The Art of the Trickster - Sea of Thieves Guide - IGN (2024)

Welcome to The Art of the Trickster page of the official IGN Wiki Guide and Walkthrough for Sea of Thieves. Here, we'll break down everything you need to know about The Art of the Trickster, including where to find the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key, how to solve the Vault puzzle, and everything else you'll come across in this Tall Tale.

Please click or tap the links below to jump to different sections:

• How to Begin The Art of The Trickster
• Where to Find the Trapmaker's Spyglass
• Where to Find the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key
• Where to Bring the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key
• How to Find the Vault and Complete Its Challenge
• What to Do With the Shroudbreaker Stone

How to Begin The Art of The Trickster

You cannot begin The Art of the Trickster without first completing Wild Rose. Savvy?

With Wild Rose complete, it's time to begin The Art of the Trickster, matey. To do this, head to Plunder Valley and talk to Salty the bone parrot.

To the right of them is The Art of the Trickster Tall Tale journal. Interact with it to begin this Tall Tale.

You'll learn of a trapmaker once hired by Captain Briggsy to make traps for her treasure. This trapmaker may be the key to one of the Shroudbreaker's stones we're in search of. The first step? Finding the Trapmaker's Spyglass.

Where to Find the Trapmaker's Spyglass

This spyglass can be found on Plunder Valley. Head to the West side of the island and look for a cave.

Inside, you'll find paintings on the wall, skeletal remains of fellow pirates, and some teal-illuminated mushrooms. Take a left inside when you reach the room with three skeletons.

Read your journal to learn how the skeletons in the room must be positioned in order to advance. Here's what each note (only the notes on the second page — the one on the right — matter for this) means:

• The forsaken Captain points to fire and ash: There is a skeleton with its arm out and a finger pointing forward. Move the arm until the skeleton is pointing at the fire on across from it.

• Hand in hand, two lovers face their destiny: Find the two skeletons sitting close to each other and move them in such a way that their hands are touching.

• The Rum Runner laid her drink to rest: There is a skeleton with a tankard in its hand. Move the arm until the tankard is down and close to the ground.

• The thief hides behind her mask of gold: There is a Skelton with a mask in its hand. Move the arm so that the mask is basically on the skeleton's face.

After completing this puzzle, a cage will drop down in the middle of the room and inside, you'll find a skeleton. It's the skeleton of the Trapmaker — grab the Trapmaker's Spyglass and their notes.

Where to Find the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key

With the Trapmaker's notes now in your position, open up your Tall Tale journal to learn more of the story. You'll be directed to either Plunder Valley, which you're already on (this is the lucky note, matey), or to Discovery Ridge. Head to the one you're directed to.

Once there, you'll need to solve three riddles to obtain this key. The first riddle is already in your journal. Solving the first reveals the second (the first leads you to an area to dig up the notes that reveal the second) and solving the second reveals the third.

There are a large number of possible riddles you can obtain and what you get is random so we can't direct you to the exact location of a place to dig — we can, however, explain how these riddles work:

• Read the Trapmaker's Notes and you'll see a riddle on the second page. The riddle is kind of useless until you find a special piece of wood with a strange skeleton's head painted in white on it. There are three scattered around whatever island you're on. The skull could also be painted on a rock or a piece of sand or something else – not necessarily a piece of wood.

• On the island — either Discovery Ridge or Plunder Valley — run around and look for a piece of wood or rock with a head painted on it. Stand on this piece of wood and pull up the riddle.
• The riddle explains what you're looking for while standing on that piece of wood — use the Trapmaker's Spyglass to locate the dig location.
• Two objects or landmarks will be described in the riddle — one of the eye sockets on the skeleton features in the spyglass will house one of the objects or landmarks described and the other eye socket will house the other.

• Dig where the open mouth is located when you have both objects or landmarks lined up inside the eye sockets.

• Example: If your riddle reads, "Caged and trapped I may be bound, near ancient urn within the ground," you're looking for a metal cage beside a broken urn. Line the cage up in the left eye socket and the broken urn inside the right eye socket — dig where the open mouth is located.

After solving the third riddle, you'll have dug up the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key.

Where to Bring the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key

Once you've obtained the Trapmaker's Gunpowder Key, take it to Sailor's Bounty. This entails walking through a cave tunnel with traps scattered throughout it.

You can take a couple of hits from these trap and make sure to bring food with you to heal up with if you do take damage.

Basically, just pay attention: the traps are randomly scattered throughout the cave. The thing to look out for are wooden squares on the ground sticking out just a bit — if you step on one, a trap will go off.

Continue deeper into the cave (when you enter the room with a waterfall, drop down and go under the entrance that you used to enter this room — you'll encounter a hallway with spikes protruding out of the wall) until you reach the end where you'll come across an area to place the key.

When you do that, the Captain of the Lair and some of his skeletal shipmates will appear. Take them out as you would any other skeletons.

Upon defeating the Captain of the Lair, they'll drop a special totem and more notes of the Trapmaker.

How to Find the Vault and Complete Its Challenge

Head back to your ship and prepare to set sail. Depending on the totem you receive, you'll have to sail to a different island:

• Crab Totem: The unmarked island located in quadrant N13
• Boar Totem: Devil's Ridge
• Scarab Totem: Crook's Hollow
• Snake Totem: Mermaid's Hideaway
• Shark Totem: Kraken's Fall
• Moon Totem: Crescent Isle

Head to the island associated with your totem, and you'll find a vault similar to the ones we've visited in previous Tall Tales. Light all four braziers on the corner's of the vault's altar, pick up the Shroudbreaker Stone that's revealed, and be prepared for a fight: you're going to be fighting waves of skeletons because there isn't a puzzle to solve like there was in previous visits to Tall Tale vaults.

There are three waves of skeletons to fight (be extra careful with the coral skeletons as they're tougher to take out). At the end of each wave is a tougher Captain boss to fight.

Defeat the captain and a medallion will drop.

Pick it up and place it into the altar as you've done in previous Tall Tales. After placing three medallions into the altar, you'll find the Shroudbreaker Stone is now available for you to grab.

What to Do With the Shroudbreaker Stone

Once you've obtained the Shroudbreaker Stone, return to Salty back on Plunder Valley and hand it over to them.

This concludes The Art of the Trickster Tall Tale.

Head to the next page of this guide — The Fate of the Morningstar — to continue this walkthrough: The Fate of the Morningstar.