When first introduced in the English 3rd edition (1st international edition), the merchant was a purple cone piece.
Viking wood merchants are gray, and depict a person holding a trade cart. They are considerably smaller than the cone pieces that they were intended to replace.
For the English 6th edition, the merchant is instead a gray wagon piece, the piece being reused from Traders & Barbarians.
Gameplay
The merchant begins the game off of the board.
When deployed, the merchant is placed on any resource-producing hex adjacent to one of their own buildings.
The player to have last played the Merchant progress card is said to control the merchant. The player in control of the merchant may trade the resource produced by the hex at a 2:1 rate.
The merchant does not grant the player controlling it a 2:1 trade rate for any of the hex’s associated commodities; only resources are subject to the 2:1 benefit.
The robber and merchant act independently of each other. Specifically, the robber and the merchant may occupy the same hex, and the presence of the robber does not prevent the player controlling the merchant from using the 2:1 trade rate.
Control of the merchant is worth 1 victory point.
The following additional rules are in effect when playing with Seafarers:
The merchant may not be deployed on a gold field hex.