Elden Ring Merchants: Kill Them To Make Shopping More Efficient

As you travel throughout Elden Ring's massive Lands Between, you'll no doubt stumble across quite a few merchants. These charming and mild-mannered merchants are typically seated near a fire and may sometimes be playing songs with stringed instruments. Each one sells a specific selection of items, including arrows, unique cookbooks for crafting, exclusive armor sets, and sometimes even rare Stonesward Keys or Cracked Pots. Anyways, you should kill them. Kill them all.

Kill the merchants to make life easier

Look, you could just mark each merchant on the map and seek them out when you're wanting to buy items, but keeping tabs on which one sells what can be a cumbersome task. However, if you kill each one you come across, you'll be able to make your shopping trips considerably more efficient. Each time you slay one of these fellows, they'll drop their unique Bell Bearing. You can then give the Bell Bearing to the Twin Maiden Husks in Roundtable Hold, which will allow you to purchase all of that merchant's wares from a single place.

Most of us don't feel great about ourselves for murdering innocent NPCs, but Elden Ring is overwhelming enough without having to go on an expedition every time you've saved up runes to buy an item you want. While it may seem cruel--because it is, you sicko--being able to return to Roundtable Hold to do all of your shopping is such a convenience that it's kind of hard to get hung up on the morality of it all.

You can always revive them

If you've slain the merchants and have a guilty conscience, there's no reason to fret--you can still revive them and have your sins forgiven. To revive killed characters in Elden Ring, you'll first need to obtain a Celestial Dew. These rare consumable items can be found at a handful of places throughout the world, but the easiest one to obtain is actually purchasable from one of the merchants for 7,500 runes. This just got awkward.

The merchant who sells a Celestial Dew can be found sitting inside a massive stone ruin near the end of the Ainsel River biome. You'll know you're in the right place if you have to kill one of those gigantic bug enemies hanging from the ceiling.

Once you've obtained a Celestial Dew from the merchant or from elsewhere in The Lands Between, head to the Church of Vows in eastern Liurnia of the Lakes and approach the nearby statue to use it. Doing so will revive any merchants you've killed during your quest.

You'll still know you're a ruthless murderer, of course, but at least this way your character can have a bit of in-game redemption.