Everything you need to know about the Festival of the Damned
Don’t be Afraid
Beginning with Patch 1.3.2 on October 31st, the Festival of the Damned is Sea of Thieves’ latest Bilge Rat Adventure.
This guide walks you through how to earn every Bilge Rat Commendation, Title, and Doubloon. Specific spoilers are at the very bottom so you can avoid them and still read about this Bilge Rat Adventure.
What are Bilge Rat Adventures?
Bilge Rat Adventures are mini-events within Sea of Thieves which present you a new set of challenges to complete called “Commendations”. These Commendations earn you Titles and Bilge Rat Doubloons. You can find all the commendations by opening the menu, navigating to Reputation, and selecting the Bilge Rat menu.
In every tavern, you will find Duke the Bilge Rat. By talking to him, you will learn more about the current Adventure, and you can open his Shop. Duke’s Shop ONLY accepts Doubloons, which you ONLY get by completing the Bilge Rat commendations. In his shop, you can purchase limited time cosmetics which are new with every Bilge Rat Adventure, or you can purchase gold or reputation levels of the game’s other experience factions.
Festival of the Damned
The Well of Fates
The main task of this the Festival of the Damned is to die. You read that correctly. Every time you die in Sea of Thieves, you’re temporarily sent to the Ferry of the Damned while you wait to respawn. The Festival is dedicated in honor of the Ferryman, who brings us back from the Sea of the Damned.
The Well of Fates is a new fixture on the Ferry, located in the center above a ghostly vent of damned spirits. Any time you die in 6 certain ways, you will be able to interact with the Well of Fates by lifting up your lantern and taking a flame from the Well. This Flame will be color coded depending on the way you died, and your lantern will remain that color when you respawn in the Sea of Thieves.
All of this adventure’s Commendations require you to use these different colored flames of fate.
Beacons of Fate
In each region, there are three Beacons of Fate located on random islands. By approaching these beacons with a Flame of Fate, when you lift your lantern you can transfer your flame to the Beacon, lighting it up and changing its color. This is required for some of the Commendations.
Ship Lanterns
You can also use your colored lantern to light the lanterns on your Ship in the same way as lighting a Beacon.
By doing this, you can “store” a color on one lantern of your ship, and therefore you won’t lose that color when you die. There are enough lanterns to do this with EVERY colored flame! Some commendations will require you to light the lanterns on your ship.
Commendations
There are 13 Commendations to earn, for a total of 160 Doubloons.
The Flame of Lost Seafarers, The Flame of Burning Hearts, The Flame of Cursed Bones, The Flame of Treacherous Weather, The Flame of the Viper, The Flame of Embattled Souls. (6 commendations, 5 Doubloons each)
The first six require you to simply take a different colored flame from the Well of Fates. This requires you to discover the six specific ways of dying that will trigger these different flames. The names of each commendation plus the icons depicted in the commendation menu give clues to these methods of dying, but I will fill you in down below in the Spoilers section if you don’t want to figure it out yourself.
Lightbringer of the Shores of Plenty, Lightbringer of the Ancient Isles, Lightbringer of the Wilds, Lightbringer of the Devil’s Roar. (4 commendations, 10 Doubloons each)
The next four commendations require you to light any beacon in each of the four different regions. There are three beacons in each region, and you can light them by lifting a lantern that contains a colored flame and pressing the tooltip that pops up.
Alliance of the Damned. (20 Doubloons)
You’ll need to form an alliance with another ship, and then within that alliance, every lantern on every ship must be lit to the same Flame of Fate color. I recommend sailing the seas with colorful lanterns as you search for allies, as this will attract those looking to complete this challenge.
Festival Party Boat (20 Doubloons)
Rather simple, just light five of the lanterns on your ship in different colors. There are 6 possible colors to gather, so you can even skip one method of dying while tackling this particular challenge.
Legend of the Damned (50 Doubloons)
The sole Legendary Commendation of this adventure, Legend of the Damned requires you to locate and light all 12 Beacons of Fate. Doing this will earn you 50 Doubloons and the Title “Legend of the Damned”. There are 3 Beacons per region located across random islands. Half the fun is searching for them, but if you don’t have time I’ll point out their locations at the bottom of this guide!
Rewards
Festival of the Damned Sails (Costs 40 Doubloons)
Festival of the Damned Lantern (Costs 10 Doubloons)
Skullface facepaint (10 Doubloons)
Ghostlight facepaint (10 Doubloons)
Fatefire facepaint (10 Doubloons)
Spoilers: Methods of Dying and Beacon Locations!
A big part of this Bilge Rat Adventure is taking the time to discover how the game wants you to die, and searching for the hidden location of each of the twelve Beacons of Fate. You may have more fun trying to figure these secrets out with your friends rather than reading it in a guide. But if you don’t have time and need a shortcut, I’ve posted all these spoilers below.
Flames of Fate
Flames of Lost Seafarers: Death by Shark Bite. Blue Flame
Flame of Burning Hearts: Death by Volcanic Rock. Red Flame
Flame of Cursed Bones: Death by Skeleton Attack (Cannon and Gunpowder included). Green Flame
Flame of Treacherous Weather: Death by Lightning Strike. White Flame
Flame of the Viper: Death by Snake Venom. Purple Flame
Flame of Embattled Souls: Death by enemy Player (Cannon and Gunpowder included). Pink Flame
NOTE: Any death that is seemingly of the player’s own fault, such as falling from a height, drowning, or blowing yourself up, do not produce a Flame of Fate. Additionally, being killed by the Megalodon or Kraken seemingly do not produce a Flame of Fate either.
TIP: When trying to do by a particular method, it helps to do some preliminary damage first. Whether you’re waiting for a shark bite, snake spit, or lightning strike, hurting yourself will make it more likely that the thing trying to kill you actually finishes you off. You can accomplish this by jumping from a height, such as crow’s nest, several times.
Beacons of Fate
Shores of Plenty: Smuggler’s Bay, Cannon Cove (must launch out of cannon onto peak), Mermaid’s Hideaway
Ancient Isles: Crook’s Hollow, Plunder Valley, Devil’s Ridge
The Wilds: Crooked Masts (must launch out of cannon onto one of the spires), Kraken’s Fall, Marauder’s Arch
Devil’s Roar: Ruby’s Fall, Fetcher’s Rest, Devil’s Thirst
