Town gossip guide

Bannerlord v1.4.8 · checked 2026-11-10 · updated 2026-11-12

This guide explains what villagers and townspeople say when you walk up and talk to them: who says what, when you hear issue rumors (rumors about notables' quests) instead of lines from the general pool, how the free trade tips work, and why people so often answer with a plain "Is there anything you need?" instead of a rumor. Everything here was read out of the game's own code (v1.4.8). The gossip lives in the SandBox module; NavalDLC and StoryMode do not override it.

Each rule is written in words with a worked example. For the exact conditions of every line, every edge case and links to the game code, see the deep dive: Gossip rumors. The "Can buy at" and "Can sell at" lines in item tooltips are a different system, covered in the trading guide.

What unlocks what

When a person has nothing to tell you, they open with the fallback line: "Excuse me, … Is there anything you need?", or its tavern or children's version.

Who says what

Every line a person can say comes from exactly one pool. The game checks four cases in order and uses the first one that fits:

1. A child draws from 8 fixed rhymes about the rulers of the factions.
2. A beggar draws from 14 fixed beggar stories.
3. Anyone else, while an issue rumor here is untold: if any notable in the settlement has an active issue with a rumor line that has not been told yet, the person draws only from those issue rumors.
4. Anyone else draws from the general pool: talk about the seasons, the economy, the lords, recent wars and the local notables, plus trade tips.

Which pool of lines a speaker draws from.

Worked example. A village headman has an unclaimed "needs grain" issue. You talk to a villager: step 3 applies, so the villager can only tell you the issue rumor about the headman's grain trouble. Talk to a second villager and the issue rumor has already been told, so step 4 applies and you hear a line from the general pool. A child in the same village still recites one of the 8 rhymes, because step 1 comes first.

So an unclaimed issue crowds out every other kind of gossip in that settlement until its rumor has been told once. The issue types that have a rumor line are listed in the deep dive.

What the general pool talks about

Every line whose condition holds goes into the pool, and the person picks one at random. The conditions depend on the season, on how rich and how loyal the settlement is, and on who owns it.

How rich a settlement is

The game sorts each settlement into one of three prosperity tiers: low, middle and high.

• Towns: prosperity of 2000 or more is the middle tier, 5000 or more is the high tier, anything below 2000 is the low tier.
• Villages: the tier comes from the village's hearth level instead.

Worked example. A town at 2000 prosperity is in the middle tier. Once it reaches 5000 it moves to the high tier, and its townsfolk can start complaining about crowded markets and rising prices.

Villages have no loyalty of their own; the gossip treats them as loyalty 50.

Seasons and the economy

• Always possible: "Heaven watch over us."
• In the tavern: drinking talk (in spring, in summer from a man, and in winter), a tip that you can retrain skills with the tournament master, and, where the culture is the empire's, talk of the hermits on Mount Erithrys.
• Villagers talk about the work of the season (ploughing, the coming harvest, butchering, sewing). In a rich village they talk about full bellies. In a village below the middle tier they cannot pay the rent, and by season they worry about a thin cow, too few hands or a thin harvest.
• Townsfolk in a poor town talk about hard times. In the Aserai lands they also talk about the summer heat and the well running low; elsewhere they also talk about coughing children in winter and a lean autumn. In a rich town, loyalty below 50 brings talk of crowded markets, and loyalty below 60 brings talk of prices that are high and rising.
• Unrest: loyalty below 20, or a town in a rebellious state, brings talk of foreign troublemakers and secret meetings. A village uses the town it belongs to.

Worked example. A town at 5000 prosperity, in the high tier, with loyalty 50. Crowded markets need loyalty below 50, so that line stays out. Prices high and rising need loyalty below 60, so that line goes in, next to "Heaven watch over us." and anything else that applies.

Lords and order

These lines judge the clan leader who owns the settlement, and the ruler of the faction, by their character traits (Honor, Mercy, Generosity, Calculating).

• An honorable owner gives a fair hearing in court. A merciless and stingy owner, in a settlement no richer than the middle tier, is blamed for the taxes. An owner whose Mercy and Generosity add up to less than zero, in a settlement of at least the middle tier, is "mean, but there's meat on the table".
• In a town with security below 40, people blame the owner: too soft if merciful, taking a cut if dishonorable, honest but unable to stop it if honorable. In a rich town with security that low they add that the rich are not the honest ones.
• A ruler who is both dishonorable and impulsive, in a settlement no richer than the middle tier, "can't control their passions". Loyalty below 40 brings "the Heavens aren't pleased with the one on the throne".
• When at least 2 bandit parties roam nearby and security is below 50 (for a village, the security of the town it trades with), people talk about bandits beyond the walls or beyond the fields.

Worked example. A town with security below 40, owned by a clan leader with positive Honor and positive Mercy. At least these three lines about the owner go into the pool: the fair hearing in court (Honor), honest but unable to stop it (Honor, low security) and too soft (Mercy, low security).

World events

People repeat news from the game's event log, as long as the event is less than 60 days old:

• a village of this faction being raided, or looted and burned, by an enemy;
• war declared or peace made by this faction;
• a lord of this faction destroying, or being destroyed by, a party led by another hero;
• bandits moving into a nearby hideout;
• a fortress taken by storm. Because of a quirk in the check, this line only fires in settlements owned by clans that belong to no kingdom.

