Revision - faction merchants - Windrose Wiki

How Faction Merchants Work

Every major faction in Windrose runs the same four-stall merchant footprint. Each faction operates a Buyer, a Provisioner, a Trade Goods Merchant, and a Bounty Agent. The roles are consistent across factions and are the engine that turns combat loot, Insignias, and Senkamati Artifacts into faction reputation, gear plans, and Piastres or Guineas. Reputation is earned by handing Insignias to the Bounty Agent and by selling trade-flagged goods to the matching faction Buyer; spending only happens at the Provisioner.

The Four Roles

Buyer: the only NPC type that purchases trade-flagged loot. Each faction's Buyer accepts that faction's flagged Naval Supplies, Medical Crates, contraband, and luxuries; they do not accept other factions' goods. Selling at a Buyer pays Piastres and contributes a small reputation bonus on the side.
Provisioner: the gear vendor. Sells armor plans, weapon plans, ship plans, building plans, naval tactics, and consumables. Stock is reputation-gated: Rank 1 unlocks the basic catalogue, Rank 2 adds armor and ship plans, Rank 3 and 4 open the highest-tier purchases. Plans must be learned in the player's journal at base before they appear as craftable recipes.
Trade Goods Merchant: sells trade-flagged goods to ferry to other factions. Buy a stack here at one faction's hub, then sell it at the matching Buyer of the destination faction for a profit. The Trade Goods Merchant is the engine of the faction-trade arbitrage loop; the Buyer is the cash-out side of the same chain.
Bounty Agent: the reputation NPC. Hand in faction-flagged Insignias to raise that faction's reputation. Reputation tiers (1, 2, 3, 4) unlock the Provisioner's higher-tier inventory at 0, 100, 400, and 1000 cumulative reputation points. The Bounty Agent does not pay Piastres for Insignias; the trade is one-way Insignia for reputation.

Where Each Faction's Stalls Live

Tortuga is the four-faction hub for front-of-house interactions, but every faction's full merchant footprint is split between Tortuga town and a separate faction main base. The following table lists the canonical location of each stall as documented on the per-NPC articles. The Tortuga article carries the most detailed walkthrough of which districts each Tortuga stall lives in.

Brethren of the Coast: Provisioner at the Tortuga waterfront alongside the Brethren Bounty Agent; the Brethren Buyer and Trade Goods Merchant are at the Brethren of the Coast Main Base on the faction's island.
Rogue Buccaneers: Bounty Agent at the Tortuga Market with a Buccaneers presence stall; the full Buccaneers Provisioner, Buyer, and Trade Goods Merchant operate from the Rogue Buccaneers Main Base reached via the faction's side quest.
People of Tortuga: Provisioner and Recruitment Vendor in the Tortuga town center; the People of Tortuga Buyer and a second Bounty Agent live at the People of Tortuga Main Base on the refugee island reached via the Buccaneers questline second delivery step.
Smugglers of Port Royal: no stall in Tortuga town. The full four-stall Smuggler footprint lives at the Smugglers Main Base on the hidden archipelago, reached via the follow-up quest after the first Tortuga visit.

Tortuga Town Vendors

Earlier game-data dumps reference three Tortuga town vendors (Tortuga Buyer, Tortuga Food Seller, Tortuga Goods Seller) outside the four-faction system. These NPCs are not accessible in the live Early Access build and are treated here as legacy database entries. Players should use the four faction Buyers and the Recruitment Vendor for all working Tortuga commerce.

Reputation Tiers and What They Unlock

Rank 1 (0 to 99 points): basic Provisioner catalogue: Sewing Tools, Shipwright's Tools, basic ammunition recipes.
Rank 2 (100 to 299 points): first armor and ship plans become available. Brethren Provisioner sells the Ship Design: Brig at this tier (1,000 Piastre).
Rank 3 (400 to 999 points): mid-tier weapon and naval tactic plans open up.
Rank 4 (1000+ points): highest-tier plans, including the Brethren-only Ship Design: Frigate (3,000 Piastre) and the late-game faction-locked accessory recipes.

Tortuga Town Vendors Are Different

Tortuga's vendor database additionally lists three reputation-neutral town vendors (Tortuga Buyer, Tortuga Food Seller, Tortuga Goods Seller). These NPCs are not accessible in the live Early Access build, so they are documented in the legacy database section below rather than treated as part of the working merchant system. Trade-flagged cargo (Naval Supplies, Medical Crates, Contraband) goes to the relevant faction Provisioner instead of any town buyer.

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