Bellwright can feel overwhelming at first because it blends survival, settlement building, follower management and open-world combat into one experience. This guide walks you through the first several hours of play, laying out the fastest and cleanest path to stability. Everything is explained in simple, practical steps so you understand not just what to do, but why it matters.
Your very first goal is to secure food, tools and a safe place to operate from. Bellwright starts you in fragile conditions, but once you understand the rhythm—gather, craft, recruit, build—you’ll notice how smoothly your settlement begins to grow.
BELLWRIGHT Beginner Guide 2026 – Equipment, Outposts
The early game loop looks like this:
Gather basic resources → Craft tools → Hunt for food → Build your first camp → Recruit a few early workers → Unlock essential research → Expand to a proper settlement.
Each step strengthens the next.
Starting Out: What To Do First
When you wake up near Haerndean, focus on gathering wood, stone and reeds. These allow you to craft the fundamental tools that let you speed up everything else. Make a hatchet, pickaxe and a knife as soon as possible.
Move slowly around your starting region, picking up mushrooms and hunting small wildlife. Mushrooms cook quickly and provide dependable early food. Winter visibility later makes hunting easier, but for now you only need enough meat to keep yourself going.
The moment you have enough materials, place your first makeshift encampment southeast of Haerndean, near the river. This spot contains reeds, copper and plenty of animals, which gives you nearly everything required for Tier 1 tools.
Getting Your First Settlers
Renown comes slowly at the start, so your first recruits will matter. When you visit villages such as Haerndean and Padstow, talk to every recruitable villager and check their traits.
Good early traits:
Nomad for movement speed, which helps every job.
Neurotic for dedicated early workers who never idle.
Do not be afraid to dismiss low-quality recruits. Early stat differences matter because settlers gain experience over time, and hiring someone weak now just slows your entire progression.
If you ever pick up a recruit from a quest, hire them immediately. These characters often start with high skills and low renown costs, making them some of the best early additions to your camp.
Food, Farming and Keeping Your Camp Fed
Food is the heart of your settlement. Your settlers eat frequently, and you must create a system that produces more than they consume.
The best first foods are mushrooms, roasted meat and smoked meat. These last long enough and take minimal effort.
Once you free Padstow and access seed vendors, buy onions first. Onions grow quickly, give strong food value and sustain workers well. Potatoes and beetroots are also worthwhile but less efficient. Farm only one crop per field to help future automation.
Try to keep all raw food in dedicated storage. This slows spoilage and helps your haulers keep everything organised.
Combat Basics for New Players
Combat becomes far easier once you understand movement speed and spacing. Bellwright rewards controlled engagements rather than brute force.
Your first weapon should be whichever feels comfortable, but many beginners perform best with a bow because it allows kiting. Move backwards, fire, reposition, and repeat. Take out enemy archers first before cleaning up melee units chasing you.
When using melee, start by mastering your blocks. Watch the enemy’s wind-up, block, and then counter. When facing groups, avoid the centre of the fight and strike enemies who are distracted by your companions.
Armor weight matters. Light and medium armor let you dodge better and travel faster, which is critical when roaming during quests.
Building Your First Real Base
Once Padstow is liberated, move your longer-term settlement east of the village, near the lake. This area features flat open space, local garlic, mud, tin, reed and regular wildlife spawns.
Build in this order:
Stockpile
Campfire and shelter
Basic crafting stations
Drying racks
Beds
A few roads
A signpost for fast travel
Roads are easy to ignore but they dramatically reduce stamina use and speed up both you and your settlers. Fast-travel signs placed near roads form the backbone of all your travel and logistics later.
Avoid building directly next to a brigand garrison. Guards will constantly clash with respawning enemies, causing chaos you do not need in the early game.
Unlocking Research and Progression
Research opens nearly every important crafting and building option. Always assign at least one settler to research with high priority.
Important early unlocks:
Carpenter
River Dock
Basic armor
Basic farm plots
Smelting and tanning
The River Dock requires an apprentice Carpenter, so liberating Padstow early is critical. Once built, the dock becomes one of the most powerful fast-travel and resource-delivery structures in the game.
Outposts and Resource Camps
An outpost is a small settlement dedicated to a single job such as woodcutting, mining or reed gathering. They prevent your main settlement from wasting time on travel.
Your first outpost should be your old starting camp near Haerndean. Turn it into a copper and wood camp. Add a Stockpile and two or three workers with priorities set to harvesting and delivery. From here, the deliveries will keep your main settlement supplied while you focus on crafting buildings and research.
Set these essential top-up deliveries at your outpost:
Food
Tools
Mushrooms
Logs
Ore
River reed
This prevents workers from idling and keeps your main base stocked automatically.
Managing Settlers Effectively
Settlers can do almost anything, but you should specialise them early. Open the N menu and set job priorities so each settler focuses on their best attribute.
A simple beginner method:
High skill → Priority 2
Mid skill → Priority 5
Weak skill → Priority 8
This stops workers from running across the map doing low-skill tasks inefficiently. You can fine-tune this later once you understand the flow of your settlement.
Use simple nicknames to track roles, such as “Farm”, “Hunt”, “Wood”, or “Guard”. You do not need complex labels early on.
Staying Safe and Handling Raids
Brigand raids grow with your actions. As you build, kill enemies and expand your base, the raid bar fills and eventually sends attackers.
In the early hours:
Keep your band size small
Avoid heavy expansion
Clear nearby camps only if you need resources
Do not over-invest in guard gear
Guards help slow the raid bar progression, but you do not need complex defenses early. Simple fences and a shield-bearing guard are enough to buy time if a small raid appears.
What To Focus On Next
Once you feel stable, begin preparing for Tier 2:
Smelt tin
Craft better armor and weapons
Expand farming
Build your first proper roads
Establish your second outpost
Liberate more villages for apprentices
Prepare the River Dock
At this stage the game opens dramatically. Your settlement becomes automated, your economy stabilises, and your army becomes capable of taking on larger brigand forces.