Gravewind Bone Horn

Aura moderate necromancy

CL 7th
Slot — (held)
Price 12,000 gp
Weight 4 lbs

Description

This long, tarnished brass horn is veined with blackened bone fused directly into the metal, as though it grew that way. The bone looks like heavily tarnished brass until it is examined closely, at which time the nature of it becomes apparent. Its bell is slightly warped, and when light strikes it, faint silhouettes of grasping hands seem to move just beneath the surface.

When played, the sound is low, hollow, and wrong - like a funeral dirge echoing through wet earth.

Activation

Standard action to play
Requires Perform (wind instruments) 7 ranks

Playing the Horn (No Charge Use)

The horn may be played without expending charges with at least 1 rank in Perform (wind instruments).

• Grave Murmur:
  While playing (up to 5 rounds), the user gains a +2 competence bonus on Intimidate checks and a +2 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal checks involving undead creatures (such as skeletal mounts or trained undead).
• Listening to the Soil:
  With a Perform check (DC 15) after 1 round of playing, the user can sense the presence of undead within 60 ft (as detect undead for 1 round).
• Discordant Breath (Failure):
  If a Perform check is failed by 5 or more, the user is shaken for 1 round as the horn “pushes back.”

Charged Effects

The horn has 3 charges per day.

Call the Restless (1 charge)

Functions as summon undead I (Libris Mortis), except:

• Duration: 5 rounds
• The undead gains a +2 turn resistance bonus

Dirge of Obedience (1 charge)

Targets one undead creature within 30 ft.

• Will save DC 14 negates
• On failure, functions as command undead for 5 rounds
• If the target is mindless, it receives no save

Rise, Briefly (2 charges; full-round action)

Animates corpses in a 20-ft radius.

• Functions as animate dead, but:
  • Creates 1d3 skeletons or zombies
  • Duration: 5 rounds, after which they collapse
  • These undead gain +10 ft movement speed

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, animate dead, command undead, detect undead
Cost 6,000 gp + 480 XP

Cursed Variant: Horn of the Unquiet Procession

Aura strong necromancy
CL 9th
Slot — (held)
Price — (cursed)
Weight 4 lbs

Description

At first glance identical to a Gravewind Bone Horn, this instrument is colder to the touch. Its reflection never matches the angle it is viewed from, and its bell always seems slightly darker than it should be.

Once played - even a single note - the horn binds itself to the user’s fate.

Curse Effect

The first time the horn is played, the user becomes marked by the procession.

From that moment on:

• At least once per day, at a time chosen by the DM, 1d4 undead (typically zombies or skeletons appropriate to the environment) appear within 30–120 ft and attempt to approach or attack the user
• These encounters occur at inconvenient or dangerous moments (resting, negotiating, traveling, etc.)
• The undead always seem to “hear” the user, even without sound

After 7 days, the effect escalates:

• Encounters increase to 1d6 undead
• There is a 25% chance one is a more dangerous undead (ghoul, wight, etc.)

False Power

The horn appears to function as a normal Gravewind Bone Horn, but:

• Each use of a charged ability increases the chance of an encounter that day by +10%
• Undead created or controlled by the horn have a 10% chance each round to turn hostile

Breaking the Curse

The horn cannot be willingly discarded once played.

To break the curse, one of the following must occur:

• The horn must be shattered during a funeral procession in which no one speaks the name of the dead, while at least three participants knowingly mourn an unclaimed body
• It must be submerged in consecrated swamp water for 24 hours, while a continuous musical performance (minimum Perform DC 15) is maintained nearby
• A remove curse spell suppresses the effect for 24 hours, but does not end it

Destroying the horn ends the curse immediately, though any undead currently manifested remain.

Lore (Shared by Both Horns)

No one in Ville des Marai admits to crafting the first Gravewind Bone Horn, but there is a name that always surfaces in whispers: a musician who played at funerals and never refused a coin, no matter how strange the request. He was said to have learned songs that were not meant for the living - melodies that slowed the heart and stirred the earth.

It is said that during one particularly crowded season of death, when the cemeteries overflowed and the swamp began to reclaim the dead, the musician played a dirge so deep that the ground itself answered. The bodies did not rise in rage, but in confusion - drawn not to life, but to rhythm. For a brief time, they followed.

The earliest horns were created not as weapons, but as tools of control - ways to manage what should never have been disturbed. Gravediggers, spirit-workers, and certain less reputable figures used them to move the dead without touch, to quiet restless corpses, or to defend against worse things lurking beneath the waters.

But something changed.

Some horns began to play differently. Notes would linger too long. Echoes would arrive too early. Musicians reported that the music continued after they stopped, just beyond hearing. These horns - the cursed ones - did not command the dead. They announced the living.

Among the elders of Ville des Marai, there is a quiet warning: the dead do not march without reason. A proper second line celebrates and releases. A Gravewind dirge binds and directs. But the Unquiet Procession… that is something else entirely. It is not a parade.

It is a gathering.

And once you have been heard, you are never not part of it.