Sea of Thieves riddles guide: How to solve every Tall Tales riddle

Sea Of Thieves riddles are usually quite tricky, even the randomized ones found during Sea of Thieves Gold Hoarder missions have a reputation for rattling the brain at times - most often when you’re wandering round a forgotten island digging daft holes. Now thanks to the Sea of Thieves Anniversary Update, Rare has given players a suite of new riddles tied to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales story quests that have far more depth and nuance. In this guide we’re going to run you through the main Sea of Thieves riddles in the questline, offering you a handy cheat sheet for when you get stuck.

Sea of Thieves Totem Cheat Sheet

Before we start, here’s a cheat sheet for the Sea of Thieves totems you receive across all of the main missions in Tall Tales - you’re going to need to consult this later.

Crab – Uncharted Vault Island (N13)
Moon – Crescent Isle
Scarab – Crook’s Hollow
Boar - Devil’s Ridge
Shark – Kraken’s Fall
Snake – Mermaid’s Hideaway

Sea of Thieves Shroudbreaker Riddles

Now, the first puzzle in Tall Tales is fairly simple. You’re going to receive a quest book when you embark on your first adventure in the questline, and the details will always lead you to the Uncharted Island at N13 “The jagged spires of Crooked Masts to the fore, Old Crook’s Hollow to the aft.” so head there and dive underwater on the north side to grab the log.

The next riddle in this quest is near the end - when you manage to open the ancient cave with your totem, you will have to light the braziers within the chamber and rotate the blocks to serve a string of symbols - the symbols are always listed within your book right at the end beneath the heading ‘Shroudbreaker’- there are three rows of four, simply input them in segments by turning the blocks and confirming your choice at the table - if you do it correctly you’ll receive the Shroudbreaker.

The Cursed Rogue Riddles

Another fairly simple set of riddles, Sea of Thieves The Cursed Rogue has you chasing the remnants of Briggsy, a Pirate Lord. The first riddle has you looking for the Skeleton Key, which can be at any of the locations listed below depending on the words (and helpful images) in your quest book.

“Northern Ancient Isles” - Snake Island
“Southern Ancient Isles” - Shark Bait Cove
“Eastern Ancient Isles” - Devil’s Ridge

Head to the corresponding location and you should find some skeletons ready for a scrap (and the aforementioned key, for your trouble!)

Once you’ve got the key, now you need the chest - if you turn the pages of your quest book you’ll find another entry which mentions certain locations (corresponding to landmarks in sketches within the book!) Check out our list to figure out where you need to go.

Three Maoi heads sketch - Thieves’ Haven
Bird statue sketch - Plunder Valley
Rowing skeleton sketch - Crook’s Hollow

The Legendary Storyteller Riddles

Here’s where things get tricky. In The Legendary Storyteller there are multiple riddles which correspond to the childish entries in your log book, and they’re randomized every time you start the mission. Below we’re going to list the titles of some of Tasha’s tales and the corresponding island you need to go to, hopefully your book matches up!

Treasure Adventure - K9 (Uncharted Island with shipwreck)
Fish Friends - Mermaid’s Hideaway
Baddies Attack - Old Salts Atoll
Monster Hunting - The Crooked Masts (Shipwreck)
Naughty Man - Scurvy Isle
Smallest Boat - Lone Cove

Later on there is another set of riddles when you’re given a plank, but all you have to do is flip the plank to find the exact coordinates where you should head to line up the broken bits - sorry, spoilers!

Stars of a Thief Riddles

Stars of a thief is even more convoluted than the last - with a whole system to explain to understand it’s main riddles. But we’ll get onto that, the first one is fairly simple.

When you first open your log the notes on how to find the Ancient Spyglass will read one or two ways - here’s where to head and dig:

“Face the North Star” - Rum Runner’s Isle (near a solitary hanging lantern)
“My back to the North Star” - Twin Groves (beneath a tree between two rocks)

Once that’s sorted things get more complex. The spyglass reveals constellations in the sky which correspond to certain riddle entries - you need to decipher them to find the Star Jewels. We could list it per entry, but we don’t know if we’ve got them all (they’re random, just like in The Legendary Storyteller) so it's easier to show you how the constellations work.

In every riddle we’ve found you get a place location and and a constellation direction to follow. We’re sure you can do the detective work for yourself by simply finding the location in your given entry and following the directions. Here’s what every constellation corresponds to, direction-wise:

Great Kraken - North
Sea Queen - North/North-East
Boar - North-East
Fish - East/North-East
Great Warrior/Warmonger - East
Crab - East/South-East
Scarab - South-East
Feather - South/South East
One-Eyed Shark - South
Bear - South/South-West
Arrow - South-West
Flame - West/South-West
Boat - West
Snake - West/North-West
Eagle - North West
Turtle - North/North-West

So, for example - if you receive the instructions “Followed arrow to land unmarked” you would find the direction corresponding to the Arrow constellation, and in this case head south-west from your listed location.

Once you’ve got your jewels simply head to the underground cave at N13 to lock them into place and receive the totem which when followed (consult the Totem cheat sheet!) opens the ancient chamber.

Once you’re in there the next riddle section starts, but now you understand the constellation system its easy. In this section, you’ll receive a two stanza poem which is randomized. Though, each line corresponds to the description of each constellation within your textbook. Navigate there and you will be able to infer what each line means. “Warmonger” means Great Warrior, “Old Mother” means Kraken - the list goes on. Once you’ve mapped each line to a symbol, turn the blocks in the chamber to match and you will complete the mission. Phew!

