Skyrim Companions, Followers, & Marriage Guide

Fellow Nords and ladies, has trudging through the tundra of Skyrim become lonely?  Do the numerous dragon skeletons not offer the sort of companionship you desired?  Skyrim is massive, why go alone?  Am I alluding to a sort of co-op or multiplayer in Skyrim – sadly no.  The game has a companion system to have traveling partners, animal companions, and someone to come home too after exhausting day of dragon slaying.  Note: this has nothing to do with the “Companions” or fighters guild.

Followers:

Throughout the game, you are going to come across NPCs that have a ‘follow me’ speech option.  These are companions that will travel with you into combat and whatever odds and ends you do in the Skyrim world.  These NPCs often want you to do something for them at first; quest rewards, compete a quest for the NPC, or even beat the NPC in a fist fight to get them to follow you.  You can have ONE humanoid follower and ONE non-humanoid follower – like a dog – at one time.

Your followers offer numerous benefits to your Skyrim hero: 

• Fight: Anytime combat begins they will rush to the melee and join.  There are companions of all types, find one that fits your style of play.
• Immortal: Followers can’t die unless it’s by your own hands.  If they drop to 0 hit points they fall to their knees and revive at the end of combat.  If you slay a follower on purpose or by accident – they are dead.  There are bugs where certain NPC’s can die so just be aware that there is possibility of your companion CAN die.
• Mules: If you have all this nifty stuff, but can’t carry it all, hand it to your humanoid companion; non humanoid companions can’t carry your loot.
• Gear: Your followers will equip gear you give them if it is better than their starting equipment.  This gives you more customization for your companions. 
• Command: Companions follow simple commands such as wait, follow, and dismiss.  If you dismiss a character they will return to where they came from.  Once dismissed, you can pick up a new companion or return to that one.

The negatives I’ve come across are only a few.  For one, they get in my way a lot and I have fear of killing them.  Secondly, and more importantly, it’s hard to level up certain skills if you let your companion do too much work.  For example, it’s hard to skill up one handed weapons if the monsters die before I can get there.  Since Skyrim doesn’t really work of experience points, make sure you still participate in combat or you’ll level far more slowly.

Marriage:

Skyrim is a large place.  After playing for hours you’ll start to feel like you are actually in this fantasy world, why not have a fantasy husband / wife to come home too?  Skyrim allows just this to happen.  I was actually not away of this feature at first.  To allow this process to occur some aspects must occur first.  Let’s go over those!

• Travel to the town of Riften.
• Find and enter the “Bee and Barb” inn.
• Speak to an NPC named Maramal about the Cult of Mara.
• Buy the Amulet of Mara off Maramal – 200 gold.
• While wearing the amulet you have new speech options to court NPCs who can be courted.
• Maramal will be at the Temple of Mara for the rest of the game.
• After purposing to an NPC, talk to Maramal at the Temple of Mara and you become married.
• Side note: Marriage can be heterosexual or homosexual.

That is the marriage process.  Why again would I want to be married though?  This is why:

• Once married you can move into that NPC’s house or your own.
• If that NPC has a shop you receive 100 GP a day and some NPCs will start a store upon marriage.
• Once a day your spouse can cook a meal that increases regeneration of magicka, health and stamina.
• ‘Lover's Comfort’ is a buff you receive for 8 hours after sleeping in a house with your spouse.  This gives you 15% increase to skill learning.
• Anyone you marry can become a follower if they weren’t before.