MOD LORE
When a mortal being dies under ordinary circumstances, their soul spills forth and leaks from Nirn into the dreamsleeve of Aetherius, where it will remain until a vessel needs to be filled.  Here it will bask in a paradise of infinite raw magicka, not to see Mundus again until all former memories and experiences and traces of the previous holder have long since been scrubbed away.

Not so for you, Dovahkiin, for within the fragile mortal vessel that keeps you bound to the earth rests the soul of an ever-lasting Dragon.  Like the Dovah of old who are now awakening after all these years, you are an immortal child of Akatosh, and can never truly die no matter how many times you are killed.  Your soul can seek out a vessel on its own.

Being a progeny of Akatosh whose birth was foretold of in the Elder Scrolls, you are bound by an implicit pact with the Divines.  Visit any shrine of the Nine Divines, and they will grant you a refuge where your soul may gather when it loses its way.

Be wary, however.  Your soul can reach far across Skyrim in search of a new vessel, but your old vessel and its worldly belongings cannot.  One who has journeyed far from home and temple halls would be wise to carry an Amulet of Stendarr with them, for his domain is that of mercy, and his blessings will protect you accordingly.

MOD MECHANICS
This mod represents an alternative to Skyrim's death paradigm (reload).  Upon "dying" your soul will splinter, leaving behind a shard as it is recalled to its spiritual bind point.  You must then return to the site of your demise to reintegrate the shard and reclaim your possessions (although what - if anything - you lose upon dying is configurable - more on that later).

If you die before completing the Unbound quest (escape from Helgen), your death is permanent.  Surviving that initial dungeon is the price of immortality.  If you are using an alternate start mod such as LAL which auto-completes that quest for you, you are all set.  Your initial bind point is the area you were standing when you completed the Unbound quest (just outside Helgen cave, if you are playing the vanilla start).  Any time you pray at a shrine of the Nine Divines, you will be asked if you wish to move your bind point to that shrine.  If you have any Amulets of Arkay, you can use the "Prayer of Sacrifice" power to break one of your amulets and set your bind point to wherever you're standing at the time.

You will lose everything except quest items whenever you die (although this can be configured via the DIHO Configuration power such that you lose nothing, or gold only).  You must go back to where you died and reintegrate your soul shard to get all your stuff back.  If you die again before you're able to get back to your stuff then it's all gone, man.  However, if you are using the "recovery" option, you can make a pilgrimage to High Hrothgar to reclaim your lost items (but the gold is gone for good).  Further, if you happen to be carrying an Amulet of Stendarr at the moment of your death, you won't lose any items or gold.  The amulet will sacrifice itself to bring you to safety.  All spells/shouts are unequipped upon death, so you should make sure to reconfigure your loadout before charging back into combat.

You are also able to configure whether you want the loss of a soul shard (i.e., having a second unprotected death before recovering the shard) to result in permanent attribute damage.  By default, you sustain no permanent attribute damage, but you can set the damage amount to any value between 0 and 10.  If it is set to a non-zero value, upon losing a soul shard you will sustain permanent loss of health, magicka and stamina equal to whatever amount you set.  Given that death can be a frequent occurrence, my recommendation would be to be conservative if you use this feature.  Between the item loss and attribute damage options (which operate independently), you have great flexibility in customizing the penalties for death.

INSTALLATION
Use 7-zip to extract the mod archive to your Skyrim SE Data folder, or use your mod manager of choice to do the same.  I have the main ESP pretty high in my load order (one of the first ones after the ESMs).  It doesn't conflict with much, as almost everything is additive.

If you are using ELFX, there is also a merge patch included which merges changes to a few cells.  Load this AFTER both this mod's main ESP, and after all of the ELFX ESPs.  If you are not using ELFX, do not use this merge patch.

UPGRADING TO A NEWER VERSION
Upgrading to a newer version of the mod on a running game is supported as of version 1.1.4.  If you have a version prior to 1.1.4, DO NOT TRY TO UPGRADE MID-GAME.

