How to Trigger Raids and Events in Valheim

Valheim's random raid events — The forest is moving, A foul smell from the swamp, You are being hunted — are intentional combat puzzles that drop on your base based on which bosses you've killed and which biomes you're in. The event command lets you trigger any of them on demand, and stopevent ends one in progress.

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Trigger an event

event starts the named event immediately. The on-screen "X is happening" message fires, and the event's creatures begin spawning around you. The full list of IDs lives on the events reference.

Every event ID

Boss army events (the big ones)

Each unlocks after you kill the corresponding boss. Most last 90–150 seconds.

event army_eikthyr — "Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest." Greylings and necks. 90s. Full reference.
event army_theelder — "The forest is moving." Greydwarves, brutes, shamans. 120s.
event army_bonemass — "A foul smell from the swamp." Draugr and skeletons. 150s.
event army_moder — "A cold wind blows from the mountains." Fenring and wolves. 150s.
event army_goblin — "The horde is attacking." Fulings of all types. 120s.
event army_gjall — "What's up, Gjall!?" Gjall spawn over you. 90s. Mistlands only.
event army_seekers — "They sought you out." Seekers and seeker soldiers. 90s.

Creature-themed events

event foresttrolls — "The ground is shaking." Two trolls. 80s. Requires you to have killed a troll first (see global keys).
event blobs — "A foul smell from the swamp." Blobs and oozers. 120s.
event skeletons — "Skeleton Surprise." Skeleton wave. 120s.
event surtlings — "There's a smell of sulfur in the air." Surtlings spawn. 120s.
event wolves — "You are being hunted." Wolf pack. 120s.
event bats — "You stirred the cauldron." Bat swarm. 120s.

Stop an active event

stopevent immediately ends whatever event is running. The "X has ended" message fires, no further spawns happen, and creatures already spawned stay alive (use killenemies if you want them gone too).

Trigger a random event

randomevent picks one of the events you're currently eligible for and triggers it. Eligibility depends on your biome and which global keys are set — running it in a Black Forest after only killing Eikthyr can't pull "You are being hunted" because the wolf event needs defeated_bonemass.

Common workflows

Test base defenses

Building a new base and want to know if your walls survive a troll? Stand inside and:

Farm a specific drop from an event

Trolls drop Coins and Rugs more often during the troll event than in the wild — for trophy farming, you can also spawn creatures directly, but events spawn them in groups:

Skip an event you don't want

Loading into your base, raid alert fires immediately, children's bedtime in 10 minutes:

Cycle random events to roll a specific one

If you want a particular event but don't want to type its ID, keep rolling — but note this also subjects you to all the events you don't want:

randomevent
If it's not the one: stopevent, repeat.

Events vs spawning manually

Two ways to get enemies near you on command:

Spawn directly. spawn Troll 2 drops two trolls right where you are. Predictable, controllable, doesn't time out. Good for tests of specific scenarios.
Trigger an event. event foresttrolls respects natural event behavior — creatures path in from the edges, the message fires, the timer counts down, music shifts. Good for testing how your base handles a real-feeling raid.

For full creature-spawning details, see the spawn creatures guide.

Common gotchas

Event IDs use snake_case. event armybonemass doesn't work; it's event army_bonemass. The non-army events are single words: event blobs, event bats.
Biome matters for natural eligibility. The event command runs events regardless of biome, but their flavor and spawn behavior may look weird outside their intended biomes (e.g. event bats in Meadows still spawns bats, but they path strangely).
Events bypass global-key requirements. You can event army_seekers without having killed Yagluth, even though the event would never trigger naturally without that key.
Only one event runs at a time. Triggering a second event while one is active replaces the first.