The Last Thread is a fist-sized ball of coarse crimson twine wound around a core of yellowed bone. Its fibers are dry and warm, despite never fraying, and tiny knots form in its surface whenever someone nearby speaks of something they have lost. A single loose end protrudes from the ball, tipped with a tarnished silver bead engraved with a closed eye. When activated, the twine unspools soundlessly across floors, walls, and open air, always pulling toward its chosen quarry.
Unspooling Toward Loss
As an action, you may speak the name or give a specific description of one object, creature, or place that you have personally known and lost. If the target is on the same plane of existence, the twine unspools and its loose end points toward the target's current location. The twine can extend up to 1 mile, passing around obstacles and slipping through gaps as narrow as one-quarter inch. If the target is farther away, the twine points in the correct direction but does not extend. If the target is on another plane, the ball remains still and becomes warm to the touch. The effect ends when you release the ball, choose a different target, or reach the target. The twine retracts into the ball at a rate of 100 feet per round.
Sure-Footed Pursuit
While following the unspooled twine, you have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks made to navigate toward the indicated target, and you cannot become lost except by magical means. The twine does not reveal the target's identity, condition, defenses, or exact distance.
A Thread That Cannot Be Severed
The twine cannot be cut, burned, unraveled, or destroyed by nonmagical means. A creature other than the attuned holder that attempts to pull the twine in a direction other than the one it indicates finds it impossibly heavy.
The Price of Recovery
When the twine successfully leads you to the target and you willingly take possession of it, the ball immediately chooses one nonmagical possession you own that is worth no more than 500 gp. That possession vanishes and becomes the ball's new target. The ball then unspools toward it the next time you use Unspooling Toward Loss. If you do not pursue the new target within 24 hours, you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks and ability checks made to resist following the twine's indicated direction until you begin the pursuit or the curse is removed.
Curse.
The ball's curse is concealed until its first successful recovery. Each time it leads its holder to something lost, it takes another possession in exchange. The holder cannot willingly end attunement to The Last Thread while a stolen possession remains unrecovered. A remove curse spell ends the attunement and curse, causing all possessions taken by the ball to reappear within 10 feet of their rightful owner. The spell does not restore any creature or object that was destroyed after being taken.
Lore
Old travelers claim The Last Thread was spun from the red cord used to bind the dead to their burial stones. It is said to remember every separation: stolen heirlooms, vanished children, abandoned homes, and promises broken before they could be fulfilled. Some regard it as a merciful guide, while others call it a patient predator that feeds on the human refusal to let go.
History
The ball was first recorded in the journals of Meriel Voss, a royal courier whose daughter disappeared during a border war. The twine led Meriel across three kingdoms and into a battlefield buried beneath a landslide, where she found her daughter alive but changed. Meriel returned with the girl and a different ball of twine in her pack. Every possession she owned had vanished during the journey. The Last Thread has since appeared in the hands of grieving adventurers, treasure hunters, and at least one desperate king.
