攻略情報Strategy

Bannerlord Marriage, Children & Heirs Guide (v1.4.8)

2026.09.13/読了約10分

Short answer: to marry in Bannerlord, court an unmarried noble aged 18 or older, pass two rounds of courtship persuasion, then settle the marriage terms with their clan leader in a barter. Children cannot inherit until they turn 18, so the way to keep your dynasty alive is to marry early and keep more than one adult family member in your clan. This guide covers courtship, pregnancy, child education and heir selection, limited to what we could confirm from the official patch notes and community research.

Quick reference: from marriage to succession

Stage	What happens	Watch out for
Who you can marry	Unmarried nobles (lords and ladies), age 18+, opposite sex to your character	Hired companions (wanderers) cannot marry without a mod
Courtship	Talk and propose → wait a day → persuasion (3 rounds) → wait a day → persuasion (3 rounds)	Fail too often and that person is off the table for good
Family approval	Barter the final terms with the target's clan leader	There is no fixed price
After the wedding	Your spouse joins your clan and faction	When other family members marry, the wife normally moves to the husband's clan
Pregnancy	Possible while the couple spends time together in a fief; the mother must be 18–45	Chances fall with the mother's age and with each child
Growing up	Education events at 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 and 16; adulthood at 18	Minors cannot be talked to or put in a party
Succession	When your character dies, pick a family member from your clan and carry on	Companions cannot inherit; with no candidate the campaign cannot continue

Which version this covers

The current stable build is v1.4.8, released 10 August 2026. We read the v1.4.6, v1.4.7 and v1.4.8 patch notes and none of them change marriage, pregnancy or succession; those three patches are mostly War Sails naval fixes.

Two recent official changes do touch dynasties. v1.4.5 (21 May 2026) made marriages between ruling clans a factor when kingdoms consider alliances (more below). v1.3.4 (26 November 2025) added Fast Mode, an optional module that makes years shorter and characters age faster. TaleWorlds describes it as "making multi-generation dynasties and succession easier to experience in a single playthrough."

The v1.5.0 beta from 19 August 2026 also has relevant changes, but they are not in the stable build. They are listed at the end.

Who you can marry

Both of you must be unmarried.
They must be 18 or older. Characters who have only just turned 18 sometimes do not show the courtship option; 19 and up reliably do.
They must be the opposite sex to your character.
They must be a noble — a member of one of Calradia's clans.

The last point catches people out. You cannot marry a companion you hired in a tavern unless you use a mod. The MarriageExtended mod, which adds companion marriages, states plainly that in the vanilla game only nobles can marry.

The encyclopedia shows each character's age, spouse and clan. Nobles travel with their parties, so the person you rode to see may have left town by the time you arrive.

How courtship works

Courtship is not a single conversation. It takes at least two in-game days and several steps.

Propose in person. Speak to them in a town or castle, declare your interest and offer your hand. If they agree to meet again, the courtship has started.
Wait a day. There is a cooldown between stages.
First persuasion (3 rounds), about your outlook on the world.
Wait another day.
Second persuasion (3 rounds), about marriage itself.
Pass both and they will ask you to win their family's approval. Next stop: the clan leader.

Pick persuasion answers by success chance, not by wording

Each round offers several replies, each tied to a skill and shown with a success chance. That chance depends on the other character's traits (Valor, Mercy, Honor, Generosity, Calculating) and on your skill levels.

Do not guess from the text. BUTR, a Bannerlord modding group, documented an example where a noble-sounding reply about honor and duty had a 16% chance while a cynical one had 87%, and recommends always choosing by the displayed number. A calculating character responds to pragmatic arguments, not idealistic ones.

Social skills such as Charm help, but each reply tests a different skill, so raising Charm alone does not guarantee success.

If it goes wrong

Losing one round does not end things; the stage is judged after all three rounds. But if you fail too many and they tell you marriage is practically impossible, the courtship with that person is over. Save before courting someone you really want.

Bartering with the clan leader

After both persuasions, find the target's clan leader — usually a parent or the head of the family — and ask to discuss the final terms. This opens a barter screen with the marriage already on the table, and you add gold or other offers until they accept.

There is no fixed dowry. The amount comes out of the barter system and shifts with your relationship and what you offer.
Clan leaders are often away with an army. In BUTR's testing, the conversation you get when meeting an army on the map did not lead to this negotiation; you had to be in the same town or castle. Expect to wait for the army to disband.
Once they accept, the marriage happens and your spouse joins your clan and faction.

Which clan do spouses and children end up in?

This matters more than anything else for keeping a line of succession.

When your own character marries, the spouse joins your clan regardless of your character's sex. Several players on the Steam forums confirm that a female character's husband moves into her clan.

When anyone else marries, the wife normally moves to the husband's clan. The community wiki notes an exception when the wife is a faction leader. In practice, if your daughter or sister marries a man from another clan, she leaves yours, while a son's or brother's wife joins you.

That is how clans run out of heirs: marry off every adult daughter and sister and, once your character dies, there may be nobody left to take over.

