What to know
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Visit Tortuga provisioners to buy merchant contracts for 100 silver each, enabling three shop types at your base.
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Contracts unlock merchants of natural resources, food, and animal products for bulk orders delivered in about an hour.
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Hire crew NPCs from ports for 500 silver apiece; assign them to stations for bonuses like extra elixirs or resource recovery.
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Combine shops and crew for infinite resource flow, ideal for late-game when silver surplus builds.
Building a self-sufficient base in Windrose transforms tedious gathering into convenient ordering. Shopkeepers deliver materials right to your doorstep, while skilled crew boosts crafting efficiency across alchemy, upgrades, and cooking.
Shopkeepers and crew details
Key locations
Tortuga serves as the central hub southwest of your starting base, hosting provisioners for all merchant contracts and key NPCs like Rosalinda Mercer, Jasper Crowe near the Buccaneer area, and Black Axel at the People of Tortuga base.
Other ports scattered across islands offer additional crew, but Tortuga centralizes early access for quick trips via fast travel.
How to acquire and place merchant contracts
Follow these steps to stock your base with shopkeepers.
Step 1: Travel to Tortuga
Sail or fast travel to Tortuga, the main trading outpost. Locate the provisioners in the town center—People of Tortuga handle food and natural resources contracts, while Rogue Buccaneers cover animal products. Reach at least level 2 reputation if needed for access.
Step 2: Purchase contracts
Interact with provisioners and buy the three available contracts: Merchant of Natural Resources, Merchant of Food, and Merchant of Animal Products. Each costs exactly 100 silver coins. Stock up if you have surplus silver from ship boarding.
Step 3: Return to base
Head back to your settlement. Open the build menu (B key), navigate to Crafting & Utilities at the bottom, and select the purchased contract to place the shop structure. Position them like a pier dock or flea market for aesthetics and access.
Step 4: Unlock full stock
Clear regional threats (e.g., Coastal Jungle, Foothills) to expand inventories. Interact with the shop, spend silver on shipments (e.g., 10-100 silver scaling with quantity), and wait about an hour for delivery crates.
What each merchant sells
Natural resources cover essentials like clay, copper ore, stone, wood, hardwood, iron ore, and sulfur.
Food offers coconuts, sweet potatoes, cayenne peppers, limes, aloe leaves, corn, tomatoes, flax fiber, plus seeds for infinite farming.
Animal products include crab meat, fowl, dodo eggs, feathers, rough hides, hog tusks, grease, wolf fangs, mountain goat horns, and bezoars.
Crew rewards and bonuses table
Hiring crew provides permanent station bonuses, turning your base into a production powerhouse.
How to hire and assign crew
Step 1: Scout ports
Visit ports like Tortuga first. Look for hireable NPCs marked on the map or near provisioners—Rosalinda, Jasper, and Black Axel cluster here for efficiency.
Step 2: Pay and recruit
Interact and pay 500 silver per NPC. They join your camp inventory immediately.
Step 3: Open worker tab
At base, access the worker management tab via crafting menus (e.g., alchemy for Rosalinda).
Step 4: Assign to station
Select the NPC and press assign to their optimal station. Bonuses activate instantly—Jasper slashes upgrade costs effectively by 30%, Rosalinda doubles potion output over time, and Black Axel accelerates cooking.
Step 5: Prioritize hires
Grab Jasper earliest for gear progression, then Black Axel for sustenance, Rosalinda for potions. More NPCs exist across ports; save silver accordingly.
Maximizing infinite resources
Pair shops with crew: Buy seeds from food merchant, farm endlessly, use recovered resources from Jasper for upgrades, and craft extras via Rosalinda/Black Axel. Silver from boarding sustains buys—scale to any project without grinding.
Turn shops and crew into a thriving settlement that fuels endless progression, decoration, and convenience in one spot.
