Alert! Alert! Today represents your very last opportunity to earn your September Seal o' Piracy.
So where exactly has your faithful Examiner been all month, that she's only blogging about this month's Seal on its final day? She's been trying to figure out how you earn it, that's where. And after earning it for six different pirates, she's still stumped. Or perhaps less stumped and more miffed
It sounds very simple. Word o' God (for values of "God" that equal "Three Rings/The Oceanmasters") is, you earn it by "[p]erforming 2 different actions that earn your pirate Conqueror reputation (fight Brigand Kings, defeat skellies and zombies, or complete Imperial outpost and Viking raid expeditions)".
Except...
Except both Millefleur and Nensieuisge of the Emerald Ocean discovered that, after having participated in both a Viking Raid and Imperial Outpost expo--each of them successful outings--that they were still without their Seal. (Millie finally got it after defeating zombies later in the month, and Nen after participating in a losing Brigand King battle.) So apparently "complete Imperial outpost and Viking raid expeditions" is a single action for the purposes of earning your Seal.
Also, "complete" is insufficient--you have to win. Oshun on the Meridian Ocean, having already participated in a skellie battle, jobbed with a crew fending off a couple of longships. On their first try, the crew lost. Oshun got her Seal after they tried again and won.
Meanwhile, "defeat skellies and zombies" apparently counts as two different actions, despite looking the same grammatically as "complete IO and VR expos". And "defeat" is overstating things. Millefleur on the Meridian Ocean confirmed that. First she was part of a group who defeated skellies on Lima after several tries. Then she voted to start the fight with 5 zombies on Cochineal, despite being the only pirate in the fray. She lost, of course--and was awarded her Seal o' Piracy: September 2013.
The astute reader will notice that the official Seals page doesn't even mention Flotillas and Blockades, despite that, according to Yppedia (both this page and that), these also earn Conqueror reputation. That is not an oversight, or at least not at the textual level. It is a verifiable fact that Flotillas and Blockades will not trigger your Seal. Both Millefleur and Nensieuisge on the Emerald Ocean and Teshka on Cerulean figured that out. Those three pirates participated in either blockades or flotillas after their IO and VR outings, but this did not earn them their Seals. (Teshka finally got hers as part of a crew that defeated Barnabas the Pale on the high seas.)
The instructions say "actions that earn your pirate Conqueror reputation," making no mention of moving your reputation visibly up to a new category. This is correct. Millefleur's only went up once all month, from "Obscure" to "Rumored"; Nensieuisge's went up three times. (To be fair, Nen's Conqueror rep also went down at some point. The first two of the three rep-improvement announcements she got were "Yer Conqueror reputation is now Rumored!")
So how do you hurry up and earn your Seal today? By doing as many of the indicated actions as you can. And keep in mind the following tips, condensed from the aforementioned discoveries:
- You don't have to win a Brigand King battle to earn Conqueror reputation.
- You don't have to win a monster battle to earn Conqueror reputation.
- You do have to win Viking Raids and Imperial Outposts to earn Conqueror reputation.
- Skellies and zombies count as different actions for the purposes of the Seal.
- Viking Raids and Imperial Outposts appear to count as the same action for the purposes of the Seal.
- Flotillas and Blockades do not count toward your Seal, despite being said to earn Conqueror reputation.
So... buy a Brigand King Compass and engage them with an empty hold. (Bonus: Another rumless battle to your name!) Buy a Viking Raid map, fire great big holes in those longships, and beat the snot out of the attackers. Go find some skellies and vote to start the fight even if you're the only one there. Go do the same with zombies. (Is it a full moon tonight? It is not a full moon tonight. The werewolves are probably not around.) Mouse over the speech bubbles on the voyage-jobbing notice board and look for mention of VRs, IOs and BKs. Look for speech bubbles mentioning monsters, too; sometimes a pirate will hire jobbers onto a ship to get them to the island where the fray is.
And don't give up until the clock strikes midnight in the Pacific time zone!
