The Fungus Choir

The Fungus Choir is a grotesque and arcane instrument-organism, grown deep within the sanctums of the Withered Wilds. Equal parts biological and mystical, it is neither built nor played in the traditional sense, but cultivated through necrotic rites and fungal grafting. It is revered by Withered Elves, Rot-Speakers, and seers as a sacred tool of communion, command, and psychological warfare.

To many in the Withered Wilds, the Fungus Choir is more than an instrument—it is an oracle, a weapon, and a relic, whose voice shapes the fate of fungi, the dead, and the dreaming alike.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Rather than producing melodies, the Fungus Choir emits vibrational tones, psychic pulses, and haunting harmonics that affect the mind, spirit, and sometimes even the dead. It is capable of:

• Beast Speech – Emitting low-frequency harmonics that can call, calm, or command beasts, especially fungal-influenced ones.
• Undead Directive – Infusing its tone with necromantic intent, allowing the user to issue commands to nearby undead, or disrupt enemy necromancers' control.
• Psychic Terror – Producing discordant mental pulses that induce fear, nausea, hallucinations, or seizures in unshielded minds.
• Communion Hymn – Aligning with the Rot-Speakers’ chants to pierce the veil between worlds, allowing spirits or Fungal Gods to speak through the Choir.

Significance

Some say the first Fungus Choir was grown atop the corpse of a dead forest god, its vocal cords grafted into the bark by the Hollow Choir. Others believe it is semi-sentient, hungering for pain and ecstasy, and that each song it plays carries a memory of decay long forgotten.

Each known Choir is unique in tone and temperament, with some known to refuse certain players, or to go silent for decades in mourning or dormancy.

Item type

Musical Instrument

Current Location

Blackthorn Keep

Current Holder

Daerion Blackthorn

Raw materials & Components

The Choir resembles a towering, root-entwined organ of bark, bone, and mushroom-flesh. Fungal stalks rise like twisted pipes, each capped with resonant gill structures that vibrate when exhalations of spore-rich air pass through them. Beneath the central stalk lies a bloated mycelial core, throbbing with unnatural life and laced with fossilized vocal cords from long-dead beasts and elves.

Inputs are organic:

• Root-tubes connect to spellcasters, who "play" the Choir by channeling emotion and thought into it.
• Sporespines—fungal feelers—extend into the floor and surrounding walls, drawing in vibrations and memories to flavor the output.