Sands of Aura: Tips on how to actually get all those achievements (some of them are TOUGH)

Welcome to Sands of Aura! It’s honestly a pretty fun game with some neat boss fights and what I found to be a pretty unique story and setting compared to the typical souls-like game. My goal is to help you sift your way though the sands of Talamhel and get you where you need to go (via grainwake, of course).
I plan on just covering the achievements here, so anything related to gameplay/story/etc you’ll have to look for elsewhere, but I will be throwing in my tips on how I found certain achievements more manageable across my playthroughs. I will also try to keep everything grouped in a way that makes sense, so here we go!

Short and sweet:

Setting Sail — Simply start the game

Port of Call — Reach the end of the game

Here’s some of the trickier stuff. You’ve got a nice variety of achievements with different requirements, and these range from very difficult to miss/mess up to pretty darn easy to miss/mess up. Diving right in:

Leisis Bless You — Complete the Ashes and Dirt side quest for Navae
Really hard to not get, given this is how you access talisman use in the game, so unless you’re planning on playing without talismans entirely…

The River Styx — Complete the Reduced Fare side quest for Volg
If you’re running around exploring, this isn’t hard to complete. You gotta talk to Volg and Furn, do a little errand running, but it mostly involves finding and exploring The Grave and the Flare Forge.

Smotherly Love — Complete the To Shield or Smother side quest for Creature
This one’s slightly easier to miss because it’s just entirely out of the way of everything you’d have to do to complete the story. That said, find the island of Malek’s Menagerie to start the quest and the rest sorts itself out pretty easily.

Nurture Over Nature/Nature Over Nurture — Give the Abeyant Ovum to either Furn or Kauzzum
This is one of only three achievement sets that get the “you must choose one per playthough” treatment you love to see, but if you plan to tackle Hard Mode after your first playthough it’s simple to finish up its counterpart. This is more or less unmissable because you’re essentially given the choice right after beating the boss in the Black Rot Chasm.

A Blunted Blade — Complete Danthea’s conversation in Ishular
This one is easy to miss because you HAVE TO complete the Fortunate Gesture side quest with Danthea BEFORE you enter Ishular, and that involves fighting all those crackhead humans on that giant hand (Colossus of Radiance) to the sky sticking out of the sand like some cliche villain-who-won’t-die bit from one of those movies (you know what I’m talking about).

A Girl from Husker — Get far enough into the In Search of Providence side quest with Calder
Another one that’s kinda missable depending on how you play. I found this one fairly easily on my first playthrough cuz I be s’plorin, but you do HAVE TO make sure you’ve completed the Engulfed in Sin side quest with Calder at the Ruins of Hurwell BEFORE entering Ishular (there’s a recurring theme with this).

A Casualty of Truth — Progress the In Search of Providence side quest to the point Calder is sent to the Crumbling Basilica, then find him
You HAVE TO complete Engulfed in Sin BEFORE entering Ishular (again, I know). I got this one my first playthrough because of how I did the quest (and we’ll cover the branched achievement next), you just gotta either encourage the burned guy to drink mysterious goo juice from the gooey eye demon orrrr rat him out to Danthea earlier during Engulfed in Sin (if you don’t rat him out, you can still get him sent to the basilica by encouraging drinking the liquid).

Ignorant Bliss — Complete Calder’s conversation after his return to Starspire
Say it with me: you HAVE TO complete Engulfed in Sin BEFORE entering Ishular. Couple of don’t’s and do’s here:

• DON’T rat out the church boy (Calder) to the church girl (Danthea) or the church boy will hold it against you later

• DON’T encourage Calder to drink mystery juice if you’re going for this achievement because he will, the thirsty guy

• DO cover for him during Engulfed in Sin

• DOtell him not to drink the liquid, and he’ll listen to you and come back to Starspire with you

Once you’ve done all that, progress the story back at Starspire til you’re able to move freely and then go into the entrance to the church of Leisis (from way back at the beginning of the game that one time you went in there) and he’ll be hanging out on a pew.

