Wight

Wight
5th Edition Statistics
Type	Undead
Publication history
First appearance	Monsters & Treasure (1974)

At other wikis
Wikipedia	Barrow-wight
Forgotten Realms	Wight

Wights are undead monsters animated through the force of hatred and violence, creatures whose fury is now directed against all living beings. They are infamous for their ability to devour life essence, resulting in level drain. Those slain by wights rise as the very creature that slayed them, since wights can create spawn.

Description

Appearance

Wights appear as they were in life, but wild and pale, with claw-like hands, fang-filled mouths, and faces twisted into expressions of revulsion and hatred.

Notable wights

For a full list of named wights, see Category:Wights.

Publication history

Original D&D

Wights first appeared in the OD&D White Box set, where they were further described as being immune to normal missiles (arrows and sling-stones and the like), but not silver-tipped missiles, or magical missiles.

Creative origins

The term "wight" originally simply meant "person".

The use of the term dates back to a modern translation of Icelandic myth Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar, originally written around 1400 AD and translated in 1869 by William Morris as The Story of Grettir the Strong. In this story, Grettir robs a burial mound for its treasure, but is attacked by the corpse of the man buried there. Morris at one point translates haugbúi, literally meaning "barrow-dweller" (i.e. grave-dweller), as "barrow-wight".

This term "barrow-wight" in turn inspired in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which likely inspired its inclusion in the original release of Dungeons & Dragons.

Wights appeared in Gygax's 1971 miniature wargame Chainmail. They are immune by normal missile weapons, have a penalty when fighting in full light, and paralyze enemies by touch. Ghouls are considered statistically equivalent to wights, and zombies are similar but with different combat statistics.

In 2022, Dragon editor Tim Kask described his recollection of the origin of the D&D's wight :

"In most of the early writings about wights, a lot of the early folk tales, which attributed various powers to the wights [..] encountering a wight, had to do with just absolutely chilling... they sucked all of the heat out of the air, and they sucked all the heat out of you, and sort of froze you into immobility. That's the basis, as I know it, of what Gary and Dave did with the wight. [...] It was this literally freezing dread that would just render you incapable of movement. And wights draining levels; that easily rolls over into, as they suck the warmth out of you, they start draining you of levels."

In 2004, Gary Gygax described the level-draining ability of undead as originally inspired by the vampire's ability to drain blood:

"the vampire's level drain came from me. I decided upon it as a way of simulating that monster's capacity to weaken and make helpless its victims. Once established, the level-draining attack power made all undead so able into most fearsome opponents""