First Ashlands landings usually end in ash. You think you’ll drop a portal and a couple of chests, then a geyser, lava blob, or vulture turns your foothold into a campfire. Skip that rite of passage.
The Beachhead Problem
The Ashlands isn’t just a hot biome — it’s a place where the environment actively hates your buildings. Wooden walls, floors, and roofs catch fire from ember rain, lava splashes, and any mob that exhales. Even stone, which doesn’t burn, can be melted by direct lava contact or pounded apart by the locals. It’s common to see players lose a longship full of iron before they can even place a stonecutter. The lesson is always the same: treat the first landing like a military insertion. Go in heavy, build fast, and assume nothing survives unless it’s made of stone or better.
The goal isn’t a base — it’s a beachhead. A tiny, fireproof box that holds a portal and a bed. If you get that up, you’ve won the first wave. Everything else can wait.
Prep Before You Leave the Boat
You can’t show up empty-handed and expect to scrounge. The Ashlands will give you grausten and flametal, but only after you have a stonecutter. The single most important thing to bring is iron. A stack of ten bars keeps you from having to sail home in disgrace.
Here’s a realistic packing list for a two-person landing party:
- 10 iron bars (stonecutter, forge, a stone door, maybe a spare)
- 6 copper bars (forge, if you want to repair)
- 20 wood (workbench, portal frame, a bed)
- 10 fine wood (portal)
- 2 surtling cores (portal)
- 10 greydwarf eyes (portal)
- 50 stone (immediate building while you harvest grausten)
- 10–20 core wood (for a bow, a pole, or a quick stake wall if you get desperate)
- Hoe, hammer, pickaxe
- A stack of the best food you can spare, fire resistance barley wine, and medium healing mead
- A stack of arrows (frost or silver work best, but anything will do)
- A spare portal set named “ASH” (or something short) so you can link it the moment the stonecutter hits the ground
If you’ve got leftover Black Marble from the Mistlands, bring it — it’s lighter than iron and laughs at lava. But most players won’t, so we’ll build with what’s available.
Which materials can actually survive?
| Material | Flammable | Lava / Heat Resistance | Durability | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood (all types) | Yes | None | Low | Turns to ash in seconds. Don’t use for anything structural. |
| Stone | No | Medium (lava damages over time) | High | Good for walls and floors, but direct lava will eventually break it. |
| Black Marble | No | High | Very High | Best choice if you have it. Needs a stonecutter. |
| Grausten | No | High | High | Native Ashlands material. Craftable with a stonecutter. Perfect for a quick beachhead. |
| Iron (reinforced beams) | No | Very High | Very High | Expensive and heavy, but indestructible for framing. Overkill for a first tent. |
Grausten is everywhere once you can break it. The trick is surviving long enough to mine it. That’s why you bring stone and iron to bootstrap.
Choosing Your Landing Spot
Sail along the coast during the day. The Ashlands looks moody, but you need to see the active threats. Watch for:
- Lava geysers that pulse fire every few seconds
- Spawners (the large, ribcage-like structures) that pump out Asksvin and vultures
- Packs of surtlings or Fallen Valkyries patrolling the shore
- Lava flows that slowly creep down the beach
You want a patch of black sand that’s at least 4×4 floor tiles wide, with a cliff or large rock behind it to block line of sight. If you see a spot that’s completely flat with no spawner in view and no lava spouts within 30 meters, mark it. Circle a few times, then commit. Don’t overthink it — the beach will get worse the longer you idle.
Beach the longship bow-first, but don’t smash it. A boat is a fragile mobile base, and the Ashlands’ ember rain can destroy it while you’re building. If you can, anchor just offshore and swim the last few meters with your hammer. That way the boat is slightly safer from ground mobs.
Fireproofing Your First Structure
This isn’t architecture. It’s a stone box. The sequence matters because every second you’re standing on the beach, a Valkyrie is drawing a bead on you.
- Drop a workbench. Place it immediately, even if it’s in the open. It prevents enemy spawns in a small radius.
- Place the stonecutter. Needs 2 iron, 4 stone, 10 wood. Snap it next to the workbench.
- Lay a 2×2 stone floor. This is your foundation. You can expand later, but 2×2 is enough for a portal, bed, and chest.
- Raise three stone walls. Leave the fourth side (facing away from threats, if possible) open for now. You’ll seal it with a door or a wall last.
- Drop the portal inside. Immediately name it to match the one you left at home. If you’re getting swarmed, just placing the portal is enough — you can activate it in a slit second.
- Build a stone roof. Use 2×2 stone roof pieces (26° or 45°). If you’ve already mined some grausten, you can use grausten roof pieces instead — they’re lighter and cheaper, but functionally identical for fire.
- Seal the last wall. Pop a stone door into the opening. A stone door costs 2 iron and 4 stone, but you can also just leave a hole and block it with a raised earth pillar if you’re short on iron.
- Inside, place a bed (8 wood) and a campfire (5 stone, 2 wood). The campfire doesn’t spread fire to stone, and it gives you a respawn point. If you have the materials, upgrade to a bonfire for more comfort and a bigger no-spawn radius.
The whole thing takes about 90 seconds if you’ve practiced. While you’re hammering, your partner can play goalie with a bow and fire resistance mead. If you’re solo, eat your best HP food, pop a fire resistance pot, and accept that you’ll probably die once. The bed and portal give you a foothold; from there, you can start mining grausten and expanding.
