I've sat on this for ages, once upon a time I was all fired up to make a build based on it but in the end it didn't happen and if I'm honest with myself it's not going to happen! So I may as well post the core mechanic for others to play with and hopefully enjoy ...
Dead Thrall
Dead thrall is great but the limitation that it will only affect humans is a little restricting in terms of character concepts. Dead thrall differs from the standard reanimate spells in the following ways:
- It lasts for ages - effectively forever.
- If a thralled zombie dies it doesn't turn to ash so can be used again.
- Thralled zombies will follow you through fast travels and loading screens without turning to ash.
- It only affects humans.
We want to get around that final limitation while keeping the other benefits and the answer is alchemy and reanimate staves!
Alchemy
Fortify conjuration potions affect the duration of reanimate spell effects. Through fortify restoration potion looping it is possible to create fortify conjuration potions of extraordinary magnitude. This then allows us to cast any reanimate spell while under the effect of one of these potions and the resulting zombie will last a very long time, but sadly only until it is hacked down or you go through a loading screen at which point it turns to ash. Finding a new subject every time isn't really the dead thrall experience we're looking for.
Staves
Enter reanimate staves. These fantastic items cast reanimate spells that differ from their normal counterparts in two ways - they cast at lower levels but they also create zombies that do not turn to ash and that will follow you through loading screens. Combine a reanimate staff with a fortify conjuration potion of high enough magnitude and you have a sort of dead thrall spell that will work on anything you can get the staff to raise.
As mentioned unfortunately the staves cast spells at a lower level than the normal spell equivalents. The staff of revenants casts a 9pt reanimate spell and the staff of dread zombies casts a 12pt one (according to uesp, seems about right from my experience). You can get a staff of revenants from the word go by going to the little ruin just outside Morthal (to the southeast) where one is waiting for you. You either have to wait for a staff of dread zombies to turn up naturally or create one using the staff enchanter if you have dragonborn.
Master of Many Beasts
When I played around with this I created a beastmaster who used the revenants staff to thrall sabre cats and then upgraded to snowy sabre cats with the dread zombies staff. Having two cats following you around is very cool! There are a few things I found out in my travels though:
- They aren't as tough as you might like - undead healing or shooting/stabbing them with healing poisons is highly recommended.
- Because of the above and their insanely aggressive AI they are likely to die quite a bit. Each time you raise one you're going to need another fortify conjuration potion so carrying a ton of these is a good idea.
- They aren't as bright as normal human dead thralls - which aren't all that bright to start with. They obey the same fast travel rules as normal dead thralls or horses in that when travelling into a city they end up in the stables (which must come as a bit of a shock to the resident horses) but often one or both of them will simply lie down and not catch up with you in the city. You really have to keep an eye on them and backtrack to pick them up when they disappear.
- They can be a bugger in enclosed spaces. If you like nice neat houses this isn't the trick for you as they utterly trash anywhere with movable objects (bit like real cats I suppose).
- You can't use Mason's 'undead gps' trick as you can't get a quest item into their inventory. I looked for a long time to see if there are a couple of persistent objects that I could pick up and place into them that would at least protect the corpses but didn't get very far with it. It might be possible though - such objects are supposed to exist.
Looking through the lists these are some other creatures that should be affected by this trick:
- Draugr - Sadly draugr wights are level 13 and so are just out of reach. Restless draugr are going to be pretty weak but the first level of draugr bosses - draugr overlords - are supposed to be lv 7 and come with basic thuum and an enchanted weapon. I haven't tried this but if you could spawn a couple of these early on (bleak falls obviously and somewhere else) it may be possible to come back later and pick them up when you have the staff and potions.
- Other animals - Standard bears are level 12 and therefore should be in range of the dead thrall staff. Finding them when you have leveled up both alchemy and conjuration might be tricky though. The snowy sabre cats were a pain to find for exactly that reason but there is a guaranteed spawn of two of them in a cave near the thalmor embassy. Everything else is probably a bit weak but it might be fun to try two ice wolves with barbas and one of the dog pets for a pack type thing.
- Monsters - Standard chaurus are level 12 so that could work as should standard spriggans. Only the bottom tier of falmer will be affected which will probably be too weak to do much with.
Conclusion
The main issue with all of this is that in order to pull the trick off you will have to advance your character level significantly - for a single thrall using just the revenants staff you can get away with just leveling alchemy but if you want to use the dread zombies staff or create two thralls you need to level conjuration too - for twin souls and you need to know the dread zombie spell in order to create a staff of dread zombies. Given that the creatures that can be thralled by this method are reasonably weak you may find your thralls being a bit underpowered by the time you get there. Sabre cats, bears, chaurus and spriggans all hit fairly hard for their level though so this is mitigated somewhat.
