All Souls games tend to have a few out-of-the-way merchants, and while Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has far fewer NPCs than most, there are quite a few merchants who can be found or triggered to appear during your quest. These shop-keeps stock a few important items which are more-or-less crucial to success - Gourd Seeds, for instance, can be used to upgrade your healing gourd, adding another replenishing heal use to your total stock - as well a few valuable consumables to assist in farming runs and boss battles of attrition.

FromSoftware’s latest action-adventure game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has garnered significant accolades from critics, long-time Souls fans, and even total newcomers to Hidetaka Miyazaki's games, while also earning cautionary notes for its challenge. Luckily, in the span of time since its release on March 22, the gamer community has been dutifully working to parse out its mysteries and secrets, though practiced reflexes are required to carry players the rest of the way.

Related: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Review - A Brutally Difficult Masterpiece

As you make your way through the toughest portions of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, don’t miss out on the below merchants - and take special note of the first one, because it’s possible to remove him from your game entirely if you’re not careful.

11 Anayama the Peddler

Sekiro Merchant Guide Hirata Estate

The first merchant in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Anayama sells a few important items, as well as some simple gameplay tips for a fee. His most important item for purchase is probably the Phantom Kunai, a tool for upgrading the Shinobi Prosthetic’s Shuriken attachment. You’ll find Anayama’s shop set up at the gate before the one that leads to the Chained Ogre mini-boss — if you arrive at the Ogre and haven’t seen him, simply turn around and look under the gate roof.

Chronologically, when you first find Anayama, he’s not exactly being respectfully merchant-like. When encountered in the flashback memory of Hirata Estate, Anayama is trying to break into a temple to rob it. Speaking with him here will also tip you off to an important treasure hidden in the bamboo forest (incidentally, it’s guarded by a fearsome shinobi who you might not be ready for at this early stage of the game). If, however, you attack and kill him, you’ll lock off the first available merchant in the game, so be careful.

Later on in the game, Anayama’s shop is a good infinite source of the Black Gunpowder and Scrap Iron, though chances are you’ll have a bevvy of these items just from playing through the game up til that point.

10 Crow’s Bed Memorial Mob

You’ll find a few so-called Memorial Mob merchants in the game, and while this one isn’t exactly a secret merchant, the Crow’s Bed Memorial Mob is very easy to miss. You’ll need to grapple and jump up a few different ledges from the early Gate Path Sculptor’s Idol, not far from the area with the cannon-wielding enemy positioned on the wall.

This merchant sells the Robert’s Firecrackers item which upgrades the Shinobi Prosthetic with a very useful tool, and is also sold by the following merchant on this list. If you manage to find this merchant first, though, you can actually use these firecrackers in the fight against the boss positioned before the gate to Ashina Castle.

9 Battlefield Memorial Mob

Sekiro Merchant Guide Pot Noble Harunaga

The path to this merchant is unlocked upon defeating mounted boss Gyoubu Oniwa. Head in the direction opposite to the main gate of Ashina Castle and up the stairs on your right (if you pass by this instead, you’ll run into Tengu) to find this memorial mob’s tent tucked in an alcove. The Battlefield Memorial Mob sells Robert’s Firecrackers as mentioned above, and also has a useful Gourd Seed on sale for 1000 sen, which can upgrade your healing uses via Emma back at the Dilapidated Temple.

8 Pot Noble Harunaga

You’ll find this unassuming pot in a lake in the Hirata Estate memory, near the Dragonspring - Hirata Estate idol. Navigate your way down the cliffs and jump clear into the water, where you should hear him chatting at you near the shore of a small island.

Unlike other merchants, Harunaga only accepts the rare currency of treasure carp scales as payment, but he has a few special and unique items for trade. The Withered Red Gourd is similar to the main healing gourd, but this one only reduces burn status build-up, as well as protects against additional burning status effects for a short period of time. Also, just like the healing gourd, it replenishes automatically when you rest or travel at a Sculptor’s Idol.

Aside from that, Harunaga has the Mask Fragment: Right item, one of three needed to activate a special late-game feature, and a Floating Passage Text which will unlock a weapon skill (of dubious practical use, to be honest, but it looks nice). In the early portion of the game especially, the best first item to purchase with your scales has to be the Withered Red Gourd.

7 Blackhat Badger

One of Tengu’s hated “rats,” Blackhat Badger has no allegiances to the underlying conflict in the story, and you can first find him hiding in a house with a broken roof just past the Old Grave Sculptor’s Idol; be mindful of the cannon enemies nearby, but they cannot damage you so long as you remain in the house.

Make sure not to attack him (he may look like several other “rat” enemies in the game, but he’s harmless), and you can pick up two important items from his shop; namely, the Anti-Air Deathblow Text skill and the Iron Fortress, a special material which can be used to enable the Shinobi Prosthetic’s umbrella tool.

