The Founder is an ancient being as old as the concept of the Unknown itself, existing since the earliest moments of reality. He is not the creator of death, but its eternal guardian, inheriting the responsibility after the death of the god who once controlled it. Within Death's Door, The Founder serves as the keeper of every life that has ever ended. He does not judge souls or punish the dead; instead, he preserves their memories, ensuring that no existence is ever forgotten. He walks the endless graveyard, guiding visitors through the countless graves of beings from every universe, timeline, and reality. Despite his overwhelming power, The Founder is quiet and patient. To him, every life holds the same value, whether it belonged to a mortal, a god, or something beyond understanding. He has witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, universes, and countless beings, carrying the weight of every ending that has ever occurred. The Founder is not death itself — he is the one who remembers what death leaves behind.

The Starved Bard is a black-and-purple faceless entity that looks like a corrupted, unrendered 3D model struggling to exist in reality. His body is segmented into unstable texture-like regions, where purple never blends across different parts and black voids fill the gaps where detail fails to load. He wears a bard-like outfit, but it feels like a broken simulation of clothing rather than real fabric, constantly flickering and dissolving at the edges as if existence cannot fully stabilize him. He has no face at all—only a void where identity should be—but his purple hat remains the one stable anchor in his form. His entire presence behaves like a visual glitch in reality, shifting between existence and absence. He can only be seen by living beings who are near death, appearing fully only in those final moments when perception breaks down and reality allows him to render completely. He's only seen by the dying, nothing else can see them, and he tries to comfort whoever it is through the fear of death. He was created by The Founder, and is only there to answer why he exists.