Verified Palworld 1.0 · recentlyByYurii LuzhkoUpdated August 14, 2026

Palworld Merchants & NPCs Guide

Dr. Brawn, Yakumo, Black Marketeer, vendors, and enemy factions — what each offers and where to find them.

Palworld merchants and NPCs — a Wandering Merchant, the Black Marketeer and a Pal Merchant at their stalls on Palpagos

Palworld Merchant Locations — Top 3 Vendors to Find — our own walkthrough of this guide.

Named story NPCs

Two named NPCs gate critical late-game systems — and they are the two NPCs players search for most often. Neither spawns at a fixed overworld coordinate; both unlock via campaign progression once the relevant expansion/update is active.

Dr. Brawn

Incident zones, world map

Roaming IV gambler

What they offer:: Once per in-game day, with a Pal active, he runs an experiment on it. It goes one of two ways. Positive: +15 IVs to every stat, and if the Pal has a negative passive he replaces it with a positive one — though never the exclusive passives (Lucky, Legend, the 20% and 30% elemental ones), and rainbow passives are possible. Negative: −30 IVs to every stat, and he will replace a positive passive with a negative one. He is not a vendor and sells nothing.
Where to find:: He has a chance to spawn in most incident zones across the world map — there is no fixed location and no story gate. Our marker seed carries no Brawn marker, so watch incident zones as they appear rather than travelling to a pin.
Pro tip:: This is a gamble, not an upgrade. Bring a Pal you are willing to lose 30 IVs on, and never your finished breeding result.

Yakumo

pal-stats.json

A Pal, not an NPC

What they offer:: Yakumo is a rideable Neutral Pal at rarity 4. Its Birds of a Feather partner skill gives a 15–30% increased chance of ENCOUNTERING Pals that share this Pal's passive skill — an encounter-rate effect, not something it does to Pals you already own. It runs no shop and unlocks nothing.
Where to find:: Catch it like any other Pal — see its Paldex entry for spawns.
Pro tip:: If you came here looking for Yakumo the merchant, there is no such NPC — the name belongs to this Pal. The Pal Surgery Table, often credited to it, is an ordinary craftable facility and is listed in the table below.

Merchants — vendors and exchange brokers

Our NPC map layer pins six merchant types — Wandering Merchant, Pal Merchant, Black Marketeer, Bounty Intel Dealer, Medal Merchant and Arena Merchant — and Palworld 1.0 widened the trade layer further at your base: 18 types of specialized visiting merchant (meat, vegetables, ammo, medicine, food and Pal materials) can now appear depending on your base level, and a Negotiator now visits who will call off an incoming raid for gold coins. The four archetypes below are the ones covered in detail here.

Merchant	Inventory	Gold on defeat	Spawns
Black Marketeer	Live Pals only, drawn from one of four level-banded pools (Lv 20-30 / 35-40 / 42-48 / 50-55) depending on which Marketeer you visit. No spheres, no accessories, no alpha forms — 1.0 removed accessories as buyable finished items entirely; they are crafted from schematics found in treasure chests, Ancient Ruins and oil rigs.	10,000–15,000 Gold	4 markers Eastern Wild Island, Twilight Dunes, Windswept Hills
Wandering Merchant	Basic supplies — Pal Spheres, healing items, ammo, and since 1.0 fishing bait. The reliable early-game vendor.	100–300 Gold	8 markers Twilight Dunes (×2), Mt. Obsidian (×2), Sea Breeze Archipelago
Pal Merchant	Live Pals — typically common to uncommon rarity. Inventory rotates by region (Bamboo Grove sells Grass-element Pals, etc.).	Variable by tier	6 markers Twilight Dunes, Sea Breeze Archipelago, Astral Mountains
Bounty Intel Dealer	Bounty intel — turning in a defeated Predator Pal's drops for Gold + Bounty Reputation. Not a traditional vendor; an exchange counter.	Reward varies by bounty tier	10 markers Windswept Hills (×2), Verdant Brook (×2), Twilight Dunes (×2)

Black Marketeer

Each Black Marketeer drop is 10K–15K Gold on defeat — the highest single-NPC gold drop in the game. The four spawns sit one apiece in Eastern Wild Island, Twilight Dunes, Windswept Hills and Bamboo Grove, so there is no single-region cluster to loop; Palworld 1.0 also re-tuned each Black Marketeer's stock to match the region it stands in, so it is worth checking more than one.

Wandering Merchant

Fixed-spawn locations across Palpagos — the densest vendor presence in the game. Drops 1–2 Pal Spheres at 40% rate, useful for early Pal Sphere stockpiling.

Pal Merchant

Use Pal Merchants to skip catching Pals you only need 1-2 of (e.g. Mossanda for a single condensation slot). Each region's vendor specialises in that region's spawn list.

Bounty Intel Dealer

Bounty Intel Dealers across the main and expansion regions. Since 1.0 there is no fixed Predator circuit to run — Predator Pals no longer appear at fixed locations and now spawn at a low rate across the whole map. See our /palworld/guides/predator-pals page for which Intel Dealer pays best per kill.

Enemy factions and their tower bosses

Most "NPCs" you encounter in Palworld are hostile faction grunts — Syndicate Thugs, PIDF Infantry, Free Pal Alliance Devouts, and Brothers of the Eternal Pyre Martyrs. Each faction is led by a paired tower-boss NPC covered in detail in our boss-towers guide.

