Wight (''Dungeons & Dragons'')

Wight
Characteristics
Alignment Lawful Evil
Image Wizards.com image
Publication history
Mythological origins Wight

A wight is an undead creature in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Publication history

The wight takes its inspiration from the barrow-wights in the world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Dungeons & Dragons (1974–1976)

The wight was one of the first monsters introduced in the earliest edition of the game, in the Dungeons & Dragons "white box" set (1974), where they were described as being able to drain away energy levels on a touch.[1]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977–1988)

The wight appears in the first edition Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as an undead human that inhabits barrow mounds or catacombs, evil and hateful, seeking to destroy all life it encounters.[2]

Dungeons & Dragons (1977–1999)

This edition of the D&D game included its own version of the wight, in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977, 1981, 1983).[3][4][5] The wight was also later featured in the Dungeons & Dragons Game set (1991), the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (1991),[6] the Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game set (1994), and the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game set (1999).[7]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989–1999)

The wight appears first in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989),[8] and is reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993).[9]

The wight undead dragon appears in Dragon #234 (October 1996).

Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 edition (2000–2002)

The wight appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2000).[10]

The lavawight and winterwight appear in the Epic Level Handbook (2002). The vilewight appeared in the Book of Vile Darkness (2002).[11]

The wight template appeared in Dragon #300 (October 2002), and included the troglodyte wight as a sample creature.

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition (2003–2007)

The wight appears in the revised Monster Manual for this edition (2003).

The wight was presented as a player character class in Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead (2004).[12] The slaughter wight also appeared in this book.

The dust wight appears in Monster Manual III (2004).[13]

The wight was detailed in Dragon #348 (October 2006), in the "Ecology of the Wight".[14]

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008–2014)

The wight appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2008).[15]

Description

A wight is given a semblance of life through sheer violence and hatred. A wight can drain the life energy out of victims by touch, turning them into new wights upon death.

A wight appears as a weird and twisted reflection of the form it had in life. Wights are always lawful evil.

Variant wights

  • Dust Wights – Undead formed by a conjunction of elemental earth and negative energy. They destroy all creations of stone and metal. Dust Wights are always chaotic evil.
  • Vilewight – Has exposed innards which flail out like serpents, each ending in a bile-dripping mouth. Vilewights are always neutral evil.
  • Slaughter Wight - Wights blessed by Evil Gods with greater strength and hatred for the living than regular Wights.

D&D Miniatures

The wight appears in the D&D Miniatures: Harbinger set #52 (2003).

Reception

Rob Bricken of io9 identified the wight as one of "The 12 Most Obnoxious Dungeons & Dragons Monsters".[16]

Other publishers

The wight is fully detailed in Paizo Publishing's book Undead Revisited (2011), on pages 58–63.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons (3-Volume Set) (TSR, 1974)
  2. ↑ Gygax, Gary. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977)
  3. ↑ Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson [1974], edited by J. Eric Holmes. Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (TSR, 1977)
  4. ↑ Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson [1974], edited by Tom Moldvay. Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (TSR, 1981)
  5. ↑ Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson [1974], edited by Frank Mentzer. Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules (TSR, 1983)
  6. ↑ Allston, Aaron, Steven E. Schend, Jon Pickens, and Dori Watry. Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (TSR, 1991)
  7. ↑ Slavicsek, Bill. Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game (TSR, 1999)
  8. ↑ Cook, David, et al. Monstrous Compendium Volume One (TSR, 1989)
  9. ↑ Stewart, Doug, ed. Monstrous Manual (TSR, 1993)
  10. ↑ Cook, Monte, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000)
  11. ↑ Cook, Monte. Book of Vile Darkness (Wizards of the Coast, 2002)
  12. ↑ Collins, Andy and Bruce R Cordell. Libris Mortis (Wizards of the Coast, 2004)
  13. ↑ Burlew, Rich, et al. Monster Manual III (Wizards of the Coast, 2004)
  14. ↑ Davis, Graeme. "The Ecology of the Wight." Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, 2006)
  15. ↑ Mearls, Mike, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2008)
  16. ↑ Bricken, Rob (2014-08-29). "The 12 Most Obnoxious Dungeons & Dragons Monsters". io9. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  17. ↑ Cagle, Eric, Brian Cortijo, Brandon Hodge, Steve Kenson, Hal Maclean, Colin McComb, Jason Nelson, Todd Stewart, and Russ Taylor. Undead Revisited (Paizo, 2011)
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