I'm sure this is not exactly 'news', but this has only just started occurring with me.

All of a sudden, almost every time I reload a save, the body of a 'freshly' killed dragon spawns in my vicinity.

Bizarrely (and, if I'm correct, this is more rare), the dragon will start to burn up once I approach - allowing me to absorb its soul.

I have no idea where these flippin' corpses are coming from, and it's driving me crazy.

It only happens once I reload a save.

EX. I'm walking through an area - save - walk a bit further and get into a fight with a giant - the giant kills me. THEN, I reload my very recent save, and upon reloading, a massive dragon corpse - that was most certainly not there before - appears before me (sometimes flailing, other times motionless), and I begin to absorb its soul.

It occurred to me that it could have been a hostile dragon just entering the area when I change cells (ie, enter a building) - it gets killed by NPCs or whatever - and then the body appears for me to get the soul - HOWEVER - this has happened too many times now in completely random and separate locations.

My character is lvl 27 and my save file size is 9 MB (I also recently created a thread about Clearing the System Cache ).

I'm fully updated (1.9) and have all DLCs. This has never happened to me before - in my hundreds upon hundreds of hours of Skyrim-play - and is suddenly following me around like a giant reptilian plague.

Please, if anyone can offer any insight or advice for dealing with a glitch like this, I would hugely appreciate it.

Anyone?

clear cache.

I hate when I have three dead dragons still floating around Lakeland Manor. I wish once it died and I emptied it. It would disappear.

Thanks for the response.

Has this worked for you? I have yet to clear the system cache, but do you know if this will actually affect it.

I feel like some of my saves are permanently stained by this, seeing as as soon as I load, the body is there.

Anyways, if this will actually help, I'll give it a shot.

I would massively appreciate any other support/advice anyone can give!

I figured out a fix for this (or a very similar) problem that has worked for me in the past. This is a very tedious process, but like I said it did fix the problem for me.

• Travel somewhere far away from the general area(s) where the dragon corpse(s) have been showing up
  • Take careful note of any location(s) where the corpses have appeared
  • For example: if they usually appear in the plains near Whiterun, travel to Riften or Windhelm
• Wait or sleep for 31 in-game days straight (at the far away location)
• Travel by foot (don't fast travel) to the general area(s) where these dragon corpses have appeared in the past and try not to die in the process of doing so. Fast traveling is known to also make the corpses re-appear even after staying away from the area(s) for 31+ days).
• Hopefully, they will not continue to re-appear any more from now on
  • This helped me when I kept having a dragon corpse appear in Falkreath hold (at and around the Lakeview Manor area) -- [which was added by Hearthfire]
• If this does work, make sure to hard save your game, so that you don't have to repeat the whole process

Yeah! Black Pete to the rescue again!

Thanks for the suggestion man, I had thought about this, but kind of wanted to avoid the process.

As I said before, the RP factor is very important to me, and I find it hard to justify my character spending 30 straight days waiting (purely RP of course).

That being said, I will consider it in this case - depending on how continuously brutal the glitch is.

Question:

Did the dead dragons spawning around you ever give you souls? (did you absorb?) - 'cause that's what has been happening with me.

Also, can you confirm if the System Cache method has any effect on this sort of thing?

thanks again guys.

Off topic but I got that damn (but excellent) song in my head now that is in your sig, Hammer of the Gods. I know it is by Led Zeppelin but what is the name of the actual song? can't remember... is it Viking Song? (guess i could just look it up )

To be in the conversation though, I know that just clearing the system cache does not get rid of falling dead dragons.

And, I have never had one give me it's soul, for me it is always a dragon that I already killed falling from the sky in different places, but in the same general area that I killed it, when I load into that area or the LOS for that area loads.

Maybe I never experienced what you're talking about.

When this happened, the dead dragons spawning around me did not give me their soul, although I think that it did happen once and the fix I described previously still worked. I can confirm, as the previous poster said, that clearing the cache has no effect on this bug. I do agree that waiting 30 in-game days does take a significant amount of time, but depending on whether or not the bug bothers enough, it may be worth a try.

Thanks guys, I'll consider the '30-day method'.

Can anyone think of a particular way that I could potentially justify my Nordic warrior spending 30 days in one place? - Purely for RP reasons, but it would certainly help.

I'm assuming that you don't have to literally 'wait' or 'rest for 30 days, right? (ie, can you just stay in a city, area for 30 days - still doing stuff).

Any further tips would be great!

@Djinn De'xarnell ---- Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin III, 1970.

"On we sweep with; threshing oar; Our only goal will be the western shore!"

Although you don't have to literally wait or rest for 30 (in-game days), you want to make sure to stay away from the area or areas were the dead dragons were appearing so that you can determine whether or not this fix works for you. Re-entering or fast-traveling into the area(s) where the issue was occurring will cause the "30 day" timer to reset for that particular area or hold. At least from the way I play the game (going back and forth between areas on the map), I can't honestly think of any way to stay in a city for 30 days and keeping your character occupied except by using the wait or sleep function for time to pass more quickly. I guess you could pretend that your character was injured really badly from a fight and needed to rest to heal up (although this obviously is not necessary with this game).

^Thanks man. Like I said, it all comes down to Role-playing for me.

I know it is way simpler to simply wait/rest for 30 days, but seeing as I find it hard for my character to stand still in one spot for 720 hours straight, I can't quite do it.

Resting due to an injury is a very possible approach.

I just hope I don't do all this only for it to happen again in the future.

So are we certain that Clearing the System Cache has no effect on this sort of issue?

I still haven't cleared it, because I haven't been sure if it's necessary for any reason.

Another question:

If I do the 30-day thing, take this as an example:

The dragon-spawning thing seems to be happening to me in The Rift, so, if I go to Whiterun, I should be fine, right?

THEN, when in Whiterun (for 30 days), I decide that I want to do some things during my month-long stay - things that involve me going back and forth between Breezehome and the street / other shops.

HERE'S the question: if I am changing cells constantly (within Whiterun), would this still reset the timer?

I'm still not 100% sure if this glitch is 'region/hold' specific (not sure how that works), but going by what you are saying - it is.

My main point is that I'm fine with staying in Whiterun for 30 days, as long as I literally don't have to stay within ONE SINGLE CELL (like Breezehome).

If this could be answered, I would be very appreciative.

And thanks so much for the continuing support!