Is the game itself randomly killing people?!

[ButchDiavolo]

So I have kinda noticed this before, but did't pay too much attention to it until now. Sometimes, when I load up a saved game, the courier arrives with a letter of inheritance for an NPC, that I didn't kill nor would have any reason to be dead... Or, like today, I loaded my game in Windhelm while doing Blood on the Ice and Mrs. Shatter-Shield said "my husband died, things won't be the same without him". Later on, one of the Atheron family said the same about Aval Atheron. Again, I didn't kill them, nor should there be a reason why they are dead. Has anyone ever experienced something like this?

Also, whenever I load a game, there is a... noise. Not sure how to describe it, but it sorta kinda sounds like some magical effect or occasionally like water splashing. No idea what causes that, but could that somehow be connected to the random killings? And what could be causing that?

Any answers would be very much appreciated.

EDIT: A bit more information. I just loaded up a save in Windhelm again, moved from Sadri's shop outside and heard someone yell in the distance "No more! I yield, I yield" as if they were being attacked. I ran over to where I thought the sound was coming from, but saw no-one dead or in "bleed-out" or any skuffle. The plot thickens.

Edited March 24, 2023 by ButchDiavolo
extra info

[DoubleYou]

This is definitely not normal. I have never experienced random killings like this, although I admit, it would be immersive. 

[Mousetick]

About the seemingly random killings of civilian NPCs, I have experienced them in the past and observed 2 possible causes:

1. NPCs victims of random hostile events.

Depending on quest progress and mod setup, vampire or dragon attacks randomly spawned inside cities. I think dragon attacks inside cities were disabled by Bethesda at some point in vanilla Special Edition, but there are mods (such as Dragon Attacks) to re-enable them. Similarly I think vampire attacks inside cities were disabled in vanilla SE, but they can be re-enabled with mods like Timing Is Everything.

Run For Your Lives reduces the risk of casualties in these events but doesn't eliminate it. 

If you use mods like Extended Encounters or Immersive World Encounters, that add new types of random encounters, they may also spawn hostile events inside cities or near towns and settlements.

2. NPCs falling to their death from the sky.

Even with SSE Display Tweaks and rendering at less than 60 fps, I'm still experiencing NPCs and creatures randomly suddenly appearing in the sky and then falling to the ground, from time to time. I don't know what causes that and there doesn't seem to be a pattern, it's probably the wonky physics engine. It doesn't happen often enough to bother me, but when it does happen the NPC logically dies on impact.

Yes, it's immersive and realistic that innocent NPCs can accidentally die but ultimately I didn't like that. Skyrim is too sparsely populated as it is, I don't want events outside of my control to decimate the civilian population even more

Suggestions:

• You can use Obituary - NPC Death Log and Notification to be notified as soon as an NPC dies. The mod can teleport you to the NPC so you can investigate and maybe see the cause of death. The teleportation feature is not immersive, but can be useful for troubleshooting or understanding what went on. The mod can also resurrect the NPC, but I'd advise caution in using this feature as I'm not sure how well the game handles resurrected NPCs.
• Make unique NPCs 'protected', so they can't die unless the player kills them. There are several mods available for that. They're adequate with vanilla NPCs and quests, but if you use mods that add NPCs and or quests, or mods that modify vanilla quests, they fall short and can be a hindrance because they break scripted deaths. After a while I got tired of fiddling with those mods so I made my own patch, tailored to my specific mod setup, to protect innocent vanilla NPCs that are not supposed to die outside of my control (most of them, but there aren't many vanilla NPCs to begin with).

No clue about the strange noises you're hearing. Perhaps a script that triggered the sound and should have stopped it at some point, is stuck and still running. Does the noise follow you as you move, does it change in volume, does it stop in interiors? Check your active magic effects in case you have something stuck on your character.

