What does the wishbone do in Valheim? If you’ve just defeated the bonemass boss in Valheim, and now have a shiny new wishbone to play with, well, it’s on to the next biome – mountains!
To brave the mountains, you’re going to need a lot of frost resistance potions at first, so be sure to check out our Valheim fermenter guide on how to create these. Without frost resistance you’ll slowly freeze to death only wolf Valheim armour – specifically chest armour or the wolf fur cape – can keep you warm enough. However, to get wolf armour, you need to start mining silver. That’s where the wishbone comes in.
Wishbones detect silver veins in the mountains which are hidden underground. You need an iron pickaxe to mine this precious metal, so check out how to mine for iron in Valheim – spoiler, it’s not a fun job. Wishbones also detect hidden treasure buried in any biome, but we’ve found them mostly in open meadows. Here’s how to use a wishbone in Valheim to unearth loot and find silver.
Using a Valheim wishbone
You need to equip a wishbone, so it’ll take up an accessory slot, which is annoying for mining if you need the Megingjord to ferry back plenty of silver. It’s easy to switch, however, and we recommend keeping both on you for whatever the adventure calls for.
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When the wishbone is equipped, it’ll start flashing (pale blue sparks will emanate from you) and the closer you get to the buried treasure or silver, the faster the wishbone will flash, accompanied by a pinging noise. You’re looking for a fast, high pitched frequency before you start digging. Silver can be deep under the surface, and usually forms long, branching veins. The wishbone will stop pinging when all the silver is uncovered, but there may be some silver still unmined, so keep an eye out. For efficiency’s sake, you may want to use a regular pickaxe to expose the vein before using your iron pickaxe to harvest it.
Buried treasure is typically even deeper underground than silver. Wishbones also detect muddy scrap piles hidden in the ground, which will allow you to harvest scrap iron without venturing into those spooky crypts.
And that’s how you use a wishbone in Valheim. For all upcoming updates, here’s the Valheim roadmap, which plans to add more recipes, biomes, and more.