What to do if you lost a follower in Skyrim: where to search and how to teleport

Followers are essential companions in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that can aid you in combat, carry your burdens, and provide valuable support. However, it is not uncommon for followers to get lost or separated from the player due to various reasons. This guide outlines the essential steps to locate a missing follower and how to teleport them if necessary.

Common Reasons Followers Get Lost

Before attempting to find your lost follower, it is important to understand the common reasons they might disappear:

• Stuck in Combat: Your follower may get trapped in a battle or not exit the combat state.
• Wait Command: You might have instructed them to wait somewhere without realizing it.
• Dismissal: You might have accidentally dismissed the follower, causing them to leave your service.
• World Glitches: Your follower might have fallen through game textures or encountered a pathfinding error.
• Deceased: In unfortunate cases, your follower might have died during an adventure.

Steps to Locate Your Missing Follower

Retrace Your Steps

If your follower was just with you recently, try retracing your steps. They might be stuck in combat or waiting at a spot where you recently interacted with them. This is often effective in dungeons and ruins where communication options can inadvertently lead to separation.

Fast Travel

Using fast travel can often resolve the issue of missing followers. Fast traveling to any location tends to spawn the follower right next to you. This method only applies if the follower is still actively in your service.

Check Their Starting Location

If retracing steps and fast traveling do not work, visit the location where you first recruited the follower. Different follower types return to different places based on their origin:

• Faction-specific followers: Return to their faction’s headquarters.
• Sellswords: Return to the inn or tavern where they were hired.
• Housecarls: Return to your home or the keep in the city they were assigned.
• Spouses: Return to their primary residence.

For example, Lydia, a housecarl, will return to Breezehome if you own it; otherwise, she will wait at Dragonsreach.

Use Console Commands

If the follower is stuck due to a game bug or has fallen through the textures, using console commands can resolve the issue. This method is only available on platforms that support console commands (PC).

Teleport Follower to You

• Open the console by pressing the “tilde” key (~).
• Type prid [RefID] (e.g., Lydia’s RefID is 000A2C94).
• Press Enter.
• Type moveto player and press Enter.

Teleport to Follower

• Open the console by pressing the “tilde” key (~).
• Type player.moveto [RefID] (e.g., player.moveto 000A2C94 for Lydia).
• Press Enter.

If the follower is physically stuck but still within the game world, this will relocate them to your current location or transport you to theirs.

Dealing with a Deceased Follower

If your follower is missing because they have died, options are limited. You can either recruit a new follower or use console commands to resurrect the fallen companion:

• Open the console by pressing the “tilde” key (~).
• Target the follower’s corpse (either manually or through commands).
• Type resurrect and press Enter.

To prevent followers from dying in the future, you can make them essential (immortal) using the command:

• Open the console by pressing the “tilde” key (~).
• Type setessential [BaseID] 1 (replace [BaseID] with the follower’s BaseID, e.g., Lydia’s is 000A2C8E).
• Press Enter.

These measures should help you effectively manage and recover lost followers, ensuring they remain as reliable companions throughout your adventures in Skyrim.