Skyrim fans shared the locations where they retire their Dovahkins
Big RPGs have an annoying quirk: they never really end. You kill the main villain, the world cheerfully announces it's been saved, and then invites you to keep collecting butterflies – so you're left to invent your own ending. Sometimes that ending looks like a save file on a snowy cliff that never gets loaded again.
One player shared on Reddit that after every playthrough of Skyrim, they leave their Dragonborn at a scenic spot so the character can stay there forever, gazing out over the province where all those adventures happened.
This time the choice landed on the overlook near the entrance to Bloodchill Cavern, the vampire lair from the Creation Club pack. The scenery got a boost from the Obsidian Weathers and Community Shaders mods along with the Nordic Souls PBR modlist, so the sunset over Skyrim looks a lot more convincing than it did back in 2011.
This ritual works precisely because Skyrim has no credits roll. After Alduin goes down, dragons keep spawning – players say it even feels like they show up more often once the main story wraps up. The only real endpoint is the last save, and wherever the character happens to be standing at that moment becomes the only epilogue you get.
The geography of these "retirements" is surprisingly consistent, and each spot has its own logic:
Blackreach and the throne overlooking the entire underground cavern, for a thief or mage who slipped into the shadows
The Throat of the World next to Paarthurnax, for heroes who preferred dragon company to human company
Breezehome in Whiterun by the fireplace, with Lydia nearby and armor hung on the walls
Karstaag's throne on Solstheim, where one player returned years later after booting up an old Xbox 360 and, by their own admission, burst into tears
There's a particular kind of dark humor in how survival mode turns this pretty gesture into a death sentence. Leaving the Dragonborn to meditate in the cold on Survival difficulty basically dooms them to freeze to death, so plenty of players send their hero home instead, back to Ysolda and the kids.
Some suggest dropping the difficulty to the easiest setting right before the final save, so the character retires at the peak of their power instead of risking getting clocked by a random bandit.
The most dedicated fans have turned the ritual into a drawn-out waiting game: their Dragonborns have been standing on the western border of Skyrim, staring toward a presumed Hammerfell, since 2018, when Bethesda dropped the teaser for The Elder Scrolls VI. One player admitted that in that time, his hero developed a full-blown skooma habit.
