The general outline to create any kind of guardian is: 

1) Study the Novice level text (i.e. A Novice's Guide to Necromancy) 

2) Create a workbench at a forge (i.e. Necromancer's Altar) 

3) Find a suitable location to act as your base and drop the workbench (it will be in your inventory under misc. items) 

5) Activate the workbench to create a Guardian. You can also long hold activate to pick up the workbench (note that once the workbench has been placed the first time, it is heavier to carry when picked up again) 

6) Read higher level texts to unlock the ability to create more powerful Guardians 
  
Things get a little more complicated for Sacrificial Guardians (see below), but the above will get you started.  
  
To find the texts you have 4 options:
  
1 - Conjuration vendors who will release them once you hit the appropriate conjuration levels as in vanilla 
  
2 - If you want to start your game with some texts, resources and a free workbench, use the Dead & Daedric Guardian Options lesser power and select Quick Start.  
  
3 - Head to the Necromancer's market. It resides on a little island south of the Blue Palace, just past the ruins of Folgunthur.  
More about the market:  
- All Novice and Apprentice texts and resources can be reliably purchased.  
- Advanced texts and resources available but what are in stock is not fixed.   
- Has a discoverable map marker  
- For the lazy and/or curious, Console coc  Folgunthurexterior02  
  
4 - Direct your character to a few lore-friendly locations where you may encounter them organically 
More info:  

 
The following Guardians are created at a Necromantic Altar 
  
Spirit & Zombie Guardians - Limited effectiveness, but require minimal resources   
  
1) Shade Guardian (Novice)  
Without a physical body, this weak summon is most suitable for distracting enemies and scaring away locals.  
Requires 1 filled black soul gem   
  
2) Zombie Guardian (Novice)  
For the novice, lazy or time-constrained necromancer, zombie guardians have always been an option. Sure, the reanimation process accelerates the physical decay, resulting in pungent, disease-ridden minions with limited mental faculties, but that makes them all the more effective at keeping away pestering locals. They also make very good meat shields.   
Requires 1 filled black soul gem; 1 Corpse 
  
3) Bone Wolf Guardian (Novice) 
Using a similar process to creating zombie guardians, a wolf can be reanimated to serve as a guard dog or undead companion. Requires 1 filled lesser soul gem; one wolf corpse (note - requires DnD Guardians - Creation Club Expansion) 
  
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Skeletal Guardians - Require a full set of intact skeletal bones (10 pieces); much more effective than spirit or zombie guardians; can be equipped with weapons & armour (but will by default refuse chest/leg and hand armours - this can be enabled in options) 
  
3) Skeleton Guardian (Apprentice)  
A stronger minion built using the bones of the fallen and powered by the soul of a sentient being.   
  
Requires 1 filled black soul gem and 1 intact skeleton (10 pieces)  
  
4) Reinforced Skeleton Guardian (Adept)  
A tougher minion built using the bones of the fallen with leather and iron structural reinforcements to the skeletal frame which is in turn fused with its armour.  
  
Requires 1 filled black soul gem, 1 intact skeleton (10 pieces) 3 iron ingots, 3 leather strips  
  
5) Skeletal Mage Guardian (Expert)  
A Reinforced Skeleton Guardian which has been infused with magic, allowing for the casting of fire magic spells. 
  
Requires 1 filled black soul gem, 1 intact skeleton (10 pieces) 2 iron ingots, 3 leather strips, 3 fire salts, 1 void salt  
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Mummified Corpse Guardians - Require a fresh corpse to work on in addition to resources for mummification of said corpse (salt and embalming fluid); more durable than skeletal guardians; can be equipped with any weapon or armour   
  
6) Corpse Guardian (Apprentice)  
Prepare a corpse for mummification with salts and embalming fluid, before accelerating the preservation process with magic and reanimating the newly mummified (draugr) corpse.   
  
Requires one filled black soul gem, 3 salt piles, 1 bottle of embalming fluid, 1 corpse 
  
7) Strengthened Corpse Guardian (Adept)  
Prepare a corpse for mummification with salts and embalming fluid, then wrap in linen and use special incantations to strengthen it, before accelerating the preservation process with magic and reanimating the newly mummified (draugr) corpse.   
  
Requires one filled black soul gem, 3 salt piles, 3 linen wraps, 1 bottle of embalming fluid, & 1 corpse 
  
8) Corpse Mage Guardian (Expert)  
Prepare a corpse for mummification with salts and embalming fluid, wrapping the corpse in linen, and imbue it with magical energies, before accelerating the preservation process with magic and reanimating the newly mummified (draugr) corpse. 
  
