A Tether is the horrific engine at the heart of The Deathless—a tentacled aberration with no eyes and a massive, pulsating brain-like mass that serves as both its body and its purpose. It lurks in the sacred depths of Deathless temples, never moving, never speaking, yet always aware. When a worthy supplicant is sacrificed to Vaelith, the Tether draws their soul back from death’s threshold and binds it to undying flesh. Every Deathwalker it creates remains psychically linked to it, forming a hive of minds that can communicate, influence, and—if unchecked—dominate one another. The Tether itself does not command; it simply connects. As long as a Tether lives, all Deathwalkers bound to it are immortal and ageless. Destroying one severs every link it ever forged—and ends every unlife it sustained.