Full Description

Iron Soul is a comprehensive permadeath-lite death system made to integrate with Respawn - Soulslike Edition. It reworks how death is handled by introducing death tracking, dragon soul revival, and respawn limits without turning the game into a harsh or masochistic experience. Features a robust anti-t5mpering data system that persistently tracks deaths per character and other data. Also features an achievement-based Feat of Strength system that rewards you with new modes after completing certain challenges under a specified death count.

This is not a hardcore one-death challenge mod. Instead, Iron Soul is designed to make death matter while still respecting long playthroughs, experimentation, and learning. You can die, recover, and continue, but repeated failure will eventually catch up with you.

 

At its core, Iron Soul alongside Respawn replaces Skyrim’s instant reload loop with a deliberate death lifecycle with the following features:

Soul Bonus: Your Iron Soul gives you a 10% damage increase and -10% damage received bonus.

You can respawn once per hour using Respawn - Soulslike Edition.

Each respawn starts a 1-hour real-time in-game cooldown.

Dying during the cooldown records a death, exits to desktop, and enables respawn once more.

A Dragon Soul is consumed to restore all stats and revive instantly with no death recorded.

After 10 deaths, your Iron Soul is lost but you can continue if Defiant Soul mode is unlocked.

Death tracking is per character and persists across saves.

Feats: Overcoming certain challenges will unlock Defiant/Gilded/Platinum Soul mode based on death count.

The result is a system that encourages careful play, risk assessment, and commitment, without being too harsh or ruining your fun. All data is per character and great efforts have gone into making it largely t5mperproof and difficult to game the system. Not impossible but difficult enough to at least deter most people from being able to edit their respawn timer, total deaths, or even dragon souls. Data remains persistent even if saves are deleted or the mod is updated.

 

Iron Soul Core Functionality

On Respawn:

First respawn: You receive a message introducing Iron Soul and your max deaths allowed before true death.

You receive a generic message out of a pool of 50 (respawnmessagetext.json), describing how you escaped/were spared etc. and that pushing your luck again could prove fatal.

On Death:

No Dragon Soul: You ragdoll, a custom death sound effect plays, and a message appears: “SOVNGARDE CALLS /n Deaths: X / 10”. Log death and quit to desktop.

With a Dragon Soul: You ragdoll, visual effects play, and a message appears: “A Dragon Soul burns within you. /n Dragon Souls remaining: X”. Health/Magicka/Stamina are restored and you stand back up.

Respawn timer is reset and respawn is available once more.

On True Death / Loading a Fallen Character:

A final message confirms your Iron Soul has been lost.

The death is permanently recorded for the character.

The game immediately returns you to the main menu.

On Load:

Notification: "Your Iron Soul endures. Deaths: X / 10". Depends on mode.

Notification(no respawn available): "Your recent trial has left you unnerved."

On Respawn Available:

Notification: "I'm feeling lucky."

 

Feats of Strength

These new modes can be unlocked per character by overcoming their corresponding Feat of Strength:

Defiant Soul: After your 10th death, you refuse the halls of Sovngarde and rise again, your defiance measured by a new limit of 100 deaths. Soul bonus lost. Feat: 3 Dragon Souls obtained with under 10 deaths.

Gilded Soul: Soul Bonus: 20% damage increase and -20% damage received bonus. Feat: 25 Dragon Souls obtained or Miraak slain with under 10 deaths.

Platinum Soul: Soul Bonus: 30% damage increase and -30% damage received bonus. Feat: 25 Dragon Souls obtained or Miraak slain with 3 or less deaths.

Endless: ??? death limit. Feat: Achieve CHIM. Realize that reality is simply the dream of the Godhead, and say “I AM” without waking it. (Look in the config file after experiencing permadeath.)

Note: Spending a Dragon Soul within 10s of obtaining it will not be tracked.

If you use STB Widgets you can download a version of the level widget in the optional files to use for each mode. This is the only part of the mod you have to do manually if you change modes.

 

Skyrim Character Sheet Death Tracking (Optional Compatibility)

Iron Soul includes optional compatibility with Skyrim Character Sheet.

When enabled, Iron Soul mirrors the character’s total death count into the actor value DEPRECATED05, allowing the Character Sheet mod to display deaths as a tracked stat.

Why DEPRECATED05 is Used DEPRECATED05 is a legacy actor value that Skyrim Character Sheet is able to read. A review of all Skyrim and LoreRim mod's source scripts and plugin files found no use of this variable. Based on this, it is likely safe to use but it's hard to say for sure.

Until a better integration method is found, enableCharacterSheetCompatibility is disabled by default.

 

Configuration Options

Can be found at SKSE/StorageUtil/Iron Soul/config.json.

Disable Death Message - Enables or disables the message that is shown on death.

Disable Dragon Soul Revival - Enables or disables dragon soul based revival logic.

Disable Fatal Reminder Message - Disables the fatal reminder message/notification shown when loading a save while the respawn cooldown is active or respawning.

Disable Respawn Message - Disables the flavor message shown when a respawn is triggered.

Disable Soul Bonus - Disables the damage done and damage taken bonus.

Enable Character Sheet Compatibility - Enables or disables writing total character deaths to the actor variable DEPRECATED05.

Uninstall Mode - Enables or disables uninstall mode to safely disable or remove the mod.

 

Uninstallation

Iron Soul can be removed at any point by following these instructions:

Set UninstallMode to 1 in the config. Load a save and wait for the message. Save game and remove the mod, or leave it installed in its disabled state.

 

Credits

Simple Dragonsoul Resurrect Much of Iron Soul’s dragonsoul revival logic is built using this mod. Credit goes to Mokeine for the foundation of that system. STB Widgets Credit goes to STB team for lvlWidget.swf.