Requires one filled black soul gem, 3 salt piles, 3 linen wraps, 1 void salt; 3 frost salts, 1 bottle of embalming fluid, & 1 corpse 
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Master Level Undead Guardians  
  
9) Undead Dragon Guardian (Master)  
A powerful protector built using the bones of a dragon and powered by the soul of a sentient being. If commanded to guard a location, it will fly around the area raining death from the skies. It can also be commanded to follow (orbit around) the player anywhere outdoors, and should wait for its master nearby while he/she goes indoors 
(cannot be created in an interior) 
Requires 1 filled black soul, 10 dragon bones, 4 void salts  
  
10) Dragon Priest Guardian (Master) 
  
Upon defeating a dragon priest, you may take their phylactery. If you are learnt the most advanced necromancy techniques, you can bind the soul of this sentient undead before resurrecting it in a fresh corpse (can be equipped with jewellery and staffs and reanimate its own undead minions) 
  
Requires 1 ancient phylactery, 10 dragon scales, 3 salt piles, 3 linen wraps, 4 void salts; & 1 bottle of embalming fluid & 1 corpse 
  
11) Bone Colossus Guardian 
Requires DnD Guardians - Creation Club Expansion 
A powerful guardian built out of an unholy mixture of human and dragon bones, held together with leather straps and dark magic.  
Requires 1 filled black soul, 5 dragon bones, 5 intact skeletons (10 pieces each), 6 leather strips, and 4 void salts. 
  

 
The following Guardians are created at a Summoner's Ritual Site 
  
Atronach Guardians - Require a sacrificial offering 
1) Scamp (Novice) 
Can cast a week fireball spell 
Requires: 1 filled lesser soul gem, 1 fire salt, 1 Red Mountain Flower and a goat hide 
  
2) Flame Atronach (Apprentice)  
100% resistant to fire and can cast fireball 
  
Requires: 1 filled common soul gem, 3 fire salts, 1 dragon tongue (flower) and a wolf pelt   
  
2) Frost Atronach (Adept)  
100% resistant to frost, large sized, great tank 
  
Requires: 1 filled greater soul gem, 3 Frost Salts, 1 Frost Miriam (flower) and an ice wolf pelt    
  
3) Storm Atronach (Expert)  
100% resistant to lightning, casts lightning spells  
  
Requires: 1 filled grand soul gem, 3 void salts, 1 death bell (flower) and a sabre cat eye 
  
  
Seeker / Daedroth / Dremora Guardians - require you to sacrifice a man/mer while your weapon is coated with sacrificial oil (poison) which has been imbued with the appropriate incantation. You then retrieve the heart to use as an offering. The hearts of more powerful sacrifices beget more powerful Daedra.  
  
4) Dremora  - All Dremoras can be equipped with weapon and armour. Greater Dremoras use destruction magic.  
  
5) Daedroth - All Daedroth's can breathe a powerful cold flame attack and regen health both in and out of combat. 
  
6) Seeker - Seekers are faster than those typically found in game and have a powerful non-line-of-sight poison spell in addition to those typically possessed by seekers. Greater Seekers can summon additional lesser seekers in combat.  
  
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Master Level Daedric Guardians  
  
Once you have successfully made two high quality (above level 35) sacrifices to a Daedric Lord, the next time you use the relevant incantation they will contact you requesting a more specific sacrifice in exchange for a master level Daedric Guardian.  
These guardians are gigantic and best used outside but can shrink themselves when taken into an interior.  
  
Apocrypha  
7 - Lurker - acquired by sacrificing a giant. Very powerful, able to use acid spit spells and may launch opponents into the air with a powerful stomp. 
  
Deadlands 
8 - Havocrel - acquired by sacrificing a hold guard. Very powerful and capable of using a mixture of powerful fire spells and deadly melee attacks. 
  
Coldharbour 
9- Daedroth Matriarch - acquired by sacrificing a priest (any NPC with 'priest' class). Much larger and more powerful than male Daedroth Guardians - further differentiated further by its white skin and blue eyes. Not as much health as Lurker or Havocrel guardians but regenerates health at a very fast rate both in and outside of combat.   
  

 
The following Guardians are constructed at a Homunculi Enchanter  
  
Require ingredients for construction and a filled soul gem (unless disabled in options) 
  
1) Living Mannequin (Novice)  
It's a living mannequin. It can be equipped with any weapon or armour but is not very hardy and very weak to fire.  
  
Requires: 1 filled lesser soul gem, 3 firewood, 2 iron ingots  
  
2) Gargoyle (Apprentice)  
An animated gargoyle, a favourite of vampire conjurers. It heals when it lands claw attacks.  
  
Requires: 1 common soul gem, 3 iron ingots, 2 corundum ingots, 1 moonstone ingot   
  
3) Refined Gargoyle (Adept)  
An animated gargoyle, constructed with more refined metals. It heals when it lands claw attacks. 
  
Requires: 1 filled greater soul gem, 1 iron ingot, 2 corundum ingots, 1 moonstone ingot,  3 Orichalcum ingots  
  
4) Ebony Gargoyle (Expert)  
An animated gargoyle, constructed with the finest metals and jewels. It heals when it lands claw attacks. 
  
Requires: 1 filled grand soul gem, 1 iron ingot, 2 corundum ingots, 1 moonstone ingot, 3 Ebony ingots & 2 Flawless Rubies 

 
  

Workbenches

Creating any guardian requires you create the respective workbench. These are the Necromantic Altar, Summoner’s Ritual Circle and Homunculi Enchanter.

