Guide to Wayfinder Voyages and Treasure Vaults

Find the map pieces, get the key, crack the code

The Gold Hoarders have been stashing their loot in secret vaults across the Sea of Thieves, re-purposing them into their own personal gold caches. Now they’re paranoid that their Keys are in danger, and will send you on a brand new kind of voyage to retrieve them. Once you have the key though, there’s nothing stopping you from opening these vaults yourself…

These new voyages are a permanent addition to the Gold Hoarder Trading Company. We’ve broken down all the details of this exciting new voyage type so you can walk away with as much gold as you can carry.

Quick Overview

Here’s a bullet list of the way these new voyages work- keep reading below for more details about each step!

Wayfinder Voyages

• Using an enchanted compass called a Golden Wayfinder, locate torn fragments of an X-Marks the Spot treasure map. This map leads to a chest containing a Key to one of the Ancient Vaults
• You can sell this key to the Gold Hoarders, or use it yourself to get inside the designated vault…

Treasure Vaults

• Get as much loot as you can in a 3 minute time limit — when the door closes, it kills you.
• Extract Chests and Trinkets from around the vault and get them out,
  or retrieve piles of gold coins for an instant coin boost but no reputation, OR find medallions to help solve a vault puzzle to reveal the valuable new “Chest of Ancient Tributes”.

Wayfinder Voyages

This month only, any player can access free low-level Wayfinder Voyages from Larinna outside the outpost Taverns. Any player level 25 or higher with the Gold Hoarders will now permanently be able to buy these new voyages from Gold Hoarder tents, offering more variety on the path to maximizing Gold Hoarder reputation, and filling your pockets with treasure!

Step 1: Wayfinder Compass

• Instead of the usual maps and parchments, this voyage puts an enchanted compass in your voyage inventory
• The Golden Wayfinder Compass will spin around left to right, but hone in on a general direction you must sail. The closer you get, the less it will spin, allowing you to pinpoint an island to head to
• Once the compass begins spinning wildly in circles, the spot to DIG is beneath your feet.
• This will reveal a Torn Map Piece, which will be added to your Voyage Inventory

NOTE: Every time you dig up a Torn Map Piece, there is a chance that a group of Gold Hoarder skeletons will attack. These skeletons are relatively weak, and each have a chance of dropping a gold trinket when defeated!

Step 2: Torn Map Pieces

• The Torn Map will eventually lead you to an island with 1 X-Marks the Spot containing the Vault Key you seek. The Map may be torn between 3–8 pieces though!
• After retrieving one Map Piece, the Wayfinder Compass will now redirect towards the next Map Piece.
• If you have any piece of the Map, you MIGHT be able to recognize the island and the spot to dig, but most likely you will need to retrieve several pieces of the map.

NOTE: If you can figure out the X-Marks the Spot early without every Map Piece, you can skip straight to digging up the Vault Key chest. Keep in mind that each Map Piece you skip may have rewarded gold trinkets from defeating its skeletons

A Torn Map after 3 Pieces have been retrieved

Step 3: The Vault Key Chest

• Once you dig up the chest containing the Vault Key, the voyage will be complete and the Wayfinder and Torn Map will disappear from your voyage inventory
• The Vault Key can be delivered back to the Gold Hoarders, and comes in three varieties of increasing value: Stone (~1500 gold), Silver (~2500 gold), and Gold (~3500 gold). The higher level your voyage, the more likely you’ll get a better value Key.
• The Vault Key is ALSO named after the island that contains the Vault it unlocks. You can even read a description that helps locate this Vault…

The Gold Hoarders wanted you to retrieve the Keys for them, but we are pirates after all… there’s much more fun (and treasure) to be had by opening the Vaults and seeing what’s inside…

The Treasure Vaults

Opening the Treasure Vaults

The title of a Vault Key will point you to the island that vault is located on, and you can read a description to find the specific location of this secret entrance on the island. You will find repeated symbols around this area corresponding to the shape of the Vault Key.

Locate the stone where the Key is inserted, and a wall of rock will move to reveal a passage. Inside, the Vault Door will slowly open, allowing you temporary access to the riches within…

The Treasures Inside:

A variety of treasures await players that greedily enter these Vaults, but you’ll be under a stiff 3 minute time limit before the door closes behind you, resulting in a quick death and being locked back out of the Vault.

NOTE: The value of regular loot and gold piles found in the vault correspond to the quality of Key you retrieved- Stone Keys have lower value vaults, Gold Keys have higher value vaults

1. Gold Hoarder Loot

Along the floors, platforms, and table, you’ll find Gold Hoarder chests and trinkets galore. If you want to keep these when that door closes up, you’ll want to carry them out into the hallway beyond the closing door!

2. Piles of Gold

Gold Coin piles litter the floors all over, and holding the action key will allow you to retrieve them one by one. This awards gold directly to your bank, without any risk taken to deliver anything. It doesn’t reward any reputation however!

3. Chest of Ancient Tributes puzzle…

• A locked compartment within the vault contains the new “Chest of Ancient Tributes”.
• It requires spinning the four puzzle blocks to the right puzzle answer, and pressing the button located on the table.
• Finding hidden medallions and inserting them into the table will activate hints that giveaway the puzzle block solutions one by one! These can be tricky to locate but are marked by a white glint of light

The Chest of Ancient Tributes sells for 3k-4k gold, and is tied to Gold Hoarder commendations and unlocking exclusive sails! More details on these below

Inserting the Medallion into the front of the table revealed the Skull Symbol for the first Block

Block Puzzle Hint

There are four blocks you must rotate to the correct images in order to open the secret compartment in the vault, however there is one rule that will help speed this up:

The Fourth Block is always a picture containing the symbols from all three of the previous blocks

Knowing this, once you locate the three medallions, the fourth symbol becomes obvious

In fact, with just two medallions and two blocks solved, you can usually narrow down the fourth block, which then narrows down the symbol on the third block.

Commendations and Cosmetics

Under the Gold Hoarder reputation tab, there are three new commendations to earn by doing the Wayfinder Voyages and Treasure Vaults.

Hoarder of Vault Keys- requires discovering Vault Keys (ie completing a Wayfinder Voyage)

Seeker of Ancient Vaults-* requires opening vaults with Vault Keys

Hoarder of Ancient Tributes-** requires delivering Chests of Ancient Tributes to the Gold Hoarders

The latter two commendations will unlock access to exclusive Sails once completed- the Ancient Vault Sails and Ancient Tribute Sails.

These new sails are not time limited

New Achievements

There are three new Achievements to earn through these new Voyages:

• We Don’t Need Maps- 15 Gamerscore
  Find a Vault Key using only 1 piece of Torn Map Parchment
• Golden Retriever- 25 Gamerscore
  Open three Treasure Vaults with gold vault keys
• No Mound Left Behind- 10 Gamerscore
  Pick up all the mounds of gold inside a Treasure Vault

Final Tips

• You can bring empty Collector’s Chests into Vaults to make it easier to grab a few small trinkets. Save the voyage’s chest when doing multiple quests back to back, to help gather trinkets throughout the voyage
• With one or more of your crew stuck in the closed Vault, you can still collect Piles of Gold for a short time before drowning in the rising waters
• If you steal a Vault Key from another crew, you can use it to open the vault yourself- but they might know where the vault is and try to ambush you there!

And that’s everything you need to know about the mystical new Gold Hoarder Voyages, and the contents of their forbidden Vaults. For more information about the new features of the Vaults of the Ancients Update, check out our Full Update Breakdown. For details on what new cosmetics have entered the game and which are time limited or discounted, check out our September’s Shopper’s Guide