Ahoy me hearties,
With The Anniversary Update, Rare have introduced a wide range of new tools and features into the game while enriching the lore at the same time. There are a few very interesting hidden gems that you may have already discovered, where some of them refer to elements of the expanded universe and others could potentially tease the content to come in the future.
My little monkey and I set sail to investigate and discover all the little things Rare hid and bring them to you.
🔴 Be careful, there are spoilers for some Tall Tales!!
Merfolks
You might think that Merrick’s family is full of joy and love. Well, actually, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Serik, Merrick’s wife, spent a lot of time alone when Merrick hunted The Hungering One. Mad at him and lonely, one day she decided to swam off with a Merman.
Ah… Merfolks.
It is rumoured that they have since departed, most likely spooked by the Devil’s Shroud. Some even doubt they were really there but this shows once again that these tall tales and legends might be true.
However, this does not confirm that Grace (Captain Morrow) married their prince 👑
If anyone knows them well, it would be Mercia but no one knows where she is now. However, in one of her Journals, Briggsy said that she borrowed from the girl with the merfolk earrings, a map with a lot of new places beyond the Shroud. Tall tales say that the girl with the merfolk earrings is none other than Mercia, giving her the ability to understand the Merfolks language.
Perhaps Mercia is with the merpeople now, who knows?
Fountain of Youth
That being said, Serik also mentioned something very interesting about a magical Fountain of Youth beyond the Devil’s Shroud. The Shores of Gold are just a tiny bit of what the Shroud is hiding.
Let’s hope I find the map Briggsy borrowed and use the Shroudbreaker to uncover this fountain. I’ll bring back a barrelful of the Fountain of Youth to Serik.
Well, okay, I’d certainly be tempted to use it too…
The Fountain of Youth may either refer to Ponnce de León’s legend or a way for players to change their character’s appearance as stated by Rare studio director Craig Duncan for Eurogamer in 2018:
For example — and this isn’t a feature yet — we could have a fountain of youth in the game, where you could go to it and by interacting with it, it would make your character younger.
Rare’s Infinite Pirate Generator gives the flexibility to affect the way players character looks later in the game and in a Sea of Thieves way. The Fountain of Youth, Curses and Magic Potions are most likely the tools for that.
Skeleton Lord in disguise
Zharick and Emerick
Merrick and Serik are not the only complicated couple, in fact Zharick can’t stand her ex-husband Emerick anymore and believes that she has wasted the best years of her life with him. Emerick is obsessed with Jonah, a trader at a Sea Post, and he is convinced that he’s a Skeleton Lord in disguise. Apparently, Jonah would like to take over the Sea of Thieves with his undead army and poison our souls with his skeletal magic.
I don’t know if the sulfur smelling air of The Wilds intoxicated Emerick or if he is right, but we need to keep an eye on Jonah.
Giant winged creature
But I have to warn you about something else. Emerick told me there is also this giant winged creature living in the sea, capable to set fire to a fleet of ships!
Some kind of Dragon? Karen, Megan and those skellies would be the least of our worries if that turns out to be true…
The Grand Maritime Union
The Mysterious Stranger told me something very interesting when I asked him if he trusts the trading companies. He told me that he trusts them as long as they stick to the rules. Any new company is welcomed to the Sea of Thieves as long as nobody ever goes the way of the Grand Maritime Union.
Mike Chapman on Twitter / X
Rumours say that Merchant Alliance traders from the Sea of Thieves are former employees of this Grand Maritime Union.
Actually, Senior Trader Mollie had a very exciting story to tell (in the comic Sea of Thieves Origins #2: The Bonds of Union).
When she was a young girl, Mollie was working for the Grand Maritime Union. She managed with great perseverance to be respected and to get the best contracts signed. After several promotions, she was offered a contract to issue goods in Sea of Thieves, an unknown area for the Grand Maritime Union.
With a great fleet of big ships of two decks of cannons — where some could qualified them as Man’O’War — they adventured through the Devil’s Shroud. They soon discovered that this fog was extremely dangerous for large and high-speed vessels. Thanks to Mollie, her ship was the only one to arrive in The Shores of Plenty. After tasting the Sea of Thieves pirate’s life, she decided to launch her own trading company where she will not be run by men.
That being said, The Grand Maritime Union is still out there, as Mollie worries:
“Though, frankly, I am far more worried about the Grand Maritime Union. Some day they will find this place and they have more money and more men to throw at a problem than the whole of Sea of Thieves combined.” — Senior Trader Mollie.
At the moment, it looks like Mollie just got a partnership with Lesedi and the Sea Dogs but no one knows what they are up to.
Skeleton ‘Rune’ Language
Aye, Skeletons have their own runes and you can find in The Revenge of the Morningstar Tall Tale a little glossary to translate them!
In the tale, you need to crack the code of the riddles to find a skull and a chalice and place them on an altar to resurrect Graymarrow.
A couple of runes cover the two supports on the altar and if you translate them you get the following words:
- Skull & Chalice: most likely to indicate where the items should be placed to perform the ritual.
- Skeleton Lord,
- Flame Beach.
But what’s even more interesting is the fact that those same runes are covering a mysterious box you may have already found and brought back to Grace.
