Thrall Thread : Living with the dead

[Snake Tortoise]

You necromancers clearly know more about thralls than me, so a question:

Is it random when thralls disappear and (maybe) reappear later, or is something setting that off? I had a necromage and bandit chief (with legendary heavy armour and warhammer) who were tearing it up before I did the final battle of the DG quest line in Volkihar Castle. They disappeared before the fight with Harkon (expected) but haven't appeared since. It's been days, waiting and fast traveling haven't worked- is it time to get some new thralls?

NPCs are still saying 'Watch the magic!', 'That spell looks dangerous' etc.

Is there a good way to stop thralls disappearing?

 

[The Honorable Gidian Diva of Sass]

You necromancers clearly know more about thralls than me, so a question:

Is it random when thralls disappear and (maybe) reappear later, or is something setting that off? I had a necromage and bandit chief (with legendary heavy armour and warhammer) who were tearing it up before I did the final battle of the DG quest line in Volkihar Castle. They disappeared before the fight with Harkon (expected) but haven't appeared since. It's been days, waiting and fast traveling haven't worked- is it time to get some new thralls?

NPCs are still saying 'Watch the magic!', 'That spell looks dangerous' etc.

Is there a good way to stop thralls disappearing?

To stop thralls from disappearing you can either anchor them (though this is only a permanent fix if they do not respawn), find a thrall with a quest marker attached to them, and/or saving... A LOT. Your thralls have probably gone back to the place where they are found naturally in life. If they aren't there, it's time to find some new ones (although a bandit chief and necromage are very replaceable, so you could just find new ones anyways).

 

[Harkin]

You necromancers clearly know more about thralls than me, so a question:

Is it random when thralls disappear and (maybe) reappear later, or is something setting that off? I had a necromage and bandit chief (with legendary heavy armour and warhammer) who were tearing it up before I did the final battle of the DG quest line in Volkihar Castle. They disappeared before the fight with Harkon (expected) but haven't appeared since. It's been days, waiting and fast traveling haven't worked- is it time to get some new thralls?

NPCs are still saying 'Watch the magic!', 'That spell looks dangerous' etc.

Is there a good way to stop thralls disappearing?

It was probably a non named npc, if They are named, bandit chief or something to do with their battle behaviour, They wont be permanent and are destined to vanish.

You gotta find one that has a proper name, like Ghunzul or Yamarz.

Theres loads of info, even a gamefaqs thrall guide about which ones stay and which dont.

Basically if they dont stand out, destroy them with a shout!

 

[HouseHosted]

As Gidian writes, they may have returned to wherever you'd originally enthralled them, become stuck somewhere (from reloading an auto), or succumb to a scripted disjointment. Disjointment is a word and I'm sticking to it! The latter happening would most likely return them to where you enthralled them, and the second may cause them to be still waiting there; where stuck. Hopefully you didn't venture into Broken Oar beforehand... There is a way to recover thralls from that place, but it takes finesse.

Anyways, let me put it this way: If you backtrack your steps-- even write down what you remember here, we can probably lead you to where they went. If all else fails, reloading a previous save is most likely the best solution.

Also, in my experience, a generic NPC like Bandit Chief or Necromage shouldn't vanish. That trait only shows in Generic NPCs in part of random events. I could be wrong, however, no evidence to suggest this has revealed itself thus far. Obviously one exception is the Civil War, but that's rather specific... Could you imagine trying to keep all those bodies around, and before they disappeared?

edit: Does anyone know if thralls cannot follow you into that Castle? I don't know. If they can't follow you in, they're most definitely back at their spawn locations. Fellglow Keep during the College timeline is a perfect example of an area off limits to thralls, yet, not an issue until the final door.

 

[Snake Tortoise]

Thanks for the information!

The thralls made it to the castle and helped hack the vampires to pieces but didn't reappear after the Harkon fight. Losing those specific thralls doesn't bother me too much, as mentioned they can be easily replaced. I'm just worried my thralls will disappear so often that it isn't worth smithing their gear.

Since losing those thralls I've held onto the new ones (master vampire and another bandit chief) for long enough that I'm not too worried about the void taking them every time I travel or enter/leave a dungeon

Curiously the two thralls I lost at Castle Volkihar are still listed in active effects, so maybe they really are still out there.

