Assassin’s Creed Valhalla River Raids Guide

Guide to the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla River Raids endgame gameplay feature. Learn what the river raids are and what secrets they hold!

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla allows you to sale to several custom and separate instances ofcalled River Raids in pursue of resources both new and old to upgrade your gear and settlement.

The raids also offer new loot in the form of a brand new gear set. This is an high power level feature and is intended to be played and replayed multiple times.

The river raids have a number of complex mechanics that make them unique, challenging, rewarding and fun at the same time. In this guide I will show and explain every detail and every trick you need to learn to be able to take full benefit of the River Raids in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla!

What are River Raids in AC Valhalla

River Raids in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are instances small maps with a river that flows left, right, splits and tumbles around. There are a number of smaller and bigger camps, farms, settlements, monasteries and military establishments along the shores.

The River Raids were released as a new feature in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla update 1.1.2, on February 16 2021. They are part of the Yule Festival event in the game. River Raids are free for all players who own the original game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. River Raids are a permanent addition to the game, not a temporary event.

The River Raids are intended for high power level players that have completed the story of the game and are looking to farm some resources, complete challenges and collect and upgrade every possible item in the game. They are a great addition to the EndGame.

Each map has a number of each and each map also hides unique rewards and secrets. More on these later, of course.

River Raids are more challenging than regular raids, but they reward you properly for your efforts with new gear, weapons and foreign supplies which you can use to build new buildings, upgrade them and trade with the newly arrived NPCs in your camp to get cool new visual appearances for your longship, recruit new jomsviking warrios to join your army and more.

There are a total of three rivers you can raid. Two of them are available as soon as you complete the intro mission with Varn. The third one is unlocked by exploring the first two and finding clues. More on these later.

How to unlock the River Raids in AC Valhalla

To unlock the River Raids you need to be Power level ~130 or higher. You also need to have the game updated to patch 1.1.2 or higher version. The quest “A River to Raid”will pop up in your quest log automatically when you qualify for this gameplay feature. It all starts in your Settlement Ravensthorpe. To be able to pla ythe River raids you need to build the Barracks building and hire jomsviking by talking to the NPC at the barracks.

Head to the old dock. There you will find a jomsviking by the name of Varn. He is the NPC that will introduce you to the river raids. He will also take you on your first river raid along the river Exe, which will also serve as a tutorial for this new gameplay feature.

Varn will offer you to build a new building on the old dock, called River Raid Dock. This happens also automatically and free of charge right after you finish your first conversation with him.

To learn more about all buildings in Ravensthorpe, check out the Beginners guide to your Settlement in AC Valhalla.

River Raids Maps Overview

River Exe and River Severn maps are the two on the southern side of the image below. The third map a little to the north is the River Dee and is unlocked after you explore the first two for clues. More about the Clues in the Saint George’s quest walkthrough further down in this guide.

The three maps have different layouts, but they are identical in terms of actions, mechanics, secrets and gameplay behavior on them.

The maps have a number of settlement you can raid and a few key locations where you can expect defensive establishments such as river blockades, ambushes and chains.

Each of the three maps drops two of the pieces of the new Saint George’s set. The items are random loot from the large chests. Also each of the maps has one clue for the map that Varn will complete for you once you bring him the clues.

Another similarity are the buildings. They may be located in different places on the maps, but most of the buildings are the same in terms of layout. The chests, keys, rations – all are on the same exact spots for each type of settlement. Speaking of settlements, there are the following types:

• Civil settlements – farms and villages. Usually contain small chests and large ration chests.
• Military establishments – large camps and forts contain usually large supply chests and some small ones.

Talk to Varn to start a river raid.

