Conan Exiles Thralls Guide: How to Capture, Tiers & Best T4 Thralls

Thralls are the backbone of Conan Exiles: captured NPCs who craft for you, fight beside you, guard your base and clear your corruption. The system looks intimidating — truncheons, bindings, the Wheel of Pain, four tiers of fighters and a dozen crafter professions — but it's really one loop: knock out, bind, drag, convert, deploy. This guide covers that loop end to end, the tier-4 named thralls worth hunting, how fast conversion actually is, the honest answer to "how do I sell thralls", and the companion quests (Freya and Liu Fei) that get you story followers.

Here's what you'll learn:

• Capture gear: every concussive weapon and what it does
• Bindings: which to carry, and the durability that decides whether your prisoner survives the trip home
• The Wheel of Pain: conversion times per tier, and how a Taskmaster cuts them by up to 150%
• Tiers 1–4 and why named (T4) thralls matter — crafting bonuses, recipes, stats
• The best combat thralls and crafter picks in the 2026 meta
• Whether you can actually sell thralls (short answer: no — but you can buy them)
• Freya and Liu Fei: the companion quests added in the Age of Heroes update

The Capture Loop: Knock Out, Bind, Drag, Convert

Every thrall starts as an NPC you render unconscious, then drag home. The official wiki's Thrall page breaks the loop into four stages:

1. Knock out. Hit a humanoid NPC with a concussive weapon until the thin white bar above their health is fully depleted. The weapon table, straight from the wiki:

Blunted Weapon Fittings (+10/+20 and up) attach to any truncheon, and consumables stack: Savory Feast (+15% concussion), Hunter's Potion (+50%), Elixir of Sight (+30%). An unconscious NPC wakes up after 10 minutes in your render range — so bind them fast, and be aware some NPCs (like Jailors) can't be knocked out at all.

2. Bind. Use bindings on the unconscious NPC (E on PC). Better bindings = more durability before the rope snaps while dragging:

3. Drag. The bound NPC follows you, and you can drag them on foot or horseback. Two hard rules from the wiki: never take a bound thrall through a loading screen (they vanish), and don't use Map Room teleports or elevators while dragging — both are known to lose the thrall.

4. Convert. Interact with a Wheel of Pain (Lesser, standard or Greater, plus the Gibbet) and place the bound NPC inside. The wheel needs Gruel or most food as fuel — you can't convert prisoners on an empty wheel.

Per the official wiki's Thrall page, "Gruel, or most food, must be placed inside the Wheel of Pain to act as fuel" — the cheap endgame strategy is a dedicated gruel kitchen feeding a bank of Greater Wheels.

How Long Does Conversion Take? (The Taskmaster Math)

Conversion time depends on the thrall's tier and the Taskmaster assigned to the wheel — never on the wheel size or food type:

A named taskmaster nearly halves even a T4 conversion, so it's the single best thrall you can capture early for your own thrall operation. Taskmasters are captured like any other NPC, and their professions matter at specific stations — see the full profession breakdown on the official wiki professions list.

Tiers 1–4 and Why Named Thralls Matter

Thralls come in four tiers. Tier 4 are the named ones — unique names, a gold-framed health bar, and the only thralls that matter for endgame:

• Fighters/Archers — T4 named fighters (Cimmerian Berserker, Dalinsia Snowhunter, the Aesir Berserker) have dramatically more health and damage multipliers than T2/T3, and level up to 20 with perk rolls at levels 10, 15 and 20.
• Crafters — T4 crafters unlock exclusive recipes at their stations and carry specialisations: a Bladesmith blacksmith boosts weapon damage, a Shieldwright armorer boosts armour values, an Edgesmith adds armour penetration. T1–T3 crafters only speed things up and reduce material costs.
• Faction matters as much as tier. A T4 from the starter river Exiles is weaker than a T3 from the volcano Votaries. The community strength ladder runs roughly: Exiles → Darfari → Lemurians → Black Hand → Dogs of the Desert → Heirs of the North → Relic Hunters → Forgotten Tribe → Votaries of Skelos → Aesirs.

There are 878 named T4 thralls tracked across both maps in the community databases, so "the best" depends on profession and faction. The consensus endgame picks remain the Cimmerian Berserker and Dalinsia Snowhunter for fighters, Beri (Heirs of the North) for blacksmithing, and Shieldwright-spec armorers for gear. Use a current interactive map with a named-T4 filter to hunt specific spawns — camp positions shift every few patches.

Follower caps (official servers): 50 base + 15 per clan member, with hard caps of 225 (5-man clan) / 300 (full clan). Leveling happens only when the thrall follows you; feeding them gruel boosts Strength growth chance (+14%) and gives a 10% damage buff.

Can You Sell Thralls in Conan Exiles?