The Wild Rose Riddles

Back to some straight-forward riddle stuff - The Wild Rose has you solving a long-winded puzzle about two lovers. First up it’s going to ask you to find the Chest of Memories via the journal entries in the quest book.

There are three major locations where it can be found and they’re clear as day in the logbook - so head to either Boulder Cay, Rapier Cay or Sandy Shallows depending on what is mentioned in your journal to dig it up.

After you dig up the chest you need to find the mementos - a music box and a spice box which can be transformed into an enchanted compass. It’s another case of randomized entries, so here’s every entry title and its corresponding island:

Our First Dance - Wanderer's Refuge
Our First Kiss - Lagoon of Whispers
The pig chase! - Salty Sands
Doing what I do best! - Boulder Cay
The day we found our pendants! - Sea Dogs Rest
Day 81 - Lonely Isle
Our First Bounty - Lone Cove
The Argument - Twin Groves
The Perfect Plan - Sailor's Bounty
Our Vows - Smuggler's Bay
We survived our first ambush! - Cannon Cove

Sometimes there are extra steps that need to be taken - for example, ‘Our First Dance’ has you study their movements to find the exact location of the chest - in every entry there is a sketch of Rose and George standing over a certain location - below them is almost always where the chest is!

The Art of the Trickster Riddles

Back to convoluted riddles, The Art of the Trickster takes you to Plunder Valley to meet Salty the parrot. Once you’ve kicked off the quest head into the nearby cave where you will have to reposition some skeletons to unlock the caged spyglass. Follow the instructions:

“Captain points to fire and ash” - Make the skeleton point at the fire
“Hand in hand, two lovers face their destiny” - Make the coupled skeletons hold hands (aw!)
“The thief hides behind her mask of gold” - Keep interacting with the mask-holding skeleton until they wear it
“The Rum Runner laid her drink to rest” - Make sure the skeleton who is boozing up is downing their drink

This will drop the cage with the spyglass. Sorted! Now you’ve got that you want to check your quest book again to find the location of markings on either Discovery Ridge or Plunder Valley - for some reason the writers of this book have figured out LIDAR so they’ve made the process easy by marking the skull on each map - simply stand on the point and align the eyes of the broken spyglass on the objects in your eyeline and you will find the key.

The rest of the quest is linear - escape the island and head to Sailor’s Bounty for a skeletal scrap and a ton of traps. Good luck!

The Fate of the Morningstar Riddles

Once you’ve started this mission by heading to the Ferry of the Damned (feed yourself to the sharks!) you will be asked via riddle to head to the highest peak of either Kraken’s Fall or Marauder’s Arch (check the wording in your logbook) and you’ll find a sarcophagus with an Enchanted Lantern inside - which will reveal spooky ghosts!

Once you’ve got the lantern head to Old Faithful Isle - this bit is again very straight forward, follow the footsteps of the Morningstar crew around the island and find the related keys to free them. The only point to note is that you need to use the map behind the trio to find the chest at the end, where X marks the spot on the island is where you need to dig - no other riddles involved.

Revenge of the Morningstar Riddles

Again you’re looking for a shipwreck with secret logs, and luckily this time it is once more in a static location, no riddle required - head to Boulder Cay - the logs are in an underwater shipwreck on the south side of the island - the next part of the quest is a chest which is also found here, underneath a palm tree on the opposite end of Boulder Cay.

Once you’ve donned your fancy new outfit, head to Cannon Cove and kill Captain Gripper for Graymarrow’s Orders - which add a code and a legend to your quest book - there’s no secret to this riddle, all you have to do is match the symbols to the given legend and the game will give you directions to the skull - the answers are laid out for you. We found ours in a cave.

Now head to Sunken Grove, defeat Captain Shaw, grab the orders and decode them for directions to the chalice. Once you get the chalice you might think you’re done, but now you need to have a showdown with Greymarrow. Study your orders once more for the last riddle - there will be a letter and a number surrounded by apostrophes on the penultimate page - ‘Q’ for Cannon Cove and ‘3’ for Sunken Grove - combine them to get Q3, the co-ordinates necessary to find Graymarrow and have your final showdown. Good luck!

Shores of Gold Riddles

At last, it’s time to chart a course for the Shores of Gold - but how do you get there? Head to the Devil’s Shroud (check the handy map image above for directions) and you’ll end up in this mysterious pirate el dorado.

Once there, you need four tokens from four vaults, with a riddle tied to each. Here’s how to solve them.

West Vault: Check the middle table from the vault for four circles on the map. Usually you need to go and find the symbols yourself, but this is a guide damn it! From left to right it goes Kraken, Shark, Turtle, Flame.
North Vault: Avoid the spikes and spin the blocks twice until they’re all the same. The first time you want snakes, the second time you’re looking for the three characters holding up a flame.
East Vault: Check the ceiling and you should see a Gold Hoarders key formation - simply make that shape out of the blocks and get out of there with the token!
South Vault: Light the braziers and check your book for the Southern Vault log, you’re looking for the symbols that are only found on each specific pillar, regardless of order. Rotate and grab that medallion!

Once you’ve got the tokens all you have to do is slot them into the southern Compass Vault and the rest of the mission is a linear run through a trap filled chamber resulting in a deadly boss battle with the Gold Hoarder! Claim your riches, o mighty pirate!