Early in Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord you’ll be tasked with rebuilding your clan, and one of the steps to do so requires you recruit a companion. The game doesn’t explicitly tell you how to do this, however.
Companions can be recruited from the Tavern in cities.
Companions in Mount and Blade II can be found within the various taverns scattered across the cities of Calradia, and adding them to your clan will cost some Denars. Whenever in a city click on the Tavern tab in the main city menu and look to the top bar that typically displays NPCs in an area. Anyone up there after you selected the tavern is a companion you can recruit (and if there isn’t a soul to be found move on to another city).
You can either enter the tavern manually and locate the person with Alt, or click on their portrait to teleport to them directly. Once you start talking to them ask after their story, and eventually you’ll have the option to recruit them. All companions have some sort of “debt” they need to pay off, which is the fee you have to pay to bring them on board. Once paid they will join your clan.
Clan rank dictates how many companions you can have at a time, and you start with a cap of three. You can recruit more as you increase your clan rank, and can dismiss a companion at any time either by physically talking to them or by clicking their portrait in the clan menu.