Family Heirlooms — Complete The Specter of Tradition, Remains of Redemption, and The Receding Wave side quests with/for Alaira
Seems like it wouldn’t be easy to miss but it is (I missed it my first run). If you haven’t made an educated guess yet, you might now be thinking you HAVE TO complete the Ruins of Redemption side quest BEFORE entering Ishular in order to get to the final bits with Alaira — and you’d be right. As long as you take care to follow her quest lines as they come up naturally it won’t be too hard to do, though my biggest struggle was finding the Modest Black Book for Furn so he’d give me the freakin’ bones. Here’s why: there are only three hidden walls in the entire game, but unlike most hidden walls in souls-like games you DO NOT hit them for them to disappear and reveal a new pathway, no no — you use the interact button and that does it. Nothing else, just the interact button (for PC it’s mapped to the F key, so just push that and bingo, that one wall on the left in the Lost Laboratory that’s got a little bright spot on it opens for you).

A Momentary Reflection — Participate in all optional Aura moments
You may be thinking, what the heck is an optional moment, and that’s a totally fair ask — it’s really, really vague and there’s lots of little moments with Aura that sure seem optional, but turns out it’s just a select group of four they want you to do:

• First (or second depending on where you go first) you’ll have a point in Radix Stronghold where she wants to hang out by a little lake/pond and chill, so go talk to her and let her have fun at the water

• Second, as you’re progressing through the Flare Forge, you’ll pass near a dead forest and she’ll mention wanting to go look around, so go follow her and chat until she enters depresso mode and hides back inside you

• Third and fourth moments are both during the Starspire Festival and require that you go see Joliff near the main dock and participate in the candlelight vigil with Aura and go to the top of the stairs of the spire and talk with the Alchemect and look through his fancy telescope BEFORE progressing the little story bit and finding the fireworks (if you find the fireworks before doing both of these, whoops)

Champion of Starspire — Win the tournament during Starspire Festival
Tough to miss; you’d have to choose not to do it, as this just requires fighting the third mysterious fighter after besting that pompous Riddell. You do, however, have to win that third fight BEFORE you finish progressing the story at the festival or you lock yourself out of it.

Dousing a Venerable Flame — Defeat all Ferrum bosses
Now, this one *technically* encompasses four total Ferrum, but I got the achievement on my first run after beating only three of them.
Here’s the list:

• 1) Greckko at the Cinderhold

• 2) Vozryx at the Lost Laboratory

• 3) The Flare Knight at the Flare Forge (these three popped the achievement for me)

• 4) Cathexis at the Flare Forge (only if you gave Pleonexis the Coveted Fragments)

Here’s all the little achievements you can miss by not exploring (only a loser wouldn’t explore the sandy sea, am I right?):

Piles and Piles — Be Mr. Richy-McRich
Okay but just have 100k glint at one time (not cumulative). This is one I saved for doing toward the end of my first playthrough so I could spend my glint freely and not risk losing it along the way and then regret not leveling up my gear. Alternatively, if you’re doing a Hard Mode playthrough, I noticed I broke the 100k mark naturally more than 5 times as I played through that, so either way works.

Explorer — Find and land on all islands
There are 13 of these in total, and as long as you sail around on the grainwake a little bit and look at the compass at the top you should be able to see the little icons for the islands as you’re sand-sailing and get this achievement pretty easily.

Locks and Keys — Unlock the locked room in your home
“Your home” is shared with Lawrence, I guess; it’s just that spot you start off the game with after getting out of Melgom’s Cavern. During the Starspire Festival there are several games/activities you can get emblems from, and once you’ve gotten 100 you can trade them in with Mysha (she hangs out near the makeshift church where Navae is located) to get Lawrence’s Lost Key which, you guessed it, opens that silly little door that thought it could keep its secrets from you (silly door).

Missing Melodies — Find and recruit all (4) musicians for Starspire
That’s right, there are four of these dudes scattered around on different islands, so let’s get that covered:

• Bassist can be found on a cliff at the Ruined Settlement, and he’s special because he’s the only one of the four you can actually miss entirely if you don’t find him BEFORE accepting/starting the main quest A Natural Effect right at the end of the game, so just go find him before then

• Guitarist/vocalist at the Sunken Tower (right next to Starspire)

• Accordionist at the Crumbling Basilica (higher leveled monsters here so maybe wait til you’re a bit more geared up)

• Flautist at The Grave (the one here is hidden behind another illusory wall, so listen to the eerie flute playing, walk toward walls til the volume is the loudest, and start interacting away with every wall you see)

Transformative Nature — Use the Flowering Vasculature
What an item name, I mean really. Anyway, you can find that item at the tippety-top of the big spiral staircase in Radix Stronghold (not hard to miss if you’re exploring the area), just be careful of all the things that want to kill you. Once you have it, go to the Family Tomb to the right of the main entrance to Radix Stronghold (another set of vines blocks this port so toss one of the Alchemect’s bombs at them), go up all the stairs, place the vasculature at the foot of the statue and the achievement will pop (and you’ll have an easier time with the Wilgrem Twins boss later on).

