Yes you can find him very near the water. This is where I found mine:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2538490881

He will show up once you get around 250 meters of him I think? You don't have to literally run into him, you just have to get somewhere nearby, and his icon will show up on the map.

Sometimes it takes forever. We managed to get to the bonemass before finding him by accident.

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

He will show up once you get around 250 meters of him I think? You don't have to literally run into him, you just have to get somewhere nearby, and his icon will show up on the map.

Sometimes it takes forever. We managed to get to the bonemass before finding him by accident.

Same here, Ive killed Bonemass and built a substantial base, but still no merchant, and i'd rather not cheat

Originally posted by Mister Rupert:

Same here, Ive killed Bonemass and built a substantial base, but still no merchant, and i'd rather not cheat

Neither do I, but not having a damn fishing rod just because of bad RNG makes me compromise.

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Originally posted by Mister Rupert:

Same here, Ive killed Bonemass and built a substantial base, but still no merchant, and i'd rather not cheat

Neither do I, but not having a damn fishing rod just because of bad RNG makes me compromise.

True. I'll sail around a bit more before I give in.

I had to give in myself. I'm deep in the mountains and I needed the weight belt. What I did however was type my seed into the mapping website, make a mental note and tried to forget seeing everything.

I have always found him by sailing the coast. It seems pretty generous with how near you have to be.
Having said that, I gifted myself the pole and bait this go through. Vikings probably learned to fish as children. Having it in the 'stone age' did not seem to throw the game out of balance at all.

Map generation is based around the initial spawn point on the map. If you drew concentric circles from the initial spawn point, you would find all the safe places to be, then not so safe, etc, etc. Therefore if you search the initial circle (inside a day of sailing), you'll likely find the trader... he's got about ten locations he 'can' spawn in, until you find one and then he's locked there.

My first search pattern was just random dark forests.... That was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ plan.

If you don't mind spoiling your adventure a bit, there's a site that can generate a whole map for your world seed, given the correct information. Google is your friend

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Neither do I, but not having a damn fishing rod just because of bad RNG makes me compromise.

You could visit someone's world who has found him if you really want access to him early. But little tip - get the belt first. The fish actually aren't very good on their own and you need flour to make them worthwhile, which is a late game item.

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

You could visit someone's world who has found him if you really want access to him early.

We consider that cheating. Though we still ended up doing so because we were swimming in iron but still hadn't found that MF.

I sailed the shore to visit the map, and he appeared by magic. It's a good idea if the generation spawned him near the ocean. If he's inside the land, it would be more difficult.

I looked back at 4 saves. I build a portal to him once I find him. Furthest away was 2700 whatever’s

Most of the seeds I have played on he was close enough to shore to pick up. On a few though he definitely had to be found on foot. A couple I just never found him.

regarding the Merchant.. in my game he was not so far away from the big "tree boss", like 500-1km away to the north east.. But this location was like 1½ day of sailing from where i started the game, so VERY far away. But its random in every game, but he spawn in the same biome as far as i know. ( biome with big trees, i know there are several such zones but it will narrow it down a bit where to look. ( maybe named "dark forrest area ".