The Fog-Pilot's Pipe

Anywhere in the sky

UncommonThe HighwildsAct IIAct IIIAct IV

Found after a fight

5 scenes. Choices with a requirement only appear when you meet it.

A Bone Pipe

Right away1

Searching the wreckage, your crew recover a hollow bone pipe hung on a braided cord. When blown, it makes no sound human ears can catch, yet every bird roosting on the nearest rock spire bursts into flight. The cord is tied in the distinctive knots of the bat-kin roosts.

Keep the pipe and ask at the next port about the knots.
A port chandler recognizes the knotwork at once: Ashfall Roost, home of the blind fog-pilots. He marks its gorge on your chart.
→ Ashfall Roost
[Chiropteran] Have crewmate test the bone pipe.
Crew: Chiropteran
crewmate winces at the first high note. "A fog-pilot's pipe. Its pitch says: follow me, the channel is clear. Only Ashfall Roost carves these." crewmate marks the roost's gorge and the surrounding fog banks on your chart.
Reveal 2 waypoints
→ Ashfall Roost
Toss it back into the wreckage.
The bone pipe drops over the rail. Deep in the clouds below, a wheeling flock abruptly changes course.
The questline ends here.

Ashfall Roost

Sail to Ashfall Roost (2–5 passages away)2

Take the bone pipe to Ashfall Roost, home of the fog-pilots.

Ashfall Roost is a cliff face honeycomb of dark doorways overlooking a fog-choked gorge. Drawn up from the depths by the mist, a pack of gloomwings is prowling along the cliff ledges while the bat-kin pelt them with stones. On your chart table, the bone pipe begins to hum in resonance.

Blow the pipe from your bow to lure the beasts off.
Open fire on the scavenger sloop!
The largest gloomwing releases the cliff ledge and hurtles toward your deck through the fog.
Battle: Gloomwing swarm · FogIf you win:+1 The Clans standing
→ The Blind Pilot
[Chiropteran] Have crewmate blow the proper pilot's call.
Crew: Chiropteran
crewmate sounds the exact cadence a fog-pilot uses: follow me, the channel is clear. The gloomwing pack streams off down the gorge, chasing a phantom ship into the mist.
+1 The Clans standing
→ The Blind Pilot
Sound the pipe and lead the pack down the gorge with your ship.
Because the pack follows the pipe, your ship must plunge where the note leads: straight down into fog too thick to see the bowsprit. Your keel scrapes rock twice before the gloomwings finally lose the trail behind you.
−2 hull
→ Down the Gorge
Leave it for now.
You hold off in clear air above the gorge while stones keep clattering down into the fog.

The Blind Pilot

Right away3

Return the bone pipe to the roost.

The roost's elder fog-pilot is named Ossa. Blind for thirty years, she has never needed eyes in the mist. She runs the braided cord through her fingers. "My son's pipe. He flew out to guide a vessel through the fog, but they didn't want a pilot—only an unguarded roost to rob." She falls quiet for a moment. "You brought his pipe home. What do you ask in return?"

Ask her to train your lookout crew to read echoes in the fog.
She spends two nights at your Lookout rail alongside your watch-standers. When she leaves, your crew know how to read every echo off cliff and cloud.
Upgrade: Lookout
The questline ends here.
Ask if the roost can spare a fog-pilot for your crew.
A young Chiropteran pilot—one of her late son's pupils—comes aboard carrying a roost purse to cover his keep. He sleeps upside down in the rope locker and is never wrong about the weather.
New crewmate: Chiropteran, Rigger+30 silver
The questline ends here.
Ask for nothing. The pipe belonged to her son.
She inclines her head. Even so, the roost loads bales of smoked meat onto your deck and sends word of your ship's honor to every aerie the fog-pilots serve.
+4 provisions+2 The Clans standing
The questline ends here.
Set the roost's stolen strongbox down before her, unopened.
Ossa recognizes the knotted hasp by touch. For a long moment she cannot speak. In gratitude, the roost grants your ship both gifts within its power: echo-training for your Lookout crew, and one of her son's trained pupils to sail aboard.
Upgrade: LookoutNew crewmate: Chiropteran, Rigger
The questline ends here.
Ask her to pilot your ship through the hidden fog road.
She rises without her walking stick. "It has been a long while since I flew the road." She asks to borrow her son's pipe one last time to guide the way.
→ The Fog Road

Down the Gorge

Right away4

At the floor of the gorge, your keel bumps against wood instead of stone. Moored beneath an overhang sits a ship's longboat loaded with looted roost goods: bone flutes, bales of smoked meat, and a pilots' strongbox sealed with the Ashfall knot. The wreck where you found the pipe had raided this roost first, and never made it back for their plunder.

Load the stolen goods and return them to the roost above.
Hauling the cargo aboard takes an hour in the blinding mist. Half the smoked meat has spoiled in the damp, so your cook salvages the good cuts while the unopened strongbox goes up to the roost.
+2 provisions
→ The Blind Pilot
Return the bone pipe to the roost, but keep the strongbox for yourself.
Your crew stow the heavy strongbox deep in your hold under canvas tarps—it wouldn't do to let a roost pilot spot it aboard. You leave the damp meat and flutes in the longboat. Up on the cliff, the stone-throwing has stopped, and bat-kin lanterns wave you in.
+50 silver
→ The Blind Pilot
Plunder the longboat and slip away down the gorge without visiting the roost.
You follow the gorge out to open sky with the roost's silver and cured meat in your hold, the bone pipe still humming on your chart table. By nightfall, the bat-kin will know what sort of ship lured the gloomwings down there.
+80 silver+2 provisions−1 The Clans standing
The questline ends here.

The Fog Road

Right away5

Standing at your bow with her son's bone pipe at her lips, Ossa guides your ship through a canyon of mist with neither top nor bottom. She calls every turn by echo long before the cliff walls loom in sight, cutting beneath three high mountain passes an unguided ship would have had to climb. By the time the fog thins, the pursuing storm front lies far behind you.

Thank her and set her ashore at the far roost.
With her thumbnail, she scores the location of every pilot roost along the canyon onto your chart, then keeps her son's pipe. Her shortcut has gained you a full day on the storm front.
The front falls back 1Reveal 3 waypoints+1 The Clans standing
The questline ends here.
[Helm 2] Have crewmate memorize the fog road as she calls the turns.
Crew: Helm 2+
crewmate stands at Ossa's shoulder, learning to judge every bend in the canyon by the rebound of the echo. Ossa remarks that crewmate is the first sighted pupil she has ever had who truly knew how to listen. You gain a full day on the storm front.
The front falls back 1Reveal 3 waypoints+2 Helm skill XP
The questline ends here.

Data from Magehold Fairwinds v1.9.26. Spotted something out of date? Discord