The honest answer: no — there is no sell-thralls mechanic in vanilla Conan Exiles. There's no slave market, no vendor that pays for your prisoners, and the community has been asking Funcom for one for years (the forums have a long-running "I hope to add a slave market" thread). What you can do:

• Dismiss — the "Break Bond" option in the thrall menu sends a follower off permanently and drops their gear in a loot bag where they stood. That's the closest thing to "getting rid of" a thrall.
• Buy thralls — the game lets you buy rather than sell. In Buccaneer Bay, Zeina the Vixen sells Alchemists and Fighters for 50 gold each (5% chance of T4), and Weeba Shamrock sells Archers and Entertainers for 100 gold each (5% chance of T4). Taverns also hire permanent thralls — T1 for 10 gold up to T4 for 500 gold.
• Trade between players — on private and RP servers, thrall trading between players is common practice and the only real "market". On official servers, there's no sanctioned trade mechanic.

The Freya and Liu Fei Companion Quests

The Age of Heroes update added companions: story NPCs who join you after completing their quest lines. Two exist as of 2026 — Freya (a Nordheimer fighter) and Liu Fei (a Khitan sorcerer), and both can be recruited repeatedly as long as your follower cap allows.

Freya starts at Freya's Hovel, in the eastern portion of grid G9 in the highlands — she's crouching by a bonfire. Her quest chain asks you to hunt local wildlife (deer and rabbits first), gather medical ingredients, track and kill a boar in the savanna around G8, and handle enemies at Nordhof. One known bug: if you knock out the Nordhof enemies instead of killing them, the quest can soft-lock until those NPCs die or despawn — kill, don't truncheon, during her quest.

Liu Fei is the sorcerer companion — his recruitment chain involves sorcery-adjacent tasks and is a strong pickup for Authority builds. Both companions count toward the follower cap and level like normal thralls.

Feeding and Levelling Your Thralls

Thralls don't starve to death, but food does three things: heals them (up to 10 HP/s from preferred food), boosts attribute growth chance on level-up, and buffs their damage. The practical picks:

• Gruel — +14% Strength growth, 6 HP/s regen, 10% damage buff. It's the default because it's nearly free (made from seeds and plant fibre at a Campfire) and fuels the Wheel of Pain at the same time.
• Grilled Steak — +14% Vitality growth, 2 HP/s.
• Roasted Haunch / Exotic Feast — stronger regen (4–10 HP/s) for endgame fighters.
• Cooked Pork Rinds — the outlier: 25% damage buff instead of 10%, plus Strength and Grit growth.

Max thrall level is 20; attribute rolls are randomised per level, and the Elixir of Rebirth rerolls a thrall's perks if you get bad ones. Because thralls have no stamina, no carry weight cap and no durability on their gear, a maxed T4 fighter in heavy armour is legitimately more dangerous than most players.

FAQ

How do you capture thralls in Conan Exiles? Knock an NPC unconscious with a concussive weapon (truncheon, blunted javelin, blunted arrow), bind them with Fiber/Chain bindings, drag them to a Wheel of Pain, and fuel the wheel with Gruel or food until they convert. A Taskmaster on the wheel speeds conversion by up to 150%.

What is the fastest way to break thralls on the Wheel of Pain? Put a named (T4) Taskmaster on the wheel — it cuts conversion time by 150%, taking a T4 named thrall from 60 minutes down to 24. Batch-capture multiple NPCs per hunt and convert them in parallel on a row of Greater Wheels.

How do you sell thralls in Conan Exiles? You can't — vanilla Conan Exiles has no sell-thralls mechanic or slave market. You can dismiss followers with Break Bond (their gear drops in a loot bag), buy thralls from merchants (Buccaneer Bay, 50–100 gold with a 5% T4 chance) or hire them at taverns (10–500 gold by tier).

What are the best T4 thralls in Conan Exiles? For combat, the Cimmerian Berserker, Dalinsia Snowhunter and Aesir Berserker are the classic picks; for crafting, a T4 blacksmith with Bladesmith spec (weapon damage) and a T4 armorer with Shieldwright spec (armour value) are the highest-value crafters. Faction strength matters — northern and volcano factions outclass river thralls.

How do I get the Freya companion in Conan Exiles? Travel to Freya's Hovel in the eastern highlands (grid G9), talk to Freya, and complete her quest chain: hunt deer and rabbits, collect medical ingredients, kill the boar in the G8 savanna, and clear the enemies at Nordhof. Kill the Nordhof enemies rather than knocking them out to avoid a known quest soft-lock bug.

Related Guides

• Conan Exiles Gameplay Guide
• Conan Exiles Interactive Map Guide
• Conan Exiles Building Materials Guide
• Conan Exiles Best Weapon for Golems
• Conan Exiles Sorcery Guide
• Conan Exiles Horse Locations & Mounts Guide

Official resources: Steam store page · Official wiki — Thrall · Official wiki — Wheel of Pain · Official wiki — Freya · Funcom forum — thrall limits

Last Updated: August 13, 2026