If you have version 1.1.4 or later and want to upgrade the mod to a newer version, here are the steps:

1. Use the DIHO Configuration power and opt for the "Yes, To Upgrade" shutdown option (this can also be achieved by setting the DIHOState global to 3).
2. Wait for the message indicating that shutdown is complete (should take around 5 to 10 seconds).
3. Confirm that you no longer have the Prayer of Sacrifice power or Dovahkiin Immortal Soul permanent ability (on the magic screen).
4. Save your game.
5. Exit Skyrim.
6. Upgrade the mod.
7. Launch Skyrim and load your save from step 4.
8. Enter the console and type "startquest MacDIHOController" (minus the quotes).
9. Within a few seconds you should have your Prayer of Sacrifice power and Dovahkiin Immortal Soul back.  Continue playing.

UNINSTALLATION
I don't recommend uninstalling the mod from a game in progress.  Removing mods mid-game is asking for trouble.  However, if you are determined to do it, I have built in support for it as best I could, beginning with version 1.1.4 (this will not work on earlier versions).  Here are the steps:

1. Use the DIHO Configuration power and opt for the "Yes, Permanently" shutdown option (this can also be achieved by setting the DIHOState global to 9).
2. Wait for the message indicating that shutdown is complete (should take around 5 to 10 seconds).
3. Confirm that you no longer have the Prayer of Sacrifice power or Dovahkiin Immortal Soul permanent ability (on the magic screen).  Any attribute damage inflicted by the mod will have been reversed, and any items you lost from failing to recover soul shard(s) will have been returned to you.
4. Save your game.
5. Exit Skyrim.
6. Uninstall the mod.
7. Launch Skyrim and load your save from step 4.  Click ok at the warning that a mod is missing.
8. Continue playing.

CHANGES FROM OLDRIM
This is a port of BLOODGAZM's mod for old-school Skyrim.  He gave permission for others to extend/modify his work as they see fit.  In this spirit, I altered his mod to suit my tastes by making the following changes:

* Punctuation/grammar cleanup
* Script formatting cleanup, addition of script comments
* Script optimizations (e.g., eliminating unneeded Game.GetPlayer() function calls)
* Your Dovahkiin immortality is now implemented as an ability which you can see on the active magic effects screen.
* The Prayer of Sacrifice power is now granted directly to the player, as opposed to receiving a spell tome which you must use (and could potentially lose).
* Initial bind point is now wherever the player is standing upon completion of the Unbound quest, instead of high up in the mountains.  I know the original author chose his initial spot based on lore, but in terms of gameplay, it really didn't make much sense.
* Removed Bonesy from scripting (i.e., there is no longer a pile of bones at your "corpse").  This feature seemed glitchy (when I would enter the cell containing my corpse, sometimes a few bones would appear near my player, nowhere near the corpse).
* Removed loss of dragon souls upon death.  This feature didn't make sense to me.  I get why worldly items wouldn't follow your soul to its bind point, but your innate dragon power is the very reason you are immortal, according to this mod's lore.  Why would part of that power be bound to your remains instead of staying with your spirit?
* You "respawn" with partial health, because that seemed fitting.
* I shrunk down the size of the beam of light which represents the player's corpse (in this version of the mod, it is a soul shard).  Instead of needing to activate it, you need only run into the beam in order to reintegrate the shard (and thereby retrieve your gold/items).
* Instead of needing to *wear* an Amulet of Arkay in order to receive protection (i.e., to be protected from losing items/gold on death), you now need to be *carrying* an Amulet of Stendarr (God of Mercy).  This eliminates the need to consume your amulet slot with a lesser item.
* You are invulnerable for 10 seconds after respawning (while your avatar is transparent).  If your bind point happens to be surrounded by hostiles, this gives you a short period of time in which to GTFO and not get caught in a death loop.
* The script to bind your soul to a shrine of the Nine Divines now attaches itself to the shrines dynamically at runtime.  This means that edited copies of the shrines are no longer contained in this mod's ESP, thus improving its overall compatibility profile.  Upon entering an area with a shrine, it will take a few seconds for the script to attach, so if you pray immediately and are not given the bind option, wait a second and try again (pray harder!).
* Implemented a new global variable, DIHOPollingInterval, which controls the frequency of the script's heartbeat (default is 3 seconds, but it can be set to any value between 1 and 5 seconds).
* By default, you are granted your immortality upon completion of the Unbound quest.  If you'd rather have the granting of that power delayed until you are first summoned by the Greybeards (their "call" after defeating your first dragon), you can opt to do so by using the DIHO Configuration power.
* Added an option for your soul to bind automatically to any inns that you visit.
* Added a lore-friendly book which attempts to integrate the mod's mechanics into the world somewhat.  This is intended not so much as a "manual" for explaining the mod's function as it as a bit of additional flavor.  The book is dynamically added to one levelled item list at runtime (so, no editing of base game resources in order to maintain maximum compatibility).  The levelled list in question is used primarily at the College of Winterhold, so that's where to look for the book.
* You are now able to configure whether you want the loss of a soul shard (i.e., having a second unprotected death before recovering the shard) to result in permanent attribute damage.  This is set to zero by default, but you can set attribute damage to any value between 1 and 10 in order to sustain permanent loss of health, magicka and stamina equal to whatever amount you set upon loss of a soul shard.
* Configurable item loss.  Upon dying, you can lose nothing, gold only, everything except quest items, and everything except quest items with an option for recovering permanently lost items via a pilgrimage to High Hrothgar.  In every case, you can recover anything that was lost by reintegrating your soul shard prior to dying again.

