Cohort trouble in HotU?

[msa]

This is kind of a strange one. I'm coming back to play the game for the first time since release and found my way to the mod with only a few problems in the process, but this is the most bizarre.

When I start out in HotU and attempt to summon a cohort, they stand around for about ten seconds and then take five hundred damage from themselves and just keel over. Any idea what could possibly be causing that?

Another issue I've run into in general is that I can't save and reload and have a cohort still be there. They're gone. I can get around this by dismissing them, saving, and re-summoning after I reload..but that gets a little tiring after a while.

[Kerikulon]

I had this issue myself - the simple way to fix it is to resurrect their dead body with a raise dead or resurrection spell (the rod of resurrection works fine). My cohort functioned properly after being raised from the dead after his instadeath. I do not know why he takes the damage, however.