» Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:28 am The vanishing Dead Thrall bug has been driving me insane, so I tracked down what I believe is the root cause. (I'll do this as carefully as I can without story spoilers.)
Summary:
When the player has a dead thrall, it will sometimes vanish mysteriously. The effect will remain active in the "Active Effects" list, but the thrall will not re-appear when fast traveling or changing areas. The player can create another Dead Thrall, causing their "Active Effects" to list more dead thralls than they should be able to control. (2 or more) Once this happens, if the player travels back to the area where they originally obtained their missing dead thrall, it will be there in an animated state. This will cause any more recent dead thralls which put the player over their limit to immediately expire. The original dead thrall will not attack the player, but will also not follow them.
To reproduce:
1. Find a bandit camp or something similar where the enemies respawn.
2. Kill and then animate one of the enemies.
3. Fast travel back to your house and rest for a week of in-game time.
4. Travel around a bit, fast traveling and entering/exiting buildings until your thrall disappears.
5. Travel back to the original location where the thrall was first obtained.
Results:
The thrall will be there, animated, but not doing anything. Any other existing thralls over the players limit will expire upon arrival.
Expected:
Thralls remain with the player until killed or released. If the base spawn for the player's thrall respawns, a new instance of that entity is created instead, or that particular creature does not respawn.