Having said all of which having two animal thralls is so undeniably cool you'll forgive them an awful lot of dying and painful AI issues! Have fun :)
I've sat on this for ages, once upon a time I was all fired up to make a build based on it but in the end it didn't happen and if I'm honest with myself it's not going to happen! So I may as well post the core mechanic for others to play with and hopefully enjoy ...
Dead Thrall
Dead thrall is great but the limitation that it will only affect humans is a little restricting in terms of character concepts. Dead thrall differs from the standard reanimate spells in the following ways:
- It lasts for ages - effectively forever.
- If a thralled zombie dies it doesn't turn to ash so can be used again.
- Thralled zombies will follow you through fast travels and loading screens without turning to ash.
- It only affects humans.
We want to get around that final limitation while keeping the other benefits and the answer is alchemy and reanimate staves!
Alchemy
Fortify conjuration potions affect the duration of reanimate spell effects. Through fortify restoration potion looping it is possible to create fortify conjuration potions of extraordinary magnitude. This then allows us to cast any reanimate spell while under the effect of one of these potions and the resulting zombie will last a very long time, but sadly only until it is hacked down or you go through a loading screen at which point it turns to ash. Finding a new subject every time isn't really the dead thrall experience we're looking for.
Staves
Enter reanimate staves. These fantastic items cast reanimate spells that differ from their normal counterparts in two ways - they cast at lower levels but they also create zombies that do not turn to ash and that will follow you through loading screens. Combine a reanimate staff with a fortify conjuration potion of high enough magnitude and you have a sort of dead thrall spell that will work on anything you can get the staff to raise.
As mentioned unfortunately the staves cast spells at a lower level than the normal spell equivalents. The staff of revenants casts a 9pt reanimate spell and the staff of dread zombies casts a 12pt one (according to uesp, seems about right from my experience). You can get a staff of revenants from the word go by going to the little ruin just outside Morthal (to the southeast) where one is waiting for you. You either have to wait for a staff of dread zombies to turn up naturally or create one using the staff enchanter if you have dragonborn.
Master of Many Beasts
When I played around with this I created a beastmaster who used the revenants staff to thrall sabre cats and then upgraded to snowy sabre cats with the dread zombies staff. Having two cats following you around is very cool! There are a few things I found out in my travels though:
- They aren't as tough as you might like - undead healing or shooting/stabbing them with healing poisons is highly recommended.
- Because of the above and their insanely aggressive AI they are likely to die quite a bit. Each time you raise one you're going to need another fortify conjuration potion so carrying a ton of these is a good idea.
- They aren't as bright as normal human dead thralls - which aren't all that bright to start with. They obey the same fast travel rules as normal dead thralls or horses in that when travelling into a city they end up in the stables (which must come as a bit of a shock to the resident horses) but often one or both of them will simply lie down and not catch up with you in the city. You really have to keep an eye on them and backtrack to pick them up when they disappear.
- They can be a bugger in enclosed spaces. If you like nice neat houses this isn't the trick for you as they utterly trash anywhere with movable objects (bit like real cats I suppose).
- You can't use Mason's 'undead gps' trick as you can't get a quest item into their inventory. I looked for a long time to see if there are a couple of persistent objects that I could pick up and place into them that would at least protect the corpses but didn't get very far with it. It might be possible though - such objects are supposed to exist.
Looking through the lists these are some other creatures that should be affected by this trick:
- Draugr - Sadly draugr wights are level 13 and so are just out of reach. Restless draugr are going to be pretty weak but the first level of draugr bosses - draugr overlords - are supposed to be lv 7 and come with basic thuum and an enchanted weapon. I haven't tried this but if you could spawn a couple of these early on (bleak falls obviously and somewhere else) it may be possible to come back later and pick them up when you have the staff and potions.
- Other animals - Standard bears are level 12 and therefore should be in range of the dead thrall staff. Finding them when you have leveled up both alchemy and conjuration might be tricky though. The snowy sabre cats were a pain to find for exactly that reason but there is a guaranteed spawn of two of them in a cave near the thalmor embassy. Everything else is probably a bit weak but it might be fun to try two ice wolves with barbas and one of the dog pets for a pack type thing.
- Monsters - Standard chaurus are level 12 so that could work as should standard spriggans. Only the bottom tier of falmer will be affected which will probably be too weak to do much with.
Conclusion
The main issue with all of this is that in order to pull the trick off you will have to advance your character level significantly - for a single thrall using just the revenants staff you can get away with just leveling alchemy but if you want to use the dread zombies staff or create two thralls you need to level conjuration too - for twin souls and you need to know the dread zombie spell in order to create a staff of dread zombies. Given that the creatures that can be thralled by this method are reasonably weak you may find your thralls being a bit underpowered by the time you get there. Sabre cats, bears, chaurus and spriggans all hit fairly hard for their level though so this is mitigated somewhat.
Having said all of which having two animal thralls is so undeniably cool you'll forgive them an awful lot of dying and painful AI issues! Have fun :)
