D&D Monster Spotlight: Wights are Everything You Hate About Zombies and Vampires Combined
Undead, cunning, and able to drain your party of their live force, the Wights are something you don’t want to meet in the dark.
Wights are old monsters from English mythology. They’ve appeared in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and George R.R Martin to name a few. These immortal and undead creatures used to be human, but now they’re something much worse. A horrible mixture of zombies and vampires, they’re a perfect spooky Halloween-time monster. So let’s get scared with the Wights.
First Edition
Wights are undead humans who hate all light and typically inhabit burrows or catacombs. This may make them sound like your run-of-the-mill evil undead creature, but the Wights have an almost vampiric twist. They exist on the normal and negative aspects of the material planes simultaneously and can only be affected by silver or magical weapons. Wights drain their victims of life energy and sometimes even a portion of the spellcasting ability before being turned into one themselves. They can’t be charmed, held, paralyzed, put to sleep, or hurt with cold and are generally all-around bad news bears.
Second Edition
The word “Wight” used to mean “man,” but over time has become associated with these creatures that could only be momentarily confused with a living humanoid. They have jagged, skeletal claws that are fierce in battle as well as feeding on the life force of their foes. A victim slain by a Wight will rise again as one themself under the control of the monster who slew them. And they’ll do so with all of the powers of a Wight and half of their previous levels and abilities. Like many undead life-consuming creatures, holy water can be deadly. While bright light is something they hate being exposed to, it will not cause them physical harm like it would vampires. So while it wouldn’t do damage, it may work to temporarily drive them back.
Third Edition
There are only a few changes to Wights between the second and third editions. They can now speak common. Which may not be a huge change as much as something which hadn’t been explicitly stated before. Also, newly turned Wights no longer retain any of the abilities they had in life. They also have racial bonuses to Move Silently checks, so these aren’t your average mindless shambling zombie. They are at least intelligent enough to communicate and attempt to approach undetected.
Fourth Edition
4E follows its normal commitment to making each monster a little more complicated than it ever needed to be. This edition has five varieties of Wight to choose from. There is, of course, your average run-of-the-mill Wight, specializing in claw attacks and necrotic damage. The Deathlock Wight uses Grave Bolt to immobilize enemies and keep them at a distance as well as utilizing Reanimate to bring back a fallen ally. Battle Wights and their Commanders use longswords to attack their enemies in face-to-face combat as well as Soul Reaping or Harvesting attacks. Appropriately, the Battle Wight Commanders are more clever and patient, making them better suited for command. Finally, Slaughter Wights are strong and tireless enemies, attacking anything and everything with superior strength and sometimes drawing even more monsters into a battle to assist.
Fifth Edition
Though Wights are evil and compelled to answer the call of their new evil lord, they retain the memories and drives of their former lives. Now though, they aren’t created when the living are defeated by another Wight. Instead, they come about when a soul asks Orcus for undead life in return for waging eternal war on the living. When an adventurer is drained completely by a Wight they still rise. But now as a mindless zombie under the monster’s control. So, y’know, not really any better. Don’t worry though, a Wight can only control twelve zombies at a time. Just twelve. No big deal.
Which version do you picture when you think of Wights? Has your party encountered one? Was anyone turned into a Wight or a zombie themselves? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
