Progression
Races of Valheim does not have its own XP bar, skill tree or unlock currency. It reuses the thing Valheim already tracks: which bosses have been defeated in this world.
The eight tiers
Your race's power level is a single number from 1 to 8.
| Tier | Unlocked by | World flag |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | No bosses defeated | — |
| 2 | Eikthyr | defeated_eikthyr |
| 3 | The Elder | defeated_gdking |
| 4 | Bonemass | defeated_bonemass |
| 5 | Moder | defeated_dragon |
| 6 | Yagluth | defeated_goblinking |
| 7 | The Queen | defeated_queen |
| 8 | Fader | defeated_fader |
Tiers are read highest first. If a world has Yagluth's flag set, you are tier 6 whether or not the earlier flags are present — so there is no way to get stuck by killing bosses out of order, or by joining a world that skipped one.
Every race page on this wiki lists its unlocks against these boss names.
It is the world's progression, not yours
The tier is computed from the world's global keys. This has two consequences worth knowing before you join someone else's server:
- Joining a late-game world hands you everything. A brand new character walking into a world where Yagluth is dead is immediately a tier 6 version of their race, dragon forms and all.
- Starting a fresh world takes it all away again. The same character in a new world drops back to tier 1 until that world's bosses fall. Nothing is lost — the tier is recalculated, not consumed — but your abilities are gated by wherever you are standing.
Your race itself is stored on the character and does travel with you between worlds and servers. Only the tier is world-derived.
Checking your tier in game
Open the console and run:
checkprogression
It prints the current tier (1–8) to the console and flashes it on screen. See Console commands for the debug commands that let you raise or reset the tier while testing.
The in-game compendium
Every race writes a live entry into your character's compendium — the texts/lore menu in your inventory. Open it and you will find an entry such as Skadi Secrets, Aswid Secrets or Trol Secrets.
The entry is regenerated every time you open the menu, and it lists only the abilities you have actually unlocked at your current tier, with the real numbers filled in (current frost bonus, current spell damage, current armour and damage scaling). It is the fastest way to answer "what can I do right now?" without leaving the game.
Switching race replaces the entry: the previous race's text is removed so the compendium never accumulates stale pages.
Two kinds of unlock
Race abilities come in two flavours, and the distinction matters when a tier ticks over:
- Passive scaling — armour, damage, speed, jump, carry weight, lifesteal, frost bonus. These are recomputed continuously from the tier, so they update as soon as the boss dies.
- Gated unlocks — transformations, spells, extra stomach slots, new resistances. These become available at a specific tier and stay available.
Some gated unlocks are only applied when the game next re-evaluates your equipment. If a newly unlocked ability seems inert right after a boss kill, unequipping and re-equipping anything, or relogging, forces the refresh.