The Order of Souls Alliance in Sea of Thieves is all about taking out fleets of Skeleton ghost ships and killing heaps of Skeleton captain’s to obtain their skulls. This alliance is definitely a good one to fly under if you enjoy lots of combat and some pretty basic questing.
Flying Under the Order of Souls Emissary
First things first, head over to the Order of Souls house (you know, the creepy looking one that’s super glowy) and vote to fly the Order of Souls Emissary flag. You can do this by either purchasing the flag for yourself for 20,000 gold once you hit Order of Souls level 15, OR you’ll have to get a buddy to fly it for you if you can’t get it yet. Once you’ve got that up, you’ll be able to start leveling up the flag to reap a much greater reward when bringing in loot to the order. Each level of the emissary flag gives a bonus to loot gained, so hitting level 5 is typically something you want to do.
Now that you’re flying under the Order, the next thing you want to do is grab some Order of Souls quests to get you on your way! There are two types of quests to grab from the Order of Souls, either taking on a ghost ship fleet OR taking out skeleton captain’s. Both reward you with a good amount of skulls, and the fleet can often drop other good items such as Mermaid Gems.
Order of Souls Quests
Neither of these quests are particularly difficult UNLESS you’re taking on these quests in the Devil’s Roar, then you’re having to battle the environment alongside the enemies. But regardless of where you go, here are some quick guides to help you understand the Order of Souls quests better.
Hunting a Skeleton Crew
These quests are fairly straightforward, as all you need to do is slap down and vote for a skeleton crew hunt and away you go! The notes put into your quest inventory will tell you the exact island you need to sail to in order to find the crew, and it’s MOSTLY all smooth sailing from there. One thing to keep in mind is that the more skeleton on an island, the better. If you’re just starting out in the Order, you’ll probably get a lot of maps that you lead to ONE skeleton, instead of at least 2-4. In that case, you’ll end up working extra hard for your skulls, so here you have a choice:
- Just tough it out and kill em all
- get a higher Order of Souls level buddy to get better quests
The higher the level you are in the order, the more quests you’ll possibly receive, and the greater chance of getting a better amount of skeleton crew members on each island. If you’re just starting out and you want to play solo, you’ll just have to grind up the slow way (or try and tackle the ghost fleets instead).
The other thing to take into consideration is the enemy variety. These aren’t always going to be your lame generic skeletons that are easy to kill without some sort of catch (well… SOMETIMES it can be). You need to know that there are 3 main skeleton classes that require a bit more effort to kill, simply because they have mechanics to them.
Above, you’ll see three pictures of each of the skeleton types. Here’s how to kill them:
- Shadow Skeletons: If it’s daytime out, don’t worry about these guys because light is their weakness. If it’s DARK, however, you’ll need to use your lantern to get them out of their shadow form
- Golden Skeletons: These are definitely the most annoying. They’re ALWAYS tough as metal, so you can’t sword combo them, and they take a lot of damage, BUT, their weakness is water. Two buckets of water will slow them down for a bit so you can attack them better OR you can just lead them to water and they’ll walk right in.
- Seaweed Skeletons: These are exactly the OPPOSITE of what to do with Golden Skeletons. You want to keep these guys out of the water because it makes them stronger. However, they’re not hard as metal so you can slash combo away freely.
Each will drop a random skull when killed, which you can read about more about below (along with their value!)
Ghost Fleet
This quest might look intimidating, but it’s actually quite easy if you’re good at ship combat and hitting your cannon ball shots. Once you’ve accepted the quest, head to the designated location on your map to encounter the ghost fleet. They might look tough at the start, but you’ll soon realize that a mere 3 cannonballs will sink each one.
The ghost ships you DO need to worry about a bit more are the boss group ships, which take around 5, and then the BIG final boss which will run you about 10-20 cannonballs depending on the quest level. Now don’t worry, these are easily done even with 1-2 players on a sloop, as long as you know how to manage your ship, maneuver around the groups, you’ll do fine, just make sure you have a good amount of wood planks for repairs.
Skeleton Ships and Sunken Wrecks
Just like every other Alliance, the Order of Souls benefits a lot of taking advantage of these two things, quite possible more than both the others combined (at least in the Skeleton Ship regard). When sinking a Skeleton Ship, you have the chance of getting a GOOD number of skulls dropping from them, and not just the basic ones but skulls that fetch a far greater price, such as a Captain’s Skull.
When exploring a Sunken Ship, make sure to check EVERY deck, as it’s fairly easy to miss some of the objects scattered around. You can pretty much find any kind of treasure down there, including skulls, so it’s always worth the look.
For the skeleton sloops, they don’t take much more than a good 10-20 well placed canon shots, and the Galleons might be around 20-35 depending on how well you can land your cannon balls. It’s also great practice for ship combat for those not as experience, and will help you later on in the game when you’re being attacked by players. Also depends on your ship and crew size, as enemies will scale for difficulty.
Emissary Levels
Just like every other alliance, the Order of Souls Alliance flag can be upgraded to level 5, which will give the best bonuses to selling your items as possible. For your knowledge (and greed):
- Emissary Level 1: No Bonus
- Emissary Level 2: 33% Bonus
- Emissary Level 3: 66% Bonus
- Emissary Level 4: 100% Bonus
- Emissary Level 5: 150% Bonus
That’s right, when you have Emissary Level 5 you receive more than DOUBLE what the item is worth, so typically, unless you’re having a rough time with other players or the risk is getting too high, you wanna get to level 5.
Selling to the Order of Souls
After you’ve got your haul, it’s time to bring it back to the nearest safe outpost to sell it all away. You won’t always get the same exact amount for each skull, this is just to show some reference.
Skulls
Foul Bounty Skull
Gold +139
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s.
Disgraced Bounty Skull
Gold: +317
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s
Hateful Bounty Skull
Gold: +694
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s
Villainous Bounty Skull
Gold: +1393
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s
Ashen Skulls
Ashen Foul Bounty Skull
Gold + 273
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s in the Devil’s Roar
Ashen Disgraced Bounty Skull
Gold +439
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s in the Devil’s Roar
Ashen Hateful Bounty Skull
Gold +1392
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s in the Devil’s Roar
Ashen Villainous Bounty Skull
Gold +2712
Obtained through killing Skeleton Captain’s in the Devil’s Roar
Rare Skulls
Skeleton Captain's Skull
Gold + 1332
Obtained through sinking Skeleton Ships
Stronghold Skull
Gold + 6318
Obtained through either completing a Skeleton Stronghold or Fort of the Damned
Ashes Winds Skull
Gold +9000
Obtained through defeating the Ashen Winds Skeleton (Fire Tornado) event
Ghost Skulls
Skull of the Damned
Gold +1238
Obtained through sinking the Skeleton Ghost Fleet
Captain Skull of the Damned
Gold + 3105
Obtained through sinking the Skeleton Ghost Fleet
Lowering Emissary Flag or Getting the Emissary Quest
You’ve reach level 5 emissary in the Order of Souls, so now you can decide what you do next, either lower the flag to receive a cool 5,000 gold right there on the spot, not to mention a good chunk of reputation, or you can continue with them and grab the emissary quest from any Order Member, which gives you just a bunch of quests for free.
Either way, make sure that when you ARE done with your voyage with the Order of Souls, that you do lower the flag. Too many times have I had crewmates leave before the flag goes down, and there’s a lot to be gained in lowering the flag.
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