V Rising Castle Heart: How to build a Castle and stop Heart decay

In the vampire survival game, V Rising, drinking the blood of your enemies and gathering materials to craft with are some of the most important components of the title. On top of this, you've also got a glorious gothic castle to build and take good care of while being a vampire badass; there's no rest for the wicked, after all.

Building your castle in V Rising is the easy part. As you progress from a measly vampire and develop your own empire, there'll be new structures to build, and a castle heart that you'll need to prevent from decaying. If your castle heart decays while you're out battling bosses or farming cotton, everything inside of your humble home then becomes free game to anyone looking to invade.

Now, with that being said, we're going to explain how you can build your first castle in V Rising and how to prevent castle heart decay from happening. With all this to hand, your humble abode will be nothing short of a palace... eventually.

How to build a castle in V Rising

When it comes to building a castle, you'll need to first reach Level 10 and have accepted the Lord of Shadows quest. Next, it's time to go about getting a castle heart and establishing your base - the quest will guide you through everything you need to do, but we've provided some pointers here, too.

• Collect resources and materials

Building your castle, and everything you need inside of it, requires a lot of resources. Before you start out building your castle, you'll want to have plenty of wood, stone, and Blood Essence so that you need not go farming for it halfway through building.

• Find a good base location

You'll want your castle to be placed in an area that keeps it away from prying eyes, but also doesn't situate you too far away from the action. You'll also need plenty of space to build and later, expand, your castle. So, be sure to choose your plot of land carefully. You can't change it later!

• Build your castle heart

You will start this by going into your build menu by pressing 'B'. First, build the castle heart; this will require 240 stone and 30 Blood Essence.

• Build your castle's foundations

Now, you'll need to continue by building your castle's foundations. Each foundation requires 20 stone and 2 Blood Essence, and these are the borders that you will place around your castle.

• Protect your castle with walls

With your base almost established, you now need to keep your castle protected from any invaders while you're building. You can build walls around your castle to deter enemies if you've got additional stone, plant fibre, and wood to hand.

Palisade Walls and Palisade Entrances will need 80 wood and 30 plant fibre, and a Palisade Gate requires 80 wood only.

• Craft a Mist Brazier to protect you while you build

Building walls can take some time, and daylight is also not your friend in V Rising. This is where the Mist Brazier comes in; build one and burn some bones. Each bone you burn will protect you for a little longer from the daylight, so you can continue to craft your castle.

• Place your coffin

One of the finishing touches that'll finally turn your castle into a home is to place a coffin and consider building some structures. Your coffin acts as a safe place to rest whenever you're AFK or offline, and structures will consist of various stations that aid with crafting, research, and more.

• Place important structures

As mentioned above, to turn this castle into the home of your empire, you'll need to craft and place a few important structures. Not only will they fill the place up, but these structures will help you create resources, craft new items, and research new ones.

First, we recommend building a Wooden Stash for 150 wood, and this will act as a chest to place your items in that you don't need while beyond the castle walls. Secondly, build a Sawmill using 400 wood and 80 stone, as you'll need the resources from this to create an even more important structure.

This 'more important' structure is a Workbench, which you'll need to craft new items or repair them. You can craft a Simple Workbench using 8 planks (which you will get from the Sawmill), 80 stone, and 120 animal hides.

• Use your Workbench

Last, but not least, use the Workbench to increase your Gear Level. Once it passes Level 15, you'll then be able to craft a Blood Altar.

• Place the Blood Altar

Once the Blood Altar is placed, your castle is complete, for now.

Finally, over time and as you gather more resources, you'll want to expand the size of your castle outwards so you can fit more structures inside (and live like vampire royalty, obviously).

How to stop castle heart decay in V Rising

If you're told that your castle is decaying in V Rising, it's bad news. This means that the home you put plenty of time into building is slowly crumbling, and sadly, it kind of is your fault. As your castle decays, the walls will crumble and some structures will not have enough power for you to use them, and if an enemy chooses to attack you, you're in trouble.

However, do not fear, as there's an easy solution to this problem that'll keep your castle intact and prevent invaders from prying.

Your V Rising castle will not decay as long as you are feeding your castle heart plenty of Blood Essence. You will easily collect Blood Essence throughout your vampire adventure as you slay living creatures and feed on them. To then feed your castle heart, approach it, and put the Blood Essence in your inventory in one of the castle heart's slots.

You'll need to keep on top of this and ensure your castle heart is always stocked up with Blood Essence to ensure that it doesn't decay or leave your vulnerable while you're AFK or offline.

How to upgrade your castle heart in V Rising

Your castle heart can also be upgraded, allowing you to fill it with more Blood Essence at a time so that you can depart from your castle for longer. Even later down the line, your castle might require that you power it with Greater Blood Essence if you wish to use certain structures.

Since it's hard to get your hands on, we explain the two main ways to craft Greater Blood Essence here.

How to move castle in V Rising

If you're looking to move your castle in its entirety, I unfortunately have bad news. Moving your castle or trying to relocate elsewhere isn't possible in V Rising. So, it's incredibly important to choose where you set up base carefully.

When it comes to some of the best base locations, you'll want to keep an eye out for a spot that is out of the way of main roads, clear of any nearby settlements, and isn't enroaching on another players space.

V Rising castle roof disappeared

It appears that for some players, there has been a glitch in which the roof of their castle disappears.

Yesterday on the V Rising Discord server, Jeremy Bearson, Community Manager at Stunlock Studios, did share that a patch was being issued to fix the issue that players were running into with their disappearing roofs. Although, it seems that the issue still isn't fixed for everyone in the server.

While players wait for the issue to be looked into once more, there is a temporary fix available to save yourself from becoming a victim to sunlight.

Basically, all you need to do is destroy and rebuild one of your castle's walls. This should grant you a roof once more, but only for a period of time. In the Discord server, some players have reported the wall lasting from a few hours to a day.

As you go about building your castle and expanding your empire, you're going to need a lot of crafting materials. Take a look at how to find iron, whetstone, and leather so that you're not underprepared for the build!