Not every soul in the Warrens wants you dead.

Some of them want your gold.

Fellow Prisoners of the Chain

The Covenant Chains don’t discriminate. When a merchant crosses the threshold of a Warren, they’re bound by the same curse as you, dragged back from death over and over, trapped in halls that never stay the same. But where most adventurers sharpen their swords, a few set up shop instead. They find the rare stable zones where the Warren’s magic calms, lay out their wares, and wait for the next desperate soul to wander in.

Chainwatch Descent now has vendors, and the Warrens feel more alive for it.

The Trading Post

Approach a merchant, and you’ll see them standing in a pocket of calm, surrounded by their goods. Get close enough and interact, and the vendor panel opens: your inventory on the right, their stock on the left, and two carts at the bottom where you stage what you want to buy and sell before committing.

Everything is laid out in a grid you can filter by type. Weapons, armor, consumables, accessories. Browse their stock, click an item to toss it in your buying cart, or pull something from your own pack into the selling cart. Stackable items like potions let you choose exactly how many you want through a quantity stepper, so you’re never stuck buying a whole crate of healing draughts when you only need three.

The gold math is right there at the top of the panel, color-coded so you always know where you stand. Spending gold? The total shifts to a warning orange. Walking away richer? A satisfying green. No surprises.

A Nose for Bargains

Prices aren’t fixed. Every item has a base value, but what you actually pay (or pocket) depends on your Negotiation skill. A silver-tongued adventurer can talk a merchant down to 70% of asking price, while a newcomer with no haggling sense pays full cost. Selling works the same way in reverse: better negotiation means the merchant offers you closer to the item’s true worth.

It’s a small system, but it gives you one more reason to think about your character build beyond “hit things harder.”

Not While They’re Watching

There’s one rule the merchants hold to: no trading while enemies lurk nearby. If something with teeth and bad intentions has line of sight to the merchant within five paces, the deal is off. You’ll see a warning flash, “Cannot trade while enemies are nearby,” and you’ll need to clear the room before anyone opens their pack.

It felt wrong to let players duck into a shop screen mid-fight. The Warrens are dangerous, and the merchants know it. They survived this long for a reason.

Three Faces in the Dark

For now, three vendors roam the Warrens. An Enchanter who deals in the arcane. A Traveling Merchant with a broad and practical stock. A Bazaar Trader who carries a bit of everything. Each one spawns in vendor rooms scattered through the dungeon, so you’ll never know who you’ll find or where.

They’re all dwarves, for what it’s worth. The stout folk have always had a reputation for commerce in Khalendor, and it seems the Chain’s Curse hasn’t dulled their instincts.

Under the Surface

This update also brought a round of foundational work that doesn’t make for dramatic screenshots but matters just the same. The level file format got a structural pass, making it cleaner to define where NPCs, monsters, and items appear. Item templates were refactored for consistency, and the spawn coordination system was tightened up so vendors, monsters, and loot all land in sensible places.

Small fixes too: better handling of stackable item selection, ESC key behavior in dialogs, and a handful of cleanup items from code review.

The Warrens Are Getting Crowded

Commerce changes things. The Shifting Warrens used to be you against the dark, every encounter a fight. Now there are moments of calm. A familiar face behind a counter. The clink of coin in a place where coin shouldn’t matter, but somehow still does.

The Chain binds everyone equally. Might as well do some shopping while you’re here.