Drake: How to Find, Fight & Farm Valheim's Mountain Frost Dragon

What Are Drakes and Why Do They Matter?

Drakes are the ice-breathing flyers you meet the moment you set foot in the Mountains: slender, legless frost dragons with ice-blue scales and four horns. They are the male offspring of Moder, the Mountain boss, and the lore calls them "frost wyrms", one of the most ancient kins sprung from Ymir's body.

In development they were called Dragon Hatchlings, and the game files still call them "Hatchling".

Why you will farm them

Their value is in the drops, not the danger. Every kill drops a Freeze Gland, the key ingredient in Frost Arrows, Frostner, Eyescream and the Staff of Frost. The rare Drake Trophy builds the iconic Drake Helmet. If you are progressing through the Mountain, you will farm Drakes whether you planned to or not.

Where to Find Drakes

Drakes spawn only in the Mountain biome above 100 meters. You will not meet them on lower slopes, though they can aggro on you from an adjacent biome near the border. They arrive in three ways:

• Drake Nests: rocky outcrops, often holding Dragon Eggs, with up to three spawn points each. Nest Drakes are one-time spawns and do not return once cleared, but eggs tell you Drakes are active nearby.
• Ambient spawns: in the middle of tall Mountains, groups of up to two. This is how you meet most Drakes, and they replenish over time; the higher you climb, the more you see.
• The "A cold wind blows from the mountains" raid: before you defeat Moder, this event sends waves of up to three Drakes to your base at a time, great for trophy farming. It stops for good once Moder dies.

How to Fight Drakes Efficiently

The attack pattern

Drakes fly in, fire three frost balls in a 10-20 degree spread, then circle away for about six seconds. Each ball deals 90 Frost and applies the Frost slow for about two seconds. Eating all three at Mountain-tier health hurts badly.

Use a bow

With 100 HP and no star variants, Drakes are among the squishiest Mountain enemies. Obsidian Arrows (52 damage) two-shot them with decent bow skill. Drakes are weak to Fire, but Fire Arrows deal only 44 in total, so Obsidian still kills faster; Fire Arrows are a fine stand-in until you have Obsidian.

Snipe undetected

Spot a Drake first and a sneak-attack shot from a decent bow often one-shots it. Wait for clear weather, since storms hide Drakes at range, and shoot during the slow circling phase rather than the attack run.

Forget melee

Drakes never land and attack from 5-15 meters. A shield can block the frost balls, but that only defends; it kills nothing.

Drake Drops: Why Every Kill Matters

Drake drops beat most Mountain loot. Every kill guarantees one Freeze Gland, with a 10% chance at a Drake Trophy, and both are teleportable, unlike many Mountain materials.

Freeze Gland

The glowing blue organ is the star. It goes into:

• Frost Arrows
• Frostner, one of the best one-handed maces
• Eyescream, the highest-stamina food from the Mountains
• the Staff of Frost

Frost Arrow users burn through glands fast, so stockpile them. At 0.5 weight and stacks of 50, they are easy to carry in bulk.

Drake Trophy

Two trophies craft the Drake Helmet, the Wolf Armor headpiece, and the trophy also makes Frosty Fishing Bait and Blob Bomb: Frost. At 10%, two trophies take about 20 kills on average, and going 20+ kills without one is unlucky but normal.

What You Can Craft with Drake Drops

These are every recipe that uses a Drake drop, so you know how many to farm. Remember each Drake gives exactly one Freeze Gland, so a Frostner alone costs five kills.

The Drake Helmet and Wolf Armor Set

The Drake Helmet is arguably the coolest-looking helmet in the game, its horns sweeping backward rather than out to the sides. It is light, with no movement penalty, making it one of the lightest helmets of its tier.

The full set

At quality 1 the Wolf Armor set gives 61 armor: 20 each from the Drake Helmet, Wolf Hide Chestpiece and Wolf Hide Trousers, plus 1 from the Wolf Fur Cape. The chestpiece and cape both grant Frost resistance, so you rarely need Frost Resistance Mead. Frost resistance does not stack between sources; one is enough.

Upgrading

Upgrades cost only Silver, never more trophies, a relief at a 10% drop rate. Costs escalate: 5, 10 and 15 Silver for qualities 2, 3 and 4 (22, 24 and 26 armor), so a maxed helmet takes 50 Silver in total including the craft.

Drakes and Your Tamed Animals

Drakes are the number one killer of tamed animals in the Mountains. If you tame Wolves there, Drakes attack pens and pits from above with frost breath. Walls are not enough: roof every pen, pit and breeding area.

Build a bunker

Dig a pit into the rock, hollow it out and roof it. It survives both Drake breath and Stone Golem attacks. For large breeding operations, keep a backup pair in a separate shelter; losing a 2-star Wolf to a stray Drake happens to nearly everyone once.

Better: move them to the Meadows

Once tamed, walk your Wolves down to the nearest Meadows and pen them there, safe from Drakes, Stone Golems and other Mountain hazards. Tame in the Mountains, breed in the Meadows.

Drake Lore and Design History

According to developer Robin (Grimcore), Drakes were among the very first creatures made for Valheim. The team wanted a dragon boss in the Mountains and used Drakes to build foreboding: meet the young, and you might meet their mother later.

Design choices

• No legs: removed to set them apart from classic fantasy dragons, inspired by the wyvern-style dragons of the film Reign of Fire. They most resemble an amphiptere, a winged, legless dragon of myth, while Moder is closer to a giant wyvern.
• Blue, not red: Drakes were red in development, but red dragons that do not breathe fire felt wrong, so they turned blue to match their frost.
• The name Moder: it means "mother" in Swedish, which has long had players asking where the father is.