 

[HouseHosted]

I have literally no experience with that quest line, so I can't really help. However, the fact that the thralls are still in Active Effects suggests they had disappeared. This doesn't ever happen unless with an NPC that cannot be respawned into a new area... Harkin may very well be right. I'm just very perplexed. I still feel either scripting or... something had brought about their absence.

Anyways... I'm rather depressed now. I accidentally reset my Volkihar and she no longer has Glass Armour. I am not as upset since the first Volkihar in Shriekwind was suited in Orcish; still. No where near as exciting-- or as attractive... Guess I'll just have to deal with it. Certainly learned my lesson.

Going back to my earlier conclusions, it seems the health regeneration is not so easily removed. It just turns off every now and then. I can't make sense of it. Whilst running around testing this and that, I'd taken note of my Volkihar having lost the health regen. Later into an expedition through Broken Helm Hollow, I noticed it had returned... So some very interesting behavior. Additionally, after accidentally resetting my Volkihar, she had kept it too. I am beginning to really like this little bug.

 

[Daelon DuLac]

I have literally no experience with that quest line, so I can't really help. However, the fact that the thralls are still in Active Effects suggests they had disappeared. This doesn't ever happen unless with an NPC that cannot be respawned into a new area... Harkin may very well be right. I'm just very perplexed. I still feel either scripting or... something had brought about their absence.

Anyways... I'm rather depressed now. I accidentally reset my Volkihar and she no longer has Glass Armour. I am not as upset since the first Volkihar in Shriekwind was suited in Orcish; still. No where near as exciting-- or as attractive... Guess I'll just have to deal with it. Certainly learned my lesson.

Going back to my earlier conclusions, it seems the health regeneration is not so easily removed. It just turns off every now and then. I can't make sense of it. Whilst running around testing this and that, I'd taken note of my Volkihar having lost the health regen. Later into an expedition through Broken Helm Hollow, I noticed it had returned... So some very interesting behavior. Additionally, after accidentally resetting my Volkihar, she had kept it too. I am beginning to really like this little bug.

Does the regen have to do with the time of day as it does on a "living" vampire, perhaps? I'm almost at thrall level myself and am looking to get a Volkahir when that happens.

 

[HouseHosted]

That's a very curious question, but no. It is in effect at all times except in combat, of course (well maybe reduced... but, that would be next to impossible to observe). The health regen shuts off, as I've witnessed, when you enter a walled city and have to re-fast travel to tow your thrall in. I suspect this may respect every instance where the thrall is put into memory for a short time, but I just haven't gotten that far yet. Up until now, I'd taken to repeating the process whenever my thrall lost the effect. It's quite apparent there's much to discover.

 

[Snake Tortoise]

I think my current vampire lord thrall's health is regenerating. I often shield bash my guys to check their health and see if I need to use necromantic healing on them, and yesterday while my crosshair was hovering over my vampire his health rose a tiny fraction before the health bar disappeared again. I'm going to check that out again today

edit: Yes, my vampire lord thrall's health regenerates!

 

[JayW]

I'm tempted to try a new twist on necromancy (at least it's new for me).

I want a beast master build. Essentially I want to focus on getting to level 34 (the sweet spot for most thralling activities) and obtaining the Staff of Dread Zombie. I like the staff more than the spell because it doesn't destroy the creature after you've used it.

According to google results it should work on anything below level 30. I'm hoping that Resto Loop boosted conjuration potions can combine with the staff. If they do then I should be able to get permanent Beast Thralls. THis opens the door to some nice builds

Troll King - Troll, Snow Troll and Armored Troll pet
Vampire Traveler - Twin mid level gargoyles
Riekling Tribe - Pet Armored Rieklings w/ Giants Clubs (only hunters actually carry the giants club) / Riekling Chief (16)
Nature Boy - Spirggan Earth Mother / Burnt Spriggan
Skin Walker - Mid Level Werewolf / Werebear / Vilkas (giants club) / Barbas / Bran - when in Beast Mode Perma Werebear / Familiar
Dwemer Knight - Aetherial Staff, Dwemer Sphere, Riekling Hunter w/ Dwemer Weapons (closest thing to a dwemer I can find).

I don't know whether they'll work yet but they should all be doable. I doubt anchors will work since none of them are named (except the Riekling Chief). The Ritual Stone can still accompany these thralls but you can't fast travel with it except very short distances. Anyway I thought I'd give it a whirl...

