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:
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:
Looking through the lists these are some other creatures that should be affected by this trick:
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:
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:
Looking through the lists these are some other creatures that should be affected by this trick:
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 :)
Not bad, but you might consider mentioning this in the General Magic Discussion as well.
Not bad, but you might consider mentioning this in the General Magic Discussion as well.