When Final Fantasy XIV gave their Warriors of Light an island, they thought they'd get some good rest and relaxation. Instead, in true FFXIV player base fashion, it turned what was supposed to be casual content into a passive gil-making venture to fill their coffers.
There are three types of currency for the Island Sanctuary: Islander Cowries, Seafarer Cowries, and Felicitous Favors. While the first two are available when you start your sanctuary you’ll need to reach Rank 19 and upgrade all facilities (including the cabin) to rank five to unlock Felicitous Favors. From there each currency has its own potential breakdown to make gil. When you’re ready to exchange your currencies you can head down to the Horrendous Hoarder located at (12.6, 28.4) on your island.
This guide will provide information for what to buy once you’ve accumulated some currencies. To find out how to farm each one, check out the individual guides below.
How to make gil with Felicitous Favors
Players can collect up to 70 favors per week and can spend them on two items: Vegetal Vouchers and Sanctuary Material Containers. This means you can get a mix ranging from seven Vegetal Vouchers to seven Sanctuary Material Containers depending on if you want the vouchers to sell for gil or the RNG of container loot.
You can spend 200 Vegetal Vouchers to buy the Island Adenium Whistle which will take 29 weeks total to collect. This means it will be profitable to set up your weekly Felicitous Favors on your farm due to demand for the mount. For example, if the typical going rate of a voucher has an average of 30,000 gil, that means selling a week’s worth of vouchers in a stack would net you about 210,000 gil. This average is expected to fluctuate to higher prices as fewer players tend to their sanctuary in later expansions.
Conversely, you can risk RNG to see if you can acquire both the Island Adenium Whistle and Island Peerifool Whistle by buying containers. Some have been known to get several whistles per week while others have gotten none. Personally, I’ve unlocked Felicitous Favors at the start of 6.5 and opened around 140 containers only to receive one Island Peerifool Whistle and zero Island Adenium Whistles. I do not recommend this route if you’re trying to make steady gil as you can buy any mounts you may need with your fixed weekly income.
How to make gil with with Seafarer Cowries
If you have extra Seafarer Cowries to burn there are a few avenues to take such as furnishings, dyes, and materia. Remember to export excess rare materials, produce, and leavings that you won’t need to use to gain more Seafarer Cowries. Typically, furnishings aren’t as profitable as materia or dyes. The dyes listed in the Horrendous Hoarder are specialty dyes that cannot be crafted but can also be found in the Firmament and Blunderville (when accessible) for their own respective currencies. In Dawntrail, two dye channels are used for gear, making dyes a good option for profit.
The Island Sanctuary was a great boon for players providing players with rank IX and X Craftsman and Gatherer’s materia. The IX materia goes for 750 cowries and each X materia goes for 1500 cowries respectively. That means if you purchase a stack of 99 Craftsman’s Command Materia IX (74,250 cowries) and sell it for around 5,000 a piece you could typically make around 495,000 gil for it, but expect these values to fall drastically when newer materia come out in Dawntrail.
This strategy can be used as a preventative measure to avoid spending gil on pentamelding your gear. For example, it took me around 600,000 cowries to pentameld both of my Indagator job sets in Endwalker, which saved millions of gil when I was first starting out.
How to make gil with Islander Cowries
Islander Cowries can only be gained through selling your regular exported foraged materials from The Wilds, which do not include rare materials, produce, or leavings. You can only get three Islander Cowries per one item turn in so the exchange rate isn’t the best, but if you’ve stockpiled an excess, it can still be used to buy items like furnishings, glamour prisms, and materia to sell on the market board.