Each work bench can be created at a forge (under misc) once you have read the respective Novice level text (I.e. a Novice’s Guide to Ritual Offering). You can also get a free one by using Quick Start in the Mod Options power and selecting Novice (or above). You can have multiple workbenches of the same kind if desired. 

The workbench is placed by dropping it from your inventory.

It is used by activating it.

It can be collected or have its rotation or height adjusted by holding the activate button.

Note that after being placed for the first time, if you pickup the workbench it will be much heavier in your inventory. 

Soul Anchoring (optional)   
  
By default, all guardians require one filled soul gem to create. 
  
The Soul Gem, but not the soul, is the only ingredient to survive the destruction of a guardian and can be looted from the dust pile that remains.   
  
Role plays wise, this is what anchors the soul or Daedra in place, so that these minions are not dependent on your presence or limited in number like other summons and reanimated minions you can create in game.   
  
Game play wise, this requirement is the main balance mechanism which places limits on one's army and provides a sense of effort and progression to the process of creating it. It can be disabled through the options menu (see below). 
  
Corpse Collection 
To collect a corpse for creating zombie and corpse guardians, you must first acquire or create an 'empty sack' (armour -backpack slot). These can be made at Tanning Rack once you have unlocked Novice Necromancy. While wearing it, if you click on a fresh corpse, you will get an option to collect it which will fill the sack. Note, the sack has a 50 point carry weight buff but weighs 80 when carrying a corpse. You can carry multiple corpses, but the weight of the second will not be offset by the sack buff.  
  
Bone Harvesting  
  
All skeletal guardians (with the exception of the dragon) require a fully intact skeleton and one filled black soul gem (unless disabled in options).  A skeleton is made up of 10 pieces which can be harvested from corpses, be they fresh, draugr or skeleton. Not all bones are in good enough condition after you have bludgeoned or blasted their former owner to death, so you may have to harvest a few corpses to get a complete intact set. To harvest a corpse, you will need the following item: 
  
Tool (1h Weapon) - Crude Corpse Harvester  
Use on a corpse (be it fresh, draugr or skeleton) to extract intact bones (and sometimes flesh/hearts) from the remains.  
  
This tool can be found or created at a forge (misc. section) once you have unlocked Apprentice Necromancy 

Note - if using the Ordinator patch, the crude corpse harvester is removed (or disenchanted if you already have one) and instead you need Ordinator’s Bone Collector perk 
  
Mummifying  
  
All corpse guardians require a fresh corpse and the resources to mummify it. This includes salt and embalming fluid. Embalming fluid is a new potion available in level lists and so from appropriate vendors. It can also be crafted at a cooking station or a cauldron.  
  
Ritual Offerings  
  
Atronach guardians can be coaxed from oblivion with the correct ritual offerings. These include fire/frost/void salt and pelts from dangerous beasts. In addition, a filled soul gem (ranging from lesser to grand) is required to complete the ritual (unless disabled in mod options). 
  
Enchantment  
  
Homunculi Guardians can be created by constructing a physical form and animating it with magic. In addition, the resources required to create a physical form, a filled soul gem (ranging from lesser to grand) is required to power the Homunculi (unless disabled in mod options).  
  
Live sacrifice 
  
Daedric princes demand greater sacrifices to support your permanent binding of their minions. To do so you must first craft (at a cooking station or cauldron) or acquire inert sacrificial oil then imbue it with power with the proper incantation, and finally apply it to a weapon. Strike down an enemy with the poisoned weapon and then remove the heart (this will be in the inventory). Take this to a Summoner's Ritual Site to exchange for a powerful Daedra.  
  
Master level sacrifices  
  
Once you have successfully made two high quality (above level 35) sacrifices to a Daedric Lord, the next time you use the relevant incantation they will contact you requesting a more specific sacrifice in exchange for a master level Daedric Guardian.  
  

 
Through dialogue you can command your guardians 
  
* Command Guardian Follow  
Commands targeted guardian to follow and fight for the player. Note, when guardians are following, you receive a penalty to your sneak and pickpocketing skills as you are more conspicuous.  
  
*Command Guardian Guard  
Commands targeted guardian to guard current location. They will remain in place and won’t wander. Unlike other command states, while guarding they will warn (and eventually attack) neutral NPCs that remain in their immediate vicinity. 
  
*Command Guardian Wait  
Commands targeted guardian wait at their current location. They will stay in one play and will not wander. Unlike the guard command, they will not warn nor attack neutral NPCs but will react to hostile ones. 
  
*Command Guardian Patrol 
Commands targeted guardian to patrol (sandbox package) the area around where the command is given. They won’t stray far and will attack any hostile NPCs they encounter.  
  
*Command Guardian Hunt & Destroy  
Commands targeted guardian to hunt and destroy any enemy NPCs in a wide radius for 20 minutes or until another command is issued. This can be used to have guardians attempt to clear a section of a dungeon for you.  
  
