Wight

In ancient speech "wight" simply meant a man, but over the centuries the word has come to name the undead that lurk in barrows and catacombs. Seen from afar, a wight could pass for any of several humanoid races. Up close it is a hideous echo of the person it once was: shriveled, leathery flesh stretched over a warped skeleton, cruel blazing eyes and fingers ending in sharp claws.

Wights are savage fighters. Their clawing blows deal 1-4 points each, and every hit also drains one life level, with all that entails for Hit Dice, class abilities and spells. A 9th-level wizard who takes a hit loses 1-4 hit points and becomes, in every respect, an 8th-level wizard.

A creature killed by this draining rises as a wight under its killer's command, with half its former levels, abilities and Hit Dice. If the master is destroyed, its spawn are freed and grow into full 4+3 Hit Dice wights. Restoring someone who has become a wight takes a special quest; it is nearly impossible otherwise.

Only silver or magical weapons harm a wight. Sleep, charm, hold and cold magic do nothing, nor do poison or paralysis. Prepared heroes still have tools: each splash of holy water burns for 2-8 points, and raise dead cast on a wight destroys it utterly. Wights hate bright light, sunlight included, and avoid it at all costs, though unlike vampires they take no damage from it.

Wights dwell in barrow mounds, crypts and similar places of the dead, shunning light and anywhere full of life. Hateful and evil, they try to kill every living thing they meet. Groups are common, but a wight is solitary at heart: any band consists of one leader and the lesser wights it has made, and the leader will gladly throw some or all of them away to save itself or win.

Like all undead, a wight exists on the Prime Material and Negative Material planes at once. That link powers its level drain, and the drained energy is what sustains it. Animals sense that it does not belong: dogs growl or howl, horses refuse to enter its haunts, and birds and insects go quiet as it passes. Plants near its lair slowly wither and die, marking the ground as unclean.