Dead Thrall



 is a Master-level Conjuration spell in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Casting it permanently raises the dead body of most humanoid beings under level 40 to fight alongside you. The thrall follows and defends its master until banished, killed, or turned. This spell does take a lot of magicka to cast so you will need a large magicka pool to cast it without the perk Master Conjuration, or several enchanted items reducing the magicka cost for Conjuration.

A common complaint with Dead Thrall is the constant groaning of zombie followers, leading some players to abandon the spell. However, characters with unique voice acting sets, such as Galmar Stone-Fist, will not groan at all in undead form.

Spell Tome locations

 * Phinis Gestor sells this spell after the completion of the Conjuration Ritual Spell.

Videos
A video showing the spell being cast can be found here.

Notable Thrall targets
There are many excellent options for a Dead Thrall and with the proper planning and items they essentially act as a second or third follower. With the exception of named NPCs such as Orchendor, most corpses will eventually dissapear when the cell they spawned from resets unless currently thralled. Additonally, cells with greater than 15 corpses will automatically purge those corpses from the game.
 * Orchendor - level 40 max: The ideal candidate due to his 100% magic resistance, teleportation, and destruction spells. He spawns with an amulet of health regeneration, a ring with fortify destruction, black robes, and a pair of enchantable scaling boots and gloves. Also note that his body is safe from disapearing as Bthardamz never resets. He will use shields given to him in close quarter combat but rarely ever uses weapons. Though immune to enemy spellcasters he is very vulnerable to archers.
 * Kornalus - level 40 max: A decent spellcaster that boasts a high skill proficientcy in destruction, restoration, as well as illusion. He has 30 magic resistance like most master spellcasters but lacks any kind of armor making him incredibly vulnerable to physical attacks. He is somewhat stronger than master spellcaster variants. He is found in Harmugstahl.
 * Master Vampire - level 38 max: One particular master vampire spawns in bloodlet throne and may randomly spawn with orcish, elven, or glass armor and boots. This is one of very few vampires that wears enchantable heavy/light armor and makes an excellent choice as your second thrall. This is also one of very few casters that will use a sword (but not a shield) in close combat and a bow from a distance.
 * Dremora Markynaz - level 36: You will have to carefully plan this target out as at high level you will only see Valkynaz or Valynaz who are much too strong to be enthralled. Ideally you would complete the black star or pieces of the past quest at level 36 to 45 in order to collect one of these rare dremoras. You can also summon one from the atronach forge when you are level 36 to 45. Markynaz deal massive physical damage but lack any enchantable armor and make excellet shock troops.
 * Master Necromancer - level 36-40: All master casters will have 30 magic resistance and a decent selection of spells. One such master necromancer appears at Hobb's falls cave and will have 55 magic resistance due his Breton heritage. He will be available regardless of the dragonborn's level and makes for a decent secondary thrall if you already have Orchendor.
 * Forsworn Ravager - level 34: All ravagers will have at least 25 magic resistance. Archery type ravagers will have an impressive 45 magic resistance and 87 skill level in archery. Though somewhat low level they come with an impressive 5 armor slots and will readily use any staves you give them. Melee combat is where they shine and will use any weapons you give them though seem to dislike dual wielding weapons if they can instead wield staves. Ravagers are versatile thralls and can fill the tank, archer as well as shock troop roles. Note that their corpses may dissapear if the cell you found them resets.
 * Bandit Chief - level 10-28: There are many variations as well as some named ones, similar to the northguard soliders they will have a set of steel plate armor which can be smithed very well and will be a better choice than northguard soliders if you dont have the glass armor perk. They make excellent shock troopers much like Dremora Markynaz but benefit from having armor pieces that can be enchanted.
 * Sebastian Lort - level (?): despite popular belief, Lort is a not a good thrall because he is actually just a normal conjurer with a unique name and no real defining abilities.
 * Northwatch Guard -level (?): These altmer spawn with an entire set of glass armor allowing you to pack up to 10 enchantments between 5 armor pieces. They make excellent tanks if you invest heavily in enchanting thier items with defensive enchantments and have the relevant glass smithing perk.
 * Malkoran- level(?): Encountered during Meridia's Daedric Quest The Break of Dawn. Uses Fireball and Ice Storm most of the time, very good second thrall if you already have Orchendor, together can take down Blood Dragons without you having to lift a finger. WARNING: Do not take a single thrall into the ruin's at the beginning of this quest, otherwise only your first thrall will make it out (via the cutscene) and Malkoran will be left behind.