*Command Guardian Equip  
Opens the targeted guardian's inventory allowing you to have them carry/equip items. Only available for corpse, skeletal and dremora guardians.  
  
Note: Corpse & Dremora Guardians will equip any weapons and armour given to them. Skeletons will equip anything except body (Chest/leg) and hand armour, though this can be enabled in game options. Dragon priests will only accept jewellery and staffs.  
  

 
All advanced commands learnt after reading any Apprentice level text (I.e. An Apprentice's Guide to Necromancy)  
  
You will find you now have the lesser power Advanced Guardian Commands. This will allow all guardians in a large radius to be commanded simultaneously. It will also allow a new dialogue option with Guardians which will trigger the power. 
  
* Command All Guardians Follow  
Commands all guardians in a wide radius to follow and fight for the player until dismissed. Note, when guardians are following you receive a penalty to your sneak and pickpocketing skills as you are more conspicuous.  
  
*Command All Guardians Guard Location  
Commands all guardians in a wide radius to guard current location until dismissed or commanded to follow. They will remain in place and won’t wander. Unlike other command states, while guarding they will warn (and eventually attack) neutral NPCs that remain in their immediate vicinity 
  
*Command All Guardians Wait  
Commands all guardians in a wide radius wait at their current location. They will not warn nor attack neutral NPCs but will react to hostile ones. 
  
*Command Guardian Patrol 
Commands all guardians in a wide radius to patrol (sandbox package) the area around where the command is given. They won’t stray far and will attack any hostile NPCs they encounter.   
  
*Command All Guardians Hunt & Destroy  
Commands all guardians in a wide radius to hunt and destroy any enemy NPCs in a wide radius for 20 minutes or until another command is issued. This can be used to have guardians attempt to clear a section of a dungeon for you.  
  
*Command All Guardians Massacre 
Commands all guardians in a wide radius to hunt and destroy any neutral or enemy NPCs in a wide radius for 20 minutes or until another command is issued. This can be used to have guardians attempt to wipe out a town. 
  
Note: As a safety feature, guardians auto-end combat when they hit essential NPCs. This will not stop them for long while the massacre command remains in effect, however.   
  

 
The first time you read any Guardian text you will learn the following lesser power. 
  
*Summon Guardian (Followers) 
Summons all Guardians currently following you. Most appear directly in front of you. If you are outside, a following dragon guardian will appear above you. 
  
Effective in combat and if they are lost. 

The mod adds a chance of provoking an assault on your base/lair. If you want to know the specifics of how this works, read on.

Every time a workbench (altar/enchanter/summoning circle) is ‘loaded’ there is a chance of an assault. This happens when you get close to your workbench if it’s in an exterior and when you go inside if it is in an interior. (Placing a new workbench or picking one up and placing again will also cause this to trigger)

The chance begins at 0. You increase the chances of an assault by:
1- creating a guardian (+2%)
2 - a guardian assaulting an ‘innocent’ (+0.1% per hit)
3 - using the massacre all command (+15%)

There is a separate chance calculation for each kind of workbench/guardian, and they provoke different kind of assaults. 

- Undead Guardians + Necromancer’s Altar, provokes an assault by Adventurers 
- Daedric Guardians + Summoner’s Ritual Circle provokes assaults by Vigilants 
- Homunculi Guardians + Homunculi Enchanter provokes assaults by Vigilante Townsfolk

Creating undead will only increase the chances of an adventurer assault, Daedra Vigilants, and Homunculi Townsfolk.

After an assault, the chance of the respective attack is reset to 2% (it never goes back to 0, you will need to destroy all workbenches to achieve this.) 

There are currently 2 tiers of assaults. After the first time you are assaulted, if you then get another assault of the same kind, you will be attacked by the 2nd tier, involving more and slightly stronger enemies. 

As of version 4.5, assaults will always start when you are in an exterior. If your workbench is in an exterior  you will get a warning that 'you feel like you are being followed' and then have 1-3 minutes to prepare.

If your workbench is in an interior, or you run into an interior before the attack starts, you will have a magic effect 'uneasy' which mentions you feel your behaviour has not gone unnoticed.

When you next step out into an exterior you will be prompted 'You sense something is coming' and the attack will start shortly. Note that the mod will have mapped the interior of your base for guardians and workbenches, so if your exterior guards fail and you flee or hide, they should head inside. 

If you want to quickly trigger an attack, use the massacre command several times and pickup and drop your workbench. 

 
  
You will start the game with a Dead & Daedric Options lesser power. If it does not trigger on mid-game install, reading any guardian spell tome will add it. 
  
Mod Modes: 
Balanced (Default) 
As the mod is described on this page. In addition to any other ingredients, you need one filled soul gem to create any Guardian. This makes creating Guardians at early levels a challenge and makes the creation of huge (game-engine breaking) armies only theoretically possible. In short, it provides a sense of balance, progression and achievement. 
  
Note that with this mode enabled an empty soul gem will be reclaimable from the dust pile remains of a defeated guardian. 
  