Advanced Armaments — Recruit both an armorsmith and a weaponsmith for Starspire
Hard to miss, especially if you want leveled gear in your first playthrough. Just progress the main story, find both smiths in Radix Stronghold and the Flare Forge (either of the Ferrum count), and complete their side/main quests (The Smile of Hatred for Lakin, and The Embers of Avarice for Cathexis or Pleonexis).

Artisan Armaments — Upgrade you armorsmith and weaponsmith to max level
This one doesn’t involve upgrading your gear directly, rather finding three items that allow you to upgrade your gear to their highest levels:

• Anvil of Andalux can be found in Ishular (pretty easy to spot as you progress in the city)

• Snowcinder Bellows can be found in the Crumbling Basilica (a little off the beaten path, they’re underneath the second resonance bell location at the back of that little bridge)

• Korvig’s Grindstone can be found at the top of one of the Colossus of Radiance’s fingers

Top Tier Gear — Upgrade an item to level 20
Finish the prior two achievements we covered and you can get this one through natural progression and some item farming.

One Size Fits All — Collect all armor pieces
The number of unique armor pieces required for this I believe is 92, but I found during my Hard Mode playthrough there’s another two full armor sets (8 additional pieces) that exceed this number, so it’s not necessary to acquire all unique pieces to unlock it. While it is possible to get the achievement on your first playthrough, you would have to give the Abeyant Ovum to Kauzzum in order to do so (he gives you his armor set, and I chose the other option my first run).
For anyone wondering, the other two unique sets I found on my second playthrough was a same-in-name but different-in-effect Elite Ferrum set from Pleonexis and the opposite Wilgrem Twin’s set after beating them (I’m not sure if you just get the second one via Hard Mode or if it’s dependent on which twin you kill last, so if you wanna get both you could play it safe and just make note of who you killed last on your first run, then kill the other one last on Hard Mode).
Also, it’s not hard to find complete sets as each entire set is locked to an island or an area on one of the islands, or are given as rewards/gifts during quest lines, so just go explore and keep an eye out for chests as you run around.

Bladesmith — Collect all weapon head codices
You gotta find all the codex books, which isn’t hard to accomplish if you’re exploring, just keep your eyes open for those glowing yellow dots.

Sommelier — Collect all brew recipes
Again, not a tough one. I had more than a few duplicate brew recipes by the end of my first run, so I’m pretty sure some enemies drop them as rare items sometimes, but most if not all recipes should be available as set item locations throughout the game.

Pommelsmith — Collect all weapon pommel casts
I know it’s probably annoying to hear again, but go explore — it’s not hard to complete these achievements if you’re looking. There is one that’s trickier to find, however, so here’s your freebie: there’s one at the back of the Noxious Vault, but wait, no there isn’t. We’ve found ourselves another fake wall, y’all (interact with that one unlit torch sconce on the left side).

The Trinket Tracker — Collect all talismans
For the final time, explore, explore, explore — you’ll find them all by looking around or completing quests.

Now these are the fun achievements in my opinion. There are a few of the conditional boss achievements that can be a bit tougher than the rest (lookin’ at you, Ubaani), but as we come up on each boss I’ll try to give you helpful tips on how to make getting those a little easier. Also, aside from whichever end-game boss you end up fighting if you do a Hard Mode run and get the opposite ending (fighting Melgom or Aura), I would recommend trying to complete the conditional chievos on your first run so you don’t have to deal with fighting a hard mode boss AND trying to meet the condition for it. As a quick note, any boss that has a hard mode counterpart achievement will be designated with a handy-dandy asterisk (*). Anyway, let’s start from the beginning and work our way through:

A Small Thirsty Thing* + A Supreme Kindness — Defeat the Sanctum Beast, and do it BEFORE Lawrence gets his ♥♥♥♥ rocked
Not too tough of one to do, honestly, unless you miss it first run and are trying to do it in Hard Mode (he hits way harder and Lawrence faints much quicker). If you find you missed it first run, I’d advise starting a new save file, blitz through Melgom’s Cavern and whoop its ass til you get it.

