Skyrim bug sees the entire population of Solitude appear outside of Dawnstar

When they’re not destroying all of Nazeem’s furniture, battling the ebony warrior or trying to convince Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius to get along, Skyrim’s Dragonborn can often be found doing a spot of travelling.

After all, when you’ve got quests to complete, cities to explore and possibly a cursed entity to try and escape, staying on the move makes a lot of sense.

However, many of the game’s NPCs are usually less prone to sudden voyages across the map, which is likely why one player reacted with such surprise when they found the entire population of a city out for a stroll in the wilderness.

Have you ever stumbled across an entire city on the move in Skyrim?

The thread containing this strange incident on the Skyrim subreddit began with a post from the aforementioned player, user wtfamidoinglol420, who shared an image of the people of Solitude moseying along a snowy road in The Pale, captioning it: “Why is the entirety of Solitude’s (population) outside (of) Dawnstar?”

A number of their fellow players were quick to offer possible explanations for the excursion, with user Alacur suggesting that reaching Dawnstar too early in the game might not give the NPCs enough time to recover from rehearsals, while zshinabargar and Blackout_Inevitable
Implied that a “field trip” or “fire drill” might be in progress.

On the other hand, user harmonicoasis thought that the march could be an attempt by Jarl Elisif to take The Pale without having to divert the Imperial Legion from their established stations.

Thankfully, user terma was on hand to offer a serious explanation, saying: “This seems to be an issue with the (game’s) Special Edition that I've seen both personally and posted a handful of times. For whatever reason, all of the NPCs in an area or all of the NPCs in the open world will travel to the Dawnstar museum and then return to their original spawn.”

Meanwhile, user feral__turtle revealed: “I once found the entirety of (the NPCs from) Haelga's Bunkhouse standing outside the Black-Briar lodge. It wasn't due to mods. There was a side mission from the companions (that had caused) a wild beast (to spawn) in the bunkhouse. So, check Solitude for a really big bear.”

Regardless of how many of your Skyrim playthroughs have been ruined by bear attacks, make sure to follow us for more updates on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the wacky world of Skyrim modding.