Conquest 
Not every fun, immersive playthrough is a balanced one. Perhaps you want to go full lich king and take over Skyrim with an undead army; you might aspire to be the next Potema or Mannimarco. If so, this mode is for you. It removes the soul anchor mechanism, so you no longer need filled soul gems to create guardians. This means you can turn every fallen man or mer into a zombie at the very least or cut up just a few bodies to produce a more useful skeleton. Ingredients are now only needed to create your more powerful, elite force. 
  
Note that if you literally turn every corpse you encounter into a zombie, there may be implications for the size of your save file. Likewise, if you gather 1000+ Guardians in one place, you are going to be testing the limits of the game engine, even with actor limit fix etc. 
  
Creative 
Like Minecraft. No ingredient requirements for guardians - just have fun. This is also useful for troubleshooting/testing the mod. 
Be careful not to break the game's NPC or AI limit! 
  
Hardcore 
Like balanced mode, a filled soul gem is required to create any Guardian, but an empty one is not reclaimable when they die. A mode for those who don't find balanced mode balanced enough. 
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Quick Start 
If you are roleplaying a character who would already have some expertise in necromancy of ritual summoning, or just want to test the mod, select this and it will let you choose from a package of abilities and resources based around whether you consider your character to be a novice, expert etc. in the field. 
Note - You will get a free first workbench in the relevant field if you select any quick start option. 
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Dead Guardian Cleanup 
By default, dead Guardians, or rather the ash piles they leave, behave like the corpses of regular NPCs and are cleaned up (deleted) by the game on cell reset. The same goes for the bloody rags left over after harvesting a corpse, and the bodies of any npcs which assault your base. Deletion only happens when you don't travel to the cell in a long time, so can seem to take forever if it's your lair where you regularly check back.

You now have the option of enabling a quick clean-up which occurs as soon as you leave the area (go through a load door or fast travel). The only downside is you'll lose anything in their inventory you forgot to collect before leaving which is why it is not enabled automatically. 
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Skeletal Armour  
By default, skeletal guardians will refuse to equip body (chest/legs) and hand armours as when it has gaps, Skyrim insists on filling them with default human textures - not very immersive. If you are happy to carefully select which armour, you give to skeletons (anything without gaps in it is good) then you can enable the ability to do so here. 
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Eye FX 
By default, skeletal and corpse guardians have an orange eye glow to distinguish them from enemy draugr and NPCs. You can, however, revert their eye glow back to blue if you prefer or select green or red options.  
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Follower Penalties 
By default, you receive a penalty to your pickpocketing and sneak skill when you have Guardians following you. This is to provide a gameplay reason for not travelling around with an army of Guardians to do quests where it seems silly, such as stealth mission and thieve guild quests. These penalties can be disabled here. You must command all following Guardians to guard/dismiss them and then re-command them to follow to trigger the change.  
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Default Weapons & Armours 
By default, guardians which can equip weapons and armour (skeletons. corpse, and dremora) come into this world without any.  However, by popular demand I have added an option for them to be created with default weapons and armours (which you cannot take from them, but they will replace with anything with better stats). 

     
     
1) Does this change/affect the regular summon / reanimation spells?     
     
No, they have not been changed. The idea being that this is different kind of necromancy and summoning, one which requires more deliberate time intensive ritual, but which creates semi-independent minions who do not require the presence of the caster to maintain.      
    
The mod can be played as an alternative to vanilla conjuration/necromancy, where you neglect the vanilla spells in favour of guardians (which is typically how I play it if using Conquest mode) or alongside the vanilla spells/minions (which is how I typically play when using Balanced mode).    
     
2) Is this compatible with...     
     
Short answer - Almost anything.    
    
Long answer - My mod edits a few vanilla vendor/death item lists to makes these spells and resources purchasable from spell vendors and lootable from enemies. This may cause an issue if you are using another mod which modifies the same level lists and are not using anything which patches level lists. (Wrye Bash can be download and used to do this https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6837). If you don't patch these lists, then one mod will override the other's changes. If another mod did override DnD Guardian's changes, you could still find all the spells and resources from a non-vanilla vendor at the Necromancer's Market, however.     
    
Another issue would be if a mod removes or radically changes one of the ingredients for a guardian so it cannot be detected. 
  
The guardians use their own follower framework, and so applying another framework to them might break things. One user has reported issues with NFF. In other cases, it just adds more functionality - you can, for example, add them to the Guild Starter framework as guild members.  
    
Your mod manager may prompt you about overwrites if you are using one of Mihail's mods, I have used assets from. It should not make any difference which mod you let win the conflict, unless Mihail has updated his meshes/textures and I've yet to update the mod. In which case let Mihail win to use the new textures/meshes or mine to use the old.    
    
3) Aside from the new Daedric guardians, has anything changed from the original Undead Guardians mod?    
    
Yes, it has been hugely improve on. Even if you just want Necromancy, choose this.  
    
