Old School RuneScape | One Small Favor
Valheim | Can’t Get Enough Of Sunken Crypts
Call it strange but I find Sunken Crypts at least from the dungeons I’ve run in the past in Valheim to be one of my favorites. I love just mining through doorways and looting chests to get the ores I need. Even more so when I can use a halfway-covered doorway to my advantage when clearing out the room in front of me.
I ended up clearing out five Sunken Crypts for the time being to fit my iron needs. I was looking for a full set of armor, tools, a bow, and two different kinds of weapons. Along with upgrading them all to tier 3. This would require a lot of iron.
While you never know quite what you are going to get in a Sunken Crypt. At least the starting area has enough of a familiar feeling from it. However, once you step down into the murky water you start to see how different one is from another.
You could find myself faced with many ways forward open that could lead into single dead ends or loops around. You could also find yourself needing to clear the doorways to go into any direction with lots of creatures and spawners to back them up blocking your path forward.
The first crypt I entered required me to mine out the muddy scrap pile that was blocking the doorway. This is also where a decent amount of the ores I’ll be getting for iron will come from. For whatever reason I rather enjoy how having to clear these out slows down how quickly I could clear out one of these dungeons without it. It’s almost like I’m being forced to enjoy my surroundings while I slowly chip away at a disgusting pile of mud and bone to clear the path.
Most of the time I don’t fully clear out the doorway being blocked either. You would not think close quarters dungeon of all places would be where you would increase your bow skills a lot in. I however like to make it so I can get a decent shot at everything on the inside.
Often they will respawn and if I notice that is going on I won’t fully kill the Blogs or Draugr. Instead, I’ll take them down to around a sliver of health. Just enough to ensure one final hit even if it’s a bad one will finish them off.
Then I clear out a path and charge into the room. Most times I’m ignoring anything that can hit me. I’m after taking out the spawn so I don’t have to deal with further things attacking me. Once it’s down there is a good chance in all the action everything else moving in the room walked into my path of destruction and got taken out as well. If not I’ll finish off whatever is left.
Then I go back to clearing out the doorway. I’ll even swing the pickaxe a few times ensuring I did not miss any chunks. Up till this point, I was still using the pickaxe I made from taking down Eikthyr. That was not working for this. As I would need to take quite a lot of trips back for repairs.
While I could have gone out and made a bronze pickaxe that would been quite an upgrade. I decided one of the first iron items I was going to make would be the pickaxe itself. It would help me the most in cutting down just how many trips I’d need to go make repairs.
Part of the fun on the Sunken Crypt dungeons is when you enter into a big enough room for there to be a chest. There is a good chance you will find half a stack of ore to loot. This one I found ended up being over double what I ended up mining to get to it.
The rooms in these dungeons are just so disgusting even when looking back at the screenshots I took of all the ones I cleared out I just feel dirty. It’s no wonder why either. This was one room where I found a massive pile of muddy scrap that had spewed out from the doorway at some point in the past. The whole place is just this disgusting green color. Thankfully I could not smell the place.
Oddly enough it was quite some time before I even upgraded to having an iron sword. I discovered after my many trips back and forth bringing ore back to my base that I needed a lot of wood for making coal. So after I crafted a much better pickaxe the axe for tree cutting was next.
There also came a point where a single smelter and kiln were no longer going to be enough for my needs. That would require however running quite a few of the other dungeons for more cores. Since I was having so much fun clearing out Sunken Crypts instead I decided to just stick with one of each for the time being. While it was a lot slower it was not like I was not off clearing out a dungeon or running through the woods for long periods anyways. So the smelter had lots of idle time as it stands.
Another thing I just love is coming across and looting a new item. Something I had yet to find was a chain. That ended up unlocking the Iron Cooking Station which once I can make a bigger fire will be something I set up to use from within side the base. It cooks enough meat that I’ll be able to clear out my inventory in quite enough time I won’t just have lots of uncooked meat sitting around in storage.
Sometimes after a long gaming session late into the night I just find it easier to be using a torch while inside these dungeons. Thankfully these have more than enough light to see if you don’t have one. There just comes a point where it’s nice to have some in inventory if needed.
Final Thoughts
Over far too much time I ended up smelting down all the ores I mined, crafting gear and tools, and finally upgrading them. Even well after needing ores, I found myself still on the hunt in the future any time I came across a swamp for further Sunken Crypts to run.
I’m also rather excited at a point not that long ago there was a patch that added more dungeons into the game. At some point, I’ll have to check them out. I’ll however by then need to go quite out to find anything new added to the game.
Thankfully this is not one of those games where I have to start all over again to get the new stuff. I could start a new seed over again to ensure there are not any issues and just join that with my character. I’d hate to have to do all the boss fights again and build more bases. Not to mention all the exploring of areas in the starting area.
Perhaps one day I’ll find a new to start more worlds and have a somewhat fresh start with a geared-out character running rampage in them. For now, my single world that has some sections of it now outdated should be more than enough to fit my needs.
I fully expect at some point I’ll be creating a new massive base somewhere. I doubt it will be anytime soon. For now, at the very least I’ve unlocked and crafted the stonecutter and I’m stockpiling stone up like crazy.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Valheim.