[ButchDiavolo]

6 hours ago, Mousetick said:

About the seemingly random killings of civilian NPCs, I have experienced them in the past and observed 2 possible causes:

1. NPCs victims of random hostile events.

Depending on quest progress and mod setup, vampire or dragon attacks randomly spawned inside cities. I think dragon attacks inside cities were disabled by Bethesda at some point in vanilla Special Edition, but there are mods (such as Dragon Attacks) to re-enable them. Similarly I think vampire attacks inside cities were disabled in vanilla SE, but they can be re-enabled with mods like Timing Is Everything.

Run For Your Lives reduces the risk of casualties in these events but doesn't eliminate it. 

If you use mods like Extended Encounters or Immersive World Encounters, that add new types of random encounters, they may also spawn hostile events inside cities or near towns and settlements.

2. NPCs falling to their death from the sky.

Even with SSE Display Tweaks and rendering at less than 60 fps, I'm still experiencing NPCs and creatures randomly suddenly appearing in the sky and then falling to the ground, from time to time. I don't know what causes that and there doesn't seem to be a pattern, it's probably the wonky physics engine. It doesn't happen often enough to bother me, but when it does happen the NPC logically dies on impact.

Yes, it's immersive and realistic that innocent NPCs can accidentally die but ultimately I didn't like that. Skyrim is too sparsely populated as it is, I don't want events outside of my control to decimate the civilian population even more

Suggestions:

• You can use Obituary - NPC Death Log and Notification to be notified as soon as an NPC dies. The mod can teleport you to the NPC so you can investigate and maybe see the cause of death. The teleportation feature is not immersive, but can be useful for troubleshooting or understanding what went on. The mod can also resurrect the NPC, but I'd advise caution in using this feature as I'm not sure how well the game handles resurrected NPCs.
• Make unique NPCs 'protected', so they can't die unless the player kills them. There are several mods available for that. They're adequate with vanilla NPCs and quests, but if you use mods that add NPCs and or quests, or mods that modify vanilla quests, they fall short and can be a hindrance because they break scripted deaths. After a while I got tired of fiddling with those mods so I made my own patch, tailored to my specific mod setup, to protect innocent vanilla NPCs that are not supposed to die outside of my control (most of them, but there aren't many vanilla NPCs to begin with).

No clue about the strange noises you're hearing. Perhaps a script that triggered the sound and should have stopped it at some point, is stuck and still running. Does the noise follow you as you move, does it change in volume, does it stop in interiors? Check your active magic effects in case you have something stuck on your character.

Thanks for the feedback. I had also considered option 1, but I am not far enough along to have vampire attacks in cities. And I don't have dragon attacks in cities enabled by any mod. Also, no mods that add extra encounters/ people. So for me, I ruled that out.

Option 2 could be a possibility. I have had it happen twice that a dead dragon suddenly dropped on me in this play through. I kinda liked that bit, cos they were already dead, so... easy souls. So it logically could happen with NPCs as well. As far as I know, it doesn't happen often. I noticed this time, because I was looking for Torbjorn to give him the Arkay amulet when Tova (ironically) said her husband died. And later Aval Atheron.

As far as the weird noises: they only happen on cell changes (moving in or out doors) when the screen is still black/ just rezzed in, so it doesn't "follow" or change. It is not a real problem, but given that people started dying mysteriously, I wondered if the two were connected.

For now I will just chalk this up to wonky physics in the game. Setting NPCs to protected goes a bit far and could mess things up. If it starts happening more often, I will check out Obituary as that would be a good way of checking out what happened.

Thanks for the help

[Mousetick]

The NPC yelling "No more! I yield, I yield" are almost certainly not falling from the sky, they're rather fleeing from a threat. This normally shouldn't happen inside walled cities unless random hostile events are enabled, which you've ruled out. Blood on the Ice murders happen behind the scenes, except the last one you're supposed to catch at night.

I don't think this is related to the random deaths you've noticed, however it may be linked to the strange noises you're hearing when switching between indoors/outdoors. The perceived threat could possibly be you, the player. I can't think of any rational explanation for the strange noises, so something must have gone out of whack, somewhere at some point. If I were you I'd either leave the area (Windhelm) for a while and come back later to see if the weirdness has cleared up, or I'd load earlier saves to try and determine when/where the weirdness started.