You won’t be able to find silver ore in Valheim without having the wishbone item equipped on your character. The wishbone is a boss item held by the third Forsaken adversary, Bonemass. You can find them in the Swamp. With the wishbone equipped, it makes locating silver ore far easier, and you can primarily locate it in the Mountains biome.
How to locate silver ore using the wishbone
Make sure you’ve defeated Bonemass. When you’ve done that, and acquire the wishbone, you can equip it. The wishbone takes up your special item slot, so you won’t be able to have that on your character at the same time as you have the belt, Megingjord.
Now, finding silver ore can be pretty tricky. You’ll have to take the wishbone with you to any of the Mountain biomes. These locations naturally cause freezing damage to your character. You’ll need to craft multiple frost resistance meads or craft a wolf fur cape, a lox cape, or a wolf fur chest plate not to take any damage while exploring these regions.
When you get close to any source of silver ore, your character will have small wisps of blue and green colors rotating around them. You’ll also hear a distinct whistling sound. All of this is coming from the wishbone, indicating you’re at a location that could contain silver ore. It won’t always. Sometimes, it’s buried Viking treasure, and you’ll dig until your find it, and when you do, it’ll go away.
But if you see these signs, make sure you have a pickaxe handy, and start digging into the ground. The pulsing green ad blue lights, and the whistling, will increase as you grow closer to the source. When you find it, it reads ‘silver vein’.