It's a totally new game mode that's more focused on ship to ship combat.
Essentially you are tasked to sail the entire Sea of Thieves hunting for 7 ancient gems.
Npcs giving voyages will simply give you a riddle to the whereabouts of where one of the 7 gems is hidden and you do it like a regular riddle gold hoarder mission.
If there are no voyages to do it means they are already found and on people's ships.
The aim of the session is to get all 7 gems and sail them to the shores of gold and place them in their resting place.
Doing so causes the entirety of the sea of thieves to be covered in the devil's shroud killing all ships and restarting the game mode, the crew that triggers this is rewarded.
If the gem spends too much time on land or in the sea it will despawn and be available for discovery via voyage.
GEM POWERS
Each gem has an elemental power and they each represent different elements. For example Red is fire, Blue is frost, White is lightning etc etc.
As you have gems on your ship you can harness their power to assist you in defeating other ships or defending your own.
The gem will 'charge' when on a ship automatically. Using your lantern you can absorb it power into the lantern restarting the 'cooldown'
The energy in the lantern is used to imbue one ship cannon for 1 shot only.
For example if I had a blue Ancient gem that is the element of freeze. I can let my gem charge, absorb power in lantern and when I need to use it, activate cannon with the lantern causing the cannon to fire 1 frost ball which causes enemy ships to freeze in place temporarily.
Cool down is about 15 mins. maximum shots depends on crew or cannons on ship. So a crew of 4 could have 4 special shots per 1 hour. Same for a solo too except a solo would need to store flame in a cannon where a crew can keep the element in their lantern thus storing more.
Each element does different stuff some more powerful than others.
This means that a ship becomes more dangerous the more gems it has. But if you board them and throw these gems overboard you can disable its power and buy everyone else in the server way more time..
Whilst being in a battle mode where every ship has a new weapon up its sleeve.
Unite all 7 gems and the game is over... Or don't and be the ultimate scourge of the Seas.
To end the game, there is a mystical pillar on the shores of gold. Sailing close to it and staying within its radius, the beacon charges. Once full it unleashed the shroud and ends the game.
It will be like an arena mode of sorts but without a clock hanging over your head. The game ends when the deed is done.