The River Exe Raid Map Overview

There are in total fourteen locations available for raiding on the river Exe map:

• Keats Farm
• Twynam Farm
• Yeardley Farm
• Village of Simonsbath
• Village of Dumonia
• 5x Small Camps
• Eastern Fortification
• Western Fortification
• Escanceaster Monastery
• Fortress of Exe

The River Severn Raid Map Overview

The river Severn has seventeen locations you can raid along its shores. They are as follows:

• Wyther Farm
• Lewin Homestead
• Smithe Homestead
• Fishing Docks
• Caersws
• Llanidloes
• Lowlands Camp
• 4x Small Camps
• 2x Island Camps
• Eastern Fortification
• Northern Monastery
• Island Monastery
• Severn Outpost

The River Dee Raid Map Overview

There are seventeen locations you can raid on this river:

• Rhuabon Village
• Crowder’s Hut
• Ery’s Island
• Erbistock
• Deebury
• Goodwinlee
• Bunce Hideway
• Cliffside Monastery
• Riverside Monastery
• 3x Small Camps
• Staging Camp
• Hillview Outpost
• Forward Camp
• Logging Camp
• Deva Victrix

Your first River Raid with Varn

Varn will take you with his own crew of jomsviking warriors to your first river raid to introduce you to the mechanic. While raiding the river Exe you will learn the basics of the river raids. This first quest is called “A River to Raid”.

The first and most important thing to remember is that there is no save option during the raids. If you are defeated, you lose all of your progress and loot obtained up to this point.

The first raid is no different than any other raid that follows. It takes place along the shores of the river Exe in England and this is a brand new location on a separate map that you will be exploring.

You start always at the bottom right and follow the river. Along on the left and right shores you will encounter the traditional for AC Valhalla yellow markers signifying raid-able locations.

There are small camps, farms, military encampments and monastery on this map. You can stop to raid any location of your choice. You do not need to complete them all in one go.

The objective of your first river raid is simple and quick. You need to collect a big ration chest first. You can find these usually in civilian locations such as farms for example. You can find one in the very first settlement – Keats Farm.

Return to the ship and follow the river to the next raid location. Your next objective will be to collect two foreign supplies from foreign supply chests. These are usually found in miliraty camps and forts as well as in and around monasteries.

This concludes the objectives for your tutorial quest. You can now return to the Settlement to talk to Varn or continue to raid the other locations along the river.

My suggestion – return to complete the quest. There is no point raiding all locations on your very first run. It doesn’t hurt to try and do it, though. You might find some secrets that you will learn about anyway sooner or later. They will still be there when you visit the river next time.

Further down this guide I have a dedicated section explaining all of the gameplay secrets and little details about how the River Raids work and what you need to know while doing them. For now, let’s continue with the walkthrough – next up – building the Jomsviking Hall in your Settlement.

The Jomsviking Hall Building

Once you return from the first river raid, you will have to talk to Varn. He will update your “A River to Raid” quest with a new objective – build a hall for the Jomsvikings.

This building will allow you to recruit new Jomsviking warriors for your army. Each time you visit the Hall there will be a few NPCs waiting for you to take them on a journey. They all belong to random other players. Recruiting other Jomsviking is part of one of AC Valhalla’s Challenges.

If you want to see fresh new recruits, ring the bell that is just outside the Jomsviking Hall and the existing NPCs will be replaced by new ones. This mechanic only changes the appearance of the jomsvikings. Their ranks depend on the level of the building.

You can upgrade the Jomsviking Hall using the new resources available from the River Raids, called “foreign supplies”. This will attract the attention of higher ranks Jomsvikings to your settlement. To get rank 2 and 3 recruits you need to upgrade the Hall twice for a total amount of 800 foreign supplies to get it to an “Expansion” type of a building.

The Rank 2 recruits will cost 110 Silver to hire and Rank 3 cost 120. You will need to hit the bell outside first to refresh the old Rank 1 soldiers with Rank 2 ones. Your own jomsvikings don’t level up automatically, so if you want to get a full crew of Rank 2s, you will need to hire eight new guys.

Your Jomsviking lieutenant can rank up from raiding with you. Each River Raid completed with your Jomsviking, will increase their Rank.

Higher rank jomsvikings fight better and have more slots for rations that they can stack up. Rank 2 soldiers have two ration slots. Rank 3 soldiers have three ration slots.

Varn’s River Raid Dock Shop

After the first raid Varn will also open up his shop at the River Raid Dock and here you will be able to customize your longship (which is different than your Drakkar ship you already have.

Varn is the NPC that will start new raids for you. Here you can also choose which river to raid next, how to customize your ship

The Longship can be customized with the same items that you purchase from the Ubisoft Store, the in-game shops or earn through completing quests and challenges.

