The latest update for Sea of Thieves makes finding (and unlocking) Ashen Chests a whole lot easier. Considering this is one aspect of the game we’ve never really touched on here at Gameranx, I’m taking a deep dive to explain exactly what Ashen Chests are for, how to find them, and how to unlock them with Ashen Keys. There’s a new method for acquiring Ashen Keys that’s a lot easier than before, and makes completing some of the trickier achievements in the game a lot less grindy.
Ashen Chests are special chests that can only be unlocked with a rare Ashen Key — and they always contain one book from an Ashen Tome set. You can sell locked or unlocked Ashen chests to any Tavern for 5 Doubloons, but it’s the Tomes you’ll really want to collect. Finding full sets of Tomes unlocks achievements, and trading Tomes to the Duke will give you fancy new Ashen Dragon cosmetics.
The Duke is useful for more than just trading tomes. Now you can purchase Ashen Chest locations and Ashen Keys directly from the Duke!
More Sea of Thieves guides:
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The new update makes acquiring Ashen Chests and Ashen Keys much easier than ever before. All the old methods still apply, but let’s go into the easiest ways to acquire both so you can complete your Ashen Tome collections.
- The Easiest Way To Find Ashen Chests & Ashen Keys:
- Ashen Chest Stash Voyage: Ashen Chest locations can be purchased from the Duke for 50 Doubloons -or- 65,000 gold.
- Ashen Key: To actually open Ashen Chests, you’ll need keys. If you don’t have one, you can also purchase them from the Duke for 90 Doubloons.
In total, it’ll cost you 140 Doubloons for a single chest. That’s a pretty steep price, but it does make it easier to find them if you’re sick of searching for random drops. Let’s go over all the other methods for finding Ashen Chests and Ashen Keys quickly below.
- How To Find Ashen Chests:
- 3 Ashen Chests always appear on the Skeleton Captain’s Ship, during a Skeleton Fleet encounter.
- Can randomly drop from a Kraken or Megalodon encounter — or from a Skeleton Ship.
- 1 Ashen Chest will always be found as a reward for completing an Ashen Skeleton Fort.
- Ashen Guardians will drop special notes that point out Ashen Chest locations.
Ashen Keys are a lot harder to find. Before they were available for purchase at the Duke, there were only two ways to acquire Ashen Keys.
- How To Find Ashen Keys:
- Dropped by Ashen Key Master enemies. These enemies appear randomly on islands, or they’re more likely to be found in Skeleton Forts.
- A very small chance of being found when fishing if you don’t use bait.
As you can see, that makes Ashen Keys very rare. Sometimes, it’s worth just spending the Doubloons instead of searching every island / skeleton fort for special enemies to finally spawn.
