Dirge Piper

Under rare circumstances, an attempt to reanimate a skilled musician or performer as a mindless zombie is impeded by lingering occult magic that anchors a piece of the being's artistic soul to its shambling body. The resulting dirge piper retains a fragment of the person's former intellect and personality, but lacks the coordination and acuity to make true music any longer. Instead, they force air through the cavities and organs of their decomposing bodies to produce haunting piping, squelches, and trumpeting.

Most dirge pipers cling to a sense of fashion from their former lives, often obsessing over the condition of their clothes. They are aware enough of their deteriorating bodies that their own decay drives them into deepening despair. The only thing more disturbing to a dirge piper than their corpse is their own music. Despite hating the sounds they make, they cannot help but produce constant noise from their mouths and their wounds.

Although many necromancers consider the noisy dirge pipers a mistake, dirge pipers can be useful as leaders of other groups of zombies because their piping invigorates their fellow walking corpses. Even their putrid, trumpeting blasts resonate in a way that doesn't harm other zombies.