The Fort of the Damned

This is the main attraction of this update, a glorious new “super fort” that can be activated at any time with an elaborate ritual, contains more difficult new Shadow skeleton varieties, and gives a much bigger reward.

A new Fort of the Damned section can be found in the Bilge Rats section of the Reputation Tab on the in game Menu Screen. This tab lists out all of the commendations you can earn for taking on this treacherous new fort, and none of these are time limited.

What is the Fort of the Damned?

What was formerly Old Boot Fort, located just north of Stephen’s Spoils, has been cursed by some dark rituals and turned into a gateway to the Sea of The Damned. The fort is now spooky as spooky gets, surrounded by a permanent eerie fog, and is the site of a new kind of Skull Fort. Unlock other forts on the sea, which activate at random on a cycle, the Fort of the Damned must be manually activated by players.

Once active, the Skull Cloud in the sky glows with bright red eyes to indicate the special variety of Fort. Players will have to face new challenges, and when completed will be rewarded with greater treasure than ever before. That’s if they can keep it out of the hands of other players…

Activating the Fort

The Fort of the Damned is activated Manually by players, and can be activated at any time by completing a ritual. To do this, you’ll need all 6 Flames of Fate, and 1 Ritual Skull

Flames of Fate

When you die in the game you travel to the Ferry of the Damned, and if you die in one of six specific ways you will be able to grab a Flame of Fate from the Ferry before returning from the dead. Approach the flame in the center of the Ferry, raise your lantern, and use the on screen prompt to “take” the flame, changing the color of your lantern light

Red Flame: Death by fire (including erupting volcano rocks or lava flows on volcano islands)

Green Flame: Death by Skeleton (this includes if a Gun Powder Skeleton blows itself up, but NOT if you blow the Skeleton’s powder up yourself and die in the explosion!)

Blue Flame: Death by Shark bite (Megalodon included!)

Purple Flame: Death by Venom (Snakes or Kraken venom)

Pink Flame: Death by another player (must be from a different crew than your own)

White Flame: Death by Lightning Strike (if you equip a Cutlass, the odds of being struck increase)

Note: You will LOSE your current Flame of Fate next time you die. To save it, approach a lantern on your ship, raise your lantern, and “Give” the flame to the ship lantern. Now you can store that flame in that lantern- do this with every color across the various ship lanterns!

Once you have all 6 Flames of Fate, take them to the Fort of the Damned, and “Give” the flames to the 6 Statues in the main room of the central structure. This will open a cage in the center containing a headless skeleton- now you’re only missing one piece…

Ritual Skulls

The last thing you need to activate the fort is to place a Ritual Skull on the headless skeleton. Doing so will consume the skull, and begin the waves of skeletons that you expect from a fort. But how do you find a Ritual Skull? There are currently three ways:

Duke’s Skull Seeker Voyages: only for the duration of this event, Duke has FREE Skull Seeker voyages which I described further up above in the guide. These are guaranteed to result in a Ritual Skull at the end.

only for the duration of this event, Duke has FREE Skull Seeker voyages which I described further up above in the guide. These are guaranteed to result in a at the end. Duke’s Skull Stashes Voyage: Duke has a permanent voyage option that you can purchase for either 30 Doubloons or 35,000 Gold, which will very quickly lead to a Ritual Skull on the very outpost. The cost is steep because it is a shortcut to a Ritual Skull with almost no effort or obstacles

Duke has a permanent voyage option that you can purchase for either or which will very quickly lead to a on the very outpost. The cost is steep because it is a shortcut to a Ritual Skull with almost no effort or obstacles Emergent Island Skeleton Captains: Skelly Captains can be found at random patrolling islands without a crew to back them up. Killing these Skelly Captains will drop a Villainous Bounty Skull, as well as a Skeleton Captain’s Orders voyage, that will lead to a guaranteed Ritual Skull as well as other randomized rewards.

Once you’ve collected the Flames of Fate and set them to the Statue Lanterns in the Fort, and then placed a Ritual Skull on the headless Skeleton, the Fort will begin.