Faction	Members	Where	Tower boss
Rayne Syndicate Hostile Grizzbolt	Syndicate Thug, Gunner, Hunter, Elite, Veteran, Crusher, Cleaner	Windswept Hills and Mt. Obsidian camps. Drop Gold + cheap weapons. First major enemy faction you'll encounter.	Tower-boss arc: Zoe & Grizzbolt (first tower). See /palworld/guides/boss-towers for the boss fight.
PIDF (Palworld Investigation Defense Force) Hostile Faleris	PIDF Infantry, Guard, Elite, Officer	Twilight Dunes patrols + airship checkpoints. Heavily armed mid-game faction.	Tower-boss arc: Marcus & Faleris. See /palworld/guides/boss-towers.
Free Pal Alliance Hostile Lyleen	Devout, members	Northern regions + tower checkpoint — 1.0 moved the Free Pal Alliance tower to Crescent Moon Shore, which is also where Free Pal Alliance squads now turn up to raid your base. The 'free the Pals' zealot faction with Lyleen at its head.	Tower-boss arc: Lily & Lyleen. See /palworld/guides/boss-towers.
Brothers of the Eternal Pyre Hostile Orserk	Martyr, Soul Reader Axel	Mt. Obsidian + dungeon ambushes. Fire-themed cult worship faction.	Tower-boss arc: Axel & Orserk. See /palworld/guides/boss-towers.
PAL Genetic Research Unit Hostile Shadowbeak	Commander Victor	Astral Mountains, at the Tower of the PAL Genetic Research Unit. Not the last tower any more — 1.0 added tower bosses in Sunreach, and the World Tree is where players now face their greatest challenge.	Tower-boss arc: Victor & Shadowbeak (endgame tower). See /palworld/guides/boss-towers.

Find every NPC on the interactive map

Every Wandering Merchant, Pal Merchant, Black Marketeer, and Bounty Intel Dealer spawn point is pinned on our interactive Palworld map. Filter the marker layer to "NPC" to see all 146 named-NPC spawn locations across Palpagos, Sakurajima, Feybreak and Sunreach — the sky island 1.0 added, which carries a settlement of its own NPCs.

Open NPCs on the map →Tower boss guide →Predator Pals + bounty circuit →

FAQ

Where is Dr. Brawn in Palworld?

Nowhere fixed — that is the answer. Dr. Brawn has a chance to spawn in most incident zones across the world map, so he is something you run into rather than travel to, and our marker seed carries no pin for him. He is also not a story NPC and not tied to any expansion: once per in-game day he experiments on your active Pal, either +15 IVs to every stat (and a negative passive swapped for a positive one) or −30 IVs to every stat (and a positive passive swapped for a negative one).

Who is Yakumo and what does the Pal Surgery Table do?

Yakumo is a Pal, not an NPC — a rideable Neutral species at rarity 4 whose Birds of a Feather skill raises the chance of ENCOUNTERING Pals sharing its passive by 15–30%. It unlocks nothing. The Pal Surgery Table is a plain craftable facility at Technology Lv 38, costing Refined Ingot ×30, High Quality Cloth ×20 and Corrosive Solvent ×10, and it is what lets you rewrite a captured Pal's passive rolls instead of breeding a hundred eggs for Legend and Lucky. The 1.0 notes mention it once, to say it can now pull materials from base chests.

Where do I find the Black Marketeer in Palworld?

Black Marketeer spawns at 4 fixed map locations — one each in Eastern Wild Island, Twilight Dunes, Windswept Hills and Bamboo Grove, so there is no densest cluster to farm. Each drops 10,000–15,000 Gold on defeat plus high-rarity items, and Palworld 1.0 re-tuned every Black Marketeer's stock to match the region it stands in, so their inventories now differ from one another. See our interactive map filtered to NPCs for the exact coordinates.

How many Wandering Merchants are there in Palworld?

8 Wandering Merchants spawn across the Palpagos Islands map. They sell basic Pal Spheres, low-tier accessories, and consumables. Defeating one drops 100–300 Gold plus a 40% chance at 1–2 Pal Spheres — useful for early-game Pal Sphere stockpiling before you can craft them in bulk.

What's the difference between a Pal Merchant and a Wandering Merchant?

Wandering Merchants sell items — Pal Spheres, accessories, ammo. Pal Merchants sell Pals themselves, typically common to uncommon rarity. Each region's Pal Merchant rotates inventory based on the local spawn list (Bamboo Grove sells Grass-element Pals, Astral Mountains sells Dragon-types, etc.). Use Pal Merchants when you only need one or two of a species and don't want to spend time catching them.

Which Palworld enemy faction drops the most Gold?

The Black Marketeer is technically classified as Rayne Syndicate-aligned and drops 10,000–15,000 Gold per defeat — the highest in the game. Among standard enemy factions, PIDF Elite units drop the most per encounter (~500 Gold each), Brothers of the Eternal Pyre Martyrs drop ~300, and Free Pal Alliance Devouts drop ~200.

Are NPCs the same as tower bosses in Palworld?

No. Tower bosses (Zoe & Grizzbolt, Marcus & Faleris, Saya & Selyne, Axel & Orserk, Lily & Lyleen, Victor & Shadowbeak) are major boss encounters at faction towers — each is a paired human NPC + boss Pal fight. See our dedicated /palworld/guides/boss-towers page for the full progression, recommended levels, and fight strategy for each tower.