my hypotheses about vagrant spawning

This thread is of course speculation, but I'd like to think that some of my guesses have decent odds of being on the right rack. I've done a lot of vagrant research, watching every video I can find, recording their drop information, and saving every screenshot. These seem like logical conclusions to me.

Let's consider the only real information we have about what causes them to spawn, which comes from the game manual:

If you drop a certain item or lose a large amount of Humanity, those items and Humanity move to another player's world and form Vagrant enemies.

So we're looking at two sources of vagrants - a "large amount" of lost humanity, and a certain item or certain items being dropped...

Hypothesis #1

• The Evil Vagrants are caused by losing a large amount of lost humanity.

I have no idea what qualifies as a large amount, nor the exact method of how they need to be lost. My guess is that if you have 99 soft humanity, and suicide twice to lose a bloodstain containing that much humanity, that's a way to send a vagrant to another player's world. But where does "large" begin? 30? 50? 80? No idea.

But why the Evil Vagrants? The Evil Vagrants always drop 1 humanity or 1 twin humanities, depending on their color. This is unlike the Good Vagrants, which drop a variety of items other than humanity. It would likely make the most sense if the vagrants that dropped humanity were caused by lost humanity, and if the vagrants that drop misc. items were caused by various items being dropped.

The concept of dying and losing humanity also sounds like a more negative thing than dropping items, which fits the theme of a vagrant that attacks you vs. a vagrant that is like a little crystal lizard.

Hypothesis #2

• The Good Vagrants may actually be created by the same items they drop.

With #1, this of course means that I believe that the Good Vagrants are caused by dropping items. But I also believe that their drops may be the same as the objects that caused them to spawn in the first place! If this is true, we have something that may finally point us in the right direction.

Good Vagrants are incredibly rare to see any documentation of. There are only two videos I've been able to find of a player killing a Good Vagrant and showing its drop (this is unlike Evil Vagrants, where you can find PLENTY of videos that confirm they only drop humanity and twin humanities). I've had to carefully search high and low on the internet to compile a short list of the known items that they drop.

Let's take a look at the items they drop and consider the plausibility of them spawning vagrants:

• Divine Blessing
  
• Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier
  
• Gold Pine Resin
  
• Purging Stone
  
• Silver Coin
  
• Gold Coin
  
• Transient Curse

-The Divine Blessing is certainly a rare item, and not one that a lot of players would want to part with. Plenty of people have duped them, or hacked them, depending on their system. But even then, those players probably aren't frequently abandoning them anywhere. The same goes for most other items on the list.

-Gold Pine Resin happens to be farm-able, but I don't think a lot of players are maxing their inventory out with them or dropping them and abandoning them. But what if they did? Wouldn't this contribute to more Good Vagrants spawning in the Darkroot Forest, when a host with max gold pine resins clears out the mushroom area and can't pick up more resins? Well, it just so happens that 3/5 of the only screenshots I've seen of Good Vagrants are of Good Vagrants located specifically in the forest. Perhaps this is no coincidence.

-The Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier doesn't seem particularly rare- there are 16 that can be found per playthrough. But here's the thing with them, since they're not that special, I can't think of a reason players would frequently trade these items (and possibly get killed in the process, abandoning one, etc). Rewarding only 1,000 souls, they might make for a perfectly obscure item that players wouldn't think is special.

-You can buy infinite Purging Stones from the Undead Female Merchant, but bear in mind that you couldn't in the unpatched version of the game. They used to be a lot more rare and limited, which fits the theme of picking rare items like Diving Blessings to be the source of a Vagrant. And even with an unlimited supply being available, they're still expensive and not something that players will probably frequently purchase and abandon.

-There's only 5 Silver Coins in one playthrough of the game, and 1 Gold Coin.

-The Transient Curse follows the same sort of model as the Purging Stone.

What would possibly throw a wrench in this hypothesis is if we find out that one of the Good Vagrants drops something incredibly common - like a Purple Moss Clump (I seem to recall reading that somewhere a while ago, but can't find it again)? Even then, we still don't know the exact mechanics, and it could be possible that dropping and abandoning one of these items isn't guaranteed and goes through a randomization process. What if a Silver Coin had 1/2 chance of creating a vagrant, while a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier had a 1/10 chance? What if you have to drop at least a certain number in a spot at once? These unknowns don't allow us to rule out common items being able to spawn vagrants, but the list so far makes it look like things that players wouldn't typically abandon, which makes sense.

