This November, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim celebrates 10 years since its launch – a decade of battling dragons, delving into foreboding dungeons, forging alliances (and rivalries) with the region’s populace, hoarding sweet rolls and, most importantly, creating your own story as you adventure through the world.

To ring in this momentous occasion, we’ve asked the community to join us in the 10th Anniversary Fan Celebration, highlighting your passion by asking you to send us your Skyrim-themed artwork and stories about how the game has had an impact on your life. Of course, it’s not just the players who have had Skyrim touch their lives – this game plays a major role for many of us here at Bethesda Softworks as well! Join us as we share some of our own Skyrim stories with you:

“Well before I worked for Bethesda, I bought a copy of Skyrim for my wife to play. She had never played a Bethesda game before but expressed interest. During the intro scenes, she discovered she could take anything that wasn't nailed down to the point of being overencumbered.

I told her she probably won't be needing all those baskets she's picking up, but she had a very good point: 'What if I run into the Basket King and he tells me to give him a basket and I don't have any, so he kills me?' Can't argue with that logic! You never know what you'll find in our games, so it's best to be prepared!”

• Phil Speer – Quest Designer, Bethesda Games Studios

"I was not yet at Bethesda when Skyrim came out, but I was so excited for it. I'd played Morrowind and Oblivion and was READY to dive in. This was before cloud saves were a thing. (This is important for this story.)

I started playing the game, running around, doing quests, killing dragons and had played for almost 80 hours when my hard drive died, losing my save. I restarted the game. I traveled around, saved more towns, killed more dragons, delved more dungeons and was doing a manual cloud save through Dropbox.

Eventually, my fiance came down and started talking to me about some part of the main story. I looked at her blankly. She blinked at me: "…Where are you in the main story?"

"I came down off the mountain?" I said. She stared. 160 hours in and I had only the barest START of the main story. "Okay, you need to progress the main story, or we're not getting married," she said.

I still haven't finished the story, but my hundreds of hours in Skyrim are part of the joy I brought with me when I started my job here at Bethesda. It is great to see Skyrim celebrate its tenth anniversary - maybe I'll play again and do another couple hundred hours. I might even progress the main story. Maybe."

• Dawn Earp - Senior Digital Sales Manager, Bethesda Softworks (Editor's Note: Dawn did, in fact, get married)

“I’d recently completed the Thieves Guild questline and slowly climbed my way west towards Markarth. Overly confident in my bow skills, I’d decided to perch on a nearby ridge to shoot down on a bunch of rowdy Briarheart Forsworn, as one does.

Two shots into the exchange and I misstep, sliding off the mountain top and absolutely eating it all the way down to the bottom. I managed to survive with a sliver of health thanks to my new gear. It was around the time I audibly said, “Whoa, that was close!” that the ancient dragon guarding the shrine I’d happen to land in front of toasted me to a crispy-well done.”

• Jess Clark – Associate Community Manager, Bethesda Softworks

“When we came back on Monday morning (after Skyrim launched) on November 14, 2011, the whole floor of the Sales office was covered with faxes. We initially thought the fax machine had malfunctioned over the weekend but no: Countless retailers and outlets had sold out over the weekend and quickly needed loads of new Skyrim stock. It was an absolutely amazing experience to see how much everybody loved to play Skyrim.”

• Frank Matzke – Managing Director, ZeniMax Germany

*"So this story starts off kind of sad … but definitely ends on a high note. When Skyrim launched I was an assistant manager working in retail and worked the midnight release of the game. Getting home that late meant sadly, I would defer finding time to actually play the game until later since I also had to work during the day. *

During the now normal hours of 11/11/11 I returned to the store for my day shift, only to be let go! So with my employee discount still active, I bought my copy and headed home to at least have all the free time in the world to dive in - and boy, I did.

The happy ending part is that this experience inspired me to pursue my dreams and now, ten years later, I work here! (I just started a month ago, so it's still super exciting.) And if I could, I would go back to the 11/11/11 me and just say ‘it's okay, trust me. You're gonna end up somewhere soooo much better.’"

• Cara Buoncristiano – Producer, Bethesda.net

“I had played plenty of Bethesda games prior to joining the team… except the Elder Scrolls series! Bought Skyrim from our games stockpile and threw weeks of my life at it before realizing I hadn't even started the main quest - and before you ask: no, I did not betray Paarthurnax. Stay strong, Dragonborn.”

• Evin Coukos – Security Engineer, Bethesda.net

“In the absolute worst year of my life, I was fortunate enough to have a laptop that could play Skyrim. My situation was rough - between a bad break-up, in danger of losing my already awful apartment and struggling to find a job, I was not doing well.

One very cold evening in the midst of this slump, left with only some leftover pizza and a failing heater to keep me company, I started playing through the Dawnguard expansion that I had only briefly started before. I played all through the night, freeing Serana and immediately heel-turning into vampirism when it was offered (sorry, Dawnguard fans).

My most vivid memory of that moment was running through the Forgotten Vale toward the end of the story's arc, Serana and I wading through Falmer and trudging through caverns and snow to reach the last Snow Elf. I was so tired by that point that when I was finally finished and stepped out of Castle Volkihar, it was both daylight in-game and outside.

I remember how warm that morning felt. Despite how awful everything was at the time, that story gave me a moment's reprieve that I desperately needed. I'll always be grateful for that.”

• Charles Somerville – User Researcher, id Software

“My son was almost four years old the spring after Skyrim came out. We had been working on letters with him but he hadn't yet made the conceptual leap that the letters put together represent words. One afternoon, he and I were walking past a bus stop with a full sized Skyrim poster. He looked at it, pointed, and said, "Skyrim!".

So, "Skyrim" was the first word that he read out loud to us.”

• Brent Keith – Digital Account Manager, Sales

Also, don’t forget to tune in November 11 at 2PM ET for Skyrim in Concert, a special musical event livestreaming via the official Bethesda YouTube and Twitch channels as the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices Choir perform Skyrim’s soundtrack, celebrating you – the players – and the stories we’re so proud to share with you.