NPCs & Locations

Ancient Ember adds a set of custom NPCs to towns across Kanto. Most appear in every town; a few are in specific locations only.

Every Town

These NPCs are present in all towns from Pallet onward:

NPC	Service
Gear Merchant	Buy/sell gear from a rotating stock. Stock refreshes periodically. Sell price = half of buy price.
Item Storage Chest	Overflow storage for gear and relics beyond your bag capacity.
Altar of Recrafting	Reroll affixes (8 Gear Shards) or reroll quality (2 Radiant Shards). Cannot reroll Legendary gear.

Available once you reach Celadon / Fuchsia and beyond:

NPC	Location	Service
Scrapper	End-game towns	Scrap gear into shards. Mass-scrap via SELECT in Gear Bag.
Gear Forge	Select towns	Combine two gear pieces into one improved piece.
Gear Augmenter	Select towns	+1 quality on first bag slot (cap 15, no shard cost).
Mystic Enchanter	Select towns	Reroll one random affix on first bag slot (no cost).
Fragment Transmuter	Select towns	3× same-rarity gear → 1× next-tier gear.

NPC	Location	Service
Gear Gambler (Kadala)	Celadon Game Corner	5 Shards for mystery gear; 3 Radiant for guaranteed Rare+
Hunt Board	Viridian City	Sign showing today’s “hot route” (rotates hourly)
Quest Board NPC	Various towns	Offers specific bounty quests
Lore Scholar	6 towns	Lore dialogue about the Primal Guardian mythology
Rift Scholar	Cinnabar Island	Information about the Rift Zone endgame dungeon
Veteran Bounty Hunter	Post-Champion	Elite bounties after defeating the Champion

Every Pokémon Center nurse now offers:

Well Rested buff — after healing, your next 3 battles have +50% gear drop rate
Daily Bonus — once per play-hour, healing gives +5 Gear Shards

Hidden gear containers (Rare+ guaranteed) in three dungeons:

Interact with a specific tile to open the cache. Each cache can only be opened once per save.

These are flavor/lore only and have no mechanical effect.

Six dungeons have lore signs (bg_event signs) with Ancient Ember flavor text: