Secret Lives of Drifters

[LadyWYT]

Lately I've started collecting screenshots of drifters in odd places or doing goofy things. Thought it might be fun to post and see if anyone else has any pictures of the little grey goofballs and their antics when they think no one is watching!

 

Just a drifter, out for a swim. It's a warm climate here and I guess they get hot too.

A Cool climate in this world. There's a cave right next to my house they'll occasionally creep out of when I'm not looking. Soliciting donations, or selling cookies--you decide!

Even drifters like nice places to live. The cave wasn't actually that deep inside, but it's a manicured mansion compared to what others have to live in!

Not a drifter exactly, but I guess even Dave enjoys pranking them from time to time. Whoever spawns up there isn't going to have a good day.

[ifoz]

I sadly don't have a screenshot of this story, but I hope to return to this thread eventually with some silly drifter screenshots of my own!

Recently I was tending my farm (at midday) and walked back to my house. Standing perfectly still, very politely at my door was a drifter.
He ran from me when I approached, so I decided to let him live.
Wondering how a drifter, albeit such a mild-mannered one was there during the day, I searched for nearby caves. Before long, I stumbled upon a cave entrance in a cliff just outside my house. Peering inside, I discovered my own personal translocator, not 20 blocks from my house!

I extend my thanks to that polite drifter who inadvertently led me to my home translocator!

Edited May 17, 2024 by ifoz

[Resserfi_YT]

I think that sometime i have found a drifter doing silly things but i dont make screenshots.

Was a drifter like just in a lake jumping.

 

I will post other drifters things

[Maelstrom]

Yeah, that's the fuel chamber for one of my cementation furnaces.  Silly thing spawned in there.

[Maelstrom]

And then there was the mosh pit

 

[LadyWYT]

On 5/18/2024 at 4:41 PM, Maelstrom said:

Silly thing spawned in there.

Man, he looks so depressed.

9 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

And then there was the mosh pit

Drifter mosh pits are the best--I love getting them to fight each other and then sitting back and watching the show. I can't think of another game that really has friendly fire that applies to enemies. I'm hoping the devs don't remove it, as it's really fun outwitting enemies instead of just using brute force or using weird exploits.

[Maelstrom]

I wish the first one would have done the whole bow in reverence animation, but it's expiration date needed to be expedited.

One bad thing about drifter's friendly fire is that drop rates decline dramatically.  I think someone mentioned 60% reduced rate for drops.

[LadyWYT]

14 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I wish the first one would have done the whole bow in reverence animation, but it's expiration date needed to be expedited.

One bad thing about drifter's friendly fire is that drop rates decline dramatically.  I think someone mentioned 60% reduced rate for drops.

This is true. One thing I kinda wish though, is that given drifters seem to revere Jonas stuff--have there be some interaction with temporal gears. I don't know what drifters would do with them, and I don't know why you'd do this, but if you could hand/throw one a gear...maybe it would just make the drifter go away to hide its new shiny? Or it could start a fight over who gets it, in the case of multiple drifters. It'd pretty much be a waste of a rare item, but late in the game after the player has collected several...instant entertainment!

[oGhosTo]

Meet Jackson, the immortal drifter outside my base that will not die or despawn.

[ifoz]

Extremely rare sighting of the elusive Dancing Drifter.
I had one show up outside my base one day and vanish the next.
His appearance warranted a tavern named after him! The Dancing Drifter.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

His appearance warranted a tavern named after him! The Dancing Drifter.

And now I know what to name a tavern once I manage to get one built.

[ifoz]

The idea that The Dancing Drifter is such a universal tavern that it shows up in different forms in the worlds of different Seraphs is amazing, you can absolutely feel free to steal the name!  

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, ifoz said:

The idea that The Dancing Drifter is such a universal tavern that it shows up in different forms in the worlds of different Seraphs is amazing, you can absolutely feel free to steal the name!  

Given the wonky nature of temporal stuff, that could actually be a canon lore thing

[Maelstrom]

Not exactly silly drifters as much as silly Seraph.  Started harvesting my tree farm on a calm night.  It turned apocalyptic.  This was after drifter remains started despawning.

 

 

[LadyWYT]

 

And here we have a drifter flash mob--who knew they were such pranksters! I was playing with a friend and he had stepped away for a few minutes. During that time, the rift activity went from calm to apocalyptic. I think there must have been about a hundred of the potato sloths stacked up at the door by the time friend got back to his computer! In any case, neither one of us were in the mood for signing autographs, so we dug a tunnel out the back of the base and made a run for it as soon as the sun came up.

[Maelstrom]

My base is pretty well lit and there's not a lot of rifts that spawn.  I can pretty much do things at night with impunity, unless I'm out by my tree farm.  The night of the pic I posted those drifters were from a single rift at apocalyptic level activity.  I think I had laid waste to 2 dozen or more drifters from a single rift over the course of about half a night.

[edit] I swear if'n I ever see Jonas Falx in game I'm gonna be sure to put him to a very quick and irrevocable end. [/edit]

Edited June 3, 2024 by Maelstrom

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

[edit] I swear if'n I ever see Jonas Falx in game I'm gonna be sure to put him to a very quick and irrevocable end. [/edit]

Huh...you know, I never figured on having to potentially solve a murder-mystery should we ever find/meet him!

