Hi all - just killed me a dragon out in the wilds of Skyrim, but after it fell there was no dragon soul effect. No swirly lights, no notification. Checked and my reserve of dragon souls hasn't gone up.

Is this expected behavior? Every other dragon, even if I arrived on scene after it was already dead, I captured the soul. What gives??

Thanks!

Maybe you killed a dragon in that area already?

Did it have a unique name?

If You are on a Console, and the Dragon was at a Word Wall Your character has already been to then what is happening is a known problem.

If You are on a PC, and are using the Patches, then it is a Glitch or a Mod Conflict.

And if you are on PC, you can manually add one with console command

player.modav dragonsouls 1

The Unofficial Patch fixes the word wall dragon bug, but if any mod modifies the dragon soul absorb script after it, the bug returns.