4) Does this work with NPCs React to Necromancy or Skyrim Reputation?    
    
NPCs React to Necromancy works out-of-the-box, no patch required. Dialogue and responses are conditioned on the presence of the active magic effect that goes along with regular undead summons/reanimations. I have spoofed the magic effect when guardians are following, which is then removed when they are asked to guard, are dismissed, or die. Likewise, reanimating, summoning or interacting with guardians will provoke the same response for 2 minutes, even if they are not following you.    
Skyrim Reputation should likewise pick up most examples of necromancy without a patch. Using it alongside DnD Guardians will mean you have long-term reputational consequences for openly practising necromancy (which can be avoided by doing so covertly).     
    
5) Is this really balanced? Just how strong are these Guardians that I can potentially create an army of?     
     
Consider the balance factor of DnD Guardians from the perspective of alchemy rather than conjuration. You can theoretically invest a lot of time into gathering all the resources needed to make an army, storing them way somewhere safe until needed, just as you can hoard potions. You can then use that army to overcome a strong enemy or dungeon you would not be able to defeat without them, but you will exhaust your supply in the process (some will die) and will need to reinvest time into gathering the resources to rebuild. There are several mod modes to tweak the balance by modifying resource requirements (see mod options)    
    
6) I've been travelling with my favourite Guardians, I call them Jack and Jill, and then after I fast travelled around a bit, I noticed they were gone. Did they die? Have they gone home? Where are they?     
     
First step, use the Summon Guardian Followers lesser power and see if they show up.     
    
You should receive a notification (top-left) when a guardian dies. One possibility is that you missed it and they died in battle. Try retracing your steps.     
     
There is a vanilla Skyrim bug with followers (including dead thralls) where they get lost when you fast travel about too much. However, this has been fixed (or at least made rare) for Guardians in recent updates.     
     
If you really cannot find them and the summon command isn’t working, try the following:    
- save your game    
- use the console command player.kill (which will kill your players, but trust me)    
- use the summon command again once the game reloads.    
    
7) Are guardians affected by perks or spells from [insert perk overhaul/spell pack here]    
    
As far as the game is concerned, Guardians are:    
- undead/Daedra    
- allies    
- teammates (followers) when following (some technically remain 'teammates' when guarding so they don't revert to their default outfits)    
    
Perks or spells that only use one or more of these as conditions will affect them.    
    
However, conjuration perks and spells aimed at summons/reanimations may be set up with the condition ‘is command actor’ - which is used for regular summons/reanimations. Unfortunately, not being a commanded actor is essential to guardians working as they do.    
    
The RP excuse for this is that Guardian spells are about creating minions which are semi-independent of you. Just as they don’t require your presence to be, they also don’t benefit from such passive powers.     
    
Perks that depend on the presence of the active magic effect on the player which goes with regular summons/reanimations (e.g. Ordinator’s Edge of Oblivion) will work when a guardian is following as I have spoofed this effect.    
    
Good News for Ordinator users - a patch has been made so these perks will affect Guardians: Dead and Daedric Guardians - Ordinator Conjuration Perks Patch    
    
8) Will using these spells / guardians level conjuration?    
    
Yes, you receive a healthy dose of conjuration EXP when creating a guardian and a small amount whenever a Guardian attacks something.     
    
Note the amount you receive for creating one is dependent on mod mode - most for Balanced/Hardcore mode, some for Conquest, almost none for Creative. The amount you receive for a guardian attacking is dependent on the level of what they are attacking.    
    
9) The textures on head and body parts of my Corpse Guardians don't match up when they are wearing armour with gaps. Help?!    
    
You are using a texture replacer for draugr, perhaps as part of package of textures, which makes them different enough from vanilla skins that the draugr skin put into the gaps of armour contrasts with it to a noticeable degree. If you don’t like vanilla textures, try DRAUGR at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) which is close enough to vanilla that you won’t notice, but still looks better.    
    
10) Is this available on console?     
     
It is available on Xbox.     
    
11) Is this available on LE?     
     
No, but I give permission to port it to anyone willing.    
    
12) Does this work on both regular SE and AE Skyrim?    
     
Yes, but if your version of Skyrim is pre 1.6.1130 you will also need to download Backported Extended ESL Support 
    
13) Is this mod ‘script heavy’?    
    
If you look in the scripts folder you’ll find a good number of scripts, as you would find in any advanced follower mod, but they are all of the relatively short, fire-once variety. I use DnD Guardians heavily and have had saves with large numbers of guardians guarding locations and following - DnD guardians has never been responsible for any script lag I’ve encountered when I’ve had to investigate via Falrim tools     

   
  
If the summon command doesn’t summon all guardians it should, save game and use the console command player.kill , killing your character and reloading the game. For reasons I won’t pretend to understand this fixes the issue. If the problem persists, then please make a bug report.  
   

   
   
  
1) A note on harvesting & reanimating   
When harvesting a corpse or creating a zombie/corpse guardian, the body of the dead NPC is destroyed and their items are not automatically transferred to you or the new guardian, but they can be looted after the fact by activating the bloody rags which remain.  
  
