Loot & Food

Loot & Food in Gauntlet are all but essential for surviving the dangers within. There are five types for players to collect: Gold, the Crown, Food, Potions and Skull Coins.

Gold
Gold is the currency in Gauntlet. It can be found strewn across the ground, packed into treasure chests, crammed into vases and inside various props—including such unlikely places as the inside of spider eggs. Gold is also rewarded for: Gold can be used in the character select screen to buy Relics and Loadout items. Before the Slayer update, gold was exchanged with the Merchant and scored on the ranked leaderboards. Also, note that gold only saves to the hero's "bank" if they complete the floor they are currently on. For example, a player cannot enter a floor, pick up 500 gold and quit out of the game back to the hub with it. The player has to survive to the end of the floor and exit through the gate to keep it.
 * Finding and wearing the crown to the exit of a floor.
 * Gold rewards are offered for reaching the end of a floor (Campaign) or quitting (Endless) after completing Masteries.

When a hero dies, they will drop a pile of gold worth 20% of what they were carrying.

The Crown
The Crown is a bright golden crown that can be picked up and/or dropped by players. It appears on each floor of the Gauntlet via monsters spawning with one random monster wearing it. Killing the monster will cause the crown to fly off in a direction and clatter to the ground. The crown can then be picked up and will appear on the hero's head in game. Wearing it to the exit of the current floor will grant the wearer a gold bonus of 500, but taking knockback (usually caused by a damaging strike, but not necessarily) before then will cause it to drop, which imparts its own bonus. If the crown lays on the ground for too long without being picked up it will disappear in a burst of light. The crown may also occasionally fall into an inaccessible chasm or lava. In either of those two cases the crown still has a chance of reappearing later as long as monsters are still spawning on the current floor. Once players reach a new floor the crown disappears to be randomly found and collected again.

Food
Food consists of succulent roasted turkey and ham placed on trays throughout the Gauntlet. Food is touched and eaten in order to regain health and avoid death. While valuable, food is also fragile and can be destroyed by an errant swing or misfired projectile. Enemies and environmental effects can also destroy food so care must be taken when fighting around a cache. There are certain masteries that boost the effect of eating food and even ones that still provide aid if a player does destroy it. The heroes and Morak will audibly comment about food during gameplay, be it its consumption or destruction -- the most popular and classic phrase originating from the original 1985 Gauntlet game being "(Class) needs food badly."


 * Note: a real-world inflatable toy version of the turkey was distributed to attendees of various game conventions in 2014 if they visited the Arrowhead Game Studios booth.

Potion
Potions used to be what fuels a Relics abilities. After the rework however, they fuel talismans, at the cost of one per use. In the game, potions appear as glowing blue bottles. Only five of these potions can be held at one time. They can also be destroyed, in the same manner food can. Upon destruction they will explode, dealing damage to everything surrounding it, barring heroes.

Key
Keys are single-use items used to unlock gates. They are not paired with any gates in particular, as any key may be used to unlock any gate. Each hero may hold up to five keys at one time, however, if a hero dies, all keys in their possession will be dropped. In Endless, any keys held to the end of a floor will be carried to the next.