Yes, the Box of Wondrous Secrets!
This box is fully covered with the following runes: Flame, Heart, Beach, Skeleton, Lord.
I think at this point it’s quite obvious that this box belonged to Flameheart or contains something from this Skeleton Lord.
But why did the Gold Hoarder want this box so badly? The similarity between these runes on the box and the altar makes me fear the worst…
Could the content of the Box of Wondrous Secrets allow the Gold Hoarder to resurrect Flameheart? Could it contains Flameheart’s skull and the chalice from which he drank and was cursed?
Me monkey says he doesn’t like that!
Tribute Peak
As you may know, Briggsy wasn’t the first pirate to explore Tribute Peak. The Pirate Lord and someone called Larinna have already been to this place before.
In fact, when you go down the stairs to access to the underground tunnels, there is this large ravine with a broken bridge and spikes at the bottom. This bridge was originally built by the Pirate Lord but has been destroyed by Larinna when she came here.
Eventually the passage widened out, and they found themselves staring across the width of a deep fissure that had created an underground ravine. The splashing of distant waterfalls echoed around them as they contemplated their next obstacle — an old wooden rope bridge that spanned the chasm. It was ancient, it was rickety, and it appeared to be the only way across.
[…] it was Larinna’s turn. She was almost halfway across, easing her foot onto the next plank, when it suddenly surrendered to gravity and fell away into the chasm. She teetered, caught in the act of shifting her weight onto thin air, and was forced to throw herself forward across the gap, clinging onto the rest of the planks for grim death while her legs flailed over empty space and the others shouted her name in alarm
This passage led directly to the drawbridge, but as this little wooden bridge is now broken you have to face several traps in the underground tunnels to arrive on the other side of the ravine.
The Pirate Lord
A figure that dominates many tall tales if he’s not the most renowned, The Pirate Lord has always been seen in the Athena’s Fortune Hideout so far. Well, at least as an emerald phantom.
Ramsey died a long time ago, even before the Ferry of the Damned was there. He remains as a ghost in the Sea of Thieves thanks to his magical Reaper’s Mark that hung around his neck.
After you defeat the Gold Hoarder, The Pirate Lord decides to leave his hideout and congratulates you. During his emotional speech, if you go behind him, you will notice that his body still has the three daggers that caused his death.
Nevertheless, these are not just any daggers. They each belong to a member of his crew.
Mercia, Rathbone and Shan represented Ramsey’s crew. It is not very surprising that Rathbone, who now answers to the name of the Gold Hoarder, wanted to see Ramsey dead. But what is most shocking is knowing that Mercia wanted it too.
However, Ramsey is claiming the following…
It all came to an end when some of me hearties turned into those foul Skeletons, but I’m trying to forget about that…
Did Mercia and Shan turn into Skeleton Lords too? The reasons for his death still remain a great mystery tho.
I guess there are either way more untold stories to uncover or The Pirate Lord may have done something terrible to deserve that mutiny.
The Sea Dogs’ Secrets
Well, me hearties, there is also this glorious new place in the Sea of Thieves, the Sea Dogs Tavern. DeMarco and Lesedi Singh, The Pirate Lord’s children, have finally decided to work together and create this new trading company. They built this amazing tavern to start their activities.
“Welcome to the arena!” they told me.
Well, I was more interested in uncovering the mysteries that could be hidden here than glory. So, I started my research around the tavern and the dog on the tavern name above the door intrigued me.
Surprisingly, this is not the symbol used to represent the Glorious Sea Dogs and I did not find this dog on any banner. As I continued my investigations, I came across Sybil, the shipwright, and she had this dog symbol on her hammer… She told me it was Leopoldo, DeMarco’s dog. Sybil cried for days when he disappeared.
I tried to make my way to DeMarco, shoving all the crowd around him. When I managed to get through and asked him what happened, he told me that Leo was chasing a chicken on Sailor’s Bounty and disappeared down a hole. DeMarco will offer a reward to whoever brings Leopoldo back.
Maybe Leo went in this path someone blocked, but I’m unsure what I would find on the other side…
As I continued my research around the tavern, I noticed that there was a deck for each team with their own banner.
The Lucky Rover and The Azure Scout are on the northern deck. Then, The Regal Hound and The Golden Chaser on the center deck. And finally, The Flaming Jackal is on the southern deck.
That being said, there is another lonely deck southeast of the tavern. Surprisingly, there are white banners with the dog symbol and at the very end there are a dog bowl, most likely belonging to Leo, and a painting of a ship with a white livery and the dog symbol on her sails.
“Of course” I told myself, “this is the deck where DeMarco docks his ship!”
If you climb to the top of the tavern, besides the beautiful view and the daggers in DeMarco and Lesedi’s paintings, there is a hidden skeleton. The pirate who hid it there probably didn’t want it to be found because it is in the hole in the ship’s hull below the horns.
I wonder who he might be and why he was killed and left abandoned here.
I guess there’s still a lot of secrets to uncover but me and my monkey are still on the lookout!
Don’t hesitate to share whatever you find and what you think about the potential upcoming content 😊
Cheers! 🍻
