Ahoy! I would like to suggest a cool way to implement again mercenary voyages, giving again the reaper mark flag some sort of utility. Why not giving emissaries npcs the possibility to sell players "new" mercenary voyages very similar to the bilge rats from the past? For example:
- Gold Hoarders: obtain 3 maps of 3 islands where you have to look for hidden loot (chests, gunpowders, rag and bone crates). To obtain the voyage, buy it from GH, but only if you have emissary and reaper mark flag up. To unlock the cosmetics you have to complete 10 of these voyages with both flags up (from the start to the end). The "hidden" loot means that you will have to explore the entire islands to find it, because you won't have riddles or x marks maps.
- Order of souls: same thing with the flags, but you will go searching dark relics. To obtain them kill the skeleton crew on the island, obtain 3 maps of 3 islands where you will have to look for the "hidden" relics.
- Merchant Alliance: same thing as GH, but instead of chests you will find merchant crates.
- Reaper Bones: same thing for flags and npc, but you will get a quest of 5 chapters (thieves haven run style), where you will have to dig x marks and solve riddles to discover stashed reaper chest, reaper bounty, gunpowder barrels and rag and bone crates.
- Athena's Fortune: same thing for flags and npc, you will get a quest of 5 chapters of x marks and riddles between devil roar and shores of gold. You will find occasional low price athena loot, gunpowders and rag and bone crates. Last chapter one guaranteed chest of legends and one athena gunpowder.
The cool additions of these voyages would be the fact that the first three emissaries will have to explore the entire islands to find the loot (without clues or x marks), losing time and risking for enemies to come and sink them.
Reapers will suffer more: their signature loot (reaper chest and bounty) position is marked on the world map and also their flag, attracting players to the fight, knowing already which kind of mission the players will be doing.
Athena's fortune: a player that sees a reaper mark flag at the shores of gold will automatically know that those players are athena emissaries, converging there to steal chests of legends.
Another cool thing is that you will find a lot of gunpowders during the quests, that will be used from you to sink approaching enemy ships or from tuckers to sink you.
I think this kind of voyages will bring some good spice to sea of thieves pvp lovers, and they won't be too hard to implement because something very similar was already in game in past updates.
Hope this could help for possible future updates.