Spirit Within* + Reaching Vines — Defeat Ubaani, and do it without taking damage from his vine whip attacks
Now, I realize the achievement says “without being hit by,” but if you’re using spellblade moves or blocking or parrying the whip attacks you’ll be fine so long as you don’t take any damage from them. This is the one conditional achievement I struggled with the most, as the whip attacks come entirely randomly and can be spammed several times in a row with no rhyme nor reason.
Initially, I was attempting to dodge roll them each time, but the timing of that becomes more difficult as the fight progresses because Ubaani gains move speed as he loses health.
SO — what I wound up doing and what I recommend doing is forging a weapon with the one handed stabbing (knife/dagger) as the core focus so you get a +50% to your parry window and parry the vine whips to stun him temporarily, giving you some free hits from behind for that sweet crit damage (if you’re playing in Hard Mode you can also tack on the Lithe Riposte talisman, which adds another 20% to your parry window).

Overboard* + Unimpaired — Defeat the Alchemect, and do it without taking any damage
A pretty easy one all things considered. Keep an eye out for his projectile lobbing attacks and avoid the pools they create (not sure if these count but I’d avoid them anyway). In regard to hitting him without being hit back, what I found extremely easy to do was to run at him and hit him a couple times (I was using glaive), then dodge roll away as he starts his short punch or kick attacks. His move will stop and you’ll see a slight hesitation on his part before he begins chasing you again, which is when you once again run toward him, hit him, roll away, repeat.

Twin Thorns* + Savage Progeny — Defeat the Wilgram Twins, and do it by taking them out within five seconds of each other
Again, not a particularly tough one, just make sure to keep an eye on their individual health bars and try to keep damage even across the board as you can. The twins start out with just one of them fighting, they switch out, and then they’ll fight you at the same time as their health lowers.

Sovereignty of Irons* + En Garde — Defeat Greckko, and do it only AFTER successfully parrying his attacks three times
This was probably the easiest one to control/keep track of for me. If you haven’t played around with the parrying mechanic by this point, it’s really not too hard to get the hang of and the timing is rather forgiving. Take a minute to recognize Greckko’s attack patterns and try your best to time your parry with his attack. If you do it right you’ll get that familiar stun and broken yellow aura around his character, letting you know for sure you parried — just do that three times.

The Guardian of Fire* + Unbridled Flame — Defeat the Flare Knight, and do it while there are still two or more pillars intact
Not a tough one to do, just a little tricky depending on where you’re at in the game and how many healing bells you have and how far you’ve progressed your gear and weapons. This boss can hit pretty hard at times, so just be mindful — when he goes up into the sky he’s charging a blast attack that will end you if you don’t hide behind a pillar, which is then destroyed, so you have to beat him before he uses that move three times (there are only four pillars).

Rotted Throne* + Before Court and Council — Defeat the Hashari Princess, and do it while BOTH of her handmaids are still alive
Not a really difficult boss; she spawns in two handmaids about two-thirds to halfway through the fight that make killing her a bit trickier simply because they get in the way frequently. If you kill either one you’ll void the conditional achievement, so I’d avoid damaging them at all until you’re at a point where if you use an aoe it can kill the boss but keep them alive. Also, note that you can attack and break the webs they spit at you so you don’t continually get stuck.

Herald of the Holy Seat — Permanently defeat the Giant of Ishular
The giant’s not a boss in the typical sense, and he “moves around” (there are seven scripted points he spawns) in Ishular. What’s more, you have to defeat him in all seven locations consecutively without resting at any resonance bells. If you’ve progressed Danthea’s questline fully before entering Ishular, she’ll aid you in fighting him in all seven spots (big help as she pulls aggro sometimes).
The giant’s seven locations are:

• 1) To the left of the Courtyard resonance bell in an open plaza

• 2) Near the first locked gate in another plaza with a couple of necromancers

• 3) Past the first area with the flaming wheelwrights (he crashes through the left wall)

• 4) Past another grouping of wheelwrights in a skinny alley

• 5) On the long bridge with a tree in the middle just before the second locked gate

• 6) Toward the back of the lower graveyard and to the right of the big stairs

• 7) At the end of walkway next to the astronomy lab

Prime Radiance* + Trial by Fire — Defeat Atnael, and do so without taking damage from fire trails
Skele-man has a move where he zooms across the platform you fight upon a couple of times, marking lines where he passed, which will quickly light with green flames. I’m pretty sure you’re fine if you get smacked by him as he does his zoomies, and you’re only in trouble if the actual flames hit you, but to be safe I made sure I avoided the entirety of that move.
Heads up, he also has a move where he yeets you into the sky and you come crashing down and take fall damage (I couldn’t figure out any way to avoid taking the hit, so I just used the Dust Fall talisman, negating that fall damage). Additionally, if you progressed all Alaira’s quests before entering Ishular, she’ll drop in to help you fight Atnael.