You can change your gold/item loss setting mid-game if you find that you are unhappy with your original selection.  For example, if you were playing with permanent item loss and now regret it, just enable the recovery option via the DIHO Configuration power.  The next time that you die, your soul anchor will appear at High Hrothgar, and you can make a pilgrimage there to recover your lost stuff.  Likewise, if you were playing on an easier setting and want to ramp up the death penalty, just select the new option and the new rules will be in effect upon your next death.

INCOMPATIBILITIES
A few things to mention here.  If you use Frostfall, you need to select the "rescue" option - the Frostfall exposure script death conflicts with this mod's mechanics.

Another user had this to say:
Save Overhaul is NOT compatible with this mod.
Alternate Actors is NOT compatible with this mod.

I'm not sure if those mods exist for Skyrim SE yet, but if they do, you've been warned.

THANKS
To BLOODGAZM.  His original mod for Oldrim rocked.


REVISION HISTORY

1.2.3
* Resolved problem with not receiving Dovahkiin immortality when using some of the "Live Another Life" alternate start scenarios.

1.2.2
* Now that the mod configuration framework is in place, it has become easier to add new options. One bit of "feature debt" is a suggestion ArtMurder made back in early January to add a bind option to inns. The "DIHO Configuration" power now offers you an option for your soul to bind automatically to any inns that you visit. This is handled dynamically at runtime, so there is no reference clutter added to inns, causing potential compatibility or merging issues. Further, this will also work for properly implemented player-added inns.

1.2.1
* I've finally gotten around to adding a mod configuration power (accessible via the magic screen, called "DIHO Configuration") so that you don't have to manipulate globals to achieve your desired ruleset. Sorry that this took so long. :)

1.2.0
* Introduced a new DIHOBehavior setting (3). When enabled, the player will lose both gold and items (except quest items) upon dying (just like the "hardcore" setting of 2). If the player then fails to recover their items by not reintegrating their soul shard prior to dying again, they can recover those lost items (but not the gold) by making a pilgrimage to High Hrothgar.
* The mod now uses a DIHOBehavior setting of 3 by default on a new game (instead of 1). If you prefer the old default of just losing your gold, just make sure to "set DIHOBehavior to 1" via the console when starting a new game.
* If playing with item loss enabled, the player will now be wearing (rather than holding) the beggar's robes upon respawning.
* An out of bounds DIHOBehavior value will now be interpreted as a setting of 3.

1.1.4
* You can now trigger the mod to shut down into one of two states: dormancy (if you want to suspend its scripts in order to upgrade to a newer version), or removal (the mod will shut down and do as much as it can to revert its changes and effects, so that you can uninstall it). See the sections on upgrading and uninstallation for details on how to do this.

