I searched for this "Memories of pain" to know if is do something and i see is just a "Event" only a Description, buttt why not makeking this a "Disease" or "Germs" system? Or maybe is already a test for this, like you got a Disease for equiping a item with "Memories of pain" or take a item to you inventory and this will make dmg, debuff, some perma - Stats or Even a Negative quality debuff that decrease the quality of item. then you have some items and methods to Treat this Diseases and make us building some "Quarentine Zone" where you want to remove all infected items before you get it or enter in that zone (like Animal zone, water source, tree plating etc) where they can infect a lot of things. But this will not happen in a Early game, but like when you go to underground Level 3 and the ores have a chace to have one of it and then they can spread across the world etc.
Edit1: And they can sick and spread to farms too, making abandoned farms have a bad-side and more imersive and Threat to the game.
And a plus idea (i think already have a lot but) instead of expand the world, make a underground world after level 5 where have like is in superfice where you can grow things with a "artifictial sun" something like that but with only high level monsters and Ice-age animals
