Defiant Gouge

The  is a new item in Risk of Rain 2. It causes all shrines AND the Cleansing Pool to summon enemies, much like a Shrine of Combat would.

Stacking this item will cause enemies to be more difficult, as if it was used at a later time in the game. This also means that those enemies are worth more money and EXP when they die.

Just like Shrines Of Combat, the difficulty scaling of the enemies spawned by this item is based on the difficulty when you enter the level, not when the item triggers.

Defiant Gouge will stop working after the difficulty gets too high per amount of item, similar to Shrines of Combat, because of the extreme cost of each enemy that needs to be spawned.