Black Sails Friday is all about collecting booty and seeking out treasure, with deals available for brave buccaneers until November 24!



Avast, ye scurvy sea dogs! Get your hands on pirate-themed goodies from the in-game store until November 24:

• Pirate Captain Hero Attire: Show off your seafaring style and grab the Victory Pass with this ocean-tastic outfit! (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Sea Horse Mount Set: Ride into battle on the ripples of good fortune with this wavy steed. (Purchase Limit: 10)
• Buccaneers Unit Attire: Plunder the plains of battle with a fierce and fashionable Unit in your crew.
• Kraken Unit Banner: Hoist your colours high and scour the seven seas beneath this fearsome banner.

Gaze upon the treasure available in the in-game store and grab these booty-ful bundles, available with up to 30% off:

• Seadogs Bundle: Everything a corsair could want is included in this bundle, including the Pirate Captain Hero Attire, Victory Pass, Sea Horse Mount Set, Buccaneers Unit Attire, and Kraken Unit Banner! (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Purser's Bundle: What’s a pirate without their doubloons? Get your marauding mitts on hoards of Bronze and Silver. (Purchase Limit: 10)
• Gunner's Mate Bundle: No need to ready the cannons, as this bundle has all the firepower you could need in the form of Random Epic Artillery Chests and Legendary Artillery Selection Boxes. (Purchase Limit: 5)
• Grog & Hardtack Bundle: Lotus Water, Unit Medals, and Scrolls of Renewal will bless your voyage. (Purchase Limit: 5)
• Seven Seas Bundle: Pick up General Supplies and Greater Scrolls of Glory every day! (Purchase Limit: 1 per day. Refreshes daily at 00:00 Server Time)

A bounty of treasure awaits you with the Victory Pass!

Purchase the Pirate Captain Hero Attire before November 21 in-game to access the Victory Pass, complete daily and repeatable tasks and earn booty like Unit Medals, Treatises, Golden Keys, and more!

IMPORTANT: Rewards from the Victory Pass can be claimed until November 24.
Until November 17, lay claim to legendary Units and Weapons from 12 Seasons of Conqueror’s Blade with 20% off Challenges (available from the ‘F5’ menu)!

• Season II: Wrath of the Nomads Unit Challenges
• Season III: Soldiers of Fortune Unit Challenges + Maul Challenges
• Season IV: Blood of the Empire Unit Challenges
• Season V: Legacy of Fire Unit Challenges
• Season VI: Scourge of Winter Unit Challenges
• Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok Unit Challenges
• Season VIII: Dynasty Unit Challenges + Pike Challenges
• Season IX: Tyranny Unit Challenges
• Season X: Highlanders Unit Challenges
• Season XI: Paragons Unit Challenges
• Season XII: Helheim Unit Challenges

Yo, ho! Outfit budding buccaneers in your Warband with special Unit Attire:

• Blue Scutarii Unit Attire: Treat the Myrmillones to this gilt and blue attire, and prove their fashion prowess. (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Long Claws Unit Attire: Let the Sons of Fenrir reveal their wild side in this ostentatious outfit. (Purchase Limit: 1)

Anchors aweigh!

Please be aware that from 07:00 CET on November 10 (22:00 PST on November 9), the Conqueror’s Blade servers will be inaccessible. The downtime is expected to last for 5 hours.

Please refer to the Patch Notes for documented changes. Meanwhile, stay tuned to our Discord channel in case of any immediate server updates.

The All or Nothing limited-time event is back from November 10 until November 24! Load up Colosseum Mode, enter the fray, and earn Stars to exchange for Treasure Troves.

Every battle won will net you 1 Star, but losing even one battle means losing all the Stars you have earned so far. Exchange them while you can, or risk it all for more Stars!



