The Trading Companies have been in charge of where we dig up our treasure long enough! Pirates across the Sea of Thieves now have even more command of their pirate fantasy with the power to bury treasure!
You can bury almost any item with your mighty shovel and create player-created ‘X Marks the Spot’ maps called Buried Treasure Stash maps. What you bury and where you bury it is your decision!
Suppose you find yourself worried about an incoming Reaper’s Bones Emissary poaching your recently required Skeleton Fort loot. Worry not! Instead, quickly bury your most lucrative items beneath the sand before they have a chance to broadside you.
Or perhaps you’ve overtaken an enemy pirate ship with treasure onboard. You can briefly conceal some of the plundered loot before the previous owners return. If they manage to return the favor, they’ll be left wondering where all their treasure has gone!
Your crew can use these Buried Treasure Stash maps to unearth your hidden treasures when the coast is clear. However, other pirate crews looking to plunder your secret stash can steal your Buried Treasure Stash maps from your ship and dig up the treasure for themselves!
And, if you feel generous, you can decide to share your maps with other pirates and become a quest giver yourself!
Whether you choose to safeguard treasure from enemy crews or create fun adventures for friendly pirates, understanding how to bury treasure is a must for every pirate who sails the Sea of Thieves!
How to Bury Treasure
You can bury treasure with your shovel by approaching it and using the Secondary Use button.
More specifically, to bury treasure, drop the treasure on the ground and look at it with your shovel in hand. Then, follow the prompt and keep pressing the “Secondary Use” button (Left Trigger/Right Mouse Button) for the shovel until you completely hide the piece of treasure.
You can only bury treasure on soft surfaces like sand, dirt, and grass. Unfortunately, your shovel is not strong enough to break through stone.
You can bury many types of treasure, including:
- Gold Hoarder Chests and Trinkets
- Bounty Skulls
- Merchant Crates
- Storage Crates
- Treasure Chests
- Gunpowder Barrels
- And more!
How to Set a Trap!
You can now set explosive traps by burying Gunpowder Barrels! To set a trap, place a Gunpowder Barrel on soft ground and use your shovel to bury it.
The Gunpowder Barrel will automatically light its fuse when anyone hits them with their shovel while digging. So if you happen to be shoveling and hear the hiss of a fuse, run for your life!
Disturbed Earth
After you bury a piece of treasure entirely, it will leave a small, disturbed patch of land. This disturbed patch of land is just visible enough so that you can hide and find your treasure easily if you are the one to bury it, but other pirates who are paying close attention may still spot it.
Buried Treasure Stash Maps
When you fully bury an item, you will receive an ‘X Marks the Spot’ map marking the item’s location. This map is called a Buried Treasure Stash map. You and your crew can view the map from your Quest Radial.
Each island you bury treasure on will have its own Buried Treasure Stash map. So if you bury a Captain’s Chest on Lone Cove and a Foul Bounty Skull on Smuggler’s Bay, you will have two different Buried Treasure Stash maps in your inventory.
An X will be added to existing Buried Treasure Stash maps for each additional item you bury on an island. So, for example, if you bury five items on Twin Palms, you will see five X’s on your Twin Palms Buried Treasure Stash map.
You can bury up to ten items on the same island before an additional Buried Treasure Stash map is created for that island.
If you dig up a piece of treasure, the X it represents will be removed from the relevant Buried Treasure Stash map.
While you can view the map from the Quest Radial, a physical version of the map is stored in a Map Bundle on the Voyage Table of your ship.
Treasure Buried in Caves
When looking at your map, something to pay attention to is treasure buried in caves. If you bury treasure in a cave, you will notice a different ‘X’ icon on the Buried Treasure Stash map to show it is in a cave.
Treasure buried in caves will be marked with a circled X.
Map Bundles
Your Map Bundle is a physical item in the world, similar to treasure, that can be picked up. Map Bundles look like a physical scroll of maps.
Your Map Bundle can be picked up from the Voyage Table by anyone in your crew. Your crew will be notified when someone from your crew picks it up.
When your Map Bundle is not placed on your Voyage Table, you will not have access to your Buried Treasure Stash maps.
Unfortunately, anyone from another crew can also pick your Map Bundle! So yes, sneaky pirates can steal your precious Buried Treasure Stash maps if they manage to grab them from your Voyage Table. When someone from another crew picks up your Map Bundle, your crew will not be notified.
