Talk:Gold Idol/@comment-99.11.139.81-20160203191830/@comment-23878607-20160203213105

The idols are quest items in the sense that you can give one of them to Caxton and one to Madeleine when their respective "Gimme an idol" quests are active. It is not intended to be a gift/present outside those two quests; doing so will raise their respective affinity for you, but it does not unlock their inventory.

Giving Caxton the Silver idol permanently unlocks all weapons up to and including his silver tier. This is retained for the life of the save game, no matter how many times you roll over into another NG+. Ideally, you give one Gold idol to one of the two merchants, then the other merchant gets a subsequent Gold Idol in your next playthrough-- but after they're received both their Gold Idols, you need not ever do that again.