Shattered Illusions* + Navigating Farewells — Defeat Aura, and do so without taking damage from the flying orbs during her shield phases
This was my unique boss fight to my Hard Mode playthrough, and I didn’t find her difficult to clock even then. Her shield phases start off with her kind of crumpling into a ball before a little bubble encases her — immediately when this happens there will be a bunch of flying blue orbs that come in from offscreen that travel in a straight line from point a to b. My tactic here was to wait for the first ones to come, dodge roll through them, then run toward Aura and immediately use my special attack to do as much damage to her shield as possible, dodge the next set of orbs, and most times I’d pop her shield before I saw a third set of orbs. The orbs do fly in at predictable times, though, so as long as you pay attention it’s not a tough condition to meet here.

The End of Ancients* + Ascendant — Defeat Melgom, and without taking any fall damage
This guy (I hated him for this) — he has a one-shot move that’s prompted by him saying something like “the cycle must be repeated,” at which point he’ll have spawned three little blue crystals. It took me longer than it should’ve to figure out how to avoid that move. Normally, we want to avoid the little blue crystals because they teleport you above them and drop you (fall damge), but when he prompts his one-shot, run into one of these crystals and *presto* there’s a new platform under your feet. Once he finishes the move, though, the platform disappears and you’ll fall and take damage unless you manage a successful fall attack on him. I chose to just apply the Dust Fall talisman again here to negate the fall damage.

The Coming Dawn* + Transcended Abyss — Defeat Maveth, and without taking any damage from corruption pools
The pools in question are those little dark purple pockets along the outer edge of the platform you fight on, and they’re actually really easy to avoid. Maveth does have one attack with a bit of a knockback, so if you keep yourself fairly centered in the room they won’t be an issue. A tip for Maveth: if you’ve got parrying down, it fairly trivializes him and helps combat his repeated self-healing move.

Let Me Solo Them — Defeat the Belfry Priests without enlisting the help of Kauzzum
These two are at the top of The Belfry, one of the little islands that’s irrelevant to the rest of the story. You can also find Kauzzum at the island and he’ll help you fight them for 7,500 glint I believe, but I was able to solo these guys easily very early in my first run, so just go for it and get the achievement.

Frigid Winds* + Child of Ronkurth — Defeat Einar, and without being hit by large frost orbs
Find him in the Coldwell, another island set apart from the main story. Pretty straightforward requirement — avoid the large orbs. There’s a move Einar uses where he basically shields and sends a thousand little orbs hurling in an outward circle around the map which you can choose to run around or dodge through, but the orbs you want to avoid are the the much larger ones that will track after your character’s movement, so just keep an eye open for when those spawn in and watch their movement as you whoop on Einar.

Rain Must Fall* + No Salvation — Defeat Alaira, and without allowing her to successfully heal herself
She, of course, is at the Ruins of Hurwell. Alaira is a bit of a toughie early on, so I’d table her for a little while until you’ve had some time to level your gear. When you’re ready to take her on, be alert for when she begins healing herself (she’ll have a bubble around her with a bell above her head) and go nuts breaking that shield. You won’t have much time to break the healing bubble, so I’d recommend saving special attacks or spellblade charges for this. Tip: Alaira is another boss that gets trivialized with good parries.

Redeemer* + Divine Guidance — Defeat Danthea, and without being hit by any orbiting maces
Very similar to Einar’s ice orbs, Danthea will summon a total of three orbiting maces which, rather than tracking your movement like Einar’s did, will track with Danthea’s movement, circling around her. Be mindful and watch to get a feel for how much room you have to move as you fight her, but don’t get stressed out, dodging Danthea’s moves is a fairly easy task (mace weapons were the easiest for me to consistently avoid in the game).

I do believe that brings us to the end! Lots of achievements, yes, but all doable (even the Hard Mode ones). I had quite the struggle finding any help via guides or online forums, so I thought I’d do my part for the community and put this guide together to my best effort to keep information clear while maintaining thoroughness. Hopefully, I at least came close to that goal and provided you with some clarity in regards to unclear or weird quest/achievement conditions, and some general helpful tips in fighting through the bosses.
This is the first guide I’ve put out on Steam, so if anyone has any feedback on how I might have made information more clear or streamlined, please let me know! I wish you all well as you play Sands of Aura!