The Longship can also be upgraded. It initially can only carry up to 200 foreign supplies. You can upgrade the longship to level 3 and increase this capacity. Each upgrade costs you foreign supplies, though. So do that when you can spare some of the new resources and be sure you will continue to play the river raids to make this upgrades worth their price.

The first upgrade costs 450 foreign supplies and adds an additional 100 to the total capacity of foreign supplies you can carry, the second one costs 750 foreign supplies.

How the River Raids work

There are three rivers available for the River Raids in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The third river is unlocked after you find the two Sent George Clues and bring them to Varn. There are a few complex mechanics involved in raiding them

Selecting Jomsvikings Crew

You will have a group of eight Jomsviking warriors that you can take with you on these river raids. Each Jomsviking can be overviewed and replaced if you decide before you start a river raid.

How to check Jomsvikings Status during River Raids

Each of your warriors can also stack up their own rations. When they drop to critical health, they will use up one of their own rations to restore their HP.

You can monitor your Jomsvikings’ status in a new menu. To open it up press “G” (on PC).

At the top left you see the River Raid Status. After each raided locations the alert status of the remaining locations along that river will become more and more alert. This means that there will be more soldiers and better defenses waiting for you there.

On the left side are your jomsvikings with their health bars. Below each one are the rations symbols.

On the right side you see the traditional circular menu. For the river raids it there are two new icons added to it. The marked one on the image above is the “End Raid” button. Selecting this will cancel the raid and bring you back out in the open world. The one above it, that looks like your Settlement icon, will take you back to Ravensthorpe and also complete the raid.

The river raid alert indicator is also available in the bottom right corner of your map:

In this black panel you will also see the number of River map clues and Gear and Weapons discovered. More on these later!

Each river offers a number of raid-able locations. The items you will find in each one of them depend on the type of encampment or settlement:

Keeping the jomsvikings alive

If a Jomsviking is defeated on the battlefield, they will appear with a bright red circular icon above their head and a timer scale. If you want to save them, you will need to run to the fallen warrior and heal them up. Note that healing one jomsviking requires one of your rations. If you don’t have any rations, you cannot heal them.

Failing to resurrect a fallen crew member will result in them going back to your settlement to heal their wounds. This will leave your crew with one warrior less for the remainder of the raid.

When a jomsviking warrior is defeated and return to Ravensthorpe, they will be marked with a red background (see image below). You will also get a notification in the top left corner of the screen as it happens.

When the jomsviking gets wounded and taken out of the raid, they will need to sit out the next raid. A red text will tell you the cooldown they need before you can take them raiding the rivers again.

Food and adrenaline resources in the River Raids

Around the raids there are always flowers, mushrooms and food to pick up, so you will hardly ever find yourself without rations.

Big Rations Chests

These give one ration to you and each Jomsviking warrior in your crew. They can be found usually in civil settlements such as the small farms. Each of these chests will grant you and each of your crew members +1 ration.

Foreign Cargo Chests

They are found in military establishments and monasteries and offer foreign supplies resources. Opening them will grant you +50 foreign supplies.

Both types of chests are large ones and you will need help from a fellow jomsviking to open them – just like the big chests in the regular raids in England.

To find the big chests that require two people to open, you can some times rely on the white circular icon. This one appears when a crew member has found a large chest and is asking for your help.

Smaller chests

These contain some of the more traditional resources like Ore, Leather, some times Runes as well. You can open these chests on your own.

Locked Chests and River Raid Keys

Some times you will need a River Raid key for these chests. Any River Raid Key can open any locked chest located in the river raids. The keys remain in you between river raids if you haven’t used them to unlock chests.

River Raids Reinforcements

Every time you complete a raid location, the alert level of the river will rise up.

River Defense Level

The game itself will tip you off on that as well. It is not a good idea to raid the same river over and over again. If you complete a raid on one river, make your next raid on the other river.

After you raid a river, for a certain period of time the river will have a much more serious and well established defenses such as chains and ambushes that will not only slow you down while you sail from one raid spot to the next, but the stronger NPCs will present a bigger challenge for you to overcome at no real benefit other than earning more XP from more enemies defeated.

If a river raid is marked as heavily defended, raiding another river will result in the first one dropping down to “moderately defended”. Need more testing to discover all of the relations.

