Guide to Sea of Thieves Emissaries
Ships of Fortune bring massive changes
The Ships of Fortune content update brings a new way to engage with Sea of Thieves. Trading Company Emissaries offer a large risk-reward system that builds on the original four Trading Companies and their voyages.
Below we explain a ship load of new details, including the Trading Companies’ expansion, Emissary Flags, Emissary Grade, Company Ledgers, and the new Reaper’s Bones trading company.
Trading Companies have expanded!
- The Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, and Merchant Alliance companies are now tracking reputation all the way to Rank 75, and Athena’s Fortune goes up to Rank 20
- As you level up beyond 50 in the original three trading companies, you can purchase parts of company themed Ship cosmetics at each interval of 5 Reputation Ranks, as well as an “outfit” from each company to help you roleplay as a representative. The outfit costs 68,300 Gold and is accessible only after you purchase that company’s Emissary Flag (more details below)
- Ranking up beyond 10 in Athena’s Fortune grants access to various Ghost cosmetic equipment skins, including the Ghost Weapons.
- Each company has new commendations, rewarding you for ranking up as an emissary, selling treasures as an emissary, and representing that company with their outfit and ship set as an emissary
NOTE: You still only need to reach level 50 in any three companies to become a Pirate Legend!
As you can imagine, leveling up beyond level 50 and beyond Athena level 10 will be a slow and time consuming process. Luckily, the new Emissary System allows you to progress your company reputation much faster than normally possible!
What is the Emissary System?
The Emissary System is a choice your crew can opt-in to in order to gain higher rewards at a higher risk. It involves in-session “Grades”, Flags, and a monthly Ledger, which we’ll discuss in complete detail below, but in a nut shell:
- Sailing as a Trading Company Emissary means representing that company, which gives higher rewards along with higher risks
- One member of the crew must have purchased that company’s Emissary License, and then each session the crew can vote to sail as that company’s Emissary at one of 5 company voting tables around the outposts.
- The longer you sail as an Emissary, you will build up a Grade that increases your gold and reputation gains for loot you sell
- You may hoard loot to sell it after you’ve reached a higher grade, but this increases your risk of losing it. On top of that, the cutthroat Reaper’s Bones company pays pirates to attack other Emissaries!
- Each company has a Ledger that tracks your earnings for that company like a scoreboard, and dispenses rewards each month based on where you placed compared to other players.
Becoming an Emissary
The Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, Merchant’s Alliance, Athena’s Fortune, and Reaper’s Bones trading companies each allow you to sail as an Emissary for their company. To do so, you must first be reputation level 15 or higher with that company (except for Athena’s Fortune and Reaper’s Bones), and make a one-time purchase of that company’s Emissary License (20,000 Gold each).
Once you (permanently) own a company’s Emissary License, you and any members of your crew can vote at that company’s Emissary Table, located near their usual location on the outpost. There are 5 Emissary Tables on every outpost, including one for the Reaper’s Bones company. As long as one member of your crew owns a company Emissary License, the entire crew can vote to represent that company and raise the Emissary Flag.
NOTE: When any ship on your server is sailing as an Emissary, a small wooden ship shows up on that company’s table. Check all the tables each time you log in to see what other players are doing!
What are Emissary Flags?
- When the crew has voted to raise an Emissary Flag, it appears mounted at the stern (rear) of the ship. It can only be raised or lowered at the Emissary Table on any outpost, and shows the logo of the company you represent, as well as a number of lines that circle the logo to denote your current Emissary Grade (more on that later).
- A new pennant will also appear streaming from the mast of the ship, showing the colors of the company you represent. This pennant is striped, and grows longer/shows more stripes as you increase your Grade as an Emissary throughout your session. Other crews can see how long your pennant is to know how long you’ve been sailing as an Emissary and how much treasure you may have aboard.
- IF YOUR SHIP SINKS your Emissary Flag will drop into the water as a physical loot item that can be carried. It can be sold to the Reaper’s Bones company (at the Reaper’s Hideout) for reputation- selling your own flag is worth very little, but a flag from another Emissary crew is worth a lot, and worth more the higher their Emissary Grade. After you sink you will no longer be an Emissary and will have lost all of your Grade, but you can begin fresh at any outpost.