 

[HouseHosted]

Just because an NPCs naming is like others doesn't mean you are unable to anchor it. It all depends on the area the NPC is found in. Some generic NPC spawn locations do not respawn, thus giving you the ability to anchor and keep them permanently. It is also possible that they may still spawn alive, but this scenario always has them return to their original spawn location. For example, I'd anchored two of the Harmugstahl giant spiders. They did eventually disappear (I believe after 10 days), and were found back at Harmugstahl... Now, guys like Sinding apparently have a more radical respawn behavior.

 

[Hala]

Is there any way I can prevent Vyrthur from despawning? I keep my thralls by the forge in the cellar, "sleeping" on a rug, but I come back one day and he's been swept. My son's the only other person who goes down there, so maybe I shouldn't have asked him to do his chores.

Haha or better yet, would anyone have a list of perma NPC's? I only know of the two cultists, Ulfric, and Galmar

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[Hala]

EDIT: further backreading into page 176, I now know the answer to all my necromancing queries. *evil laugh

 

[JayW]

Sorry, what is anchoring?


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The game is designed to delete NPC's that no longer serve any function. Once You've cleared a dungeon that dungeon will reset after a set amount of time so as to reduce the memory taken up by recording where every object has been placed. (NB not all dungeons reset which is why some NPCs have permanent corpses like Orchendor whose dungeon doesn't get wiped).

When using dead thrall you will find that NPCs that you thralled will disappear when the dungeon they came from resets or if you leave the body unattended. One moment you have a thrall, you travel to a city and they don't follow you there and cannot be found (the memory of the NPC has been wiped from the game to reduce the demands on your hardware).

Anchoring is a way of preventing your thrall from disappearing when the dungeon they came from resets. The game will not delete most named NPCs if you place certain objects in the inventories of your thralls. Writs of Execution or Mogrul's Orders letters are anchors that can prevent your thrall's body from disappearing. Put the letter in the thrall's inventory, dump the body in one of your houses and whenever you come back they should still be there.

Even on Xbox you can keep a stable of thralls 30+ strong. It works best on named NPC's who tend to make the best thralls anyway (Vyrthur, Ulfric, Tulius, Kematu…).

 

[Hala]

Anchoring is a way of preventing your thrall from disappearing when the dungeon they came from resets. The game will not delete most named NPCs if you place certain objects in the inventories of your thralls. Writs of Execution or Mogrul's Orders letters are anchors that can prevent your thrall's body from disappearing. Put the letter in the thrall's inventory, dup the body in one of your houses and whenever you come back they should still be there.

Thanks a lot for this, tho I apologize for not having backread further before asking. Thanks again, your reply had everything I needed to know. My game can't load fast enough, dying to try this on the undying.

 

[Harkin]

Lmao some of you storing 30+ thralls, thats a ridiculous ammount to keep tabs on, I have maybe 15 and thats enough!

Also theres no point storing useless NPC's like Anise the old witch, only store them if you really like them and would consider using them again.

Even though I got a room full, its a shame about not having a PC because the 2 Thrall limit is frustrating to a militia leading Orc like my guy. Increasing the ammount of thralls I could have would definitely make me store more.

 

[HouseHosted]

Maybe 15, Harkin? I don't know if we can be friends any longer.

...Honestly, Anise isn't so bad. She'll eventually start summoning Frost Atronachs. Her spell book still lacks a great deal.. and her fighting prowess could be helped...

 

[Harkin]

Lmao, I've not been on it at all lately, but its cause my thralls are so beastly I no longer search.

Anise summons a frost atro? At like 40? Bashnag does that at 28

Ah well the Dlc content should rekindle my skyrim flame, Alien Isolation, Evolve taking my time atm

 

[HouseHosted]

Yea, my Anise does. I accidentally used Ritual in the Abandoned House a couple weeks ago. If you read through my thread on my various builds, you'd know just how many bodies came to life... I was actually quite horrified for a moment. Thinking to myself, "Jee, if these guys all turned on me..." I decided to make something of it and attacked Malkoran. Neither he nor his Shade lasted very long, but what I did notice was a Frost Atronach in the room. After a little examination, turns out it was Anise's. Thought for sure she stuck with the hound.

 

[Hala]

I'm too strong for Vyrthur now without the Restoration perk, but I'm keeping him around as a trophy. Isn't that why we anchor 15-30 thralls when we probably have only 3 or 4 favorites? )

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