2) Friendly Fire Protection  
  
There are a few layers of friendly fire protection built into the mod.  
  
Guardians are all scripted to ignore friendly fire from the player. Spells from guardians do not harm other guardians, the player, or anyone marked as teammate (all vanilla followers and most custom). If fights do break out, melee, ranged and spell attacks from guardians trigger a script that ends combat when they hit a teammate or fellow guardian. Issuing any all Guardian Command or using the Summon Command should also trigger guardians to stop fighting each other and teammates and can be used as a failsafe. 
  
Skyrim is still weird, and issues may arise, but I have done a lot to ensure this is one of the safest mods to have a large spell wielding party of followers.  
  
3) Active Magic Effects when Guardians follow  
I have spoofed an effect vanilla summons/reanimations cause so the base game and mods like NPC's React to Necromancy can detect when you have guardians following. There is also a pickpocketing and sneak reduction effect (-50 points) to give an immersive-ish gameplay reason not to take whole armies with you when it seems silly, like while doing thieves guild quests.   
  
4) Healing 
Most Guardians heal relatively slowly outside of combat, some heal in, but if you want to boost their healing (or its bugged out and not kicking in) I have added a conjuration spell called 'Heal Minion' which will heal any of them, as well as regular summons/reanimations. It also fixes 'stuck in bleed out state' bug which can appear from time to time. 
  
  
6) Vigilants   
As an immersion bonus, Vigilants will attack most unaccompanied (not following) guardians on sight. There are not many in the base game, so you have to be pretty provocative with your placement of guardians to witness this. Only affects Vigilants in the vanilla Vigilants faction (so not from the mod Vigilant).  
  
  

     
Mods which let you become a lich because of course they do    
    
Undeath Remastered + Classical Lichdom + Dragon Priest Fix - Behaviour Overhaul + Undeath Classical Lichdom - The Ascension (Lite)  
   
-or-    
   
The Path of Transcendence – Lichdom   
  
- NPCs React to Necromancy  
Highly recommended - Increases immersion by having NPCs react very negatively to you sauntering into town with an army of undead. Giving you a reason to leave them back at your lair, outside the gates, or use more tolerated Daedric summons. For more info on how this mod interacts with D&D Guardians see FAQ 4.    
  
- Skyrim Reputation (Patch required - see optional files)  
Like above, leads to consequences for openly practising necromancy, but of the long-term reputational variety. I'd suggest using both NPCs React to Necromancy and Skyrim Reputation (+patch) for maximum immersion (you'll be hated/feared, or have a reason conceal evidence of your necromancy)  
   
- Disable Follower Collision (SE) / I'm Walkin’ Here (AE)  
If you're planning on adventuring with 8 or so Guardians, or perhaps 5 Guardians, a follower and two regular Dead Thralls, then this mod is a must. Allows you to pass through anything that is following you, so you won't get stuck entering dungeons and homes with a large party. If you are using AE, then substitute this with I'm Walkin' Here, which achieves the same.  
   
- If you have the relevant Creation Club content which came free with AE (bone wolf, necromancer’s Grimoire, Plague of the Dead), then pickup the CC expansion from optional files which adds more Guardians and replaces the basic zombie textures with those form Plague of the Dead.
   
  
- In Draugrs - My Patches - SE by Xutdo you will find a patch for DnD Guardians and the amazing Draugrs - New Models and Textures which will make corpse guardians look much better! 
  
Mods which give you something extra you need guardians to defend a location against  

- Organic factions + Organic Factions Extension  
Set up a base somewhere that one of the undead unfriendly factions visit, such as ravenscorn spire, or try and take and hold one of their bases  
  
- Conquest of Skyrim  
Guardians can provide extra defence or help with assaults - reports are this mod plays very nicely with D&D Guardians  
  
-Tundra Defense  
make a base and expect semi-regular assaults  
  
- LC Citadel   
reports are this place nicely with DnD Guardians. Defend and ultimately rule a huge DLC sized citadel with Guardians, fending off the occasional assault.   
  
Player Homes   
  
- BoneHawk Prison   
A necromancer themes player home designed with Undead Guardians in mind.  
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/72186  
  
- The Black Sepulchre  
A suitable necromancer/vampire evil lair (player home) you could fill with guardians. (Credit to skunkjohnson for the recommendation)   
  
- anything by SlimeSire https://www.nexusmods.com/users/84859838?tab=user+files  
  
- Hearthfire Extended  
It’s not advertised as such, but you can use the mod to move into a dungeon.   
  
Vanilla+ perk & spell overhauls   
Because these don’t themselves try to significantly expand/overhaul necromancy the result of them + this mod is cleaner   
   
Adamant, Mysticism etc.     
   
(SimonMagus616's profile at Nexus mods and community)  

If you do use Adamant as your perk overhaul, there is a patch so the relevant conjuration perks apply to guardians in option files.
  
For Ordinator Users:
  
You can make many of relevant perks affect Guardians by using the patch in the Optional Files and merge the bone collecting systems. 
  