Page 2 of 2: Even More Merchant Locations In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Sekiro Merchant Guide Fujioka

6 Fujioka the Info Broker

Probably the hardest-to-find and most easily-missed merchant in the first half of the game, Fujioka is actually hiding from enemies on the right side of Ashina Castle. From the Ashina Castle idol, start heading up the stairs of the castle, grapple onto the rooftops to the right, then jump into the small L-shaped alcove ahead. There you’ll find Fujioka, who will ask you to kill the samurai in the surrounding area. Return to him once that’s done and he’ll leave the area, but will actually head directly to the Dilapidated Temple, where he will set up shop as a merchant.

It’s very useful to have a merchant back at home base and, though Fujioka is dubbed an “info broker,” he sells a nice variety of non-memo items as well, including a Gourd Seed for 2000 sen.

5 Dungeon Memorial Mob

This memorial mob is easy to find, and his tent is situated right before the entrance to the Abandoned Dungeon. If you’re having trouble finding it, simply warp to the Ashina Castle idol and grapple across the side of the bridge, where you’ll find another bridge with two soldiers and an eavesdropping opportunity. Further on, there’s a large enemy carrying a bell surrounded by wolves, and just past him is the Abandoned Dungeon entrance, next to a Sculptor’s Idol and this specific merchant on the left.

The Dungeon Memorial Mob has a few useful items, including the Mask Fragment: Dragon and a Prayer Bead, the latter of which sells for 1400 sen, and may prove very useful if you’d like a health increase before an important boss fight, but happen to be one bead short (interesting side note: this is the only merchant-provided Prayer Bead in the game). The Mask Fragment is useful as well, though isn’t worth the high cost of 5000 sen in the early portion of the game, since it’s practically useless without the other two fragments.

4 Shugendo Memorial Mob

Sekiro Merchant Guide Shugendo Memorial Mob

The only merchant to be found in the Senpou Temple, Mt. Kongo region, the Shugendo Memorial Mob is located near the Shugendo idol, close to the travel point and across the mountain scaffold bridges below it. This merchant doesn’t stock many important items, although he does sell the Five-color Rice, a tool which serves as the game’s version of prism stones. It drops up to five small brightly lit beacons at your feet, and can be replenished when resting or traveling at an idol.

Considering that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a single-player game, the utility of this item is questionable (in other Souls games, players would often use prism stone-type items in a number of strange ways during PvP), although it can help players gauge exact drop distance when the floor below is clouded in darkness.

3 Toxic Memorial Mob

You’ll find this memorial mob merchant at the far bottom of the Sunken Valley in the poisonous marsh area. Grapple directly above the Riven Cave idol and exit through the passage, where you’ll be standing high above the swamps. From here, you can make your way across the cliffs and statues ahead, but you can also just head directly to the merchant by dropping far below and grappling a branch right before you reach the ground; there are lots of branches surrounding the fall, so this is a lot easier than it sounds.

The Toxic Memorial Mob can be found on a small, non-poisonous portion of land in the middle of the swamp. Sticking to his brand, he sells Antidote Powder, as well as the Green Mossy Gourd for 1800 sen, which is another replenishing status protection item, but this one prevents poison build-up.

2 Exiled Memorial Mob

Sekiro Merchant Guide Exiled Memorial Mob

The final memorial mob can be found next to the Mibu Village idol. When you travel there, there’s a stream just below (be mindful of a potentially strong enemy in the grotto at the other end of the stream), and across it you should be able to make out a faint yellow light in the mist. This lamp is attached to the merchant, notable for selling the renewable terror-status-protection tool, the Mottled Purple Gourd, as well as some treasure carp scales. He also has two Adamantite Scraps for purchase, which are useful for some advanced Shinobi Prosthetic upgrades.

If you’ve been waiting to take on some of the Headless mini-bosses scattered throughout the game, the aforementioned gourd is an important tool for protecting against their terror attacks without having to spend consumable items.

1 Pot Noble Koremori

[Note: Spoiler warning for the description below, which mentions the final area of the game]

Much farther on and in the final game area, you can eventually find another Pot Noble named Koremori, who also accepts scales for his wares. In Fountainhead Palace, travel from the Palace Grounds idol and through the open front door of the palace and run past the nobles. Through there, you’ll find yourself above awaterfall, and there is a hidden grapple point that will lead into a small cave tunnel filled with lizards — to find it, you need to take a leap of faith from the far right ledge, and look for a grapple to emerge above and to the right. Once you’re through the cave, grapple down onto the pagoda rooftop, and you’ll find Koremori’s potresting near a tree and anew idol travel point.

Koremori will have the third and final piece of the Dancing Dragon Mask to purchase for 12 scales. Additionally, if you take on and complete the Pot Noble quests, either merchant will stock the remaining wares of their dead counterpart.

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