Spring has sprung in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and the denizens of Ravensthorpe are celebrating in style. Yes, Ostara is here! Not only has the festival grounds been reopened (which have been dormant since the Yule festival), but there are plenty of activities to take part in to earn exclusive loot.
Simply head over to Ravensthorpe to begin the festivities. Once you arrive, a cutscene should activate, which adds the festival activities to your quest log.
While some of the activities have returned from Yule, there are some minor changes, as well as some new quests to enjoy. So let’s break down the activities and rewards of the Ostara festival!
Let’s Get Festive
Norvid wants you to decorate Ravensthorpe for Ostara. Speak to Norvid to trigger this quest and he’ll give you 20 tokens just for speaking to him. Now all you have to do is walk around Ravensthorpe and change a few of the decorations. You can earn Ostara-themed decorations for your settlement, but you can switch to any decoration to complete this quest.
Once you’ve changed enough decorations, return to Norvid and he’ll reward you with 50 more festival tokens.
Egg Hunt
It wouldn’t be Easter — erm, Ostara — without an egg hunt, now would it? There are 15 baskets of eggs scattered across Ravensthorpe, and you must find them all. Some of them have clues, while others must be found without any clues at all. You can use Odin’s Sight, however.
Here are all six riddles:
- I. A symbol of conquerors, to greatness they aspired. It stands now in ruin, their rule long expired.
- II. Old, new, and some long since rotten. Here they lie gone, not forgotten.
- III. Music, merriment and mead abound. But keep your wits, there are eggs to be found.
- IV. With a thunderous roar I carve the land. Go over me and you’ll find yourself with a fall unplanned…
- V. Lay down your arms, your battles done. Drink and feast t’ill up comes the sun. A word to the wise, there is more than one.
- VI. Our door to travel and trade, it is vital to launch any raid.
Once you complete the Egg Hunt, Alwin will be available to fight in the Ostara Brawl and you’ll get 140 festival tokens.
If you need any help finding all of the eggs, you can check out my full Egg Hunt guide.
The May Queen
Mayda has been awarded the title of the May Queen. However, she hates the flower crown and wants one made out of a deadly predator. To keep her happy, you’ll have to go out into the woods and hunt a mysterious beast. Once you bring the monster down, you’ll fashion a crown from its, um… well, you’ll see.
Once you return to Mayda and watch the cutscene, you’ll be awarded with 140 festival tokens.
Spiritual Defense
This quest has you helping Alvis to protect the settlement from the evil spirits of the Spring Equinox. You must wait until nightfall to kick this one off. One it gets dark, go look for Alvis, and you’ll be given a list of tasks to do in order to make sure Ravensthorpe is protected.
The first step is to light eight bonfires around Ravensthorpe. And they really mean around. The fires are on the very outskirts of the settlement, and some of them are farther out than you’d expect. If you’re struggling with this one, use your raven to spot the fires for you.
After that, you must climb the hills overlooking the settlement and battle some spirits. This is the easy part.
Complete this quest and you’ll earn 140 festival tokens.
Viking Brawl
The brawl must have been popular during the Yuletide festival, because it’s back for Ostara. Talk to Sunniva outside of the fighting pit to get started.
Here, you must fistfight for several rounds, having a drink between every round (thereby getting more and more drunk as the match progresses). However, the rules have changed a bit since Yule. This time, you get tokens after every round. You can quit after any round to keep those tokens, or you can go another round and risk earning everything you’ve earned up to that point.
You earn ten tokens for each round. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see how many rounds there are this time as my game keeps crashing by the time I make it to the fifth round. The Yule festival had ten rounds, and I assume that’s the case here as well, but I can’t confirm it.
By participating in some of the other events, you’ll recruit new fighters, who will be tossed into your pool of potential opponents.
Braun’s Folly
Braun’s Folly is back. This is a simple drinking game where you have to drink three horns of mead before Braun does. For some reason, it feels easier than it did before, but maybe that’s just me.
For completing this, you’ll be awarded with 10 festival tokens. You’ll also come out of it kind of drunk.
Also note that there is a time-limited challenge for Ubisoft Connect to win a drinking game. If you best Braun here, you can go to the Ubisoft Connect menu and claim 25 XP and 5 Opals (you can only do this once, though you can challenge Braun as many times as you’d like).
