Undead and Perform (Wind Instrument) checks

[Telonius]

As a thought experiment, I'm putting together a Dread Necromancer, and am looking at the Undead Leadership feat. I'd love to incorporate the Bagpipes of the Damned (from Libris Mortis) as an item for the cohort, but it occurred to me - if a character doesn't breathe, would it be able to play it? I know I'm the DM and can handwave it either way (it's magic, a wizard did it, etc), but I was wondering if there were any specific rules on something like that. I couldn't find any on a quick search through Libris Mortis, Heroes of Horror, and a quick Google, but I'm wondering if anyone on the boards here knows of something obscure.

[Doctor Despair]

You need to exhale to speak, yet Necropolitans can speak just fine. It's probably assumed that undead CAN breathe, but don't because they don't need to.

[Palanan]

Obscure, you say?

Song and Silence addresses this very issue in a sidebar on p. 42, titled "Undead Bards". Wind instruments come up in the first paragraph:


Originally Posted by Song and Silence
Skeletons lack the lips and tongues necessary to play most horns and woodwinds, while zombies don't have enough breath to sound pipes, woodwinds and horns.

That's as much detail as the sidebar goes into, but it seems to lean against the undead-bagpipes concept.

[Telonius]

That's basically my thoughts on Necropolitans as well - and if there would be any problem for Necropolitan bards, they would have mentioned it in the entry.

Hadn't thought to look in Song and Silence, thanks! 3.0, so published way before Necropolitans were a thing. But the sidebar does mention the possibility of ghostly equipment (singling out "ghostly pipers"); so that's another officially-okay option.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Telonius
But the sidebar does mention the possibility of ghostly equipment (singling out "ghostly pipers"); so that's another officially-okay option.

True, although that sounds like the ghosts would be piping on the incorporeal counterparts of their earthly instruments, rather than using breath to play a tangible set of pipes. A ghostly piper along those lines sounds creepy-cool.

You might also try looking through Ghostwalk, since I vaguely recall something about undead musicians in there.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If a necropolitan can laugh, speak, sing, whistle, and even yell, playing wind instruments shouldn't cause any problems.

[Rijan_Sai]

Obscure, you say?

Song and Silence addresses this very issue in a sidebar on p. 42, titled "Undead Bards". Wind instruments come up in the first paragraph:


Skeletons lack the lips and tongues necessary to play most horns and woodwinds, while zombies don't have enough breath to sound pipes, woodwinds and horns.

That's as much detail as the sidebar goes into, but it seems to lean against the undead-bagpipes concept.

Fair enough... but the idea of bagpipe-playing skeletons amuses me enough that I have, in the last minute or so reading through this topic, arbitrarily decided that that sidebar shall henceforth and forevermore be ignored in any future game I may DM! And yes, specifically because "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain ****!"

[Zaq]

If it's bagpipes specifically, you could design a trinket* that works on the principle of the bottle of air and automagically refills the air in the bag even without the piper breathing into the instrument.

For general purposes, I guess it just depends on the tone of the game. If skeletal bagpipers would fit with the rest of your world (I mean, let's face it, it'd be pretty damn hard to properly cover the holes on the pipe with just bones and no flesh, but I'm still pretty comfortable with it under basic fantasy physics. If you'll allow a skeletal archer proficiently using a bow and arrow--a classic fantasy image--it's not really that much less realistic to allow musical instruments, at least as far as use-of-phalanges-as-proper-fingers goes), then go for it! It sounds fun and cool. But if it would break suspension of disbelief (y'know, more than just the concept of corpses being given a semblance of life via dark magicks and then those corpses deciding to practice music) because of the physics of missing lips and missing lungs and so on, then roll with that instead. Have your necrobard make dry remarks that skeletons make fine backup drummers but it's just not practical to have them fill out a wind section, which is why he has to get banshees involved instead. Or something to that effect.

Heck, now I'm imagining a musically-inclined necromancer specifically designing a new breed of skeleton that maintains just enough fleshy organs--lungs, trachea, lips, maybe a gross-looking diaphragm--to play a wind instrument. That's weird in an entirely different way and could be fun and unsettling.


(*Trinket: My term for a minor, flavorful magic item that is usually at most only tangentially related to the dirty business of adventuring. You won't find WotC referring to such items as trinkets; that's just what I like to call them. You also won't usually find WotC actually providing stats for them, either...)

[rediridesence]

I honestly viewed it as: "if the subject is capable of speech that includes yelling, singing, and other exaggerated things, then they are capable of using a wind instrument." as for how it will sound well thats the thing about music: many tones, and some people prefer some tones to others.

[thethird]

Take a cue from bonesinger (from ghostwalk) and turn your bones into chimes, as you move and air passes through the holes in your bones it makes sound

[Dawgmoah]

Song and Silence, and Ghostwalk, provide some direction though not much. It is my opinion that corporeal undead, like Necropolitans, Vampires, Ghouls, etc (maybe not Zombies being mindless) can inhale and exhale though they don't need to in order to survive. Necropolitans that strive to hide their undead status come to mind. And it would be cool so why not?