Outside each Hold, generally near the docks or stables, is a small area made to resemble a shopkeeper’s stall. Initially, there is only one outside of Whiterun.
Later, after convincing another Jarl to allow the East Empire to operate in their hold, if the player leaves the area completely for at least a day, when they return the Outpost will have appeared.
Near each Outpost you will find three items: an “East Empire Delivery” container, a “Strong Box (Your Cut)” container and a “EEC Ledger” activator. Near these things is an NPC named “East Empire Merchant”. Over time, as the player engages with the mechanics, these stalls will improve and become more elaborate looking.
Occasionally, players will find additional NPCs with East Empire in the name - these are part of the Item Delivery Service system, which will be explained in more detail in that section.
Items from the delivery system and location claim system can be deposited in these containers. This is explained further in the “Item Delivery Services” and “Location Claim” sections.
Gold from the Automated Item Selling* system will be deposited here. Note that the Strong Box model will be replaced with a Safe at higher levels of the Outpost, usually very close to the Ledger. *Automated Item Selling is explained in its own section below.
This is used for the player to track progress with the Creation. Activating the EEC Ledger should display a book with various numbers tracking things related to the Creation that have occured within the Hold this Outpost exists in. If the player takes the book, it should be silently removed from their inventory.
These NPCs are used as the interface for the Automated Item Selling system, explained in the corresponding section.
They use the bandit leveled list for appearance and so can be any race or gender, but should all be wearing the same merchant attire.
They are not marked essential, and so can be killed, but they are flagged to respawn and so should eventually come back to the base game’s respawn system. The items the player placed for sale will generally remain safe in the vendor system, in the same way killing a base game vendor does not grant access to their wares, so when the new vendor is spawned, the player’s items will be available for sale again.
As the player makes use of the selling services, and claims more locations for the East Empire Company, they will begin to see visual improvements to the Outposts, eventually resulting in an elaborate merchant stall that matches the feel of the city they are near.
Triggering upgrades of the Outposts requires the following:
Level 2: Sold 5,000 total gold worth of items through the EEC Merchant - this is measured by the raw amount, not the player’s cut.
Level 3: Sold 10,000 total gold worth of items through the EEC Merchant and claimed at least 5 locations within the Hold’s territory.
Level 4: Sold 20,000 total gold worth of items through the EEC Merchant and claimed at least 10 locations within the Hold’s territory. Holds with less than 10 claimable locations simply need the available claimable locations captured.
These numbers are not cumulative, so, for example, the 5,000 towards level 2 count towards levels 3 and 4.