The Death Mark is a bounty placed on you in Skull and Bones by The Helm. It was disabled briefly by Ubisoft due to a bug spamming players with a message related to it, but it is back and working properly with the launch of Season 1. Here's how you get Death Marked in Skull and Bones and what you can do to get rid of it.

How To Get A Death Mark

To get a Death Mark, you have to do something to cross The Helm. This is fairly difficult to do, as there is only one way to upset them, which is by sinking their ships.

If you go to The Helm and look at supply opportunities, one of the ways to purchase more smuggling supplies is by purchasing them from roving merchants. These merchants are considered part of The Helm, which is listed as their faction if you look at them through the Spyglass.

If you choose to sink these ships to get the smuggling supplies without paying for them, you will receive the Death Mark, which causes rogue ships to regularly attack you.

How To Get Rid Of A Death Mark

The Death Mark functions as a debuff for your ship, appearing as a red icon in the bottom left part of the screen, underneath your health bar. The only way to get rid of the Death Mark is to wait for it to expire. It lasts roughly one hour and that only ticks down while you are in-game and in your ship.

The only way to speed up this process is to upgrade your smuggling empire. In the Smugglers Skills line of upgrades, you can decrease the length of the Death Mark by up to 50%. Outside of that, you will need to fight off the rogue ships until the timer expires. You could sit your ship in a safe zone, like Sainte-Anne harbor, and wait for it to expire, however, you will likely get booted from the server before the full hour is up.

The rogue ships appear in pairs and aren't difficult to defeat. The only downside is that they don't carry loot and some useful Skull and Bones items, not even Skull and Bones Silver, so the only reward for sinking them is the Infamy.