Enchanting thrall items
Thralls will only use base armor that they died with with some minor exceptions. Base armor includes armor, helm, glove, boots, ring, amulet. If they lack a certain armor piece and you give them one, they will not use it. Thralls however will use items that were gathered from similar a thrall. For example, Forsworn thralls will use enchanted forsworn armor even if it was gathered from a different forsworn. Orchendor will use only use items that were found on his body. For example. He will not use an ebony guantlet you crafted yourself or found elsewhere but will use one that was obtained from a different instance of his corpe (by stripping him of items then fast traveling to a new area). This gives you some flexibility when switching thralls and as a good practice you should always rename your enchanted thrall items to something recognizable or unique.

Thralls will freely use weapons, shields, torches and staves that you give them as long as their AI deems it logical. You may also enchant thrall armor pieces by killing them, enchanting the items, then returning the items to the corpse and then enthralling them once more. You can potentially outfit a thrall with a full set of lengendary double enchanted armors assuming you have the proper material and perks.

Useful console commands

 * openactorcontainer 1 - lets you place and take items without having to kill and resummon your thrall. Note it will not allow you to take their base equipment.
 * disable, enable - lets you reset their base items. Note they will lose what ever base items they had before even if you enchanted it.
 * resurrect - Revives the thrall and also resets their items to base.
 * player.moveto  - Teleport to your thrall's current location, useful for when they disappear after fast traveling. The ref id can be found by opening the console and clicking on your thrall.
 * prid , moveto player - Teleport the thrall to your current location.
 * tai - Shuts off their AI effectively freezing them in place.
 * resetai - Resets their ai. In conjunction with tai, this will allow you to stop them from fighting with your follower and other thralls.
 * getlevel - Checks the name and level of the creature.
 * dispelallspells - Dispells all non permanent active effects which includes dead thrall. Useful if you do not have any dead thralls but the active effect still persists.

Bugs

 * Loading certain areas may cause persistent and repeatable crashes to the desktop due to poor dead thrall pathing. If you experience CTD when loading a new area, try summoning short term summons, wait until they expire, then try loading again.
 * While fast traveling, thralls may disappear from the game entirely. This can be fixed by loading a quick save and retrying (Note: Sometimes if they dissappear they will reappear much later when fast traveling if they weren't freed).


 * Disappearing or slow moving thralls can be irritating to say the least. Another good trick to use when your thralls are missing or lagging is to simply wait an hour. More often than not, they'll reappear at your side.


 * Meridia's shrine can cause thralls to disapear unless you kill them before placing her beacon at the shrine. (most likely a bug since many instances where the player is teleported to an area where thralls and followers can't follow them results in glitches such as thrall dissapearances.)
 * If your thralls still show up in your Active Effects menu, but they are still nowhere to be found, just cast the Flame Cloak spell. Where ever they are, they will be released. Alternately, you can change into a Werewolf as it will cancel all Active Effects thus releasing your Thralls.
 * On some occassions thralls have spoken as if still alive, this often occurs when the player aims spells at the thrall. Some thralls will always speak as if still alive, this includes: Arcano, Arondil, Astrid, Cicero, Pyromaniac, Skjor, Velehk Sain, Dremora Lords.
 * If you have two Dead Thralls that are of the same type (such as two Bandit Chiefs) then you will lose one when traveling between areas.
 * Sometimes when the thralls disappear their effects will still be active, the only real problem is that NPCs will say "That spell looks dangerous" or "Stay away from me with that spell." A fix can be found here.
 * Simpily cosmetic, but when you go through anything with a loading screen the gloing effect of the thrall will disappear. Confirmed on Xbox
 * When you move between areas tralls can sometimes die in the first area, which can get very irritating.