Dark Souls - Demonstration of Drift Items
Proof of the Drift Item mechanic in Dark Souls, 4:17 in.
When you drop and abandon certain items, like the Transient Curse, it has a chance of being sent to another player's world as a "Drift Item Bag". The item bag will appear for the other player in the exact spot that you left it, however it will no longer contain its original item, having "transformed" into something else. The Transient Curse is just one of several items that will turn into a Lloyd's Talisman.
In this video, I force the return of a Drift Item Bag back to me, simply by spamming connected worlds with them. What you can't see is that other players are receiving my Drift Items, however they are hidden in the barrels I'm breaking so it's unlikely they are actually finding them. Those who die or warp out of the area without picking up the item I've sent them will likewise send it out to another random player in their IP pool. By chance, they might happen to target me, allowing me to get my item back as a Drift Item.
This is what you see at the end of the video. Someone didn't pick up the bag I sent them, and managed to randomly send it back to me. While that requires some luck, I increase my chances by dropping and abandoning items over and over. Someone should eventually target you and send one back if there's a bunch of them drifting around.
Drift Item Bags (at least the kind that can eventually spawn White Good Vagrants) never seem to appear spontaneously, meaning that if I waited by the barrels I would never see one appear in front of me. When another player sends you a Drift Item like this, it's put into "queue" and won't appear until the area reloads. This is why the LLoyd's Talisman is waiting for me immediately after respawning via homeward.
To abandon dropped items, you can warp (homeward or bonfire), die, or run to a far-enough away location and back. All of these methods work.
If Drift Item bags are not intercepted by players and get sent around to various worlds enough, it'll eventually spawn a Good Vagrant instead. The Vagrant, however, will not appear in the same location as the bag-- it'll instead be found at the nearest corresponding Vagrant Spawn Location.
The latest results of my Vagrant testing can usually be found here:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/vagrant
For a more friendly explanation of how to send Drift Item Bags and Spawn Good Vagrants, here's a tutorial I made:
http://i.imgur.com/onaGeN1.jpg