The Colosseum Mode will be open longer during this period for extra Star-grabbing potential. Check out the new times below:

• 16:00 CET - 20:00 CET (EU) / 07:00 - 11:00 PDT (NA2) / 10:00 - 14:00 EDT (NA3)
• 22:00 CET - 02:00 CET (EU) / 13:00 - 17:00 PDT (NA2) / 16:00 - 20:00 EDT (NA3)

Exchange your Stars for Treasure Troves via the Event Page. After considering player feedback from the last event, your first Golden Trove is now guaranteed to include the Colosseum Weapons Selection Box, meaning you can take your pick of the following Weapon Skins:

• Crowd-Pleaser Poleaxe
• Tridentine Spear
• Cheetah's Dagger

Treasure Troves can include Treatises, Silver Keys, Gold Dust, Artillery, and Victory Horns and Protection Charms that can be consumed for a special bonus before a battle.

Using a Victory Horn will grant 2 Stars for a win, and consuming a Protection Charm will prevent the loss of Stars if you are defeated.

Protection Charms can also be purchased from the in-game Store for added protection.
Take on Daily & Weekly Quests from the Warden to earn Bronze, Honour, Protection Charms, and Victory Horns to use in your pursuit for Stars!

In this article, we'll be discussing Doctrines and the changes we have in store for them. We hope that the changes will enable Doctrines to provide more varied gameplay and battles. Of course, the most important thing is to make the game fun!
We've heard plenty of players talk about their issues with Doctrines. Your feedback helped us realise that the power difference between Doctrines is often too large, and they're too difficult to acquire, making the entire system off-putting. Our initial design intention was for everyone to be able to use Doctrines on a level playing field, and for them to create more variety in battle.

Going forward, our core idea is that efforts must be rewarded. We want everyone to have a fun time growing their Units. That's why we're combining the core content of each Season: Battle Pass, Seasonal Units, Territory Wars and Doctrine Acquisition.
Starting with the upcoming Season, we'll provide a new way to earn Doctrines. You'll be able to exchange the new season's item, Doctrine Spirit, in the Exchange (‘X’) menu for the Doctrines you want.

You'll be able to exchange one Doctrine Spirit for one Epic Doctrine.

The types available will be based on the Season's phase, and we'll have more to reveal about Doctrines in the next Season closer to launch.



You'll be able to acquire two Doctrine Spirits every Season. The acquisition cap of Doctrine Spirits resets with each Season.

You can get one Doctrine Spirit by reaching Tier 100 in the Season's Battle Pass (available on the Free Pass), and one by completing the fifth stage of the Season's 5-Star Unit challenge. Progress toward this only counts toward the 5-Star Unit of the current Season.

Doctrine Spirits are retained over Seasons, so you can always stock up on some to get a headstart in a new Season.

By combining our seasonal content, you should have clearer goals to work toward for rewards while also giving you the chance to experience more of each new season's content.
Have you ever found yourself opening your inventory only to see it full of Doctrines, few of which are usable? Apart from taking up bag space, low-level, duplicate, or old Doctrines don't serve any purpose. The new Doctrine Fusion system should give you a new use for your old Doctrines that are simply gathering dust.

Doctrine Fusion allows you to use your old unwanted Doctrines to create new ones. For example, if you've got a couple of Resource Doctrines in your inventory but you don't really gather them in the Open-World, then you can use these to create a completely new Doctrine. Or, if you've got plenty of rare and uncommon ones just gathering dust, you can use these to create a new one.

IMPORTANT: The Doctrines you create cannot be attained from Treatises.
We know just how difficult it can be to get Doctrines, so we've added a new item type: Doctrine Components. If you've got Doctrines you don't want to part with, you can use Doctrine Components of an equal quality as materials in their place, thereby earning more powerful Doctrines.

There are plenty of ways to acquire Doctrine Components, such as Matchmaking Battles, Territory Wars, Events, raising your Battle Pass level, and through the Fame Store. By not making it available in the Store, we want to encourage you all to earn it during your daily battles and conquests.

We're really excited about this new system, and we'll keep an eye on community feedback and continue to adjust Doctrine Fusion going forward to ensure as great an experience as possible.

