I'm not sure how or when this occurred, but I was raiding a monastery (Racalf Monastery). To initiate the raid, I approached the monastery from the land side and used the horn option. I did not initiate the raid via long ship. Once I initiated the raid, the long ship icon appeared and I had assumed my crew/raiders were fighting near the boat.

During the raid, I noticed non of my crew mates were in the area or near the long ship and none would appear to help force open barred doors. After killing all of the enemy NPCs, I fast traveled back to Raventhorpe. This is when I noticed the corpses of all my crew NPCs (Bragi, Birna, my customized Jormsvikingr, etc) scattered around the docks (screenshot below). Upon entering the boat, no crew appear and it looks as though I am the only character in the boat.

Reverting to a previous save, fast traveling, or restarting the game does not fix the issue. Playing on PC using ver. 1.0.4.

@scarfoxnyeh Similar issue here. essential NPCs appear to no longer be essential and can/will die. My entire longship crew is dead and I'm the only one in my boat.

I'm not sure how or when this occurred, but I was raiding a monastery (Racalf Monastery). To initiate the raid, I approached the monastery from the land side and used the horn option. I did not initiate the raid via long ship. Once I initiated the raid, the long ship icon appeared and I had assumed my crew/raiders were fighting near the boat.

During the raid, I noticed non of my crew mates were in the area or near the long ship and none would appear to help force open barred doors. After killing all of the enemy NPCs, I fast traveled back to Raventhorpe. This is when I noticed the corpses of all my crew NPCs (Bragi, Birna, my customized Jormsvikingr, etc) scattered around the docks (screenshot below). Upon entering the boat, no crew appear and it looks as though I am the only character in the boat.

Reverting to a previous save, fast traveling, or restarting the game does not fix the issue. Playing on PC using ver. 1.0.4.