This is a big ol’ copy-paste from my Facebook group (that no one is a member of because I am super popular). Be sure to join! *whisper* There’s actually no point in joining it because I plan to bring everything there here! Hurray!!!!!!!!
EDITⅠ̅Ⅴ̅: As it turns out, this guide is still relevant too, because Bethesda neglected to fix this bug in AE (‘Anniversary Edition’) and SE (‘Special Edition’)!
*by ‘anyone else’, it is meant ‘any NPCs that are spawned in or native to Broken Oar Grotto’. There is another separate way to retrieve thralls that were brought inside the place.
This part is intended for ‘Oldrim’ aka original Skyrim. Broken Oar Grotto may very well have been patched in later releases.
① Things you will need:
Fear, Unrelenting Force, some way to deal damage at a distance (there is killing involved, go figure)
② Optional:
Calm, some way to paralyse the target
• Now… kite the individual you wish to take from Broken Oar Grotto over to the entrance. You will then want to coordinate it so that your soon-to-be dead is fleeing to the entrance by using Fear. I recommend using Calm when you need a break to replenish magicka. Prior to this you will want their health to be low enough to kill easily as well.
• Make a save around this point; saves you some trouble!
• There are two cowering ‘positions’ at the entrance you will take note of. They must run to the right-hand one as it is far closer to the raised ground at the mouth of Broken Oar Grotto. This raised ground is the target when using Unrelenting Force. And, at this point, by encroaching on him, he will attempt to run past you, and this is when you must use Unrelenting Force to throw him up atop the hill. (Remember to look a little down and a little to the right of his person. This is so that the force will direct him up and slightly to the left.) The body MUST land head first out the grotto and MUST land stable and still. If the body begins to slide down or is feet first, his person will reanimate undead inside the disconnected area. You do not want this. You want his person to reanimate undead atop the hill in the accessible-to-the-rest-of-Skyrim area. This will take a lot of trial and error. I guarantee it! The body also cannot be moved by using Ice Spike or any other means of ‘artificial’ placement. Any post-mortem adjustments are a waste of time. Initial position of death HAS to be quite precise, really. It is possible to blow them too far, too! Expect to waste a lot of time!
• Make another save after you kill them (and know you have to glitch them into a moonwalk…).
• Causing a moonwalk on purpose:
⒜ Cause an enemy to fall over by any number of techniques; for example, Paralyze, Deep Freeze, Unrelenting Force. These will all succeed to this end.
⒝ Kill enemy when they begin to get back up.
⒞ Enthrall
⒟ Do not reload. Saving and then reloading ‘resets’ the status of the body so this glitch will not happen.
REMEMBER: They have to die in exactly the right way. Expect to do this a lot! We’re talking perfection here!
• There is a Slaughterfish spawn just outside Broken Oar too. You will need to kill it before any of this. Sorry! I just remembered it! Quickness may not be essential because you are causing the reanimated thrall to moonwalk, but nevertheless, you WILL want to leave Broken Oar Grotto before you see the animation (because that may be required; just in case, am I right? Feel free to go bonkers testing this out!). Also, don’t worry about how the target moves after being hit by the Dead Thrall spell! ‘It only matters where they died’.
• After enthralling (and exiting almost instantaneously), I found success by Fast-Travelling to Windhelm. I then entered Candlehearth Hall, and then reloaded the auto-save. I exited Windhelm via main gate. It is here that I saw Captain Hargar running towards me (he was my first success). You may find some other ‘Fast-Travel combination’ that works better. I do believe a minimum distance/time spent in fast-travel is required for this to work. It is, after all, kind of similar to GR’ing….
I wish you nothing but the best of luck retrieving characters from Broken Oar Grotto! It is possible!
Original method discovered ~Jan. 16th, 2015. Tested and proven on both Xbox 360 and PC (at a much later time).
I, also, kind of lied: I have made some alterations to the text from the Facebook group guide post. Some changes, I felt, were necessary.
And now on to the next Skyrim guide thing that’ll not yet be released!
PS: If all this sounds crazy, it’s because it is, and it took a super long time to get one achievement; and then an equal amount of super-long time to figure out what it was that was working to begin with.