Some of you may not have kept either Treatises or Doctrines, meaning you can't try out the new feature when it drops. However, we've prepared a gift awaiting you all in the new season—-simply login every day once the new season hits to earn 50 Ancient Treatises, and join the event that reduces the consumption of Lotus Water. Stay tuned for more detailed information.

IMPORTANT: This article is accurate as of the time of publication but may be subject to change. Please check in-game for correct terminology for in-development features such as the Doctrine Spirit, Doctrine Fusion, and Doctrine Components.

With Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum approaching its Season finale, we spoke to Dr Christopher Epplett — lecturer at the University of Lethbridge, historian, and author of Gladiators & Beast Hunts: Arena Sports of Ancient Rome and Gladiators: Deadly Arena Sports of Ancient Rome — for a retrospective on the gladiator-themed update.

Dr Epplet’s interest in Ancient Rome began when he was a child, and after studying Classics, he went on to get his doctorate at the University of British Columbia.

Read on to see what the man himself had to say on everything from Ancient Rome to gladiators, and of course Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum.



What do you think of Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum?
It looks interesting! In terms of the gladiator types—-the Retiarii had a little more armour than I would suggest, although I realise this is a video game and you can't have everything, or you might want to spruce it up. Although you still got the basic weapon right and so forth, such as the spear. I can understand, again, in terms of the game aesthetic where you might want the Retiarii to wear a little more exciting armour, rather than basically walking around in a loincloth. There wasn’t anything [in terms of the gladiator Units] that leapt out at me as being completely off base.

Now you know how we portrayed gladiators in Conqueror’s Blade, how do you feel Ancient Roman culture and gladiators are portrayed in video games generally?

From what I've seen in my limited sample size, it's a little bit like Hollywood in that they often get the broad outlines right, but some of the details are changed. Sometimes it might just be a mistake; other times I can understand it's trying to fit into the design concept of the game.

It's the same with Hollywood where again, they get the broad outline right but they take some shortcuts and so forth for the sake of the narrative or the film, like the movie Gladiator. If you look at that film closely as an ancient historian, there are some things that certainly aren’t a hundred percent correct. One example I'll quickly give is when that gladiator comes out of retirement to fight him. What he's wearing, that fancy helmet, is actually a Roman cavalry helmet that they wore on parade. Evidently, the producers thought it would look nice and it does look cool.



So we've talked about the units in Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum, and you've said that they're pretty good historically. What do you think of our 6v6 Colosseum mode? Could such large team fights have occurred in Ancient Rome?

There could be on occasion, yeah. I mean, we're more familiar with the one-on-one, but they could have larger groups fighting like that. There's nothing inherently wrong about having a six against six. One of the things they would do, and this would be even larger than six against six, they would reenact ancient battles. For some of their maritime spectacles, they'd find a body of water, or in the early days of the Colosseum, they may have flooded the Colosseum floor itself and put some boats in it.



In our research on keeping gladiators and feeding them and training them, we read that they were taught not to kill their competitor in the bouts if they could help it. Have you found that to be true, or is this only true of when emperors fought, such as Emperor Commodus sparring as a secutor?

Certainly, whenever an emperor got into the arena (the sources don't really go into detail about this), I'm sure various safety measures were observed to make sure that the emperor in question wasn't killed. The one example I can think of in terms of Commodus fighting animals in the arena was they would have an elevated walkway so he could run around and shoot animals with his bow in perfect safety. The one general point to keep in mind is that yes, gladiatorial boats generally were much less fatal and much less bloody than people commonly believe.

One thing to keep in mind along these lines is particularly in the later empire when the economy became worse and worse, and the cities of the empire, including Rome herself, found it more and more difficult to fund the spectacles. One thing to keep in mind in this context is how expensive gladiators were, so if you as an organiser had rented out a group of gladiators to fight in your spectacle, you'd already paid a considerable amount of money, and for any that were killed, presumably, you would have to pay more. So, it was in the spectacle organiser's best interest to keep casualties to a minimum. In the case of the emperors, at least in the early empire, they had all the funds they wanted, so they didn't have to worry as much about fatalities.

