One of the most recent features added to Mount and Blade: Bannerlord’s lengthy early access period is the ability to promote your favorite companions. This will allow your companions to serve you as a vassal instead of directly being apart of your clan. This can be a great way for you to grow your kingdom, especially if you have founded your own kingdom instead of joining one of the many factions available in the game.
This process can be quite confusing to figure out so this article will focus on showing you some of the reasons you may (or may not want to) promote a companion to act as a vassal. It will show you the process on how to actually promote a companion and show you what you need. You can select any of the headings in the Contents below to jump straight to that section of the page.
Contents:
What Does it Mean to ‘Promote’ a Companion?
What Does Promoting a Companion Actually Do in Bannerlord?
Since update 1.6.4 the player is now able to ‘promote’ a companion and reward them for their service to you. But what does this actually mean? Well, when you promote one of your companions you are essentially allowing them to start their own clan. Once you have promoted a companion one of the things you are required to do is to gift them one of the fiefs that you have available. Once that is done you will create a Clan name for the new clan. The companion of your choosing will then go on to lead this new clan.
Once the companion is in charge of their own clan they will no longer be apart of your companions or clan. They won’t count towards your companion limit either so you can feel free to find a new companion to take their. They will keep their armor and weapons as well so make sure you are happy with not getting any of this back before you promote them to owning their own clan. Their clan will gain 50 relation towards your clan as well.
The new clan will also start with two random NPCs which will be created when the clan is formed. It will begin as a level 2 clan.
How to Promote a Companion to a Vassal/Clan Leader
Requirements:
In order to promote a companion and make them a vassal of your faction there are some requirements that you will have to fulfill first. These requirements are:
- Title: You will have to be the ruler of a kingdom in order to promote one of your companions to a vassal
- Money: It will cost 20,000 denars to create a new clan for your vassal. This isn’t such a large amount in comparison to the other requirements but still, worth taking into account.
- Influence: You will need a minimum of 500 influence. It doesn’t matter which fief or companions is chosen, it will always cost 500 influence to promote a companion.
- Fief: You will need to give over one of the fiefs that you control to the vassal. Any Castle or Town can be chosen.
Once you have all of the requirements above fulfilled you are able to create a new clan in your kingdom with your companion as the leader of the clan.
Promoting a Companion:
Now that you have finished the above steps, talk to your companion directly. You can do this by finding their party out on the field (if they are in control of a party), or by selecting the Conversation option in the Party menu. (Select the companion in the army menu and click the little speech bubble underneath their name)
Once you are in a conversation with your companions you can should see the option; I wish to reward you for your services. Through this dialogue menu, you will be asked a few more questions which will result in you having a new vassal and clan.
You will then have to choose a fief to give to your new vassal. You will lose this fief and all of the ownership rights to it. Even once this character is defeated in battle the fief will remain as part of their clan and someone else will become the head of the clan.
Now, you will be tasked with deciding on the name of your companions new Clan. Choose whatever you want for the clan name and continue. Congratulations! You have officially promoted your companions to a vassal. They will immediately become apart of your kingdom and be free to do whatever they wish. If they are young enough they will now be able to marry, defeat other lords, change factions and do everything that the other AI lords are able to do.
Why Promote a Companion to a Vassal?
Once you have promoted a companion they will start their own clan. This will allow the character to have far larger army sizes, grow their own clan and even take castles for themselves. Due to the fact they will gain a large relation boost to the player clan upon creation, you probably won’t have to worry about them leaving your kingdom and joining another. This is a great way to grow your kingdom early as it can be rather hard to convince other lords that already have a strong relation to their king. Another great thing about promoting a companion is that you will gain a very large amount of charm experience when you promote them to clan leader. They will act as any AI clan in Bannerlord. A new Encyclopedia page will also be created for the new clan.
There doesn’t seem to be any limit to how many companions you can promote. This means as long as you have enough denars, influence and fiefs you can continue to promote companions and grow your kingdom. Promoting a companion is really great for the role-playing aspect of Mount and Blade: Bannerlord as well. If you’ve fought alongside a companion all game, growing their skills and battling with them, why not allow them to control their own clan? Plus now that you’ve promoted them to their own clan, you can recruit a new companion.
