Assassin's Creed Valhalla Order of the Ancients guide: How to find cultists

Need a hand taking out the Order of the Ancients in Valhalla? Assassin's Creed's story has always revolved around a great conflict between the noble Assassins and the malevolent Templars. This war rages on in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, in the form of the Order of the Ancients. 

This guide will introduce you to Valhalla's new cult, while also showing you to find and retrieve their medallions to receive great rewards. Many of the mechanics will be familiar to those who have played Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Cult of Kosmos quest, which tasks you with eliminating a similar hierarchy of Templar targets. Here's how to unlock and complete the AC Valhalla Order of the Ancients questline.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Order of the Ancients: How to start killing cultists

After establishing your settlement in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, you'll soon be prompted to construct the Hidden Ones' Bureau, a dinky hut fronted by suspicious Assassin NPC, Hytham. The Bureau costs 400 Raw Materials and 30 Supplies to construct, which can be acquired by completing Raids. It's important you do this early as it will unlock a major questline corresponding with the overarching narrative of Assassin's Creed Valhalla. 

Opening the Hidden Ones' Bureau lets you unravel and assassinate the Order of the Ancients, a cabal of scheming Pagans who rule from the shadows in England and beyond. Speaking to Hytham after constructions unlocks the Leap of Faith ability, but it also provides access to the ‘Order' tab in the game's pause menu. This shows you the full web of the conspiracy, complete with silhouettes of all of the major players in the organisation.

How to find Order of the Ancients members

Some members of the Order appear as part of the main story (you'll assassinate one before you leave Norway). The rest you'll have to find for yourself. The easiest way to do this is to collect clues, which you can retrieve from dead Order members. You'll start out with two Pagans marked on your map, so clear them out first to start your paper trail.

There are 45 members of the Order of the Ancients and they operate within a hierarchy. If you assassinate a Palatinus or a Preost, you will receive information on a Maegester, while a dead Maegester will leave clues leading you to a Grand Maegester of the Order.

Beyond following clues, you should also seek out Zealots, armoured knights that roam the map and defend the Order, marked by a red Knight helmet in the legend. They're tricky battles, but defeating them will provide important clues. Forging alliances in the regions of England, completing side quests, and helping random townsfolk can also potentially lead you to a new member, who might be nearby. If you read the clues in the Order menu, many locations they were last seen in will be highlighted, so you can quickly identify where they might be hiding.

Another point worth mentioning is that in one of the game's first pledge arcs, you'll have a boss battle with Leofrith, resulting in the choice to spare or kill Leofrith in AC Valhalla. If you spare him, Leofrith will tell you about a scroll you can burn to stop the Order Zealots from hunting you. However, if you want to encounter more Zealots in the open world, you should kill them.

Order of the Ancients rewards explained 

Alongside clues, when you first eliminate a member of the cult you'll acquire a set of medallions. Initially, bringing four to Hytham will reward you with new clues and a special ability, first the Ranged Poison Strike, followed by Poison Strike. The number of medallions you need increases over time, so be prepared to take down multiple Order members before you can redeem your next ability. 

That's it for this guide. But Assassinating Order members isn't the only job Hytham has for you. He also wants you to find old Codex Pages detailing the history of the Assassins' precursors. This is part of a separate questline that is unrelated to your assassinations. This quest rewards you with an excellent set of stealth armour, and unravels a series of references to older games in the series such as Assassin's Creed Origins. Find out how to complete this quest in this AC Valhalla Hidden Ones' Bureau Codex Pages guide.