Forced servitude as a gladiator was not the most glamorous life, but there was some sort of fame that came from being successful. Would you perhaps compare them to modern-day cage fighters?

I think in certain respects you can make that comparison. I've also heard them compared to rock stars. Certainly, at least some of these gladiators appear to have got a genuine thrill from going out and demonstrating their testosterone by besting their opponent on the arena floor, which goes right along with cage fighters. I think even today we're not as evolved as we like to think we are, I think there's still a hidden part of many people that enjoy combat sports with real risks.

I don't really watch MMA, but I have nothing against it. I don't watch it but I've seen instances or seen clips where the crowd is cheering when a guy gets his arms snapped or whatever. Gladiators and their parallels with rock stars or MMA fighters or what have you—there's the same thing when ancient authors talk about the sex appeal of gladiators. I think at least for some of the gladiators involved; it stoked their ego. We know for a fact some people volunteered to become gladiators. They weren't necessarily compelled to because they were prisoners of war or because they were financially destitute, they did so of their own free will.



We produce a series of articles called Conqueror’s Tales where we write about the historical influences behind the game. We recently published an article on female gladiators or gladiatrixes. What evidence have you come across to corroborate the existence of female gladiators?

It's very scattered. The relief of the two female gladiators fighting [Amazonia and Achillia], that's from modern-day Turkey, and we might perhaps extrapolate from that, that female gladiators were not unheard of periodically. I think despite the moral condemnation that such participants in the games might attract in Rome, one thing that spectacle organisers seemed to have been looking for constantly over time was novelty, because if you kept showing the same thing over and over, eventually, your audience would get bored.

Putting in a novelty like female gladiators certainly appears to have been one way to pique spectator interest. Even in Rome, the appearance of female gladiators from time to time is something that sparks interest again, despite the moral condemnation that we hear about in the sources. That relates to the idea that it was unseemly for women to appear in the arena, particularly women of higher status. It's along the same lines of the same condemnation of when men of senatorial or high status go into the arena. Hence there are attempts through legislation and the like to shut both of these things down. We can certainly say that the female gladiators who we hear of periodically were not an isolated phenomenon.

What meaning do you personally think is correct of the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” gladiator gesture?

I'm not going to die on a hill over this, but I'm almost more sympathetic towards the idea that we've got it wrong, because the basic line is, “the thumb turned” to indicate death. But again, if you think that when you're walking along your thumb's natural position is down, then, it could be this (gestures upwards).

Thank you to Dr Christopher Epplett for speaking with us, and to all our players, we hope you enjoyed Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum! Stay tuned for news on the upcoming Season very soon.

From now until November 17, visit the Smuggler to stock up on Stashes and Treasures! Whether you require more explosive firepower, precious resources, or crafting components, the Smuggler has everything you need in stock.

The most coveted prize is the Blue Scutarii Unit Attire for the Myrmillones (4-Star Unit). This gilt and royal blue shield once defended an empire but is now a common costume fixture for gladiators.



Take a gander at the Smuggler’s wares below:

• Smuggler’s Stash: For Bronze Coins, you can pick up loot such as the Blue Scutarii Unit Attire, Epic Schematic Selections, Artillery, and much more.
• Smuggler’s Treasure: Hand over Silver Coins to receive riches fit for a pirate, including everything available in the Smuggler’s Stash, along with Optimal Artillery, Silver Keys, and much more.

Pay your local Smuggler a visit to pick up these limited-time deals before November 17!

Fame and fortune can still be found in the Colosseum. From now until November 17 (08:00 server time), you can pick up the Colosseum Battle Pass for 40% off and save 40% on Battle Pass progress!

With the Battle Pass, you can earn extra rewards by completing Seasonal Challenges and collecting Glory. Battle to collect 100+ tiers of exclusive Gladiator-inspired rewards like the Equites Unit Attire, the Triumphant Leo Mount Set, the Centurion Hero Attire, and lots more.

