Dead Thrall

 is a Master-level Conjuration spell in. Casting it raises a dead body from most humanoid beings of level 40 and under to "permanently" fight alongside the player. The thrall follows and defends its master until banished, killed, or turned. Unlike other reanimation spells, thralls that die will not turn to ash and may be raised again.

Attributes

 * Weight: 1
 * Value: 1270
 * See Spell Tome for a complete table of spell tomes, their descriptions, and their values.

Acquisition

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

Equipment
Upgrading the thrall's equipment may increase its effectiveness.

Thralls will use any weapon given to them as long as the weapon matches its proficiencies. For instance, mages will prefer to continue using their spells and wielding staffs rather than equipping powerful melee weapons. Most thralls, regardless of proficiencies, will also use the shields given to them, provided they have a free hand available. However, thralls are much more picky about the armor/clothing they will wear.

Here are the details:


 * Thralls will equip whatever armor they die in. The armor given to them must be the specific item; it cannot be a duplicate (e.g. if a thrall spawned with an Iron Helmet, it will only wear that Iron Helmet and will not equip any other Iron Helmets found in the game). An exception is reanimated Forsworn, who will use any Forsworn armor dropped by other Forsworn. If gear is given to the follower, then he is killed and enthralled, he will continue to wear whatever he had while alive, but fast-traveling will de-equip the gear, so this is of limited use.
 * Thralls from Northwatch Keep may replace their glass armor with elven armor looted from other Northwatch guards.
 * Afflicted thralls may change their armor when moving to a different cell. They may equip lower level armor when moving to a new cell.
 * Thrall equipment may be improved. To do so, loot the desired gear from the thrall's corpse. Modify the gear as desired through enchanting and smithing. Return the gear to the thrall's corpse, and reanimate it. The thrall will equip the gear upon leaving the current cell.
 * Thrall gear may be reset by removing all the equipment, reanimating the thrall, then moving to a different cell. The thrall will generate a new set of equipment from the list of possible gear with which they can spawn. Note that this gear may be different from what they previously had. This trick may be used to re-enchant thrall equipment, obtain better versions of leveled gear a thrall may have equipped, or duplicate rare equipment.


 * Thralls will not equip items in slots that were left empty when they generated their gear.
 * It is advisable to rename thrall gear when enchanting it so keeping track of the unique equipment will be simpler.
 * Any enchantments on the armor or clothing will interfere with and negate the Dark Souls perk. Consider whether enchanting a thrall's equipment is worth the loss of the 100 health gained from that perk.
 * If the thrall dies after the first time it has equipped enchanted gear, when it is reanimated the enchantments will not take affect even though the thrall still has the gear equipped. To remedy this, every time the thrall dies, loot the enchanted gear, and then give it back to them, allowing them to re-equip it.
 * Replace the weapon into the inventory of any character that has dropped it and that will be the subject of the thrall spell, otherwise the character will not pick it up unless in battle.

Notable Thralls
The characters listed below are thralls that have been deemed exceptional in some way by the community. The first three sections deal with thralls of different class, and the final covers thralls that retain their vocal clips upon death. All thralls listed here are able to be thralled at any level unless otherwise noted. Some of the named NPCs listed have unique abilities, while others are effective and easy to find.

Mages
These thralls will use destruction spells and readily wield staves you give them. Some will even conjure allies using their own spells.

Melee
These thralls generally make good tanks and use melee weapons effectively. They will also use ranged weapons you give them when fighting at a distance.

Archer
These thralls most effectively use ranged weapons. They will switch to melee weapons in close quarters.

Retain Vocal Clips
These thralls do not switch to the standard moans and groans of reanimated corpses. They instead continue to use the unique vocal clips they had in life. ''*Levels with (max) mean the thrall will scale with the Dragonborn up to a maximum of that level. Levels without (max) mean the thrall is set at that level.''

