Tribesmen
Recruited NPCs that gather, craft, and fight, blowing past the proficiency ceiling a solo player is stuck behind, which makes building a tribe the biggest single accelerator in the game.
Every source describes recruiting tribesmen as mandatory rather than optional, and the reason is a hard number. A solo player caps every proficiency at 50. Tribesmen reach 120. That gap means a well-staffed tribe out-gathers, out-crafts, and out-fights anything you can do alone, and it removes most of the repetitive survival grind. The barbarian tribes that attack you are also your recruiting pool, so the same camps that threaten you early become your workforce.
Recruiting by deterring
The main way to recruit is to deter an enemy. Beat them below 20 percent health, then press the interact key (E) to knock them unconscious. They start gaining recognition, and once minimal recognition is reached they can be recruited. While they are unconscious you have to keep them alive: place bandages or liquid food such as broth in their inventory, then carry them home over your shoulder.
Some targets cannot be deterred at all:
- Plunderers
- Named Elites (silver-bordered health bars)
- Tribe Leaders
- Scouts
If a health bar has a silver border, do not waste the fight trying to recruit; that one only drops loot.
Traits and proficiencies
Each tribesman has proficiencies, which measure how good they are at each task, and personality traits that shape behavior and aptitude. You view both in the Clan tab at the bonfire. Assign people to their strengths: strong loggers log, strong miners mine, good crafters go on the matching stations. They improve at whatever they repeat, the same way your own proficiencies grow.
| Who | Proficiency cap |
|---|---|
| Player | 50 |
| Tribesman | 120 |
That ceiling is the whole argument for building a tribe. Anything a tribesman specializes in, they will eventually do better than you can.
Assigning jobs and the marker snag
Assigning gathering work has one snag that idles workers if you miss it. To put a tribesman on a gathering job, place a map marker directly on the actual resource node, then select that pinned location in the Work tab. An off-target marker leaves the worker standing idle, so pin the node itself, not the general area.
A worker assigned to an off-target map marker does nothing and gives no error. If a tribesman seems to be slacking, check that the pinned marker sits on the real node, because a marker a few steps off is the usual cause.
Tribesmen in combat
Deploy followers and command them with the F1 to F8 keys for follow, hold, attack, and the rest. You still gain Awareness when your tribesmen make kills, which is why parking a strong fighter at a fast-respawning camp is a known early Awareness farm: you get the Awareness from their kills while you do something else. You can also possess a tribesman directly through the Mask Control Node, fighting with their body and their higher weapon proficiency.
Keep deployed fighters stocked with weapon, armor, food, water, and bandages. An unsupplied follower that dies on deployment loses all of its built-up specialization, which can erase hours of work.
Maintenance
Tribesmen need ongoing food, water, and gear. A starved or unequipped tribe stops being useful, so the upkeep is part of the system, not an afterthought. Mounts help with the logistics: get an Alpaca early, found in tribal camps and told to follow you home, for carry and travel.
Related: see The Mask System for the Mask Control Node that lets you play as a tribesman, and Base and Automation for the production chains they run.