You can also draw more Blades to exchange in the Seasonal Store for weapon skins, plus revamped cosmetics originally released in Season IX: Tyranny!



Get 40% off the Colosseum Battle Pass from the ‘F5’ menu, from MY.GAMES Market (via the MGLauncher) and Steam, or the Colosseum Battle Pass Bundle and the Supreme Glory Bundle (in-game only).

Boost your existing Tiers to square away any remaining rewards with 40%off Colosseum Battle Pass progress (in-game only).

This Battle Pass is only available during Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum. The Season is due to end soon, so don’t delay!

Please be aware that from 07:00 CET on November 3 (23:00 PDT on November 2), the Conqueror’s Blade servers will be inaccessible. The downtime is expected to last for 4 hours.

Please refer to the Patch Notes for documented changes. Meanwhile, stay tuned to our Discord channel in case of any immediate server updates.

All Hallows’ Eve is upon us, and while we prepare our pumpkins and load up on candy for trick-or-treating, we mustn’t forget the ancient cultures who contributed to the spooky celebration we know and love today. As you participate in eerie events and shop spooky sales in Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum, you may be surprised to learn that Ancient Romans had their own version of Halloween—Lemuria (or Lemuralia).

Romans were extremely superstitious, and death played a huge role in their everyday lives. Lemuria was no exception and was a chance to subdue malevolent spirits.

The name Lemuria reportedly comes from ‘Remuria’, the festival named after Remus (from Romulus and Remus fame). The poet Ovid wrote, “Romulus complied, and gave the name Remuria to the day on which due worship is paid to buried ancestors.” Historians assume Remuria eventually became Lemuria, as “lemures” is a name for a type of Roman spirit.

The dates and customs may be different, but the spirituality (and spooky vibes) of the event remains the same.
Lemuria was a festival in Ancient Rome that took place on three different dates in May (usually 9, 11, and 13 in the Julian calendar)—-not quite the chilly October 31st date we’re used to. Romans believed even-numbered days were unlucky, thus this festival to honour the dead and appease deceased ancestors took place on odd-numbered days.

Although the weather may have been sunny, the festivities were solemn. All temples were shut during the festival, and no one could marry during the three days of Lemuria. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however, as on the final day a merchants’ festival was held to ensure a prosperous year ahead.


A Roman floor mosaic from Pompeii (1st century BC)
Lemuria was a private event, rather than a public festival, and the home was where all the events took place. Romans performed rites to exorcise vengeful ghosts of their ancestors from their residences, and the spirits of the restless dead (or ‘lemures’) were appeased with offerings of beans. The spirits or spectres in Lemuria differ from modern depictions of ghosts, as they are not inherently evil but were appeased with offerings and observed with certain rites to prevent them from doing harm.

The head of the household would be responsible for performing a rather odd rite. Romans would take off their sandals and walk around their house barefoot while making a gesture named ‘mano fica’ (fig hand) to ward off evil. They would then use fresh water to clean themselves and spit black beans from their mouth while repeating this incantation; “These I cast; with these beans, I redeem me and mine."

The beans symbolised removing potentially dangerous spirits from the home, and Ovid believed the restless souls would follow the beans and leave.

Check out more Conqueror’s Tales about the culture of the Ancient Romans that inspired Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum, with looks at female fighters, animals in the arena, and emperors & assassins.

Slice your way to spooktacular prizes with our Pumpkin Carving Contest! Follow the steps below to prove your pumpkin prowess and win prizes fit for a Pumpkin King:

• Take a picture of your pumpkin before you begin!
• Carve a unique jack o'lantern.
• Snap a pic of your creepy creation.
• Post both photos in the Contest Discord Channel before November 6 (23:59 CEST).

Invite your friends to rate your work—every “thumbs up” counts! The final result will be determined by both the ratings and our jury.

The rewards up for grabs for the top three best pumpkins include Sovereigns, Plague Doctor Hero Attire, and Pumpkin Heads.

Make your pumpkin cute, creepy, or chilling—just be careful with the carving knives!