1.1.3
* Added a lore-friendly book which attempts to integrate the mod's mechanics into the world somewhat. This is intended not so much as a "manual" for explaining the mod's function as it as a bit of additional flavor. The book is dynamically added to one levelled item list at runtime (so, no editing of base game resources in order to maintain maximum compatibility). The levelled list in question is used primarily at the College of Winterhold, so that's where to look for the book.
* Introduced a new mod mechanic: permanent attribute loss. By default, attribute damage is set to zero (it doesn't happen), but you can set the DIHOAttributeDamage global variable to any value between 1 and 10 in order to sustain permanent loss of health, magicka and stamina equal to whatever amount you set upon loss of a soul shard (i.e., you sustain the attribute loss if you have a second unprotected death prior to recovering a soul shard). DIHOAttributeDamage operates independently from DIHOBehavior, giving you great flexibility in customizing the penalties for death.

1.1.2
* Renamed all mod resources with a consistent naming scheme (MacDIHO prefix).
* The mod's lore has changed a bit. The beam of light left behind by the player upon death is a soul shard. Instead of needing to activate it, you need only run into the beam in order to reintegrate the shard (and thereby retrieve your gold/items). In technical terms, the beam has changed from being an activator with collision to a trigger box without collision.
* You now need to carry an Amulet of Stendarr (God of Mercy) in order to protect your gold/items from being lost upon dying. The Amulet of Arkay is now used solely by the Prayer of Sacrifice power in order to set a custom bind point. The button in the backstage cell has been altered such that it now dispenses one of each kind of amulet for testing purposes.
* If you die while protected by Stendarr, you respawn at full health.
* The script to bind your soul to a shrine of the Nine Divines now attaches itself to the shrines dynamically at runtime. This means that edited copies of the shrines are no longer contained in this mod's ESP, thus improving its overall compatibility profile. Upon entering an area with a shrine, it will take a few seconds for the script to attach, so if you pray immediately and are not given the bind option, wait a second and try again (pray harder!).
* The ability to customize the rebind options offered by the mod is now made much easier. If there is a particular type of activator you wish to be able to bind your soul to, simply create a new ESP, make DeathIsHighlyOverrated.esp its master, and then override the MacDIHOBindActivators FormID List into your patch ESP. Add to this list whatever new activators you wish to be able to bind to (maybe a cooking pot? My soul wants to bind where there's good food to be had). Then just load your patch ESP after DeathIsHighlyOverrated.esp, and voila.
* Resolved the issue of one or both of the player's hands being left temporarily unusable in combat if a spell was equipped in that hand at death.
* Removed the spell tome for the Prayer of Sacrifice (it serves no purpose now that the power is granted directly to the player).

1.1.1
* Edited shrine script not to offer bind option if player has not yet received Dovahkiiin immortality.
* All spells are dispelled from the player on rebirth (to eliminate potentially troublesome continued effects such as poison).

1.1.0
*WARNING* Do not upgrade to this version from 1.03 or below on a game in progress. The scripting has been completely overhauled.
* Shrunk down the player corpse beam/activator.
* Implemented the player's Dovahkiin immortality as a permanent ability that is visible on the active magic effects screen.
* Implemented a new global variable, DIHOPollingInterval, which controls the frequency of the script's heartbeat (default is 3 seconds, but it can be set to any value between 1 and 5 seconds).
* By default, you are granted your immortality upon completion of the Unbound quest.  If you'd rather have the granting of that power delayed until you are first summoned by the Greybeards (their "call" after defeating your first dragon), set DIHODelayedStart to 1 (or any non-zero value, really).
* The Prayer of Sacrifice power is now granted directly at initialization (instead of giving the player the Tome of Sacrifice).
* The player's initial respawn point is now wherever they happen to be when Unbound is completed (to make things more alternate start friendly).

1.0.3
* Fixed an issue where the player's health level at respawn was not consistent. Instead of using RestoreActorValue alone to raise health, I switched to restoring all health and then using DamageActorValue to reduce from maximum. This has resulted in a consistent 50% health on respawn. Neither of the ESPs changed with this update - this is simply a new BSA with one updated script.

1.0.2
* Removed "quest markers are for casuals" journal nonsense from the original mod.
* Made another change to the initialization script which gives the Tome of Sacrifice to the player.

1.0.1
* Fixed issue where Tome of Sacrifice wasn't being awarded upon game start.

1.0.0
* Initial release.