Derkeethus died?

[Karam]

He's an essential npc and he somehow died during one of my winterhold quests. How is this even possible?

[N7_Dredgen]

He is not marked Essential in the creation kit, in reality. He's treated as such by the game at large, but is not essential and alot of people have that misconception about him and almost every post about the guy on the internet mistakingly calls him essential, but he really isn't.

If you run a console command check on him for Essential it returns as not essential, and when I open the CK I can see the box is unclicked.

Derkeethus is aliased to his own quest, which is what makes him essential - but the reality is he's supposed to become mortal once its over. People who have him essential afterwards are experiencing a bug - not vice versa. Something about the scripting is buggy.

It is likely you're either using a mod that fixes this bug, or Bethesda fixed it themselves for the SE release (unlikely). Regardless, you are actually experiencing what is SUPPOSED to happen and was always supposed to happen.

AFAIK there is was no natural way to fix this in Oldrim, except to use console commands - so I'm assuming this is a fix for SE or mod patch (Unnofficial patch is generally used by most people, so it could be bundled in there - there is other fixes related to him in there.) Even SKSE may have fixed the broken scripting.

If you're playing pure vanilla, by process of elimination I would just have to say Bethesda fixed it.

[SamMakki]

May I ask--Who in hell is Derkeethus?

[Karam]

Originally posted by Dominicmorgen:

May I ask--Who in hell is Derkeethus?

The only argonian follower in the game I suspect. On his wiki it says that he is essential, but Lagruej explained why it's bs. It's alright now, I set Derkeethus to be essential.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Lagruej:

Derkeethus is aliased to his own quest, which is what makes him essential - but the reality is he's supposed to become mortal once its over. People who have him essential afterwards are experiencing a bug - not vice versa. Something about the scripting is buggy.

I suspect that he simply becomes a regular permanent follower - meaning he's Protected while in your service (and can only be killed by you, the player). A lot of people confuse Protected with Essential.

[N7_Dredgen]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Originally posted by Lagruej:

Derkeethus is aliased to his own quest, which is what makes him essential - but the reality is he's supposed to become mortal once its over. People who have him essential afterwards are experiencing a bug - not vice versa. Something about the scripting is buggy.

I suspect that he simply becomes a regular permanent follower - meaning he's Protected while in your service (and can only be killed by you, the player). A lot of people confuse Protected with Essential.

This bug actually does cause full on Essential status - you can't sacrifice him to Boethiah, for example. However the intended function was that he was in fact supposed to be Protected as you mention.