Merchant Empire

 refers to an unmarked quest in Fallout 3.

Uncle Roe, in Canterbury Commons, offers you a map showing the paths of the merchants and their various trade stops. He also offers the player the option of investing into any of the caravans. Investing in a caravan allows that merchant to sell a wider variety and higher quality of items. It also raises their repair skill (to a maximum of Repair skill 81 with the second investment), allowing them to restore your gear to near perfect condition, as well as the number of caps they have available for trading.

An initial investment of 200 caps can be made in each trader, followed by a second investment of 500 caps (totaling 2800 caps for all upgrades). The Master Trader perk discounts each investment by half to 100 caps for the first and 250 caps for the second.

The first time you speak with a merchant after investing fully in their caravan, you will be presented with a gift of gratitude. The gift differs for all four caravans, one of which includes the rare helmet, Crow's Eyebot.

Caravan Merchants
The following merchants correspond to the investments:
 * Armor: Crow
 * Food/medicine: Doc Hoff
 * Various: Crazy Wolfgang
 * Weapons: Lucky Harith

Reward

 * Improved caps-on-hand total for Caravan Merchants
 * Improved inventories for Caravan Merchants.
 * Improved repair ability for Caravan Merchants.
 * Upon the next time you meet, Crazy Wolfgang will give you 5 Stealth Boys.
 * Upon the next time you meet, Crow will give you Crow's Eyebot Helmet.
 * Upon the next time you meet, Doc Hoff will give you 5 Stimpaks.
 * Upon the next time you meet, Lucky Harith will give you a Mini Nuke.