One of the most important concepts in Mount and Blade is your character’s renown and honor level. These will determine how you are perceived by other characters within the game. When your renown reaches a high level you will be invited to join one of the factions in the realm.
You need to build up your renown in order to improve your standing across Calradia and there are a number of ways to do it.
Battles
Every battle you fight will reward you with renown. The amount you will earn for a specific battle is displayed on the HUD at the start of each fight. In order to boost your renown quickly it is best to keep a small force, the higher the odds against you in a battle the higher the reward in terms of renown.
Tournaments
Another good way to build up your renown is to participate in tournaments in the towns and of course win them. You can enter arenas in each town and ask the master there where the next tournament is occurring, it is not worth fighting in the smaller skirmishes in the arenas.
Missions
You can also take on various missions and complete them successfully to gain more renown. Missions can be accepted by talking to lords or Kings and by talking to the guild masters in the various towns. Missions range in difficulty from simple delivery tasks to covert raids designed to start a new war and the rewards range accordingly.
In order to join a faction you need 160 renown. That figure is reduced by 5 renown for every 1 point of positive relationship you have with the King of the faction.
Renown is by far the most important thing for your character and the higher the renown is the better your chance of being awarded castles or towns if you capture them after a siege.
Honor is another vital component in Mount and Blade and you can gain honor in a variety of ways. You can gain honor by:
- Releasing a captured lord you have defeated in battle.
- Refusing to allow one of your men to engage in a suicide spy mission.
- Saving a village from bandits and refusing the reward they offer.
- Killing a wanted murderer and refusing the reward from the lord or King.
- Taking a mission to uphold the honor of a lady.
Having a good honor rating will make other honourable lords like you, although dishonourable lords will not like you. It also increases your chances of being made Marshall of your chosen faction.
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