Worked example. Your kingdom declares war. For the next 60 days, people in its settlements can bring up the war. After that the log entry is too old and the line leaves the pool.

Notables

For each hero in the settlement who has no party of their own, and for the owner, people gossip about character:

• anyone with a strong enough reputation gets a line about it; for lords it opens with a blessing, a neutral word or "Heavens protect us", depending on their Mercy, Honor and Generosity;
• gang leaders come across as debt collectors, protectors or thugs, or as someone who "did my cousin a good turn";
• merchants in a town with workshops are discussed through the town's most profitable workshop: hiring, cutting costs, firing or making money;
• headmen and artisans whose relation with the owner is 10 or more say, in a poor settlement, that the owner is doing what they can, and in a rich one that the owner deserves the credit;
• headmen, artisans and preachers are called righteous or helpers of the poor, are said to have a gambling relative, and, depending on their relation with the owner, lead people to trust the authorities or to say "a fish rots from the head";
• rural notables are accused of moving boundary stones, of being skinflints or of taking a third, or praised for fair compensation, for helping their relatives and for keeping seed grain; an honest but stingy one is called an "honest old goat".

Worked example. A town artisan with positive Honor and a relation of 10 with the owner, in a town of the low prosperity tier. The artisan's righteousness and the line that the owner is doing what they can both go into the pool. Were the artisan's relation with the owner below −10, people could instead say "a fish rots from the head" (outside the tavern).

Trade tips

The only gossip with real prices in it is the trade tip: a relative of the speaker took some goods to a nearby town and made a profit of so much. Tips need no perk and use today's prices.

Profit = what the nearby town pays for the goods − what the goods cost in the market here

• The market here: this town. In a village, the town the village trades with.
• Nearby town: any other town closer than about one day of caravan travel.
• Which nearby town: for each kind of goods, the game picks the nearby town that charges the most for it, then quotes what that town pays. So the tip does not always name the best place to sell.
• Which goods: only goods this settlement has in stock, cheapest category here first.
• Prices: computed as if no one in particular were trading, with a trade penalty of 0.012 instead of your own.

A tip goes into the general pool only if the profit is more than 1, and the game stops after 4 tips.

Worked example. Grain costs 20 here and the chosen nearby town, Sargot, pays 31: profit 31 − 20 = 11, so the tip goes in. Fur costs 30 and Jalmarys pays 31: profit 1, which is not more than 1, so no tip. Pottery (profit 17), wine (profit 23) and iron (profit 14) go in next, and that makes 4. Silver would have made a profit of 30, the best of the lot, but the game stopped before it got there.

At most 4 trade tips go into the general pool, each only if the profit is more than 1. Goods are checked in this order, cheapest category here first.

Both prices are computed with no client party, so the trade penalty is 0.012.

The tips sit in the general pool next to all the other lines, so any one person only sometimes picks one.

Why you get the fallback line

The game remembers which lines have been told:

• One rumor per person. Once someone has told you a line, they give you the fallback line from then on.
• No repeats. Once a line has been told by anyone, no one else tells it.
• Same start, same line. The game identifies a line by its first 12 characters as you would read them. Two lines that start with the same 12 characters count as one, so only one of them is told.
• The reset. All of this is forgotten at the first conversation after time has moved on in the campaign. It is not stored in your save.

Worked example. A townsman tells you about the hard times. Ask him again and you get the fallback line. The next townsperson you talk to cannot tell the hard-times line either, nor any other line that starts with the same 12 characters, so they pick another line, or, if every draw lands on a line already told, say the fallback line. Let some time pass, talk to the townsman once more, and he can tell you a rumor again, possibly the hard times.

On top of that, picking a line is a game of chance. The person draws a random line from the pool as many times as the pool has lines, and each draw can land on the same line again. If every draw lands on a line that was already told, the person gives the fallback line, even though an untold line was left.

Chance of the fallback line = (1 − untold lines ÷ lines in the pool), multiplied by itself as many times as there are lines in the pool

• Untold lines: lines in this person's pool that no one has told yet.
• Lines in the pool: every line in the pool, told or not.

Worked example. A pool of 10 lines with 1 untold line left. 1 − 1 ÷ 10 = 0.9. Multiplied by itself 10 times, that is 0.3487: about a 35% chance that this person gives the fallback line even though one fresh line is left.

Chance that every draw lands on a line already told, so the speaker says the fallback line.

With 5 lines in the pool:

With 10 lines in the pool:

With 20 lines in the pool:

With only 1 untold line left, about one person in three gives the fallback line, in a pool of 5, 10 or 20 lines alike. In these pools, with 3 untold lines the chance is at most 4%, and it keeps falling.

Practical tips

• Talk to different people. Each person gives you at most one rumor; asking the same person again gets you the fallback line.
• Let time pass for fresh gossip. Once the good lines are used up, wait a little and talk again: the game forgets what was told as soon as campaign time has moved.
• Issue rumors come first. In a settlement with an unclaimed issue, adults only tell you issue rumors until every one of them has been told. Keep talking to new people to get past them to the general pool.
• Trade tips are free price checks. They use today's prices, need no perk and only cover towns about a day's caravan ride away. Remember that the named town is the one that charges the most, not always the one that pays the most.
• Tavern talk differs. Some lines, like the skill retraining tip and the drinking talk, only come up in the tavern.
• A one-in-three miss is normal. When only one fresh line is left, people often give the fallback line anyway. Try the next person.