How to get Servants in V Rising

Servants in V Rising are NPCs that you can create - or convert, rather - from existing humans within the world, setting up Servant Coffins that turn them into controllable thralls and minions. Then you can plonk yourself on your ominous, gothic Castle Throne and start commanding them across all of Vardoran, gathering resources in your glorious name. It's a complex process, but one well worth doing, as it's massively expands your ability to build and defend along the way. We'll explain in greater detail just below about Servants in V Rising, how to get them, and how they work once under your command.

How to build a Servant Coffin

Players can build Servant Coffins in their castle once progressing to the second level of the Castle Heart, following the natural progression path as laid out by the missions. As you level up your Castle Heart, you'll be able to build more Coffins (at the start you're limited to 5), and each one you build costs the following resources:

• Planks (x16)
• Copper Ingots (x8)
• Greater Blood Essence (x1)

Clearly these aren't cheap, but consider them an investment, as building Coffins will enable you to get more resources later down the line. And if possible, you absolutely want to build them in a room with a Crypt Floor, assuming you've unlocked it via the Study. If not, don't worry about it - you can always put the floor in later once you've researched it with V Rising Scrolls or found it in the wild. Now you need to hunt down a human to put in it, but deciding on what kind of human is also important.

Servant Blood Types and Factions in V Rising explained

Let's be clear - any type of Servant in V Rising can perform any job, it's just that all of them will be better at hunting and raiding certain locations than others. They have a niche, so to speak, and you should take this into consideration when thinking about who you want filling your coffins.

The two elements that determine what they're good at are their Blood Type (Warrior, Brute, Worker, etc), and their Faction (Bandit, Militia, etc). Blood Types reduce the difficulty of certain areas, while their Faction increases the resources they get from certain areas of the map. It also helps that the more "pure" their blood (i.e., the larger a percentage they have), the better they'll become as a Servant.

Having seen that, consider what resources you want most and try and grab humans from that area, who fit the associated location. For example, if you want the aforementioned Scrolls, grab a Scholar from the Militia and send them to the Monasteries in the Dunley Farmlands. Scholars handle Monasteries best, and the Militia know the Dunley Farmlands. 

It's important to remember that only non-boss humans can become servants! Sadly at time of writing, there's no way to recruit monsters like wolves or stone golems - presumably because one wouldn't understand orders and the other would break the coffin when they got in it. 

How to use Dominating Presence and Kiss of the Vampire to charm humans

Once you create a Servant Coffin, you'll automatically unlock the Dominating Presence power, applied via an attack called Kiss of the Vampire (it's a little unnecessarily complicated).

However, it's relatively simple to put into action. When you see a normal human being you want to make a Servant, use the CTRL wheel to select the new charm power. Then use regular attacks to take the human to below 30% health - but don't kill them! Finally, use Kiss of the Vampire, a ranged attack that locks you in place while you charm them, similar to your bite attack. 

Once it's successful, your human will be charmed! They'll follow you around without attacking, though they won't protect you if you're attacked by other humans. You can only charm one human at a time, so take them back to any empty Servant Coffin. If you see a Servant you'd rather have on the way, simply hit the Kiss of the Vampire button again to kill the charmed person following you. 

Converting humans into Servants and speeding up the process

With your newly bewitched human in tow, take them back to an unused Servant Coffin and interact with it. You'll get an appraisal of what they'll be capable of, if turned into a Servant, and a big button you can push to trigger the conversion (alternatively, you can back out and find a better minion if you've changed your mind).

If you do Convert, it'll cost you both 100 V Rising Blood Essence, and time - specifically, ninety minutes, while your human is cooked in the Coffin and becomes a Servant minion. There's no way to skip this process, even with V Rising console commands and cheats, though you can cancel it at any time by interacting with the coffin. 

The only way to speed up the process of conversion is to set in the aforementioned Crypt Floors. If the whole room is layered with that specific flooring, it halves the timers of all Servant Coffins, meaning it'll take a speedier forty-five minutes to do it. Definitely invest in one of these if you intend to make a lot of minions in the future.

Naming, releasing and equipping your Servant

Once the timer has elapsed, your Servant will be ready. Go back to their Coffin and press the now available "Rise" button, naming them first if you want to give them a specific title (though it doesn't matter beyond your own reference).

Now they'll pop up out of the Coffin and start milling about your Castle, not doing much. At this point you can interact with them, opening their inventory and giving them their own weapons and armor based on whatever you have in your inventory. We recommend giving them solid armor and one of the V Rising best weapons you have (though only one, giving them another doesn't make a difference). Basically, take the best of the loot, and give all your minions the second best, even if it's V Rising Merciless weapons and gear.

How to build a Castle Throne and order Servants

Once this is done and the mission completed, the next stage on the progression path will ask you to build a Castle Throne with the following resources:

• Stone Brick (x24)
• Iron Ingot (x16)
• Greater Blood Essence (x4)

If you need help getting V Rising Stone Bricks, we've got a page on that here, or find out how to get all the V Rising Iron you need. It's quite a big construction in the "Dominance" part of the Production/Build tab, so make sure you have the space for it - and while you're at it, remember to stick it somewhere cool. It is your evil vampire throne, after all.

How to send your Servants on raids and hunts for resources

Once you have the Castle Throne, interact with it with F and you'll automatically see a version of the V Rising map, with all the key locations you've already discovered marked as potential raid points for your Servants. Each one has the following factors to consider:

• Difficulty: The number next to the crossed sword, your Servant should ideally match or exceed this number for the best result.
• Estimated Loot: This lays out all the resources you can get for successfully raiding the area. 
• Hunt Duration: A sliding scale you choose, this determines how long your Servant spends there, from two hours to twenty-three. The longer it takes, the more resources your Servant acquires, and the more likely the plan is to succeed without injury.
• Best Servants: Next to the difficulty indicator will be two icons that mark the best Faction and Blood Type for raiding this particular area. If you can, send in Servants who match these criteria.

Once you're ready, press "Let the Hunt Begin". Your minions will then vanish for the hunt duration (even if you go to the associated area, you won't see them). Once it's done, you'll get an update on how the hunt went and the resources tied to it, as well as if your Servants were injured in the process, which takes them out of commission for a time. They can even die and fail completely, though they can be resurrected from their Coffin for a minor Blood Essence cost.

Assuming they made it back safely though, simply check for who has a little bag icon over their head, open their inventory and hoover up the new loot, then get back in the Throne and send them on a new hunt. And that's the basics of Servants!

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