In Skyrim, how many followers can I have? And where do I get them? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Is the amount of followers limited?

I have one Mage follower right now, and he fights well and holds a lot. But can I have another companion?

You can only have one follower at a time: if you want a different one, you need to dismiss the first one before you recruit them.

There is one exception to this: there are situations when you already have a follower when a person needs to join you for something quest-related. In this case, the quest-related follower might join you in addition to your current follower. However, there are situations where he or she will just replace your current one instead.

At any rate, this is temporary, and the second follower will leave when the quest is complete.

Followers can be found all over the world: it'll be hard to avoid finding followers. There are 45 in total:

• 6 mercenaries: generally one per hold city
• 5 housecarls: one per Thane appointment in the cities where you can buy a house
• 7 members of the Companions
• 3 members of the College of Winterhold
• 2 members of the Dark Brotherhood
• 9 quest-related or dungeon-related followers
• 13 followers you can recruit if you've done them a favor

In addition to a single follower, you can buy a wardog in Markarth Side for 500 gold, which acts as another member of your team. There are two dogs you can choose from: Vigilance and Meeko. You can also pick up a stray dog after a random encounter.

Finally, while they're not followers, the Conjuration school naturally gives you access to spells that summon the forces of Oblivion fight for you for a period of time (or permanently, at the higher levels).

You can have 3 as a baseline, with the extra's coming from abusing the conjuration skill.

1. Yourself
2. Follower/Merc/Huscarl etc.
3. Dog (The dog Barbas cant die, he just cowers at low health. Dont finish his quest means he follows you forever)
4. Conjuration skill: a zombie or atronach. (Master level spells lets you raise or summon a permanent zombie/atronach as a "Thrall")
5. Conjuration 100 Perk: Dual Summons/Zombies. Use Thrall spells.
6. There are mercs/followers who have conjuration. Say hello to a friendly Atronach.
7. That "Master Necromancer" you just killed? Make him a Dead Thrall, he'll raise his own zombie from the slain.
8. You kill a few Master Conjurers as well. As your second Thrall, summons you up another atronach.
9. Follow the main quest to get a Dragon Shout which summons... some more aid ;)
10. Spectral Assassin? Can be summoned once a day and stays around until defeated, he is pretty hard to kill because he is a spirit and you get him in the dark brotherhood quest line (doesn't count against other companions but there have been glitches on PC)
11. If your have the Spectral Assassin, you have an ill-tempered horse as well. Too bad Shadowmere can't enter dungeons/cities.

Theoretically, you could get up to 14, which requires 2 Master Necromancer Thralls and your conjuration follower to raise their own conjuration-using zombies. Hell with chain raising, your party size is only limited by time and number of conjurer corpses you have available.

So in summary, 5 or 6 permanent followers, with an additional 4-to-infinity available temporarily in battle.

Note: In dungeon tunnels it gets very crowded. If you don't use a follower, you drop down by 2, but everyone in the party is expendable. Go Ice Storm happy ;)

Here's a video showing how to have 3 human followers, a dog, and spirits with you: