Merchant
Merchants are citizens who sell various items in the many cities featured in each game, and beyond.
Assassin's Creed
The role of merchants in Assassin's Creed is simply to provide atmosphere and a handy "escape" option if you dive through them to avoid running into citizens. In the PC version, there are also secondary missions called Merchant Stand Destruction in which you must destroy a set number of market tends before the timer runs out because these merchants sell products that are causing illness to the people buying them. In the Xbox 360 version there is an Achievement for diving through a certain number of them.
Assassin's Creed II
In Assassin's Creed II, the role of merchants is extremely different. Aside from being dive-through-able, you can now purchase various items from them.
- Blacksmiths: From any Blacksmith, you can purchase armor pieces and weapons for Ezio. Blacksmiths will also repair any equipped armor that is broken. You can also purchase Throwing Knives, Smoke Bombs and ammo for your Hidden Gun.
- Doctors: You can run to any Doctor and pay a small price of 50 florins to refill Ezio's health bar. Medicine can also be purchased for healing anywhere at any time. Also after obtaining the Poison Blade upgrade, Doctors will now have Poison for sale.
- Tailors: At any Tailor, you can dye Ezio's clothing (Tailors have different dye options depending on which city Ezio is in). Dyeing clothes has no real function; it is simply for aesthetic purposes. Tailors also sell pouch upgrades as they become available.
- Art Merchants: Paintings (whose sole use is to add to the Villa Auditore value) and Treasure Maps can be purchased from any Art Merchant. The Paintings really aren't the most useful, but the Treasure Maps they have for sale are.