A wight was an undead creature given a semblance of life through sheer violence and hatred. They could drain the life energy out of victims by touch, turning them into new wights upon death.[3]
Description
Wights appeared as weird and twisted reflections of the forms they had in life.[3] They existed in a state between being alive and being dead. When attacking their prey, wights' eyes glowed like white-hot embers.[1] Their mummified flesh covered the twisted skeleton, the hands ended up in deadly claws,[4] and teeth were sharp and jagged like needles.[3]
Most wights were humanoid.[8]
Personality
Wights were evil undead creatures brought back to unlife by their vanity, evil deeds, and desires. Upon the ends of their mortal lives, the dying spirits reached out to Orcus or another evil deity, receiving undeath in exchange for spending eternity, hating and trying to destroy all living beings.[1]
Wights retained their personalities and memories in the undeath. They possessed free will at the same time as they were tasked to perform the bidding of the evil powers that brought them back.[1]
Even though wights hungered for living beings' energy, they did not require it as a source of sustenance. The wights could retain their undeath trapped in tombs for centuries. Their craving for life energy was more akin to an addiction. Sages theorized that when a wight drained a victim's life energy, it received a rush of mortality, euphoric reminder of their mortal existence. Chasing that feeling led to extremely depraved actions by wights.[9]
Wights were territorial creatures. They rarely traveled away from their burial places, or locations they knew in life unless commanded by their masters. Some exceptions to the rules indeed existed. Scholars theorized that the wights' attachment to their tombs was due to its reminder of their condition, a source of pride, rather than sorrow. Another theory was they dwelled in catacombs simply due to the tactical benefits of winding corridors and shadows.[9]
On contrary to wide belief, wights could be "born" anywhere, not necessarily in crypts and burial mounds. There were rumors of aquatic wights, returning to unlife among shipwrecks, possibly relating wights to lacedons.[10]
Combat
Upon touching someone living, wights drained the life out of the victim through flesh, clothing, and armor.[1]
Wights were known to serve other stronger undead creatures like wraiths and other evil beings. When they followed a leader, they often avoided strategy and planning, relying on their drive for death and destruction instead.[1]
A slaughter wight was able to release a death wail when slain. That ability whipped surrounding undead creatures into a frenzied attack.[2]
Ecology
Wights were active at night, retreating away from the hated sunlight into crypts, tombs, burial mounds, where they dwelt during the day. Unlike vampires though, wights simply disliked the sun, not harmed by it.[4] Their lairs were easily detected by eerie silence surrounding the area, abandoned by birds and wild animals, and abundant dead plant life.[1]
Humanoid victims of the wights were returned as zombies controlled by their killer.[1] The creatures that were killed with the life-draining attacks came back as enslaved wights themselves. If the master was slain, the wights that were created regained their malicious free will. Bringing a wight back to life was nearly impossible.[4]
A wight lurking in the darkness.
Like other undead, wights did not need air, food, drink, or sleep. They were resistant to necrotic damage and to damage dealt by non-magical and non-silvered weapons, immune to poison[1], and paralization[4]. Wights were unaffected by sleep, charm, hold spells.[1][4] Holy water was deadly to these undead creatures, and raise dead spell could instantly annihilate a wight.[4]
Due to their undead nature, wights existed simultaneously on the Prime Material as well as on the Negative Material planes, which granted them the powerful life-draining abilities that also nourished the creatures. A lot of animals could feel the presence of these evil dead creatures: dogs growled and howled, horses stopped and refused to move forward feeling the creatures, birds, and insects fell silent.[4]
History
The word "wight" meant "person" in the Realms' past.[1] Centuries later, the word came to be exclusively used to describe these catacomb-dwelling undead creatures.[4] There was no known spell that could create a wight, and the legends that described their origins were contradictory.[11]
The ancient barrow burial locations where wights could be often found could be found all over North-Western Faerun, namely the Moonshae Islands, Dalelands, and Rashemen. The Battle of Bones spawned a plethora of wights and undead over the years as well.[12]
In 1357 DR wights could be found infesting the Burial Glen in Myth Drannor along with other undead creatures.[13]
In 1371 DR a group of ten undead Purple Dragons wights roamed the High Road in Cormyr looking for the “enemies of Cormyr". In their twisted undead stare, of course, the enemies were all living beings.[14]
Notable Wights
- Na (wight) was a raised shell of a "resurrection agent" only knows as Harlot in 1463 DR.[15]
- Akar Kessell was a mage in Icewind Dale who attempted to conquer the region using Crenshinibon. He returned as a wight in 1485 DR attempting to poison the region with Black ice.[16]
- Hedrun Arnsfirth was the chosen of Auril that was turned into a wight after her defeat, and consequential imprisonment by the Red Wizards of Thay in 1485 DR.[16]
Appendix
Appearances
- Adventures
- Curse of Strahd
- Lords of Darkness: The Tombs of Deckon Thar
- Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land
- The Rise of Tiamat
- The Twilight Tomb
- Tomb of Annihilation
- Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
- How the Mighty Are Fallen
- Curse of the Azure Bonds
- Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor
- Vale of the Dragon Oracle
- Into the Dragon's Lair
- Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor
- Card Games
- Novels
- Video Games
- Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
- Dungeon Hack
- Icewind Dale
- Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
- Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms
- Neverwinter
- Pools of Darkness
- Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor
- Pool of Radiance
- Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace
- Treasures of the Savage Frontier
Further reading
- Tom Moldvay (October 1993). “Beyond the Grave”. In Roger E. Moore ed. Dragon #198 (TSR, Inc.), pp. 20–29;39.
- Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook (July 2003). Monster Manual v.3.5. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 255. ISBN 0-7869-2893-X.
- Andy Collins, Bruce R. Cordell (October 2004). Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 121. ISBN 0-7869-3433-6.
- Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), pp. 60–65.
- Logan Bonner (June 2011). “Bestiary: Wights”. In Steve Winter ed. Dungeon #191 (Wizards of the Coast) (191)., pp. 41–43.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Christopher Perkins (2014-09-30). Monster Manual 5th edition. Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Gray. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 300. ISBN 978-0786965614.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, James Wyatt (June 2008). Monster Manual 4th edition. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 262. ISBN 978-0-7869-4852-9.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook (July 2003). Monster Manual v.3.5. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 255. ISBN 0-7869-2893-X.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 Doug Stewart (June 1993). Monstrous Manual. (TSR, Inc), p. 360.. ISBN 1-5607-6619-0.
- ↑ Gary Gygax (December 1977). Monster Manual, 1st edition. (TSR, Inc), p. 100. ISBN 0-935696-00-8.
- ↑ Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 65.
- ↑ Template:Cite dungeon magazine/191
- ↑ Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 61.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 62.
- ↑ Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 63.
- ↑ Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 60.
- ↑ Graeme Davis (October 2006). “The Ecology of the Wight”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), p. 64.
- ↑ Jeff Grubb and George MacDonald (April 1989). Curse of the Azure Bonds. (TSR, Inc.), p. 71. ISBN 978-0880386067.
- ↑ Sean K. Reynolds, Steve Miller (2000). Into the Dragon's Lair. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 18. ISBN 0-7869-1634-6.
- ↑ Erin M. Evans (January, 2010). Realms of the Dead ("The Resurrection Agent"). (Wizards of the Coast). ISBN 0786953632.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 R.A. Salvatore, James Wyatt, and Jeffrey Ludwig (November 19, 2013). Legacy of the Crystal Shard. (Wizards of the Coast). ISBN 0-7869-6464-2.