In the time when there was no Erdtree, death was burned in ghostflame, and the Deathbirds were the keepers of that fire. Death's Poker, a barbed rod carried by them, names them graveyard fire keepers: it is said they rake out the ashen remains of the dead from their kilns. Those ashes do not lie still. Ancient Death Rancor, a sorcery of the servants of Death, sends out vengeful spirits that are cinders of the ancient death hex, raked from the fires of ghostflame by Deathbirds. Priests of old were permitted to come among the birds, and the Death Ritual Spear is precise about which way that bond runs: it is the priests who became guardians of the birds, through the rite of Death, which also serves as an oath sworn to their distant resurrection.

The Sacrificial Axe, a hatchet from an ancient sacrificial rite, depicts a Deathbird as a malevolent deity and holds that the power of the rite yet lingers, while the Twinbird Kite Shield makes the twinbird the envoy of an outer god, and mother of the Deathbirds. Around that figure gathers a traffic in imitation. The assassins of Ravenmount are killers by trade who assail their victims dressed as birds of prey: their Raptor Talons let them imitate the attacks of Deathbirds, their black-feathered robe is a ritual implement for transforming into a Deathbird, if only by imitation, and their Skeletal Mask digs into the face to preserve human instincts under the disguise. The headless Mausoleum Knights wear wing-shaped ornaments that evoke the Deathbird, and legend holds that the Gravebirds, golems created to guard the spiritgraves, were crafted to be kindred to them. The Death Rite Birds carry the name; the game does not say what joins them to the older birds.