The latest Sea of Thieves update is out now, and amid waves of changes to all kinds of areas, one particular change will delight achievement hunters. The random elements of discovering and opening Ashen Chests have been drastically improved, making 24 achievements and their related cosmetics much easier to obtain.
It was a few months ago when Rare began to add Tomes to the game. These mystical books come in many forms, always in groups of five: Tomes of Power, Tomes of Curses, Tomes of Fire, and today's latest set, Tomes of Resurrection. Selling them to Duke nets you new Ashen Dragon cosmetics and unlocks an achievement for each Tome, of which there are now 20 in total, in addition to four achievements to unlocking a whole set of five. You can only find them inside Ashen Chests, which themselves aren't so hard to find. You could always buy an Ashen Chest Stash Voyage from Duke, you may find them in the open world, and you were guaranteed to find one in every fort.
The problem was the Ashen Keys you needed to open them to get to the Tomes inside. They were extremely rare, and other than also being guaranteed to include one at every fort vault, there was no reliable way to find an Ashen Key. You had to stumble on them, either by fishing or by defeating randomly spawning Ashen Key Masters. They were a pain. But starting today, they aren't.
Head to Duke and you'll find, along with the option to buy Ashen Chest Stash Voyages for 50 Doubloons each, you can now purchase Ashen Key Stash Voyages for 99 Doubloons each. It's a steeper price than most items in the Black Market, but if you're a regular player of Sea of Thieves, you probably have a good cache of Doubloons right now after the last few months have been really generous. And it's so much better than giving up on finding a key and selling your locked Ashen Chest for 5 Doubloons.
There's still an RNG element to contend with, as which Tomes you receive when you open the chest is still a randomized process, but the fact that pirates no longer have to scour every salty drop of the sea to find an Ashen Key makes 24 of the game's achievements - and those sweet, sweet Ashen Dragon cosmetics - much more obtainable.
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