Weapons and armor will be your saving grace on this Nameless Island. But if the equipment at hand is not enough, perhaps you should make it something...more.
The alchemists around the Island practice a process known as Transmutation. With the right ingredients, any lackluster equipment can be transformed and strengthened into something unique and customized to its owner's tastes.
However, be careful you don't become ensnared by the lure of Transmutation's endless possibilities. There are some on the island who have given in to the calling of the Salt, and have transmuted that which should not have been. Learn from their mistakes, or become what you hunt.
In order to perform transmutation, there are a few steps.
The player must have access to a Stone Alchemist NPC
^ This may be done by offering a Stone Alchemist to any sanctuary
^ If one does not have a Stone Alchemist, one can join The Stone Roots in The Watching Woods and use the Stone Alchemist NPC there
^ Alternatively, if joining The Stone Roots is undesirable, the player may use a Crystal Sphere on The Watching Woods sanctuary and convert it to their creed, while retaining the Stone Alchemist NPC
The player must have a piece of equipment that they wish to transmute
The player must have the required Salt and transmutation materials for their desired outcome
Once the player has performed all the above steps, the player should now have the choice to utilize the Stone Alchemist NPC for transmutation.
A couple words of warning before transmuting equipment:
Once an item is transmuted, it cannot be transmuted back to its original form.
^ An item can be transmuted back if it was already a transmuted item, but it will require the original recipe again.
Transmuted items are not always more powerful, but they are always different.
^ Some weapons/armors may be worse than their original forms, but many transmuted items have unique properties, such as elemental damage, modifiers or even unique movesets.
When transmuting an item, it will lose an upgrade level.
^ For this reason, it is important to consider what materials are necessary to upgrade an item prior to transmuting it.
^ Example: The player wants to transmute their Midshipman's Dirk into a Cutpurse Shiv. Both weapons use the same upgrade materials, so the only thing to consider is the quantity of upgrade materials available to the player, and whether or not the Midshipman's Dirk should be upgraded prior to transmuting or not.
^ Example 2: The player wants to transmute their Warhammer into an Obsidian Pillar. Due to the Obsiidan Pillar requiring drowned upgrade materials - which are difficult to find earlier in the game - the player would be well advised to upgrade the Warhammer as far as they can before transmuting, so that the Obsidian Pillar will be a higher level and require less drowned upgrade materials to improve.
Be wary of the item's type when transmuting, as it may change.
^ Example: The player transmutes their Kureimoa into the Jaws of Death. This changes the weapon from a Greatsword to a Greatscissor type weapon. While it still utilizes the Sword/Greatsword skill tree nodes, the player will not be able to transmute their Jaws of Death into anything except another Greatscissor type weapon.