It's about goblets but it's about more than that.

Why hello again, it is in fact yerself posting on the forums. I know, I'm surprised too.

So, I've mentioned a few times on stream that I've been disappointed with the goblets in game. Not because I don't have any, but for a few reasons. However rather than bore you with 10000 words on why silver and gold scrap need to be buffed in terms of drop rates (sad post in feedback coming soon) I'd like to talk about a solution which is also a wishlist.

First and foremost, the goblet as it currently exists is essentially an RP only item, as while it can be equipped, it serves no other current function for combat and cannot be improved. This sucks as a player, given that my first thought was to have a swashbuckler vibe as I fought across the game, sadly I'd be taking a bit of a minus to my performance in combat. However rather than just be a sane individual and just ask "can we have goblets be an improvable item", I instead spitballed an idea on stream.

I would like a goblet artifact that fills up with blood as you slay your living enemies. It would look cool, and also as a Death spec'd character it could do something along the lines of buffing death magic when full or equally could be some kind of health potion for players that refills as you kill living foes. Very vampiric, which got me to thinking: There's a lot of death in the game, but no vampiric enemies. Not specifically undead, but something of that style. Which lead me to thinking: when a player dies it leaves behind a tangible body of sorts. Surely as an outlander (given our apparent immortality) that something might find power in our collective perpetuality?

The idea is that there would be some flavour of sub-faction which feeds on what we leave behind on death, they don't want to exterminate us or anything like that, but they are more than happy to kill our bodies and feed on what remains. Perhaps they gain magic from it, or perhaps some flavour of life extension, either way it seemed an interesting concept. Beyond that, the idea unfolded to imagine a castlevania style situation where a cult of these vampiric enemies might well take up in some kind of fortress and send out small groups to collect the corpses of the outlanders to then bring them back and drain what remains. This sub-faction could basically look like anything and could in fact be made up of multiple intelligent beings which would allow for a reuse of assets with minor alterations (skin tone alteration or armour etc) and would not require brand new animations.

If I had to pitch it closer to what you could do in stages I'd do something similar to the following.

• Create a basic enemy type that hunts players specifically in the overworld.
• This encounter would start with some talking to give the player a notion as to what is going on
• Encounter plays out, and if the player dies they are kicked back to the overworld

If this tester enemy style worked out (eg: didn't bug out) then you could then expand it to having them invade certain areas like cultists do with sieges but perhaps limit them to PVP areas, making them extra dangerous, but like sieges alert the player that "Dark Forces" are loose in the area. Beyond that, if it's all working then introduce some kind of dungeon themed around them, and then eventually their castle fortress is discovered. This would show an escalation and also allows for patch by patch fixes of any enemy behaviour or other bugs while also dropping hints to upcoming content. As for a boss, well you could do a scaled up humanoid with lots of nasty stuff (you made the giant, you know evil) but you could emulate the scaling pain train of the invasion of Lord British's castle. Playing through that invasion was some of the most fun I've ever had on stream and anything that gave me that feeling would be extra fun, especially if you stuck in some traps or puzzles as well for good measure, and of course getting back to my goblet issue, from that boss you could have the blood chalice, the artifact that spurred on this whole idea in the first place.

See, I told you it was about goblets....and a lot more. Would love to hear feedback on this, especially any of you developers as nothing I could see would conflict with the world you have, and at the same time would be pretty damn fun as far as I could see.