Map Bundles will float when a ship sinks, similar to treasure. If your ship sinks, you can pick up your Map Bundle and return it to your new ship to get your Buried Treasure Stash maps back. Other pirates can also steal them, so you’ll want to collect your Map Bundle if it stores valuable Buried Treasure Stash maps.
Can you steal Buried Treasure Stash maps?
With your Buried Treasure Stash maps being a physical item in the world, other crews can sneak aboard your ship and steal your Map Bundle straight from your Voyage Table!
If an enemy crew manages to steal your Map Bundle, they can transfer the maps it holds to their ship. If they successfully transfer the Map Bundle, they can view the Buried Treasure Stash maps the Map Bundle contained from their Quest Radial.
In return, you can board another ship, take the Map Bundle off the Voyage Table and return it to your ship’s Voyage Table to steal another crew’s Buried Treasure Stash maps!
Unless you steal their Map Bundle, you cannot see another crew’s Treasure Stash Maps.
How to Steal Buried Treasure Stash maps
There are two ways you can steal another crew’s Map Bundle. One way is to sneak aboard the other crew’s ship and take it from their Voyage Table. The other way is to sink the other crew’s ship and retrieve the Map Bundle once it has surfaced.
To steal a Map Bundle with stealth:
- Sneak aboard an enemy crew’s ship and find their Voyage Table.
- If they have a Map Bundle laying on the table, hold down the Interact button while looking at it to steal it.
- With the enemy crew’s Map Bundle in hand, bring it back to your ship and place it on your Voyage Table to steal it successfully.
If you already have a Map Bundle, you can combine the stolen Map Bundle with yours!
Once you have placed them on your ship, you can view the stolen Treasure Stash Maps from your Quest Radial.
Stealing one Map Bundle will unlock the Stolen Secrets commendation and unlock the Midnight Blades Mask!
Stolen Buried Treasure Stash maps
When viewing Buried Treasure Stash maps in the Quest Radial, maps your crew has created will be marked differently from maps you have stolen.
Maps your crew has created are denoted by a green icon in your Quest Radial. Maps your crew has taken from another crew are denoted by a purple icon in the Quest Radial.
Can I dig up buried treasure without a map?
Yes, you can dig up treasure belonging to another crew even if you don’t have their Buried Treasure Stash maps in your possession.
If you happen to see where they buried their treasure or had their Map Bundle long enough to see their Buried Treasure Stash maps, you can sail over to the island and dig up the treasure.
You can also go back and dig up the treasure you buried if someone stole your Map Bundle.
Can I give my Buried Treasure Stash maps to other crews?
Yes, there are two ways you can give your Buried Treasure Stash maps to other pirates by gifting or posting the map to the Quest Board.
How to gift Buried Treasure Stash maps
You can gift your Buried Treasure Stash maps to another crew if you feel like being generous.
To gift a Buried Treasure Stash map to another crew, equip the map you want to give from the Quest Radial and hold down the “Secondary Use” button (Left Trigger/Right Mouse Button). Holding down the “Secondary Use” button will hold the map out in front of you so a pirate from another crew can take it.
A pirate from another crew can then interact with the map and take it. The map will automatically be removed from the gifter’s Map Bundle and added to the giftee’s Map Bundle. Once in the map bundle, the pirate who took the map can view it from their Quest Radial.
How to post Buried Treasure Stash maps to a Quest Board
You can find a Quest Board at every Outpost and Seapost in the Sea of Thieves. Quest Boards allow pirates to take player-created Buried Treasure Stash maps and post their Buried Treasure Stash maps of their own for others to take.
To learn about all Quest Boards, head on over to our Quest Board guide here!
6 thoughts on “How to Bury Treasure, Create Treasure Stash Maps, and Steal Maps in Sea of Thieves”
Will the treasures remain if you go offline?
Ahoy there! Yep, they stay around even while you are gone. Your maps will only disappear when the server shuts down. You can read more about Quest Boards here 🙂
What if I wanted to bury a storage chest and go offline then come back the next day would the chest still remain?
You’d have to log into the same server. Buried treasure and Treasure Stash maps are server specific.
Do I get any kind of points or anything like the “Treasure Donated”?
Yeah, you earn Renown whenever you see the Treasure Donated pop up on your screen 🙂