''**Vampires can be thralled above the level 40 cap of Dead Thrall if the Dragonborn has taken the Necromage perk found in the Restoration tree. This perk affects all spells that target vampires including Dead Thrall. With this perk all versions of vampires found in the game are thrallable except Volkihar Master Vampires (level 53). Of note are Volkihar Vampires (level 48) and Master Vampires (level 42), the two highest level natural candidates for thralls in the game.''

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. (Use again to turn their AI back on)
 * 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 - Dispels all non permanent active effects which includes dead thrall. Useful if you do not have any dead thralls but the active effect still persists.

Usefulness

 * If the player gets caught trespassing with a thrall, paying off the fine will cause the player to be teleported out of the cell. The thrall will then advance to the next tier of its character type, provided it has one (e.g. a level 42 Master Vampire will become a level 53 Volkihar Master Vampire.) This can only be performed once per thrall, and thralls that advance beyond the Dead Thrall level cap cannot be reanimated if they die.
 * The player may also use a Dead Thrall as storage for an unlimited amount of items. Simply kill the Thrall, and when searching his body, fill him with any number of items that need carrying. Bring the Thrall back to life, and when items are needed from the thrall, simply kill him again and unpack the items.
 * Unlike followers, Dead Thralls will level-scale with the world. This means that it's possible to re-animate a Dead Thrall, and then they level up to 40, and when they die, it's not possible to re-animate them. However, many potential candidates are level-capped and will not scale past 40.
 * If, for whatever reason a follower dies, it's possible to raise them as long as their level is not greater than 40. After zoning, they will NOT wear the apparel that was given them before their death; however, if he/she is a Blade, their default spawn apparel will be the Blades full armor set, which may be upgraded and enchanted. Of note is the fact that these Blades' bodies do not reset.
 * It is not possible to cast Dead Thrall on a character that has been decapitated, regardless of level.
 * With a Dead Thrall following, most other characters, from kids to traders, will make negative comments regarding the spell by giving warnings to stay away or about using a dangerous spell. These comments/warnings do not appear to affect any quest or trading dialogs.

Bugs

 * Casting Dead Thrall may result in a 2000+ hour active effect called: "Reanimate Thrall," which may not be removed even if the Thrall is killed or replaced. The only known way to remove this effect is by casting an elemental cloak spell (Frost Cloak, Flame Cloak, etc.) or by being arrested and serving the jail time.
 * 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 a short-term summons, wait until it expires, then try loading again.
 * Casting any of the elemental cloaks on oneself will immediately kill any active thralls.
 * While fast traveling, thralls may disappear from the game entirely. This may be fixed by loading a quick save and retrying. Sometimes if they disappear they will reappear much later when fast traveling.
 * This can also happen when not fast traveling, such as if the thralls get bugged under the level. Summoning temporary creatures, such as the Dremora Lord, doesn't seem to free your disappeared thralls as it would have if they were present. When you have no creatures summoned, your thralls will eventually come back to you.
 * Waiting may sometimes cause missing thralls to reappear beside you.
 * Meridia's shrine may cause thralls to disappear unless the player kills them before placing her beacon at the shrine.
 * Thralls may disappear and still show up in the Active Effects menu. Some solutions for this issue include conjuring other temporary allies, casting cloak spells, or changing into a Werewolf, which will remove all Dead Thralls.
 * If a player has two Dead Thralls that are of the same type (such as two Bandit Chiefs), one will be lost when the player travels between areas.
 * Thralls will lose the graphical reanimation aura upon leaving the cell in which they were reanimated.
 * Thralling bodies from the civil war is possible as long as the spell is cast quickly enough; however, it is almost certain that they will disappear but still be in the active effects list.
 * Sometimes killing a thrall inside a location, then leaving and returning to the location, the thrall that was killed may be alive and hostile upon returning.
 * For Pc: console command: "player.dispelallspells" will fix the long active effect issue. The player must select himself before using the command — in order to do this, sometimes the player has to use his ID (or use the mouse to select himself) in order for that code to work.
 * After casting and Fast Travelling, the Thralls may lose their glowing effect, causing them to look like normal NPC's.
 * Thralling an NPC that has died from fall damage causes them to walk in place, unkillable and untouchable.