Valheim Deep North Guide: How to Find and Craft Intricate Keys

Viking warriors exploring the Deep North in Valheim 1.0 will eventually encounter enormous doors that require an Intricate Key to unlock. Because players will ultimately need more than one key to triumph in this biome, finding and crafting them involves a multi-step process across snow-covered villages, hidden tunnels, and crafting stations.

To begin the search, players should scout small, snow-covered villages for the largest multi-story dwelling. Venturing inside and dropping through a large hole in the floor leads to hidden tunnels filled with enemies. Explorers must navigate these tunnels to find glowing blue ice items known as Frostcores overhead, as well as flat black rectangular items called moulds. Smashing piles of wooden rubble may be required to free the moulds. Because each mould can only be used once and players will eventually need three Intricate Keys, multiple moulds must be gathered.

Collecting the first Frostcore teaches the recipe for the Frost Foundry, which requires 10 Frostcores, 15 iron, and 20 stone. Players also need a black metal pickaxe to mine ice in the Deep North to unlock the Frigid Kiln recipe—crafted with 10 Frostcores, 20 stone, and 5 ice—which uses extra ice as fuel.

Crafting a cast of the Intricate Key also requires bloodgold, acquired by defeating huge Gammeltrolls. Before taking down a Gammeltroll, players must build an Ember Monument at their base using a drop from the Ashlands boss Fader to collect embers, and hunt seals in the Deep North for pelts. Combining embers and seal pelts creates ember charges, which are used to destroy petrified Gammeltroll remains after a kill. Smelting the resulting petrified tissue in a blast furnace yields bloodgold.

Finally, at a black forge, players combine 5 bloodgold and one Intricate Key mould to create an Intricate Key cast. Adding the cast to the Frost Foundry, adding ice to the Frigid Kiln to create liquid frost, and combining the liquid frost in the foundry produces an Intricate Key in about a minute, ready to unlock the heavy doors of the Deep North.