About

Elden Ring Merchants refer to the purveyors of various goods and consumables in the 2022 RPG Elden Ring. In the weeks following the game's release in late February 2022, the game's merchants became the subject of jokes online, particularly as players noted that many of them are in obscure locations yet complain about hunger and a lack of customers.

Origin

In FromSoftware's Elden Ring, released February 25th, 2022, players discover merchants strewn throughout the game in various locations.^[1] Most major areas will have one to two merchants, though they're generally difficult to find. For example, the Nomadic Merchant of Siofra River can be found in a ruin of an optional location and is only accessible by discovering a hidden path via some scaffolding.^[2] Many of the merchants express surprise upon getting a customer, and some say they are hungry.

Spread

In the weeks following Elden Ring's release, players began joking about the merchants, particularly their complaints about hunger and lack of customers when they'd set up shop in obscure locations. One of the first jokes to this effect was tweeted on February 28th, 2022, by Twitter user @lordbeef,^[3] gaining over 110 likes in roughly two weeks (shown below, left). On March 14th, FromSoft meme account @berserksouls^[4] posted an image macro with Mocking SpongeBob text making fun of the game's merchants, gaining over 2,900 retweets and 31,000 likes in roughly 24 hours (shown below, right).

In addition to jokes about the merchants' poor business practices, one merchant, Kalé, became the focus of jokes due to his striking red cloak and hat, which inspired players to compare him to Santa Claus. Examples include tweets by @stormpen^[5] (shown below, left) and MrFive2Five^[6] (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References