Remember, if you fall, you lose all of your progress and will have to return to your last save file, which is certainly before this raid, since no save is allowed during river raids.

To see a river raid’s current alert status, open Varn’s map and hover over the raid location to see the pop-up info panel.

Completed Raids notifications

When you open up and loot the big chests in a raid location, that location will be marked as completed. This doesn’t mean you are done, though. There are almost always small chests in each area that are worth opening as well, so be on the look out and don’t blindly trust the system when it tells you to move on to the next location.

At the end of a river raid you will get a short summary of the treasures you have collected. Note that the general resources that are available also outside of these raids are not listed here.

The locations alongside the river that you have raided already will remain burned for a few raids and then will get rebuilt and can be raided again. This is the repeatability factor Ubisoft was boasting about when they first teased the River Raids feature.

The Legend of Saint George quest

This is a separate quest that unlocks inside the river raids. You can start it by either finding a piece of the gear that belonged to Saint George or by finding one of the clues for it.

Saint George’s set

The armor related to the Saint George quest is called “Saint George’s set” and consists of five armor pieces, a sword and a shield. Two of them are located in the River Exe raid and another two in the River Severn raid. The remaining two are in the third raid you unlock after exploring the first two.

Below I have a quick overview and instructions on how to find and pick up all seven items from this set, but if you prefer, you can check out the full guide on how to get Saint George’s Gear Set.

The set contains the following items:

• Saint George’s Cape – found in River Exe Raid
• Saint George’s Helm – found in River Dee Raid
• Saint George’s Armor – found in River Dee Raid
• Saint George’s Bracers – found in River Severn Raid
• Saint George’s Troursers – found in River Exe Raid
• Saint George’s Tower Shield – found in River Severn Raid
• Saint George’s Holy Sword – found in River Dee, after defeating the Champion

The items’ locations are random spawn inside one of the large chests in the large military establishments.

The set is paired well with the Bear skill tree. The set bonus of this set is:

• (2 pieces) Increase Attack after impaling an enemy. you can impale enemies with a Great-Sword heavy attack finisher or a Spear Special left-handed attack.
  Duration: 10s
  Bonus: +30.0 Attack
• (5 pieces) Additional increase to Speed
  Bonus: unknown (bugged)

The final piece of the set is the Holy Sword of Saint George. It is a reward for defeating the Champion in Deva Victrix fort to the far north on the map.

The NPC is in the main hall of the castle at the far top end of the complex. It’s a mini-boss fight without any exclusive or special unseen before mechanics to note.

If you want to find more cool items like these, check out the complete AC Valhalla Legendary Weapons Locations Guide. And take a look at the complete collection of AC Valhalla Armor Sets here on VULKK.com.

Where to find the Saint George’s Clues

The clues are for the quest “The Legacy of Saint George”. During the first two raids you will have one monastery on each of the two rivers. Explore these monasteries to find the clues to the third river raid map location.

You will find the first clue in the Escanceaster Monastery on the river Exe. It’s on a table in the main building of the complex.

The second clue is in the Northern Monastery on the rver Severn’s shores. It lies on a table in the adjacent room to the main hall of the main building in the complex.

Once you have both clues, bring them to Varn in your Settlement. He will then give you the location of the third river raid and you will be able to raid it.

As soon as you return to your Settlement from the river raid, a cinematic will trigger in which Varn will tell you that thanks to the two clues you brought, he was able to draw the location of the third river raid – River Dee – on your map.

This conversation gives you two new quests:

• Treasures of River Dee – find the last two pieces of Saint George’s set
• The Sword of Saint George – find and defeat the champion to claim the sword.

Difference in the river raids between gameplay difficulties

The river raids are not affected much by changing the difficulty of the game. Same as the normal game the only difference is the level of challenge and XP earned. The rewards from the chests are the same. The number of enemies are the same, the mechanics are the same.

Tips on how to play the River Raids in AC Valhalla

There is no right or wrong way to approach the river raids. There are, however, a few tips and strategies I would like to share with you that may help you save yourself some time, some effort and increase your productivity.

First, spend the foreign currency you loot to upgrade your Jomsviking Hall. After the two upgrades you will be able to recruit Rank 3 warriors. They have three Health Rations and are generally better and stronger.

