After browsing the sea of thieves wiki (wiki.gg, not fandom) I was going through the company cosmetics and sets, only to notice that the gold hoarders and order of souls have a considerable amount more content than the merchants. Arguably yes the order of souls is probably more overlooked than the merchants, but in my eyes that is kind of worse, since a more popular company has less variety. Here are some things the Merchant alliance lacks:
-
boots for the company set. (There are no boots for sale, meaning unless you go bare foot, there is no "complete" merchant set)
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a curse associated with the alliance (The only company of the five without a curse, though the other four companies have the curse deeply imbeded into the lore of their faction meaning one for the merchants would have to be a slightly different dynamic. Perhaps a mechanical clock curse to match the time aspect of the merchant alliance)
-
pets unique to the company (perhaps a new type of bird like a raven/crow or falcon/hawk/eagle in order to match the falcon figurehead of the merchant alliance set or the raven figurehead of the merchant ambassador set. Or maybe the bird is exclusive to unlock from the merchant alliance)
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maybe more ship variation (the other companies have one or two more than the merchant alliance, but for justified reasons)
Potential implementation: A story quest line that could revolve around the merchants or simply involve them (like the shores of gold arc for the gold hoarders or the cursed rogue tall tale for the order of souls), rewarding them with the new curse. In this tall tale (or arc) they could use a sextant specifically to navigate to the location (like the shroudbreaker). Or, like Athena's blessing or the skele curse, it could be earned from a kind of grind (but I reckon that would be a bit boring).