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

I can pretty much do things at night with impunity, unless I'm out by my tree farm.

I generally can as well, and that's speaking as someone who doesn't really bother lighting up their base except for the areas I actually need to see in, haha. That being said, a lot of times I'll just sleep through the night. It's immersive(to me) and I prefer doing most of my stuff during daylight hours, especially earlier in the game before I really have my preferred weapons and armor.

[ifoz]

One day I'd love to see an enemy type that's a Blackguard or knight of the Forlorn Hope turned into a drifter.
Imagine poking your head into a ruined Blackguard barracks, and coming face to face with a lanky drifter in a set of rotten and busted up Blackguard gear, wielding a broken shortsword and chipped shield. I think that it could add so much atmosphere to certain ruin types if you could find the reanimated corpses of the previous inhabitants within.
You enter a ruin and a suit of armour slumped against a wall slowly pushes itself up, making an echo-y (because of the helmet) version of that classic drifter growl.

This could also offer another way to get broken Blackguard and Forlorn hope armour, though you would have to fight tooth and nail for it..

The Rot wasn't just a plague, it was a curse. If the only way to break it is to put the afflicted down, you'd better gear up!

Edited June 5, 2024 by ifoz

[Maelstrom]

It is my belief that Blackguards and similar entities came about 

Spoiler

after Jonas turned people into drifters.

 

[LadyWYT]

On 6/5/2024 at 6:20 PM, ifoz said:

One day I'd love to see an enemy type that's a Blackguard or knight of the Forlorn Hope turned into a drifter.
Imagine poking your head into a ruined Blackguard barracks, and coming face to face with a lanky drifter in a set of rotten and busted up Blackguard gear, wielding a broken shortsword and chipped shield. I think that it could add so much atmosphere to certain ruin types if you could find the reanimated corpses of the previous inhabitants within.
You enter a ruin and a suit of armour slumped against a wall slowly pushes itself up, making an echo-y (because of the helmet) version of that classic drifter growl.

This could also offer another way to get broken Blackguard and Forlorn hope armour, though you would have to fight tooth and nail for it..

The Rot wasn't just a plague, it was a curse. If the only way to break it is to put the afflicted down, you'd better gear up!

Nooooooooooooooo! *runs away screaming*

In reality though that sounds like a really cool idea, if utterly horrifying! Though I imagine that that particular type of drifter would have the weapon fused into their arm rather than actually wield one like we do. The shield and armor could also be fused into the body creating an armored monstrosity that both hits hard and can't be killed quickly(outside of specialized counters, that is).

Then again, one thing I've found rather fascinating and refreshing about Vintage Story is that the enemies are rather unique instead of the default zombies/skeletons/other stuff that is general player fodder. The drifters could probably qualify as undead, but there's just so much that is still unexplained about them that it's left up to the player's imagination.

[ifoz]

11 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

In reality though that sounds like a really cool idea, if utterly horrifying! Though I imagine that that particular type of drifter would have the weapon fused into their arm rather than actually wield one like we do. The shield and armor could also be fused into the body creating an armored monstrosity that both hits hard and can't be killed quickly(outside of specialized counters, that is).

Then again, one thing I've found rather fascinating and refreshing about Vintage Story is that the enemies are rather unique instead of the default zombies/skeletons/other stuff that is general player fodder. The drifters could probably qualify as undead, but there's just so much that is still unexplained about them that it's left up to the player's imagination.

The weapons fused to their limbs is actually so much more fitting!

I'd say the drifters are "undead" but they are a refreshing take on undead enemies. Maybe these fallen knight enemies could be overrun with rusted pipes sprouting from their bodies, matching with the visual themes of what the Rust does when it takes over stuff like areas of the Archives.
I imagine they'd be a little more lucid than a regular drifter, though the only thing that they would be able to think of or recall would be their duty to protect the ruin that they are inside.
They wouldn't recognise you as one of them, though if you were actually playing as a Blackguard, maybe the Blackguard ones would hesitate for a moment when seeing you before becoming aggressive, giving you a chance where you can get a hit or two in.
This could be taken further if you were playing Malefactor, as maybe they would aggro on sight instantly, perceiving you as a raider or thief.

[LadyWYT]

8 minutes ago, ifoz said:

This could be taken further if you were playing Malefactor, as maybe they would aggro on sight instantly, perceiving you as a raider or thief.

Oh man, I completely forgot about that lore bit. Now I'm imagining the hijinks that ensue from a Blackguard-Malefactor survivor duo!

[ifoz]

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Oh man, I completely forgot about that lore bit. Now I'm imagining the hijinks that ensue from a Blackguard-Malefactor survivor duo!

On our server, I'm playing Malefactor, and I have a friend who is playing Blackguard.

In my character's lore, he's a little anxious around him due to concerns that he would be recognised, though so far the Blackguard hasn't noticed!
It's an uneasy alliance! 

Edited June 7, 2024 by ifoz

[Maelstrom]

Well this is interesting...   Must have been a really good rave that nobody wanted to leave.

 

[LadyWYT]

On 6/6/2024 at 9:27 PM, Maelstrom said:

Must have been a really good rave that nobody wanted to leave.

Speaking of raves...

I caught these punks outside my front door. I think there were about 6-7 total, and they were unfortunately(or fortunately?) very real given that rift activity was high during a heavy temporal storm.