Also upgrade the Longship at Varn’s shop. Each of the two available upgrades will increase the total capacity of foreign supplies you can carry during a raid with +100. The initial capacity limit of 200 is too low and you want to spend more time in the river raids rather than going in and out.

I can’t tell if the gameplay difficulty level actually matters, but if you have the experience, the level and the player skills, I highly recommend you turn up the difficulty. On lower difficulties you constantly have to click on the graphic that appears on the screen for assassinations where as on highest difficulty I hardly see it.

Also the jomsvikings seem to be more “focused” on higher difficulties and don’t do stupid things, so you’d have to constantly follow them and save their skins. This last one might be a result of me simply being more focused when playing on highest difficulty, heh.

You will be often surrounded by multiple enemies and outnumbered. I personally love the speed of the pair of daggers and my current Fire Build works wonders. It’s very similar to the Assassin Hybrid Poison Build I shared with you a while ago, but instead of poison I use Fire. It’s cooler and less… toxic.

Choose the locations you want to raid properly. Don’t just do them randomly and don’t rush them. Your crew act silly often and wonder away to find trouble. Always make sure you have Rations for yourself and for your warriors when you need to get them up.

Raid a civil location first to get some ration reserves for your crew. Then head for a larger location to pick up some juicy loot for yourself and for your upgrades.

Each time you exit a river raid, the defenses will increase there and to lower them you have to do another river raid. If you have something specific you are after from a certain river, then just enter another river raid, then immediately exit it. This will trigger the defenses drop mechanic, because the game will be happy you spend 50 Silver and “did” another river raid.

After a few runs the river raids will refresh and Varn will let you know about that when you are on the map screen, choosing which river to raid next.

New Abilities and Skills

With the release of Patch 1.1.2 Ubisoft added six new skills and abilities. The skills you can pick up as you earn XP from completing quests and defeating enemy soldiers. The new abilities can be found in the new river raids.

There are six new Skills and three new Abilities added to the game with this patch.

New Abilities

The three new abilities are all available for picking up inside the river raids. They do not have a second tier for upgrade at the moment.

There are two melee and one ranged new abilities and they are as follows:

• Battle Cry - In a fit of rage, Eivor lets out a blood curdling scream, gaining strength and causing nearby enemies to stumble backwards in fear, interrupting their attacks. 
  Located in
• Shoulder Bash - Eivor performs a shoulder bash that pushes back enemies and destroys objects.
  Located in Island Monastery on the river Severn
• Berserker Trap – This attaches a trap to your arrow, spreading hallucinatory powder. Any nearby movement causes the trap to trigger. Surprise clueless passersby! 
  Located in Riverside Monastery on the river Exe

Check out the complete AC Valhalla Skills and Abilities Guide for full details on how to earn both the old and new ones.

New Skills

The new skills can be unlocked early on and there are six in total. Two for each skill tree. Here are their descriptions:

• Assassin Carry - Automatically carry a body after a successful assassination.
• Assassin Slide - Slide into enemies and knock them off balance while sprinting.
• Power Stroke - Trigger a speed boost on the long ship at the cost of stamina. 
• Arrow Looter - Eivor has a greater chance of looting arrows from archers. 
• Fight Ready - Always start a fight with an adrenaline-filled slot. 
• Long Ship Brace - When you are in command of the long ship, the crew will raise their shield with you. 

With the release of update 1.1.2 you can continue to add more Power levels if you were previously at the level cap of 400 and thus earn these new additional skills. You still gain two Skill Points per level as you did before 400.

Ragnar’s Legacy – new quest in 1.1.2

This doesn’t have anything to do with the River Raids, but is part of the same game update 1.1.2. When you first log in you will receive a new quest “The Lost Drengir of Ragnar Lothbrok. To get it, you need to first defeat all Six Lost Drengr warriors.

This is a simple and short quest that sends you to the pit with snakes where Ragnar meth his death. Ragnar’s legendary life and achievements may not all be true, but his ending was – dropped by one of the kings of England into a pit full of snakes.

A short cinematic plays out that shares Ragnar’s final words and after that you find something on the ground – Ragnar’s very own seax – Drengiligr.