Insignias

Insignias are the reputation currency dropped by Blackbeard's forces in Windrose. Every player-facing faction accepts insignias because every faction hates Edward Teach, which makes them the workhorse cross-faction grinding item. They are turned in at Bounty Agents for reputation with the selected faction.

The Four Insignia Tiers

Name Correction

Earlier community writeups sometimes used names like "Insignia of a Blackbeard Lieutenant," "Sergeant," or "Captain" for the mid-to-high tiers. Those names are not the in-game item names. The canonical tier names are Newhand, Deckhand, Veteran, and Old Salt. The descriptor-based community names should not be used in wiki content; if you see one in older writeups, cross-reference against the in-game Bounty Agent turn-in panel.

Ship Combat Rewards More Than Sinking

Sinking a Blackbeard ship outright produces Newhand Insignias from the wreck loot, but boarding the ship produces more total insignias per encounter, because boarding rewards the defeated crew individually. For reputation-per-minute farming, equip Boarding Party Gear and land on deck rather than rely on broadsides.

Universal Enmity: No Wasted Turn-Ins

All four player-facing factions accept every insignia tier. There is no exclusive commitment mechanic; if you accidentally start farming at the wrong faction, subsequent turn-ins can re-route to any other Bounty Agent without wasting items. This is why the strongest launch-week advice is to commit hard to one faction first (typically Brethren of the Coast for ship progression or Smugglers of Port Royal for heavy armor and Windrose Naval Tactics) and only rotate to the next faction after hitting Rank 3.

Combining Insignias with Letters of Favor

Insignias and Letters of Favor are complementary. Insignias come from combat; Letters come from non-combat faction quests. A session that kills Blackbeard crews on the water and runs faction couriers on land can earn both, which is the fastest way to push a single faction from Rank 1 to Rank 3 in a focused play session.

Turn-In Workflow

• Stack insignias in a dedicated chest at your base so they do not clog inventory during sorties

• Confirm which Bounty Agent is closest to the faction Provisioner you plan to shop at

• Hand in elite-tier insignias (Veteran, Old Salt) last; they can jump past small rank thresholds and waste overflow if turned in while you are already at a rank ceiling

• Save your rarest Old Salt Insignias specifically for the single faction whose Rank 3 reward you want most

Per-Tier Articles

• Newhand Insignia baseline tier

• Deckhand Insignia mid tier

• Veteran Insignia elite tier

• Old Salt Insignia top tier

Exact Turn-In Values

Reputation granted per single-item turn-in at any faction Bounty Agent. Every faction accepts every tier because all four player-facing factions are co-belligerents against Blackbeard, so no turn-in is ever wasted. Values are drawn from the live Early Access vendor data at build 0.10.

Reference: 100 reputation raises a faction from Rank 1 to Rank 2, 400 reaches Rank 3, and 1,000 reaches Rank 4. Mixing one Old Salt and a handful of Veteran Insignias with a Letter of Favor is enough to push a new rank push from Rank 2 to Rank 3 in a single hand-in session.

See Also

• Bounty Agents faction reputation turn-in NPCs

• Letters of Favor non-combat companion item

• Faction Reputation the full rep system

• Boarding the highest insignia-per-minute source

Stockpiling Before Tortuga Unlocks

Insignias are the first meaningful currency the game hands you, but the NPCs who accept them are gated behind the main-story unlock of Tortuga. Between the opening islands and that unlock, insignias pile up in your inventory with no turn-in option. This is normal. Every pirate kill and every boarded Blackbeard ship is still worth it: on the first visit to Tortuga you can stack a backlog of insignias into a Rank 1 or even Rank 2 jump with one faction in a single session.

Keep them in a dedicated chest at your base rather than burdening your active inventory while sailing. Insignias do not spoil and have no weight penalty in storage, so there is no downside to hoarding a large stack.

Where Insignias Actually Drop: Land and Sea

The same insignia drops from two very different activity types, and early players often fall into the trap of farming only one:

• On land: clear pirate camps, dungeons, and scripted point-of-interest encounters. Pirate Sergeants and Grenadiers at the higher-tier camps drop Veteran-tier insignias; standard deckhands drop Newhand Insignias.

