Bannerlord Collectibles Guide: Dragon Banner Pieces, Smithing Parts, Settlements and What Cannot Be Collected

The Dragon Banner is the only true quest collection in the game, and it is also the main quest. You start with one of its three pieces. The other two come from hideouts the quest marks for you, near Epicrotea and Marunath, after you speak with Istiana and Arzagos. Clear the hideouts the way you would clear any hideout; the piece is awarded when the fight ends, and there is nothing extra to search for inside. Once all three pieces are assembled, the quest asks you to choose: support an existing imperial faction or create a new imperial faction with Istiana, or support a non-imperial faction or create a new non-imperial faction with Arzagos. Creating your own faction also needs clan tier 3, at least 100 troops under your command, independence from other kingdoms, and a settlement of your own. The banner achievement pops on assembly; the choice after it is the rest of your campaign, and the two victory achievements belong to the campaign guide.

Smithing parts are the biggest collection in the game by count, and the only one with a rule that surprises people: parts unlock from the lowest undiscovered tier upward. You cannot jump to a high-tier blade by smelting one expensive sword; the system finishes the current lowest tier first, across the weapon type you are working on, and only then opens the next tier. Both smelting and crafting can unlock parts, and higher-tier weapons have a higher chance of unlocking a new part. Two perks raise the learning rate: Curious Smith at Smithing 75 for crafting, and Curious Smelter at Smithing 100 for smelting. Completed smithing orders unlock parts faster than ordinary crafting, which makes orders the efficient path once your skill can handle them. Parts are tracked per weapon type, so a sword collection and a polearm collection are separate projects; the efficient order is to finish one weapon type that makes you money, then branch out. This guide deliberately gives no single total part count: totals differ by weapon type and change with patches, and any article quoting one fixed number for all weapons is guessing. The tier 6 sword achievement sits at the end of this collection, and the smithing guide in this column covers the money-making side in full.

The Explorer achievement asks you to visit every settlement in the world in a single game: towns, castles and villages, across the whole map. There is no in-game checklist to tick off, which is why this collection rewards a plan rather than wandering. The practical method is a late-campaign sweep: wait until your party can travel anywhere safely, then work region by region, clearing one culture area before moving to the next, and use the map to confirm you have covered the edges, including the far north and the desert south. Settlements at war with you still count when you visit them, so the sweep is easier after you are strong than while you are still picking sides. At 1.0% globally, this is the rarest non-combat, non-execution achievement in the game, and it is honest about why: it is a whole-map commitment, not a weekend task.

Fiefs are the collection that changes how the game plays. The first fief is a grant or a conquest; later fiefs come through kingdom votes, where influence and relationships decide who gets what, and through your own conquests once you lead a kingdom. The two achievements that frame this collection are 100 fortifications assaulted and captured, and conquering all of Calradia. Neither needs a special technique beyond the kingdom and siege systems this column already covers; both need a campaign that lasts. A useful middle goal is completing all projects in a single settlement, which teaches the governor side of holding land: a fief is not just income, it is a build queue, a garrison and a loyalty problem. The kingdom guide covers votes, policies and clan tier; the siege guide covers taking and holding walls.

Holding 100 butters in your inventory at once is the most famous joke achievement in the game, and it is also a small lesson in how Bannerlord treats goods: butter is a trade good you buy in town markets, and your party will eat through food stocks over time, so the trick is to buy in bulk and check the inventory before the party snacks through your collection. It pairs naturally with the trade system, and it is the only inventory-count achievement in the game. Buy when it is cheap, hold, and let the achievement pop before you sell.

Companions: there is no fixed companion checklist, because companion names are randomised in every campaign. What is fixed is the set of titles and the roles they hint at: scout, surgeon, steward, engineer and captain. The way to collect companions is by role, using the encyclopedia heroes list filtered to the Wanderer occupation to find who is available and where they are, and the family and companions guide in this column explains the role set. Do not follow a list of companion names from another campaign: those names will not be in yours.

Ships: War Sails does add a fleet worth collecting, and the current store copy counts 22 unique ships: 17 warships, 4 trade ships and a civilian fishing ship. That count itself has changed over time, with older store copy counting 20, which is why this guide does not print a fixed ship-name checklist: ship availability also depends on shipyard culture and development, so a list copied from one campaign will mislead the next. The War Sails naval guide in this column is the right place for ships, and this article points there instead of duplicating it.

Legendary items: Bannerlord has no fixed legendary weapon collection. There is no set of unique weapons hidden in fixed places to tick off. The best gear in the game comes from three honest sources: crafting it yourself once you have unlocked high-tier parts, winning it in tournaments, and looting it from battles. Any article promising a fixed list of legendary drops with fixed locations is inventing a system the game does not have. If you want the strongest sword in the game, the path is the smithing collection above, ending in a crafted tier 6 sword.

Counts and store copy in this guide were checked November 3, 2026: the Steam store page for app 261550, the War Sails store page for app 2927200, and the Steam Web API achievement schema for app 261550 (50 achievements, 0 hidden). Smithing unlock rules and companion randomisation follow the community wiki and companion guides cross-checked against the game systems described in this column.