A question about the ophid cursed arties:
Do they drop into your pack too? Or do you have to loot them from the corpse?

They needed to be looted.

I'll also verify that all bosses in the gauntlet drop arties. Of the 4 artifacts I've managed to get out of the gauntlet since AoS was launched, 2 came from DFs and the other two came from a fleshrenderer and a Darknight Creeper.

And yeah the system is horrible, the randomness means it's entirely possible to do the gauntlet for 10 years every day and never get an artifact.

All of mine have come from Dark Fathers and I will not break from tradition. Same weapons, same armor, and same ethy.

The cursed arty I got from the ophids dropped into my pack, I did not need to loot it. Although, I lost it when a mob spawned on top of me, died and couldnt get back in time, and I think some random spawn looted it off. It was a taskmaster, I wouldnt have been able to use it as I dont use fencing, but was still nice finally earning one instead of buying them all...

Ah, I stand corrected, I read somewhere they were looted. Perhaps someone fell to the same fate Bo did, then someone else looted the prize and posted that.

yah, they probably killed a recruit and got it too. I quit helping with the invasion after that. I was too angry to continue.. Lost soo much gold, and finally got a payoff only to lose it. I went back a week or so later, but it was strictly for my own honor gains.. hehe.. I didnt care anymore about fighting an endless un-winnable spawn

Sorry to hear Bo, it's too bad. I made a decent profit off them snakes, they dropped some pretty good gold and decent loot. As long as you don't run full steam ahead and only take on 3-4 at a time (depending on how many casters/generals there are) you could make a small fortune. The smallest amount I looted off one was between 400-500, most have 1100-1200 or 1400-1600 gold on them.

Well what I was doing while it was in Skara, was fighting Generals, since I was at the 9th dot almost at knight of honor, and found they still give good honor gains at that level. I didnt waste my time "clearing out" the spawn, I just dragged a few generals my way and killed em. Got a couple of those red Bardiches but thats about it. If I want to get loot, I go to the dojo or kill hiryus and get gold plus hopefully find new bokutos that I can use..

But you didn't like the nifty orders and rations?

Hehe, I did that for a while too, then realized why get gold/loot from somewhere else when it's just as good here.

But I guess looking for Bokutos you have reason to look elsewhere.