The word "wight" meant "person" in days of yore, but the name now refers to evil undead who were once mortals driven by dark desire and great vanity. When death stills such a creature's heart and snuffs its living breath, its spirit cries out to the demon lord Orcus or some vile god of the underworld for a reprieve: undeath in return for eternal war on the living. If a dark power answers the call, the spirit is granted undeath so that it can pursue its own malevolent agenda.

Wights possess the memories and drives of their formerly living selves. They will heed the call of whatever dark entity transformed them into undead, swearing oaths to appease their new lord while retaining their autonomy. Never tiring, a wight can pursue its goals relentlessly and without distraction.

Life Eaters

Neither dead nor alive, a wight exists in a transitional state between one world and the next. The bright spark it possessed in life is gone, and in its place is a yearning to consume that spark in all living things.

When a wight attacks, this life essence glows like white-hot embers to its dark eyes, and the wight's cold touch can drain the spark through flesh, clothing, and armor.

Shadow of the Grave

Wights flee from the world by day, away from the light of the sun, which they hate. They retreat to barrow mounds, crypts, and tombs where they dwell. Their lairs are silent, desolate places, surrounded by dead plants, noticeably blackened, and avoided by bird and beast.

Humanoids slain by a wight can rise as zombies under its control. Motivated by hunger for living souls and driven by the same desire for power that awakened them in undeath, some wights serve as shock troops for evil leaders, including wraiths. As soldiers, they are able to plan but seldom do so, relying on their hunger for destruction to overwhelm any creature that stands before them.

Undead Nature

A wight doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.

Wight

Life-Leeching Corpse Warrior

Wights are the withered corpses of relentless warriors whose wickedness sustains them beyond death. Unlike mere zombies, they retain the memories and evil agendas they harbored in life.

After dying and returning from the grave, a wight continues its villainous ways, but it is now driven by a hunger for life. A wight drains living essence through its attacks. Humanoids slain by a wight's life-sapping grip reanimate a day later and serve the wight as obedient zombies.

Wights might return from the dead for a multitude of sinister reasons. Roll on or choose a result from the Wight Motives table to inspire why a wight plagues the living.

A weird and twisted reflection of the form it had in life

A wight's appearance is a weird and twisted reflection of the form it had in life. A wight is about the height and weight of a human. Wights do not possess any of the abilities they had in life. If a wight touches (or is touched by) a living creature, that living creature suffers one level of energy drain (as described in the Encounter section). No saving throw is allowed. Striking a wight with a weapon does not count as "touching" it. Any humanoid slain by a wight becomes a wight by the next sunset (but not less than 12 hours later). Wight spawn are under the command of the wight that created them and remain enslaved until its death. Like all undead, wights may be Turned by Clerics and are immune to sleep, charm and hold magics. Wights are harmed only by silver or magical weapons, and take only half damage from burning oil.

Corpses of humans or demihumans, possessed by malevolent spirits.

A weird and twisted reflection of the form it had in life

Wights are undead corpses risen with a twisted intelligence. Their undead power is linked to the negative material plane, and thus they permanently drain a level of experience from victims when they score a hit in combat. Although they are not damaged by sunlight, they loathe the rays of the sun and do not emerge by choice from their barrows and lairs during daylight. A human killed by a wight becomes a wight under the control of its maker.