Valheim guide: How to find surtling cores in burial chambers

Valheim is all about finding resources to make the next technological leap. After you defeat Eikthyr, you’ll head into the black forest biome. You’ll be learning to make bronze soon, but first you’ll need to build a charcoal kiln and smelter. And for those, you’ll need surtling cores.

In this Valheim guide, we’ll explain where to find surtling cores in the black forest biome and talk a little about how many you’ll need.

Locate burial chambers and surtling cores

The only place (for now) you’ll find surtling cores is in the black forest biome inside burial chambers — mini dungeons scattered throughout the map.

Before you head out to find your first burial chamber, craft several torches (1 wood, 1 resin), which will help you see inside of the underground labyrinths. Repair your tools, weapons, and armor at a workbench. Eat something to get your health up, too.

Finding a burial chamber location

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When skeletons start attacking you as you explore a black forest biome, you’ll know that you’re close to a burial chamber, whose entrances look like a stone-lined tunnel or doorway leading underground.

Use your map to mark burial chamber locations and track the ones you’ve cleared, too.

Exploring a burial chamber

Inside of a burial chamber, there’s a central room from which one to three hallways branch away. Equip your torch, and start opening doors. (We like to leave doors open. It reminds us where we’ve been.)

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Skeletons, poisonous rancid remains (green skeletons), and skeleton-spawning evil bone piles are everywhere. Use your torch against them all to set them on fire. Keep your shield up, and use the hallways as choke points.

Collect bone fragments, find (edible) yellow mushrooms, and keep an eye out for valuables like amber, coins, and rubies.

Surtling core locations

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What you’re really here for, though, are surtling cores — glowing red cubes on little stands. You’ll find a handful of surtling cores in each burial chamber. When you first start picking them up, your ultimate goal is to collect (at least) 10, which means that you’ll need to explore more than a few burial chambers.

After you clear a burial chamber, head back to your base, empty your pockets, and set off again to find a new one.

Crafting with surtling cores

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Surtling cores go into several extremely useful structures:

• Charcoal kiln (20 stone, 5 surtling cores). Place it with the low, oven-like opening facing forward. You’ll feed (up to) 25 wood into the kiln, and it will spit out 25 coal.
• Smelter (20 stone, 5 surtling cores). The smelter is directional as well — place it with the spout/chute facing you. You’ll put coal in the right side, and metal ore in the left — 2 coal is required for every 1 ore. It will drop the finished metal out of the spout.
• Portal (10 greydwarf eyes, 20 fine wood, 2 surtling cores). Portals are a way to link two locations in Valheim’s world, and allow you to teleport.