- If you vote at an outpost to LOWER THE FLAG it is like formally “completing” your mission as an Emissary, and will earn you Gold and Reputation based on your Emissary Grade.
What is Emissary Grade?
When sailing as a company Emissary, a new icon appears above your health meter and on screen whenever you access your inventory. This denotes your current Emissary Grade, a measure of your commitment to that company within this session, as it resets between game sessions.
You can also physically see the Grade of your ship or any other Emissaries you encounter by looking at the number of lines encircling the Emissary Flag on the stern of the ship, and the number of stripes across the pennant flying from the masts.
Increasing Emissary Grade
Completing voyage tasks and collecting treasures for your company will increase your Grade, and a meter will fill up each time (you can also see the meter whenever you open your inventory). For example, defeating Skeleton Captains and picking up Skulls will increase the Grade of an Order of Souls Emissary, while completing steps of a Riddle and picking up Chests will increase the Grade of a Gold Hoarder Emissary.
Some tasks will increase the grade of ANY Emissary, like discovering Mermaid Gems. When you put relevant loot ON your ship, it also increases your grade slightly, but this increases the more treasure that you have, therefore rewarding you for hoarding treasure. You’ll also increase your Grade by defeating large threats like Forts or Krakens, or by defeating Reaper’s Bones Emissaries, who are trying to sink Emissaries like you! The higher Grades are progressively more time consuming to reach, but reaching Grade 5 is still doable within a single session.
Rewards for higher Grades?
Each company offers commendations for reaching higher Grades, but the primary reward is that Emissary Grade MULTIPLIES your gold and reputation for that company.
The higher your Emissary Grade, the greater your gold and reputation gets MULTIPLIED
If you’re a Grade 1 Company Emissary, you get 100% Gold and Reputation for any loot you sell to that company. Grade 2 earns 133%, Grade 3 earns 167%, Grade 4 earns 200%, and Grade 5 earns a whopping 250%! This means if you choose to hoard that treasure and wait until you’re a higher grade, you could eventually get two and a half TIMES as much reward for your loot than usual… or lose it all to the briny depths! No risk, no reward.
Grade 5 Emissary Voyages
If you make it all the way to Grade 5 in any company but the Reaper’s Bones (more on them below), you will receive a pop up stating that you can receive a special voyage from any of that company’s representatives. This is a high value voyage, like a lesser form of a “Gilded Voyage” which have been given away to players in the past.
When you speak to the company representative on any outpost, you can ask to receive the voyage in your Quest Wheel without needing to vote on or cancel any existing voyages. It also means you can’t pocket the voyage and hoard it for a future session.
Each of the four companies have their own Grade 5 Emissary Voyage:
- Gold Hoarders: 4 X Marks the Spot maps, each with 5 X’s
- Order of Souls: 4 Skeleton Bounty maps, each containing 4 Skeleton Captains
- Merchant Alliance: a single Cargo Run containing 25 pieces of various Cargo crates
- Athena’s Fortune Voyage: 2 chapters; The first chapter contains 3 maps: a Skeleton Bounty with 4 Captains, an X-Marks the Spot map with 5 X’s, and a 4-line Riddle Map.
The second chapter is an X Marks the Spot map with 2 X’s that may contain a Chest of Legends or Keg of Ancient Black Powder. All treasure dug up or dropped on these maps will be Athena Treasures instead of regular skulls/chests.
What are company Ledgers?
Each of these 5 trading companies have an emissary Ledger that tracks how much you’ve earned for that company as an Emissary (excluding profits from Alliances). This is a Leaderboard/Scoreboard, with prizes given out at the end of the calendar month to players depending on what “tier” or “bracket” they score in (bottom 25% of players, second 25% of players, third 25%, and top 25%). At the start of a month the Ledger is wiped clean, and rewards are automatically dispersed.
You can see the Ledger under each company’s Reputation menu, showing your current score, and the score of the top earning pirate in each “tier”. This is the score you’ll need to surpass to reach the next tier up, but this will change throughout the month as other pirates score higher. If you reach the top tier early on, you may fall back into lower tiers over time, and the score that matters is where you rank on the last day of the Calendar month!
