Traveling Merchant

The Traveling Merchant is a unique NPC vendor who randomly visits the player's town for one day. His inventory is randomized and different every visit, selling 4–10 / (average 5.47 / ; see below for details) different items listed below.

In order for the Traveling Merchant to spawn, at least 2 other NPCs must already be present. The Guide counts as one of these, but the Old Man and do not. He will not spawn during events (except Rain, and ). He does not require his own house in order to spawn, and will instead spawn next to NPCs, spending the day walking around them.

Once the criteria are met, the Traveling Merchant has a 22.12% chance of spawning each day, appearing at a random time between 4:30AM and 12:00PM. He leaves the same day at 6:00PM, but can only do so once he is off-screen. He despawns if the world is vacated before that time.

If threatened by enemies, the Traveling Merchant will defend himself with a Revolver. Once Hardmode begins, he upgrades to a Pulse Bow.

Items sold
Due to elaborate randomizer functions and dependencies upon several variables, it is nearly impossible to state an exact chance of an item being sold by the Traveling Merchant. However, it is possible to group them in six rarity "slots", ranging from "Common" to "Extraordinarily Rare". Note that these slots do not correspond to the Traveling Merchant's shop inventory slots – it is possible that all sold items are from only one slot. They are only meant to provide a rough, comparative estimate of an item's rarity.

Within the slots, items higher in the list below have a marginally higher chance of being sold, e.g., the is sold slightly more often than the Water Gun (on average), because it is higher in the list.

Number of sold items
The following tables list the chances of the numbers of items sold by the Traveling Merchant. Only "base" items are counted, i.e., Dynasty Shingles and Team Platforms are excluded from this number, since they are always sold together with their "base" items Dynasty Wood or Team Block, respectively.

These chances reveal that the average number of sold "base" items is /.

Names
The Traveling Merchant may have any of the following names:

Quotes


When Guide is present:

When Merchant is present:

When Clothier is present:

During a :

Trivia

 * Many of the things he sells are of Asian origin, often from the.
 * Many of his wares may be a reference to the, and to the goods that were brought to Europe during the age of discovery in general.
 * The name Willy is most likely a reference to the 1949 play  written by American playwright, where the main character is Willy Loman, a traveling salesman.
 * His quote "" is a reference to the Pakistani trader and recording artist Muhammad Shahid Nazir, also known as, who found fame as an internet sensation for his viral video "".
 * The quote "" is a reference to the 1992 American animated musical fantasy film Aladdin.
 * His quote "" is a reference to the moving angel statues in the British science fiction television series .
 * Along with the Cyborg, the Traveling Merchant is the only NPC to sell a new item post-Moon Lord, which is Not a Kid, nor a Squid.
 * The item sold post-Moon Lord, Not a Kid, nor a Squid, may be a reference to the third-person shooter video game, Splatoon which features fictional characters known as Inklings that can transform between human and cephalopod forms.