I was just walking around and a dead dragon fell out of the sky

[Blind]

What even happened?

[steventirey]

Its just something that happens from time to time. Dragon corpses sometimes follow you around, and most often appear when you either fast travel or exit some interior location.

[jonnin]

there are lots of glitches like this. Any time you fast travel the game can choose to spawn in mobs or NPCs up in the air and when they fall, they die. Even flying ones sometimes. You can see it rain mammoths if you fast travel to a giant camp, or you can watch the guards fall from the sky in markarth, and other places.

[steventirey]

Originally posted by jonnin:

there are lots of glitches like this. Any time you fast travel the game can choose to spawn in mobs or NPCs up in the air and when they fall, they die. Even flying ones sometimes. You can see it rain mammoths if you fast travel to a giant camp, or you can watch the guards fall from the sky in markarth, and other places.

In this case, it isn't a dragon falling to its death. Its already dead dragons. Sometimes its a whole dragon, but in other cases its a dragon skeleton. Supposedly some people have found gear in the body that they stored in a dragon they killed (due to over encumbrance), so its moving corpses of dragons that have been killed elsewhere. It may be a case of dragons respawning but not resetting, like what happens in Fallout 4 to enemies killed with cryo damage (they die in a frozen state, the script that controls when they are supposed to unfreeze never happens as they are dead and when they respawn they are still in a permanent frozen state.)

[Fear2288]

I’ve had this happen a couple times over the years. It occurred with Oldrim and it’s occurred with SE.

It’s just one of those things.

You killed a dragon in the area recently and you left the cell/area and have travelled back to it either via fast travel, world space transition, or even manually. The game tries to load back in the dragon skeleton where it was because the cell hasn’t refreshed/reset yet, but instead of it spawning in its original location, the game loads it in in the air and it falls to the ground.

[worm_master]

Yep, me 2, i call it "dodge the dragon" it''s highly entertaining

[Valden21]

Been there, too. Once left Solitude via the main gate. Just outside the main gate, BOOM! Dragon skeleton falls out of nowhere. He's the thing: I didn't kill that particular dragon, mammoths got it.

[Blind]

basically, after 12 years I'm still finding NEW bugs (for me)

[PatchAdams]

Originally posted by jonnin:

there are lots of glitches like this. Any time you fast travel the game can choose to spawn in mobs or NPCs up in the air and when they fall, they die. Even flying ones sometimes. You can see it rain mammoths if you fast travel to a giant camp, or you can watch the guards fall from the sky in markarth, and other places.

Yes, and one or two of the other Markarth guards will do that thing where they lean over the body sadly.

I once saw a Whiterun guard do the same gesture to the corpse of a chicken that had been killed by a wolf. Who knew town guards were so sentimental about chickens?

[ralphtobybob]

Originally posted by PatchAdams:

Originally posted by jonnin:

there are lots of glitches like this. Any time you fast travel the game can choose to spawn in mobs or NPCs up in the air and when they fall, they die. Even flying ones sometimes. You can see it rain mammoths if you fast travel to a giant camp, or you can watch the guards fall from the sky in markarth, and other places.

Yes, and one or two of the other Markarth guards will do that thing where they lean over the body sadly.

I once saw a Whiterun guard do the same gesture to the corpse of a chicken that had been killed by a wolf. Who knew town guards were so sentimental about chickens?

A lot of NPCs do that. It looks like they're concerned, but they're just looking for the corpse's wallet. It's worth a shot checking out a dead chicken since animals sometimes carry coin, jewelry or even weapons.
The fact that a guard or soldier kills someone and then says, "I'm going to find out who did this" is a dead giveaway.

[Fear2288]

Originally posted by ralphtobybob:

Originally posted by PatchAdams:

Yes, and one or two of the other Markarth guards will do that thing where they lean over the body sadly.

I once saw a Whiterun guard do the same gesture to the corpse of a chicken that had been killed by a wolf. Who knew town guards were so sentimental about chickens?

A lot of NPCs do that. It looks like they're concerned, but they're just looking for the corpse's wallet. It's worth a shot checking out a dead chicken since animals sometimes carry coin, jewelry or even weapons.
The fact that a guard or soldier kills someone and then says, "I'm going to find out who did this" is a dead giveaway.

I’ve always been amused by the execution of Rogvir in Solitude. They play out that whole scene and behead him and then the executioner, Captain, and nearby guard just stand there, slightly hunched over, staring at his head - daring not to remove their eyes from it.

Something similar happens during the vanilla start at Helgen too when they behead that first Stormcloak. They’re transfixed by his head in the crate, briefly looking up when Alduin roars, and then immediately resuming their staring contest with the decapitated head.

[Perplex]

It happens a lot at Tundra Homestead for some reason.

[PatchAdams]

Originally posted by ralphtobybob:

A lot of NPCs do that. It looks like they're concerned, but they're just looking for the corpse's wallet. It's worth a shot checking out a dead chicken since animals sometimes carry coin, jewelry or even weapons.
The fact that a guard or soldier kills someone and then says, "I'm going to find out who did this" is a dead giveaway.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot more sense, in Skyrim.

[Eternie]

Re: the dragon's falling from the sky.
The solution is to Sleep for a month to reset Skyrim back to normal in a internal bedroom.
Or as Normal as Skyrim can get.
You could also increase time scale to allow a month to pass while you wait for about 5 minutes. Then save the game, reboot your computer and head out into a crisp new skyrim.

[Blind]

New bug...

umm, there's a Giant in my Lakeview Manor

[Perplex]

Originally posted by Blind:

New bug...

umm, there's a Giant in my Lakeview Manor

Not a bug. The giant spawn next to the door where the animal pen is and if you interact with it in some way and then enter the house he port with you just like all other NPC's do. That's how you get guards, civilians, bandits, wolfs, giants etc inside homes.