College of Dirgesinging

Dirgesingers come from high positions in death worshiping cultures. Serving as members of a secret guild or as part of a hierarchy of death priests, they are entrusted with the serious responsibility of composing suitable laments for the dead. The more important the deceased , the more sorrowful and moving their lament is expected to be. No one will remember a dead queen in a few short generations, but a great lament might be sung a thousand years hence.

Song of Sorrow

When you join the College of Dirgesinging at 3rd level, you gain the ability to evoke sorrow and lament in your enemies.

As a bonus action, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to perform a song of despair. When you do so, choose a creature you can see and that can hear you within 60 feet of you, that creature must make a wisdom saving throw against a performance skill check. On a failure, the creature has disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws and any attack rolls made. The creature can reattempt the saving throw at the end of their turns. On a success the creature is unaffected and immune to the song of sorrow for 24 hours.

Necrotic Casting

At 3rd level you may choose a necrotic cantrip from the wizard spell list. The chosen spells count as bard spells for you but don’t count against the number of bard spells you know.

Song of Awakening

At 6th level your lamenting song can have great power over the undead. Once per long rest you can use an action to animate the recently slain corpse of a creature within 30 feet. The slain creature can have no more Hit Dice than the dirgesinger’s character level. If the attempt fails, the dirgesinger can try again in a later round. The corpse to be awakened must have been dead for no more than 1 hour.

The awakened creature’s type becomes undead, and it retains any subtypes it had. The creature retains all class features, as well as any supernatural or spell-like (but not legendary) abilities it possessed in life (though any spells cast or daily uses expended before the creature’s death count against its normal limits). The awakened creature is completely loyal to the dirgesinger and obeys any commands given it (if no commands are given, it simply attacks the dirgesinger’s foes). The creature remains animate for 1 hour thereafter it falls inanimate again. 

At 11th level, the Song of Awakening can be performed every short rest.

Song of Horror

At 14th level, you can strike a horrifying chord in the hearts of your enemies. You can spend a use of bardic inspiration to have any enemy within 60 feet who can hear the dirgesinger must make a Wisdom save or take 4d6 psychic damage or half as much on a successful save.

This damage increases to 6d6 at 18th level.