  
Desecration   
Cool green flame FX destruction mod which fits well with evil/necromancer play throughs. I use personally so created a couple of synergy patches (see optional files) which make it work very well with DnD Guardians. To fully take advantage of the mod, you will also need Ascension (if using Adamant perk overhaul) or Ascension 2 (of not using Adamant).   
  
Scrambled Bugs  
There are many reasons for having this mod, but with respect to DnD Guardians, enabling the Poison Resistance fix will prevent NPCs occasionally resisting Sacrificial Oil  
  
Jaxonz Renamer   
So that after you have ripped out Nazeem’s soul and put it in a Skeletal Guardian you can rename the Guardian Nazeem. (Credit to CorvusTheFallen for the recommendation)   
  
Morbus Immortui - Revenancy   
An alternative to a lich playthrough but of a similar vein, adds a new undead form/transformation (Credit to 12derp for the recommendation)   
   
Command Undead and Lasting Undead   
Why make your own undead when there are plenty of undying minions just lying around the place? (Credit to 12derp for the recommendation)   
   
   
If you have recommendations for expanding this list, please share     
   

     
   
The following mods have soft incompatibilities. In other words, they do similar things to this mod leaving some immersion breaking overlap. They are not incompatible in the hard sense of causing crashes or things to stop working  
  
  
Cadaver Corpse Collector – DnD Guardians has its own corpse collection system, which also involves carrying them in a sack in your back. The Necomantuc Altar will only recognize corpses from my mod in your inventory. I will at some point make a patch for Cadaver because it's a very cool mod with more features, but for now I suggest not using them together.  
  
Corpse Preparation – Most similar to this mod. Choose one or the other. It’s an older mod with more features, but with more limits on what can ultimately be achieved. While I have tried not to stray too far from lore and looked to in game texts for inspiration, this mod goes further by sticking religiously to necromancy as described in the in-game text which is its namesake, Corpse Preparation.  I prefer my design decisions from a gameplay perspective, but I am obviously bias so feel free to check out both and decide which suits you.      
   
The Dark Arts - This mod offers a full overhaul of the necromancy system, far beyond the scope of mine, but does not cover the core feature of this mod. It works alongside DnD Guardians, and for some may feel like a natural partner, but you might find having two separate ‘harvest’ systems immersion breaking.   
  
Immersive Necromancy - Craft and Command Skeletons 
Very similar implementation of resource requirements for undead (and appears to have been modelled on my older mod Undead Guardians) but lacks other DnD Guardian feature as the undead still act as regular reanimations, and therefore lack the ability to be left to guard/patrol locations, equip items etc. also only allows for skeleton guardians. Really no reason to use both mods together, but you might prefer this if you are only interested in skeletons and the resources 4 minions aspect of the mod.  
   
Ordinator   (Patch available - see option files)
If you go down the bone collector branch of Ordinator’s conjuration tree, you will have two sets of ‘bone’ resources for the undead guardian and Ordinator skeletons. You can avoid that part of the perk tree or not use skeletal guardians to get round this. Alternatively, download the patch from the optional files section. 
  
Path of Sorcery    
Same issue as with Ordinator. If you go down the bone assemblage route on the conjuration tree you will have multiple ‘bone’ resources for skeletal guardians and PoS skeletons respectively. You can avoid that part of the perk tree or not use skeletal guardians to get round this.   
  
Interesting NPCs   
Anum-La (npc added by mod) is going to find herself in the middle of the Necromancer’s Market. She doesn’t seem to mind.   
   
_______________________________________________________________________________ 
  
Actually incompatible    
One user has found that NFF seems to cause issues for the Guardian follow commands. 
  
  
   

   
   
Abbalovesyou kindly agreed to let me use assets from Playable Draugr & Extra Playable Skeletons, so as to allow some Undead Guardians to equip armour and weapons. This would have taken a huge amount of time without these assets and so I am very grateful.   
Playable Draugr SSE at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)   
   
I have used Mihail's Zombie, Scamp, Havocrel and Daedroth meshes and textures. He has a wonderful approach to asset sharing and has created a huge number of monster and enemy mods - check them out here:https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/37834630?tab=user+files  If you like my mod enough to endorse - please spare a moment to endorse his as well.  Thanks Mihail (again) and QuentustheBosmer who repackaged his textures/meshes to work as armour for his mod Playable Ancient Skeleton Armor https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64668 - used for reinforced and mage skeletons.  
  
I have used assets from fadingsignal's Giant Footstep Camera Shake removal to remove the footstep shake from Lurkers. Giant Footstep Camera Shake Remover at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)  
  
I have used assets from tx12001's ENERGY EYES - Dragon Priest Eye Glow Replacer for the dragon priest red eye glow effect. ENERGY EYES - Dragon Priest Eye Glow Replacer at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)  
  
Huge thanks to CorvustheFallen for helping me to clean the original mod, Undead Guardians, of unintentional dirty edits before I learnt to do so.