The Flute of Bones

Though I can't recall its inspiration, this magic item is almost certainly unoriginal. But I think I've got a little twist on it that makes it quite interesting. It fits with my theory of magic items, such as it is: that they should involve both risks and rewards.

The Flute of Bones is a short, five-holed instrument made from a human femur. When played, it causes up to three nearby skeletons (human, animal or monstrous) to animate and attack the flautist's foes. The skeletons need no direction, but the flautist can call them off by stopping playing (they will stand still for a moment, then collapse in a heap of bones, only to reassemble themselves when the flute is played again).

The flute requires largely intact and largely clean skeletons to work its magic, but it will make do with 'kitbashing' the necessary parts from what's available. The bones of a headless man and a deer's skull, for instance, will produce a deer-skulled skeleton; likewise a human skull and the bones of a dog. The flute has a preference for human bones where it can get them, but also has a fondness for symmetry: a human ribcage, one arm and a head, along with the complete skeleton of a bear, will result in a human-headed bear skeleton. But as beheaded human skeletons are common, animal-skulled variations are frequently produced.

Any skeleton reanimated (or assembled) by the flute will continue to obey it until it has been 'killed' in combat. After this happens, none of the bones involved will respond to its music.

To be animated by the flute, a skeleton - or sufficient component parts - must be readily available. Playing the flute in an conventional graveyard will have no effect; bones will not disinter themselves. In an ossuary, however, or in an ogre's lair, skeletons will happily pry themselves from the dust. In other words, half-buried bones will rise; those fully covered by the earth, as in a formal burial, will not.

That, of course, incentivises the flute's owner to body-snatching. It also provides a rationale for carrying around a sack of old bones. After all, skeletons are comparatively light. Typically, when the flute is discovered, a sack containing 1D3 skeletons and some light weaponry will be found with it, the previous owner having been ambushed before he could put flute to lip.

But neither grave-robbing nor bone-carrying are activities likely to endear adventurers to the authorities - especially if those bones need regular replacement from local necropolises. The flute's owners are likely to find themselves subject to social sanction - or offering themselves as future candidates for musical reanimation from the confines of a local gibbet.

When the flute is played, it produces a complex, haunting tune in a minor key. The melody is never the same and emerges with indifference to the flautist's ability or intentions.