Getting your hands on the best gear and useful items in Elden Ring Nightreign is the name of the game, but it's much easier said than done. You can pick your relics beforehand, but everything after that is up to the ones and zeros. Here to save you from the grasp of RNG hell, merchants offer a wide selection of items in return for your hard-earned runes, though even their stock is somewhat up to chance.
No matter which of the Elden Ring Nightreign bosses you're fighting, or which of the Nightfarers you're playing as, you'll want to track down a merchant to buy a few specific items at some point in your run. Here's where you need to go to find a merchant, and what you should buy from them.
Elden Ring Nightreign merchant locations
Like almost everything in Nightreign, outside of one location, merchants are never guaranteed, but you can potentially find them in:
- Main encampments
- Outside forts
- The castle
- Inside churches
- Outside ruins
In fact, besides the merchant you encounter in the room before the Nightlord boss, the only all-but guaranteed location you can find a merchant is in a township (marked on the map with a blue row of houses on the map). Since there's usually just one of these in Limveld each run, they can be harder to access. Most merchants, including the one at the end of the run, also have an anvil next to them.
Townships are the peaceful ruins of old settlements, and you'll find the merchant in the centre beside an anvil where you can upgrade weapons using Smithing Stones, which is an important detail I'll dig into below.
Importantly, merchants share the same stock, so if you buy an item from one, it'll be gone from any others you visit, too. Don't expect to buy a rare Smithing Stone 2 and be able to leg it to another vendor in the hopes of buying another, as it'll be out of stock. One thing I have noticed, however, is that the township merchant will often have an expanded stock vs. the other merchants and will sometimes sell a Smithing Stone 2.
As for what you should buy from a merchant, that generally depends on what you have already, who you're playing, and the Nightlord you're hunting. With that said, I recommend picking up the following:
- Smithing Stones: Merchants always sell two Smithing Stone 1 items, letting you upgrade up to two items from common to uncommon quality. If you're lucky, they'll also sell a single Smithing Stone 2, which can upgrade uncommon weapons to rare.
- Boss Weapon: Merchants always sell one weapon that matches the weakness of the Nightlord you're hunting. This guarantees you'll have an effective weapon, no matter what boss you're fighting, your starting gear, or your luck along the way. Given how expensive these are, I recommend waiting until the second day to give yourself a chance to find one and save your precious runes to level up instead.
- Consumables: You'll also find a variety of consumables at merchants, like Warming Stones, Pickled Turtle Necks, and tear flasks. I'll typically stock up on these using any remaining runes after levelling up before fighting the Nightlord.
