You'll also need a Forge, 4 Copper, and 8 Iron.  The Iron requirement means that you'll probably have to beat The Elder at the minimum, too, and explore The Swamps for Iron.

Once you have everything together, you can build the Obliterator. Simply put unwanted items inside, stand back, and pull the lever. A bolt of lightning will crackle down and destroy everything inside. This lightning is not a cosmetic effect: it can definitely hurt you (and any other creatures unfortunate enough to be nearby). Be careful about using the Obliterator!

Where to Find a Thunder Stone in Valheim

You can buy the Valheim Thunder Stone from the Merchant for 50 Coins.