Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest is an early buried-treasure quest on the starting island in Windrose. Completing the dig rewards 50 XP, 4 Silver Ingots, 5 Guineas, and 2 Pearls. The quest is not a weapon reward; earlier wiki drafts misattributed the Rapier of a Thousand Cuts to this quest, but that rapier is tied to a separate Traveller's Camp buried-treasure dig (the 'Twist of Fancy' note line).
Trigger
The quest is triggered by looting the Blurry Sketch of the Island curio from a Decrepit Chest at a shipwreck on the eastern coast of the starting island. Picking up the curio automatically marks the dig location on the journal and begins the quest.
The Dig Site
The dig site is the marker placed on the journal by the Blurry Sketch of the Island curio. Travel to the marked spot on the starting island, equip the Shovel, and dig at the pin. The red-rag-tree dig described in older drafts of this article belongs to a different starting-island treasure quest triggered from a Traveller's Camp note, not from the Blurry Sketch curio.
Required Tool: Shovel
Digging requires a Shovel, which is crafted at the Workbench for 3 Copper Ingots + 10 Wood. Because Copper Ingots are a mid-early-game milestone (they require the Smelting Furnace and Charcoal Kiln pipeline), most players unlock this quest's trigger during the Islander tutorial but do not complete it until after they have the smelting infrastructure running. Equip the Shovel and press X to enter Dig mode, then interact with the marked ground at the base of the leaning tree.
Reward
Image | Attribute | Amount |
|---|---|---|
Experience | 50 XP | |
| Silver Ingots | 4 |
| Guineas | 5 |
| Pearls | 2 |
Tips
Craft the Shovel as soon as you have Copper Ingots; it unlocks this quest and the worm-dig for Fishing
Loot every shipwreck Decrepit Chest you see on the starting island's east coast; the Blurry Sketch of the Island is the curio that starts the quest
Follow the journal marker after the curio is picked up; the dig spot updates on the map automatically
Budget the 50 XP, 4 Silver Ingots, 5 Guineas, and 2 Pearls as an early-game boost; the quest does not reward a weapon
Quest Name Origin
"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest" is a line from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, where it appears as a fragment of a pirate song sung by Billy Bones. Stevenson invented the line based on a real location, Dead Man's Chest Island in the Virgin Islands. Windrose's quest takes its name directly from the song, positioning it in the pop-culture lineage of pirate treasure fiction.
Quest Path
Stage-by-stage progression as recorded in the in-game quest log for Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest in Windrose version 0.10.0. The quest runs 1 tracked objective from start to completion. Stage-level Required Items are objective-gated items the player must bring to progress; Rewards are items granted the moment each stage is closed out.
Quest Rewards
Items granted when the full Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest quest chain resolves, as listed in the quest log reward block.
Reward | Quantity |
|---|---|
x5 | |
x4 |
Completion Text
Narrative journal line the game writes once the final stage closes out:
"The pirate killed his crew rather than share the loot. Who would've thought they'd return from the grave for revenge, and their treasure? Still, gold is no use to the dead."
Stages
The numbered flow below mirrors the objective list in the quest log. Each entry shows the in-game objective title, the journal description the player sees when the stage becomes active, and any stage-bound Required Items or Rewards.
Stage | Objective |
|---|---|
1 | Find the Pirate's Chest |
Stage 1: Find the Pirate's Chest
The pirate was kind enough to note where he'd hidden the chest. I'd best check the spot.
Type | Item | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Required | x1 |
See Also
Rapier of a Thousand Cuts - the reward of a separate starting-island buried-treasure quest (red-rag-tree dig)
Buried Treasure - treasure hunt mechanic
Upgrade System - Epic ascension
Quests - quest overview
Shovel Modes and Dig Prompt
The Shovel has four modes once equipped: Weapon, Dig, Raise, and Flatten. Only Dig will interact with the buried chest. Cycle modes with X (or Z, depending on keybind configuration). If you stand on the correct patch of ground with the tool in Weapon mode, nothing will happen and the ground will not respond to swings.
Once Dig is selected, hover over the central patch inside the scattered skeleton remains until the dig prompt appears. The game does not highlight the exact tile with a glow or sparkle marker on this quest, so sweeping the area slowly is the reliable way to find the correct spot.
Chest Ambush: The Four Drowned
Opening the chest immediately spawns four Drowned enemies around the dig site. This is a scripted ambush, not a bug. For most players, this encounter is their first exposure to Drowned combat, and the four of them attacking at once is meaningfully harder than any earlier starting-island fight.
Focus one target. Four enemies swinging at once will cut down an unprepared player in seconds. Drop one Drowned before switching, rather than spreading hits across all four.
Hit and retreat. Strike once or twice, then sprint out of range to let stamina recover. Stamina regeneration in Windrose is quick enough that the cycle loops cleanly as long as you do not stand still inside the cluster.
Use terrain. Trees, rocks, and the bone pile the chest emerged from all block Drowned pathing briefly. Put any obstacle between you and the group when your stamina is depleting.
Save gunpowder for dungeons. Bullets and Gunpowder are scarce in the early game, and ranged ammunition is far more useful against later dungeon bosses than against four open-air Drowned. Melee through this fight.
Death does not fail the quest. If you wipe to the ambush, the chest and the spawn stay put. Return with better gear and try again.
Reward Breakdown
The risk-and-reward choice at the chest (open now and fight, or skip) determines only the timing of the drowned spawn, not the loot quantity. The final payout after the drowned are defeated is the same either way:
Reward | Quantity |
|---|---|
5 | |
4 | |
Experience | +50 |
Value notes: Five Guineas is a meaningful early-game vendor currency injection, and four Silver Ingots cover most first-pass jewelry or utility crafts. Taken together with the +50 Experience, this side quest pays far more per minute than any of the same-tier combat camps, so it is worth prioritizing before the main quest line pulls the character off the starting island.
Visual Identification at the Dig Site
The journal pin from the Blurry Sketch of the Island curio drops you near the dig spot, but the exact tile you need to break is also flagged by an environmental cue that is easy to miss the first time through.
Look for a small ring of skeleton remains on the ground. When you arrive at the marked area, the spot looks like a quiet patch of beach with a scattering of bones lying in the dirt rather than any obvious chest or hatch. Walk a slow circle and the bones resolve into a roughly round formation: several skeletons collapsed in a crude ring, with a clear central tile inside the circumference. The dig point is the empty patch in the middle of that circle, not any of the bones themselves.
Why the ring matters. There is no glow, sparkle, or quest-prompt highlight on this dig spot. Procedurally generated terrain on the starting island can shift the exact pixel position of the marker by a few tiles, so the journal pin alone may leave you sweeping a five-by-five area with the Shovel in Dig mode hunting for the prompt. The skeleton ring narrows that search to a single visible tile and saves the most common minute of confusion players report on this quest.
Procedure once the ring is identified. Stand in the center of the bone ring. Cycle the Shovel into Dig mode (default 2 / X depending on keybinds). Hover over the empty tile inside the ring until the dig prompt appears, then hold the prompt to break ground. The chest emerges from the dirt in the same animation as any other buried-treasure dig, and the four-Drowned ambush triggers the moment you interact with the loot, exactly as covered in the Chest Ambush section above.
Co-op note. Both crewmates can stand inside the ring without blocking the dig prompt, but only the player who interacts with the chest triggers the spawn. If your group plans to rotate aggro on the four Drowned, designate the dig caller before opening so the rest of the party is already in position with weapons drawn.