Halls of Oaths¶

The Halls of Oaths are dungeons you plan yourself. At a gate of the halls you lay room items on the board of the Book of the Halls, pack them into a map, enchant it with runes for map modifiers and launch it. The dungeon is built exactly as planned, and its final boss gives a pair of ascension points.

Gates and lobbies¶

Gates of the Halls of Oaths stand in the world. A gate's level is the level of the land around it: it sets the size of the board, the level of the enemies and the tier of the map. Use a gate to enter its lobby, or hold the alternative key (Shift) while using it for a lobby of your own.

A lobby with the book of the halls: build a map from room items and launch it

The lobby is a safe hall in the style of the gate's biome. It holds the Book of the Halls, the room merchant Hallvard Stone-Tally and the great door into the dungeon.

Hugin waits above the book with 5 hints:

• Rooms: The halls are built from rooms. Rooms drop from enemies, elites, dungeons and bosses, and the room merchant in the lobby sells them.
• The board: Lay rooms from your bag on the book's board: a stack is taken whole, each click lays one. A path must lead from the entrance to the top row. Into the top cell goes a boss room: whichever biome, that boss.
• Map and runes: Pack the board into a map. Runes give the map properties: danger and reward.
• Ascension: Ascension and the tier's points come only from the boss of the top cell. The tier follows the halls: the Black Forest and the Swamp are the first, the Mountains and the Plains the second, the Mistlands the third, the Ashlands the fourth.
• Boss rooms: The rooms of the biomes' bosses drop once that boss has been defeated in this world. Brenna, Geirrhafa, Zil and Thungr and Lord Reto are the halls' own bosses: their rooms drop in their lands from the start.

The Book of the Halls¶

The book lays a board of cells. The entrance is in the bottom row, and the final boss's cell is the only cell of the top row; the other cells are open or closed at random, and every board can be walked from the entrance to the cell under the boss. The number of open cells grows with the gate's level:

A map holds at most 24 rooms, its boss room included. The top cell takes only a boss room, of any biome, and a map can't be packed without one. Every room must connect to the entrance, and the shortest way from the entrance to the boss must be at least as long as shown.

Rooms go on open cells from your own bag: pick up a room and click a cell (a stack is taken whole, each click lays one). Right-click takes a room back to the bag, and dropping another room on it replaces it. Neighbouring rooms join by themselves: Dead end, Corridor, Corner, T-junction, Crossroads. When a room can't go on a cell or the board has a problem, the book says why. A new board returns the rooms on the old one to the bag.

Packing turns the placed rooms into a map in the book's cell: the rooms are spent, the plan no longer changes, and the map stays in its cell (it can't be taken out, moved or given away). Until it is launched, a packed map can be enchanted with runes for map modifiers.

Launching¶

The map is launched from the book. Every player within 30 m of whoever launches it goes in as one party: the great door rises and the party walks into the dungeon. The dungeon is built exactly as the rooms lie on the board, each room in the architecture and atmosphere of its biome, with enemies of its biome scaled to the gate's level. While the halls are open the map can't be changed; a new map can be launched once the last player is out and the door has come down.

Sealed fights¶

A fight room seals while its fight lasts and opens once it is cleared. Party members can always join a sealed room, and the fight grows for each one who comes in.

For one player a room holds 28 enemies in all, reinforcements included, with up to 18 alive at once, plus 2 elites. Each more player in the room adds 50% to both counts, one more elite for every 2 more players, and 30% health to every enemy (70% to bosses). A room never has more than 32 enemies alive at once.

Elites have 1 star, with a 35% chance of one more. The final boss has 2 more stars, plus those of Crowned Guardian; Rising Host adds its stars to every enemy.

The final boss¶

The boss room in the top cell sets the final boss: the boss of its biome at full size, in a tall arena of its biome at the top of the map. After the fight the ascension altar wakes in the arena and a portal leads back to the lobby. Boss rooms on other cells are extra boss fights with their own loot (see boss rooms).

Deaths¶

A player who falls in the halls respawns in their lobby, not at their bed, and their grave lies in the lobby; these halls stay closed to them for good. The run fails when every member of the party has fallen. With a single life, a death in the halls is not a real death: the character is not lost.

Ascension points¶

A map's final boss gives a pair of ascension points (2) for the map's tier, once per character for each tier: 8 points from the four tiers in all. A map's tier is its gate's tier, by the gate's level; gates below the first tier give none. The points are taken at the ascension altar, where you also choose your class: see Ascendancy. Under the launch button the book shows whether the map will give you points.

Only those who stood to the end take the pair: the party members still alive when the boss falls, and those who fell in the boss's own arena.

The room merchant¶

Hallvard Stone-Tally stands in the lobby and sells room items: 8 offers, drawn with the rooms' drop weights from the ordinary and boss rooms the gate's level reaches (a biome boss's room only once that boss has fallen in the world). Unique rooms are never for sale. His stock renews every 3 in-game days.

A Rune of Renewed Trade renews his stock at once: right-click it in the bag while his shop is open.

Data from Path of Valheiman 6.0.6, extracted 2026-11-09.