Mass organized gold resin drop anyone?

That would be awesome. It'd be great to attempt some mass item-drop events based on these items. Have some players connect through co-op or PvP before abandoning some items too to see if that helps.

If that ever happens, i'm in Just let me know when. I have tons of gold pine resin and i never bother to use them.

Hmm, interesting. I have not seen vagrants that often, but I did see 1 quite recently. I was fighting Gwyn, died, then tried to run back but fell down at the framework thingy. I lost 26 humanity. When I returned, an evil, white vagrant was camping my latest bloodstain.

But that makes me wonder, is it possible to spawn a vagrant in your own world? I was only SL10 at the time, so it's possible that there was nobody else within my level range, if that changes anything.

I have only met two vagrants, both evil but not the red kind. What is peculiar is that hey both appeared after I watched other players blood-stains and dropped consumable items. It could just be a coincidence, but I have played the game since launch and find it a bit strange that I have only met them under these circumstances.

- My first encounter was in new londo at beatrice's summon sign. I was down there farming and trying to make drift items (bags) at the same time. I dropped items here and there, mostly transient curses and prism stones, but a run or two before I met it I dropped some items directly at its spawn point (prism stone, moss clumps, resin, purging stone etc).

- My second encounter was at the bottom of the great hollow. I just came down from upper blighttown, where I dropped a purple moss clump (or blooming moss) after watching a bloodstain where the player died from poison right above the jump to the iaito. I dropped the moss on the bloodstain, then climbed down to the swamp and headed directly to the great hollow without resting at the swamp bonfire.

I'm not just interested in how they are created, but also how the 'infection' spreads. Do you have to touch the bloodstain of the player that made it spawn, read a message from the player, do you have to be in the same world, or do the vagrant just randomly cycle through currently connected players? I also wonder if they act like crystal lizards, ie you can only spawn them once each playthrough.

I planned to do some tests with my second encounter without killing it, because I knew it dropped a humanity, but I accidentially hit it while clearing out the nearby mushroom men. I wanted to know if it disappeared and reappeared if I rested or warped.

I also have a feeling that this guy created his own vagrant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp9TBRhffsI

I've only ever seen one. A red one near the wolf ring. It was after I dropped a bunch of crystal weapons in the forest hunting turf waiting to invade. Got killed, went a'splorin' and saw it

If you can spawn then in your own world, that would also fit with From's attention to folks who only played offline. In addition to all the NPC summons and invasions that mimic online events, didn't the PW used to give you gravelord BPs when the game first came out, even if you were offline?

Am I really the only player that has seen so many vagrants? I've caught like.. 5 on stream since we started.

Rynn wrote:Am I really the only player that has seen so many vagrants? I've caught like.. 5 on stream since we started.

I've seen plenty too. In my world and few times in other worlds... I've also been cursed many times. I don't really even have that good internet connection so it probably has nothing to do with that. I guess i'm just lucky.

ive been playing since close to day once and i can only recall seeing 3. when i was introducing a friend of mine to DkS he saw 2 on his first playthough, one on top of the tower with 2 archers when fighting the taurus demon, and the second in the church under the gargoyles. it blew my mind because i was sitting on the cough guiding him through the whole thing and in a couple hours he had seen everything i saw in months of playing (this all happened this last november)

edit: all of the above vagrants were of the dark variety

These topics always urk me. Well over 200 hours with one character alone. And several others with plenty of play to. Been playing since day one. Never been a big community outreach type, but spent plenty of time in jolly co-op. White, sun, and just as much blue and red. Not alot of gravelord, but still. Never seen one. Tried. Did as much online play near the known locations. Nothing. Sacrificed thousands of souls, dozens of humanity, and several items. Even a few gold coins and a few divine blessings. And i dont dupe, so dropping them was kinda hard. (Although honestly they just sat rotting in my box anyway)

Dark souls will never be finished till i find one of my own. I wish they would just release the info about them in detail. The game has been out long enough and it is far FAR to gimmicky of a mechanic to expect the players to ever fully figure it out.

Wait. Can't the computer players decript the code or something on vagrants?