Tarsh Gaming: Miraak as a Follower (2024)

An alternate ending to the end of the Dragonborn DLC: Using the power of the Bend Will, you can make Miraak your new best friend! Then you fight waves of Mora’s minions and escape together. More info in the “Walthrough” section.

Miraak’s dialogue files were edited and repurposed in order to make him “fully voiced”.

If Miraak thinks you’re taking a break, he will “sandbox”. This means he will wander around, use furniture, pretend to craft, have a snack, etc.

Miraak can be married.

While traveling with Miraak, Mora may send minions to finish the two of you off. Stay alert!

Once you unlock Miraak as a follower, the area around the Tree Stone will now have a camp with bedrolls, crafting stations, etc. The camp also has a “safe” chest with a tome that can summon Miraak to you at any time.

The camp also has two friendly Cultists you can recruit (they act as normal followers). Rokzaam, a male Dunmer, and Rekzaam, a female Dunmer. They’re technically naked in order to make it easier for you to equip them but they should try to equip the gear in their bags when loading into a new area.They receive spells based on level. Their aresenal consists of: Shock spells, Conjure Seeker Flame Atronach / Seeker / High Seeker,Flesh spells (rarely used), healing spells and wards. They have Frost and Fire Breath respectively. They also have tomes that can summon them in case they get lost.

There is a book in the camp chest that, while in your inventory, allows you to craft unenchanted versions of Miraak’s sword and clothes (comes in unarmored, light and heavy variants) as well as create his staff at a staff enchanter. The book can also be created at a tanning rack.

Miraak’s level is 10% higher than yours. His minimum level is 15 and he maxes out at 150.

For combat, Miraak prefers to use Shouts. His Shouts have little cooldown and he has a decent variety to choose from.

For general combat, he uses Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Cyclone and Unrelenting Force. The first two will stagger enemies and the latter two will send them flying.

When injured sufficiently, he will use either the full three word version of Become Ethereal or, if he’s really in trouble, use the one word version (which doesn’t last as long but is a lot quicker to use).

When Miraak’s health, stamina and magicka are full or if the ethereal state is about to end, he will resume fighting.

He can also use Bend Will. In order to preemptively prevent any possible bugs with the player’s Bend Will, his Bend Will acts differently. When used on anything vulnerable to the two word version of Bend Will, it will temporarily transform the target into a “Temporary Cultist” who will assist you if the target is a humanoid and non-essential; if the target is not a humanoid or essential, the target is stricken by fearand will flee. His Bend Will will not work on dragons but to compensate, I gave Miraak a Shout that summons dragons (more info below).

If you are outdoors and Miraak considers the situation bad enough, he can use his most powerful shout which summons his three dragons, Sahrotaar, Kruziikrel and Relonikiv, to destroy the enemy.
After combat is over, the dragons will continue to patrol the area they were summoned at. The higher the player’s level, the tougher they will be. Kruziikrel and Relonikiv max out at 50 and Sahrotaar
maxes out at 58. If you talk to Miraak while he is not your follower, he can teach you this Shout.

When fighting ranged enemies, Miraak may use Whirlwind Sprint to close the distance. In the event he Sprints off a cliff, falls down a hole, etc. the mod will try to detect that and teleport him back to your side.

Miraak has Elemental Fury but it is disabled by default due to engine bugs and limitations.

Miraak also has Dragon Aspect. His version does not summon an Ancient Dragonborn but, unlike you, he is not limited to using it once a day.

In terms of equipment, Miraak favors the use of one-handed weapons and heavy armor. He also has some skill in block but, as his Restoration and Destruction skills are significantly higher, it may be betterto let him have a free hand for spell casting. He also has points in Alteration but has never bothered to learn spells of that school. Miraak has no skill in archery, two-handed weapons and light armor.The majority of his skill points (nearly half) are in Speech (in order to balance out his shout using).

Miraak’s spell list depends on your current level. This is to both prevent him from using his best spells early on and to prevent him from using his weakest spells later on. His spell list will change atlevels 40, 50 and 60. He uses mainly Shock spells, some Fire, healing spells and wards. The spells are the same as the ones the enemy Miraak uses, except the follower Miraak also has Thunderbolt, Incinerate and Close Wounds when at a high enough level.

Miraak is immune to the Wabbajack (with the exception of its damage spells), Mehrunes’ Razor, Bend Will, Mora’s Grasp, paralysis (magical or otherwise), decapitation, reanimation, Apocrypha tentaclesand any effect that would normally “ragdoll” an NPC (Unrelenting Force, shield charge, etc) will only stagger him instead.

Miraak comes with his robes, his boots, his gloves, his mask, his sword and his staff. The sword and his mask are leveled. They can be replaced with a higher leveled version through dialogue options when you reach the required level.

Miraak has been given the Light Foot perk and won’t trigger pressure plates.

Miraak’s other perks: Augmented Shock 1, Respite, Bladesman 1, Critical Charge, Magic Resistance 1, Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Recovery 1, Extra Damage 2 (x1.5 damage with two-handed weapons,x2 with all other weapons) and he deals x1.5 damage against dragons (minor bit of trivia: dragons have a perk that negates 50% of incoming damage except from the player).

Get to the final quest in Dragonborn’s main questline.

You will be given an optional objective: use the full Bend Will Shout on Miraak multiple times. Successfully hitting him with a Bend Will means your Shout will rechargein 30 secs (three words of Bend Will usually takes 120 secs). Bend Will will still function even if he has a ward up but not when he’s ethereal. After a few Shouts, Miraak will go down.

You’ll need to hit him with the Shout a few more times. Miraak will not fight back or even move at this point. Successfully hitting him with a Bend Will at this stage recharges your Shout even quicker.

He’ll become your ally and the two of you must defeat several waves of enemies Hermaeus Mora will send at you. If you kill an enemy here, their items will all be automaticallyremoved and placed into a special chest. This is because (1) I delete the corpses in between waves to improve performance and (2) looting during a climatic battle makes it less fun.

After defeating all of the enemies and after some dialogue, talk to Miraak. He’ll then disappear and the chest mentioned earlier will appear. The chest will also have Miraak’sequipment and bonus gold depending on how many dragon souls you would have gotten if you did the vanilla version of the quest and killed Miraak.

As soon as (1) 24 Skyrim hours pass you complete that quest, (2) you change locations after using the “skip” button, you will receive a message telling you to sleep at Raven Rock.

Go to The Retching Netch or Severin Manor and sleep. It doesn’t matter how long.

A quest marker should appear. Follow it to the Temple of Miraak.

You should now see your new follower Miraak, a camp and two friendly Cultists you can also recruit.