You can also track the Leaderboard, here, in real time online at the official Sea of Thieves website
If this sounds stressful to you, don’t worry! Here are some facts that will calm you down:
- The prizes that are available for each company will never go away. More prizes are made available each in game Season that encourage you to reach the top prize tier again, but you won’t “miss out” on prizes — you can always catch up over time.
- It is not intended that a single pirate can get top tier in EVERY Trading Company in a single month, so do not stress about trying to maintain a high score in multiple companies. The prizes for other companies won’t go away, so just focus on as much at a time as you wish.
- Is reaching the top tier impossible when some players can play the game every day of the week? How can normal players keep up? The top tier consists of twenty five percent of the player base, and the most elite players may only make up the top 1%. The developers’ intentions are that reaching the top tier reward should be a very achievable thing to do when playing a healthy amount. The vast majority of players may spread their earnings out across companies or only engage with a company once per month, and they will bring down the average. If you are focused on this task it should not be impossible.
Ledger Rewards:
Placing in the bottom/fourth tier (bottom 25% of players) in any of the 5 company emissary ledgers won’t earn you anything, but as you progress to higher tiers for that company, you’ll earn rewards. Specifically, the next tier up earns a Title, while the further tiers above it earn increasingly better Titles. Additionally, the second tier earns an exclusive Cosmetic item to show off your accomplishment, while the top tier (top 25% of players) will earn an even grander Cosmetic item. Higher tiers ALSO earn the lesser rewards of the tiers below them.
New rewards are added to these tiers for each company every Season, and they go to the “back of the line” of the rewards that have existed previously. Each time you place in a Tier, you earn the reward that is at the “front of the line”, and have to place in that Tier again in a subsequent month to earn the newly added rewards that are “in line” behind it.
When placing in a tier, you also earn all the next available rewards in the tiers below it, as so:
- Top Tier (top 25% of players)— The “next in line” Top Tier Cosmetic, Top Tier Title, and the Second Tier and Third Tier Rewards
- Second Tier (next 25%)— The “next in line” Second Tier Cosmetic, Second Tier Title, and the Third Tier Rewards
- Third Tier (third 25%)— The “next in line” Third Tier Title
The new Reaper’s Bones Trading Company
The “Reaper’s Hideout” near the center of the map has evolved into a PvP hotspot, where you can sell treasure for higher rewards and higher risk. This concept has finally reached its peak with the introduction of the new Reaper’s Bones Trading Company, a full fledged reputation company that rewards you for stealing treasure and sinking ships. You can read a lot more detail about the Reaper’s Bones here
Reaper’s Bones Emissaries
As you’d expect, sailing as an Emissary for the Reaper’s Bones is optional, and allows you to apply an increasing “multiplier” to your reputation and gold earnings from that company. But there are some twists:
- Whenever you sail as a Reaper’s Bones Emissary, you are afflicted with the Reaper’s Mark. This will mark your location and Emissary Grade on every other ship’s map table.
- Reaching Grade 5 of the Reaper’s Bones does not reward you with a voyage. Instead, a Grade 5 Reaper’s Bones Emissary gains the ability to see every OTHER Emissary on their map table. Happy hunting!
- You can increase your Reaper’s Bones Emissary Grade by killing other pirates in combat, gathering treasure (worth a little), and taking stolen treasure (worth a lot more). However, if you “spawn kill” a pirate repeatedly it will stop increasing your Grade. Stealing Emissary Flags (which drop from Emissary Ships after they are SUNK) increases Grade the fastest
Phew! That was a lot of info, but now you’ve got everything you need to be an Emissary expert. By choosing to be an Emissary, you can progress through the trading companies faster with multiplied reputation and gold gains, but at the cost of hoarding your treasure and risking losing it to a pesky Reaper’s Bones pirate. You can even work your way up company Ledgers each calendar month, providing a goal long after you’ve maxed out the newly expanded Reputation ranks. Keep your eye on the horizon to spot other Emissaries, and you may just be able to better identify friends and foes, bringing a new layer of interaction on the seas!
For more detail on the vicious new Reaper’s Bones Trading Company, click here
For a full rundown of Every New Feature in the Ships of Fortune update, click here
