Windrose Faction Guide: How to Increase Your Reputation
Sailing around sinking random ships is incredibly entertaining, but eventually, you are going to need access to professional vendors.
You are far from the only captain trying to carve out a living in this archipelago. The waters of Windrose are controlled by several distinct pirate factions. They all hate each other, they all want to monopolize the local economy, and they are all perfectly willing to sell you highly restricted gear if you prove you are useful to them.
The game does not use a traditional experience point system to track how much a faction likes you. Instead, your reputation is treated as a physical commodity that you have to harvest from the corpses of your enemies. I spent entirely too much time trying to figure out where to actually turn these items in before I realized how the central hub worked. If you are still trying to figure out how to even build a boat to reach these factions, take a quick detour and read my beginner's survival guide first.
The Physical Currency of Respect
To increase your standing with any given group, you need to hand over specific items called Insignias and Letters of Favor.
Every time you turn one of these items in, a progress bar fills up. Once you hit the required threshold, your reputation level with that specific faction increases, permanently unlocking new tiers of equipment, blueprints, and provisions in their respective shops. Do not just throw these items away to save pocket space.
How to Farm Insignias and Letters
You cannot craft these items at your base. You have to go out into the world and actively participate in the local pirate wars to acquire them.
Grinding Pirate Camps and Ships
Insignias are strictly combat drops. Whenever you raid a pirate camp on land or successfully board an enemy vessel at sea, the crew you slaughter will drop these tokens.
The quality of the Insignia is directly tied to the rank of the enemy you killed. Standard, low level sailors will only ever drop Newhand Insignias. If you want the lucrative Veteran or Old Salt drops, you have to hunt down high ranking Lieutenants, Musketeers, and elite faction bosses. Boarding actions are incredibly dangerous, so I highly recommend reading my ship upgrades and repairs guide to ensure your galleon is actually equipped for a fight before you start picking on military vessels.
Completing Side Quests
Letters of Favor are acquired by actually talking to people instead of shooting them. As you explore the map, you will pick up various side quests and Faction Quests. Completing these tasks rewards you with bundles of Letters. For instance, finishing the Buccaneers side quest hands you 5 Letters of Favor, while completing Catastrophe's Aftermath drops a massive 10 Letters into your inventory.
Where to Turn Everything In
Hoarding a chest full of Old Salt Insignias does nothing for your reputation until you physically hand them over to the right person.
The Tortuga Hub
Follow your main questline until the game directs you to visit the island of Tortuga. This port acts as the primary neutral hub for all four major factions:
People of Tortuga
Rogue Buccaneers
Smugglers of Port Royal
Brethren of the Coast
When you arrive, you will find multiple NPCs called Bounty Agents standing next to vendor stalls called Provisioners. Each pair represents one of the four factions.
You have to make a choice. Handing over your hard earned Insignias to the Brethren of the Coast only increases your standing with them. The other three factions get nothing. You need to look at what each Provisioner is selling and decide which faction offers the gear that best fits your playstyle. Once you pick a favorite, dump all your tokens into their Bounty Agent to fast track your way to Level 2.
Purchasing the Goods
Just having a high reputation is not enough to actually take the gear home. You still have to pay for it.
The faction vendors do not accept standard copper or raw wood. They deal strictly in Piastre and Guinea, the premium currencies of Windrose. You acquire this money by looting lost barrels at sea, cracking open chests inside ancient ruins, and stripping the cargo holds of ships you sink. If you are worried about carrying all this currency around, look into upgrading your bags with my inventory and storage guide.
Faction Main Bases and Perks
Tortuga is convenient, but it is not the only place to do business. Each of the four factions maintains a massive, heavily fortified Main Base hidden somewhere in the procedurally generated world.
Finding these bases is incredibly rewarding. The moment you discover a faction's headquarters, it permanently unlocks as a fast travel node on your map. You can instantly teleport to these fortresses without ever having to build or place your own Fast Travel Bell. If you want to understand exactly how to manipulate the teleport network to your advantage, read my fast travel system guide.
Liquidating Your Junk
The Main Bases also feature a unique NPC called a Buyer. These merchants exist for one specific purpose: liquidating your weird, hoarded junk.
As you hunt wildlife and raid camps, your inventory will clog up with strange items like Dodo Heads, excess Spirits, and random medical supplies. Regular vendors ignore this stuff, but the Buyers at the Main Bases will gladly take it off your hands for a profit. Sell your junk, buy your faction blueprints, and start crafting better armor. If you want to know what weapons you should be aiming for, check out my weapons and armor crafting guide.