Twirling Targets
Ah, my favorite.
Twirling Targets was where I made most of my festival tokens during Yule, so it’s become my go-to breadwinner. Since I couldn’t finish the brawl (due to constant game crashes), Twirling Targets was once again my pathway to festival riches.
This is a simple two-minute archery contest where you must shoot targets when they twirl to face you. Each target is worth a set amount of points, and you’ll be awarded tokens based on your final score. I believe 1,500 or better is considered a perfect score (it was 1,400 during Yule, I think), and a perfect score yields you 40 festival tokens.
This does feel a bit harder than it did last time, so here are some pointers from a Twirling Targets veteran:
- The faster you can clear all the targets facing you, the faster new targets will appear. This contest is as much about speed as it is about aim.
- Don’t draw back the bow until you’re aiming at a target. You aim slower when your bow is drawn.
- The yellow targets are a little hard to see because they blend in with the yellow trees in the background. Keep your eyes on these ones.
The first time you complete Twirling Targets, Thyra will be available as a potential opponent in the fighting pit. Good luck!
Ostara Festival awards
So what can you spend all these festival tokens on? Time-limited awards, of course!
To spend your tokens, simply talk to Norvid. If you want to buy absolutely everything, you’ll need to earn 1,000 tokens. That’s even more than you needed for the Yule items (which included an entire gear set), so this stuff is kind of spendy.
Let’s take a look at everything you can buy with those hard-earned tokens.
Colorful Raven
There’s no armor set to collect this time around, but we all know that the Colorful Raven is the Ostara festival’s true reward. This beautiful bird will brighten the breeze! According to the flavor text, this raven has “all the colors of the wind,” and it’s yours for 240 festival tokens.
Once you purchase the Colorful Raven, you can equip it by visiting a stable.
Settlement Cosmetics
There are nine cosmetic items you can purchase for Ravensthorpe. Here is the list (in the order they’re pictured above):
- Small Floral Arrangement Scheme
- Small Floral Shrine Scheme
- Small Hog Log Scheme
- Small Fairy Trap Scheme
- Mossy Faced Tree Scheme
- Powerful Tree Warrior Scheme
- Victorious Tree Warrior Scheme
- Tree Spear Warrior Scheme
- Tree Warrior Scheme
Each one of these costs 30 festival tokens, except for the Mossy Faced Tree Scheme, which costs 140. That means this whole category will cost you 380 festival tokens.
Tattoo Cosmetics
Usually I’m not crazy about tattoos in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but these ones are pretty nice. Here are the names of the tattoo schemes (in the order they’re laid out in the image above):
- Ostara Scheme (Arms)
- Ostara Scheme (Back)
- Ostara Scheme (Head)
- Ostara Scheme (Torso)
There are four tattoo schemes to buy, and each one costs 70 festival tokens, meaning this full category will run you 280 festival tokens.
Hair Cosmetics
Lastly, there are flower crown hairstyles in every hair color. Here they are, as shown in the image above:
- Flower Hair (Blond)
- Flower Hair (Light Brown)
- Floral Hair (Dark Brown)
- Floral Hair (Red)
- Flower Beard Scheme
There are five hairstyles here, and each one costs 20 festival tokens, meaning the whole set will run you 100 festival tokens.
A note about festival awards
So, one thing you may have noticed is that Ubisoft recently gave players the Godly Reward. This pile of loot includes a whole lot of the stuff you could have earned during the Yule festival for free. Will they do this again with Ostara? Who knows? But it is possible we’ll see some of these limited-time rewards pop up again at a later date.
A note about game crashes
I’ve referenced this a few times throughout this article, but with this festival, game crashes have gotten really bad. The game is not quite unplayable, but it’s pretty darn close. It seems like the game crashes any time the weather changes while I’m inside Ravensthorpe (and the weather has been changing frequently), though I’m not sure that’s exactly what’s causing it.
Still, these crashes made it really hard to enjoy the festival activities. I eventually gave up on Viking Brawl because I can’t get more than five rounds deep before my game crashes and resets the entire thing (which means I lose all my tokens as well).
I do hope this is fixed before the festival ends, but the Yule festival’s drunk glitch was never fixed until the event ended, so I’m not holding my breath.