• At sea: intercept Blackbeard sail groups and board their ships. Boarding a Pirates' Ketch or larger hull drops Deckhand Insignias per defeated crewman, stacking faster per encounter than any land site. Sinking the ship without boarding still yields wreck-loot Newhand Insignias, but total output is lower than a successful boarding action.

Because the two sources feed the same stack, a productive session is usually one island clear (for elite tier insignias and gear drops) plus two or three naval interceptions (for bulk volume). Mixing the two produces the best reputation-per-minute rate even before Tortuga is unlocked.

Insignias Convert to Ship Gear Through Provisioners

The reason insignias matter is what happens after the turn-in. Reputation gained from insignias unlocks higher tiers at the Provisioner standing next to the Bounty Agent. The Provisioner then sells schematics for cannons, hull armor, and (from the Smugglers only) Naval Tactics. The economy loop runs:

1. Farm insignias on land and at sea.

2. Hand them in at the Bounty Agent of the faction whose gear you want.

3. Spend Piastres at that faction's Provisioner on a schematic.

4. Learn the schematic in your journal, craft the item at the Shipwright's Workbench, and mount it at the wharf.

Because the Smugglers are the only faction selling Naval Tactics, and Naval Tactics are a ship passive no other faction offers, launch-week creator guides widely recommend dedicating your first wave of insignia turn-ins to the Smugglers' Bounty Agent. The Buccaneers Bounty Agent is the second-highest priority if you want the Rank 2 cannon passives that trigger post-reload ramps.

Insignia Management Tips

• Never sell insignias to Fenders for Piastres; they are reputation items and the Piastre conversion is not available.

• Insignias do not expire or decay. Hoarding does not punish you.

• Turn in Newhand and Deckhand insignias first during a rep push. Save Veteran and Old Salt insignias for when you are close to a rank ceiling so their large single-item reputation boosts actually cross the threshold.

• If you accidentally turn in insignias at the wrong faction, nothing is wasted; every faction hates Blackbeard equally, and subsequent turn-ins can re-route to the faction you actually wanted to push.

Naval Combat Farm

By far the fastest way to stockpile insignias in the early and mid game is open-sea naval combat. Take a strong vessel out of port, sail wide loops through populated shipping lanes, and engage every hostile sail you spot. Sinking ships, rather than just boarding them, drops a generous quantity of insignias as floating loot crates in the wreckage. Sail through the debris field after the kill to scoop up the crates before they despawn. A single hour of dedicated sea farming can outproduce a full afternoon of clearing question-mark camps on land, especially once you can comfortably one-shot the lower-tier escorts.

The tier of insignia that drops scales with the class of ship you sank. Plan your route around what you actually need: if you are missing Veteran Insignias for a level 4 turn-in run, hunt freighters and frigates rather than wasting time on cutters. Rough pairings:

• Cutter patrols and small skirmisher hulls drop mostly Newhand Insignias with the occasional Deckhand Insignia.

• Ketch and Brig mid-tier raiders drop Deckhand Insignias reliably and a steady trickle of Old Salt Insignias.

• Heavy Frigate warships and high-level freighters with golden nametags drop Old Salt Insignias and Veteran Insignias, which are the bottleneck for unlocking blue-tier provisioner stock.

There is no harm in mixing methods. If a freighter shows the golden cargo nametag, board it first for the silver and consumable haul described in the boarding article, then sink it on the way out so the wreckage still drops insignia crates. The two loot pools are independent, so a clean board followed by a sink is the highest-yield single engagement in the game.

Time Insignias Before Component Upgrades

A common early-game trap is grinding insignias, donating them to faction representatives for the small reward bundle, then dumping every spare resource into ascending green-tier cannons and hull bracing. This burns materials twice. Once your faction reputation reaches level 2 or 3, the same provisioner starts selling blue-tier ship components outright, and a base blue cannon will already match or exceed a fully ascended green. Anything you spent upgrading green parts to bridge the gap is wasted.

The cleaner sequence is: farm insignias hard at sea, push one faction's reputation to level 2 as fast as possible, swap to blue components from the provisioner, then continue donating to reach level 3 and 4 for the rare blueprints and ship plans. Save material upgrades for blue and purple hulls only. Every insignia you turn in early pays compounding interest in shop access; every green-tier ascension you skip saves you a stack of refined wood, iron, and ascension fluxes that you can reinvest in your land base or in the ship you actually intend to keep.