My idea here is to take the idea of dungeons from other games and try to apply it to Sea of Thieves. I know that this might be a rough idea, and thats fine. My inspiration was a combination between Legends of the Hidden Temple and Dungeons in Dungeon Games.
To start off, I was thinking it could be a voyage similar to a vault key voyage. But instead of map pieces. you are given 3 maps, and each island has a piece of the relic that opens the temple. Once you get the relic pieced together, it will tell you what kind of temple it is (Gold, Silver, Bronze) and what island its on. Now I'm not sure if there's a way to add this to a few islands or we might have to add new islands.
Once the relic is placed on the door, the temple opens allowing the crew to enter. There will be a set number of rooms to clear based on the crew. (More people = More rooms but not by a significant amount). [My thinking here is there is a range between 4-7 ish rooms to clear]. Each room is a checkpoint, so if a crewmate dies, they can respawn there again, or there will be a statue letting them go back to their ship. In order for the crews to progress, they must clear each room which may contain the following:
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Enemy Clearing
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Puzzles (could create new puzzles, or even bring existing puzzles over)
(and other room type ideas)
As the crews clear rooms, loot has a chance to drop in small amounts. Just like the mermaid statues, the statues can hold loot as well (there will be a statue outside the temple).
As the crews go father in, the rooms get a bit more difficult, all leading up to the final room which a final boss ready's them. This room is bigger than normal rooms as it allows them more room to fight the final boss. The boss could be a boss that can spawn already in the game, OR a new type a boss just for these temples. Once the boss is cleared, a key will drop (and a special relic that can be turned in) for a special vault full of loot.
To make it replayable, these will change up each time. No 2 temples will be exactly the same.
In terms of lore, this could easily tie in as like they could be looking for a specific artifiacts and these temples are the only places that have it. Each temple has its own variation of the relic.
I hope to see this ( at least a version of it) in the future.