Pregnancy and childbirth

Only married couples can have children. Based on the community wiki:

Pregnancy can happen while the couple spends time together in a fief. The wiki says the roll seems to happen at a fixed time each day. If your spouse is off leading another party or waiting in a different town, assume there is no chance.
The mother must be between 18 and 45.
The chance drops sharply as the mother gets older and with every child she already has. The wiki says it becomes quite rare after about four children.
Childbirth can kill the mother or the child. Players report deaths in childbirth, and mods that tweak pregnancy expose settings for maternal mortality and stillbirth.

The wiki also gives a formula for the daily pregnancy chance, but we could not find a primary source confirming it for v1.4.8, so we do not quote exact percentages. The practical rule is simple: if you want children, start while the mother is young and keep the couple in the same settlement.

Education and coming of age

Newborns join your clan, but until 18 they are minors: you cannot talk to them or add them to a party. They only appear on the clan screen and in the encyclopedia.

Instead, you choose how they are raised at six milestones, according to the community wiki:

Age	What you choose
2	Which of the father's and the mother's strongest attributes the child inherits
5	A personality trait, giving an attribute point and a focus point in a matching skill
8	A mentor role (Master-at-Arms, Steward, Artisan, Scholar, Huntsman, Minstrel) and a skill
11	An attribute and a skill to develop
14	A gift or accomplishment, with an attribute and skills
16	An apprenticeship (squire, aide, apprentice, noble's ward, own way, envoy) and a skill

Each stage also includes a random component. At 18 the child comes of age and receives a batch of attribute and focus points to spend. The wiki notes that adult children end up with more attribute and focus points in total than tavern companions or ordinary lords.

Plan education around the job you want them to do later — Leadership and Tactics for a party leader, Steward for a governor, and so on.

Choosing an heir when your character dies

When your character dies — in battle, of old age, or otherwise — you choose a family member from your clan as heir and keep playing as them. Spouses, siblings and adult children are all candidates.

Companions cannot be heirs.
Children under 18 cannot be heirs. As Steam players point out, your first child will not be an option until 18 years after they are born.
If there is no eligible family member, the campaign cannot continue.

So while your children are young, your spouse and siblings are your insurance. Dragging your spouse into every risky battle, or marrying every adult sister and daughter off to other clans, can leave you with nobody.

The game also has a retirement ending, "The Retreat." According to the community wiki, a child or other relative can take over after you retire there as well.

Lifespan and the Birth and Aging setting

Characters only grow old and die of age in campaigns where birth and aging is enabled.

You can only choose this when starting a new game. To see the toggle, enable the "Birth and Aging Options" module (formerly "Birth and Death Options") in the launcher's Mods tab. We could not confirm what the default is when the module is not enabled.
It cannot be changed once the campaign has started.
Turning it off means nobody ages or dies of old age — but nobody is born either.
Players report deaths from old age starting in the late 40s.
Hero death in battle is a separate setting. Disabling birth and aging does not stop battlefield deaths if that option is on.

If your main worry is losing your character young, check the battle death setting first.

Vassal or ruler: what marriage does for you

Your position	What marriage gives you	Keep in mind
Vassal or mercenary in an existing kingdom	Your spouse becomes a clan member, securing the family line and an heir candidate	Marrying daughters or sisters into other clans removes them from yours
Ruler of your own kingdom	All of the above, and since v1.4.5 marriages count toward kingdom alliance decisions	Marriage is only one factor; territory and trade agreements also count

The v1.4.5 patch notes list "inter-ruler clan and ruler-to-any clan marriages (the latter matter less)" among the factors kingdoms now weigh when considering alliances, alongside owning settlements of another faction's culture and being in a trade agreement. Once you rule a kingdom, marriages between ruling clans feed into alliance decisions. TaleWorlds has not said how much weight they carry.

For founding the kingdom itself, see our kingdom building guide.

Family changes in the v1.5.0 beta

The beta patch notes from 19 August 2026 include the following. None of this is in stable v1.4.8.

Blood Feuds. Executing a member of another clan starts a feud. AI clans can also execute captured members of your clan — including you — if relations are low enough (currently −50). TaleWorlds' advice: make sure "your heir hasn't already been captured."
Stealth items now pass to your heir when your character dies.
Children look more like their parents.
Fast Mode moves from a launcher module into the new advanced starting options.

Blood Feuds could change whether you bring your heir to battle, but beta content can change before release, so there is no need to play around it on the stable build.

Summary

Marriage means courting an unmarried noble aged 18+, winning two persuasion stages and bartering with their clan leader. Choose persuasion replies by the success chance shown, and do not expect a fixed dowry.

To keep your dynasty going: have children while the mother is young and the couple shares a fief, keep your spouse and siblings around as heir candidates until your children reach 18, and remember that daughters and sisters who marry out leave your clan.

Sources

Apart from the patch notes, mechanics described here come from the community wiki, mod developers and player testing, none of which is official TaleWorlds Entertainment information. We have not verified them in-game.