Yesterday as I was traveling across country east of Markarth near the Old Hroldan Inn, I came across a group of Thalmor fighting a couple of what I supposed were bandits. I let it go until they had killed the bandits, then I killed them off. As it turned out, they were 2 members of the companions.

I got two inheritance letters shortly after the battle.

I had gotten one about a week ago for Lod, the blacksmith from Falkreath, and there is only one guard left in the town.

I guess this stems from loading up a MOD called "Thalmor Infiltration" from the Steam Workshop which places roving bands of Thalmor all around Skyrim.

I guess the question here is, can the companions, merchants and city guards be repopulated. One of the spawn points is on the road just west of Falkreath and I have observed the guards fighting the Thalmor on occasion, a loosing battle...

I could dump the MOD but totally enjoy fighting groups of Thalmor. Any thoughts???

Couldn't you just revive them with the console and set them to be essential if you don't want to lose the mod?

If the Thalmor are scripted like Vampire attacks, you're unfortunately going to run the risk of them depopulating the game world.

I'd recommend "Immersive Patrols" for a better experience. It adds Thalmor, Imperial, Stormcloak, Dawnguard, and random Travellers to the roads of Skyrim. I adore it - it makes the game world feel more vibrant when you stumble across a Imperial and Stormcloak patrol attacking each other - or a Thalmor and Stormcloak patrol for that matter. They also don't depopulate the NPC population of the game, so it's both immersive and unobtrusive.

Admittedly, the Thalmor patrols are a bit rarer then Imperials and Stormcloaks, but unlike the prisoner escort random encounter, you won't incur a bounty by laying waste to them.

You can revive NPCs with the console, however other NPCs will still talk about the "revived" NPC(s) as though they are dead, because the game registers them as still being dead.

The simplest way to deal with this type of problem on PC is to create a batch file that sets your favorite NPCs to essential. You can open a browser tab on the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:People page for reference and make a list of the people you want to keep alive. Then you open a new text file in Notebook and start copy/pasting "BaseID" #'s into it like this:

; Lod    BlacksmithSetessential 00013650 1

You can have almost total control of who lives or dies in Skyrim with this method. Once you've named and saved your text file into your Skyrim\Data folder you're set. Use the console to execute your file like so:

bat 

An alternative and slightly easier method is to just use an existing mod --> http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23614/? <-- and edit it to suit your needs.

I thought the Companions were essential when outside Jorrvaskr?

But yeah I would have used resurrect 1 on their ID and brought them back to life. There is no issues that I have come across by doing this. NPCs are unaware they are/were dead and no inheritence letters.

Which companions were they?