Tethered

The bonding rite happens once in a mage's life. What answers yours makes the room fall silent.

Tethered is an interactive magical bond fantasy about the creature that chooses you and the relationship neither of you was prepared for. At the Sanctuary, an initiate's lifelong companion is part of a known tradition. Your companion falls outside what the tradition knows how to explain.

Get to know the being beside you

• Discover how your bond communicates through shared sensations, conversation, or something stranger.
• Learn your companion's personality and wishes while exploring what you can accomplish together.
• Respond to instructors and authorities whose awe comes mixed with suspicion and uncomfortable expectations.

Your companion has agency, opinions, and a place in the story beyond helping you cast stronger magic. The unusual bond brings emotional closeness as well as power, and discovering its nature takes time, attention, and mutual trust.

Discover a relationship that has to work both ways

The creature that answered the rite brings its own understanding of what the bond means. A sensation you share may be comforting one moment and confusing the next. Communicating can require patience, especially when your companion's instincts and priorities differ from yours. Learning to listen is part of learning what you can do together.

That closeness also changes the ordinary life of an initiate. Something you would once have faced alone now involves another being's concern, judgment, or fear. A disagreement can matter as much as a demonstration of power, because the companion is choosing how to respond rather than simply carrying out your intentions.

Decide who gets a say in your bond

The order has traditions for guiding new partnerships, but yours puts pressure on those traditions. A supportive mentor may help you understand what is happening while an anxious authority wants clearer rules and limits. Other initiates can react with admiration, curiosity, or unease. You must decide how much to explain, whose advice to follow, and when institutional expectations conflict with what the bond itself seems to need. The emotional center stays with the two of you: trust built through attention, shared danger, and the gradual discovery of what being chosen actually means.

Choose what the bond becomes

Warmth and wonder form the heart of this adventure. The connection may grow into a singular found-family relationship or, where the story allows, a romance. Its direction emerges through play while the order and the wider world react to what has happened.

Everyone else wants an explanation. What do you want to ask the one who chose you?