Wight, Barrow Barrow Wight

Medium undead, lawful evil

Armor Class 19 (plate, shield)
Hit Points 133 (14d8 + 70)
Speed 25 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
22 (+6) 13 (+1) 20 (+5) 13 (+1) 17 (+3) 20 (+5)

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t silvered
Damage Immunities cold, necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned
Senses blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages Common, Dwarven
Challenge 11 (7,200 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Dream Haunting. The barrow wight may cast scrying on any creature currently affected by its nightmare touch without the use of components. It may also inflict horrifying nightmares on the subject, forcing the target to succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or take 3d6 psychic damage after it completes a full rest.
  • Innate Spellcasting: The barrow wight’s spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 17). The barrow wight can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
  • Magic Resistance. The barrow wight makes saving throws against spells and magical affects with advantage.

ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The barrow wight may make two falchion attacks, or one falchion and one nightmare touch attack Falchion. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (1d10 + 7) slashing damage, plus 9 (2d8) necrotic damage.
  • Nightmare Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d6 + 5) necrotic damage and the target must make a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. On a failed saving throw, the target’s hit point maximum is reduced by the damage taken and the target is haunted by horrifying nightmares. While affected, the target gains no benefit from a full rest. Targets affected by nightmare touch may repeat the saving throw at the end of a full rest to remove the effects. Greater restoration, dispel good and evil, or remove curse will also end the effects. On a successful saving throw, a creature is immune to the nightmare effects of nightmare touch for 24 hours, but not the reduction of hit point maximum. A humanoid whose hit point maximum is reduced to 0 by this attack becomes a normal wight at the next sunset under the control of the barrow wight. The barrow wight may not have more than six wights under its control at a time.

LAIR ACTIONS

The bleak moods of a barrow wight influence the natural world around its barrow as well, allowing them to maintain a rather dismal demesne if they so choose. Cannier barrow wights, however, create pleasant conditions to lure the unwary into their domain, before a sudden change in the weather swathes their land in chill winds, clinging fogs, or driving rain. Lost and terrified victims seeking shelter may be taken captive, spirited away beneath the hills and cairns and turned into living dead bound to the wight‘s will. Barrow wights sometimes release their captives after a dream-haunted slumber, imparting a bit of their deathless shadow into the target’s heart, soul, and mind and corrupting their thoughts and dreams from afar. These unfortunates become the barrow wight‘s unwitting pawns in undermining its enemies in the waking world or just in sowing misery and despair. Perhaps cruelest of all are those the barrow wight turns loose after their capture, allowing them to hope for rescue or escape from their living nightmare if only they could find their way out of the wight‘s necropolis, but the twisted enchantments laid on the wight’s barrow subtly steer disoriented victims right back into the dread creature’s clutches.

The barrow wight may take a lair action to cause one of the following effects on Initiative count 20 (losing ties).

  • The barrow wight creates fog as though it had cast the fog cloud spell. The fog lasts until the end of initiative count 20 on the next round.
  • The barrow wight animates the spirits of the former servants buried with it. The spirits attack one creature that the barrow wight can see within 60 feet. The target must make DC 17 Constitution saving throw against the attack. On a failed saving throw, the target takes 6d6 (21) necrotic damage and is weakened. Weakened targets make Strength and Dexterity checks and saving throws at disadvantage until the end of initiative count 20 on the next round. A successful saving throw reduces the damage to half (10) and prevents the weakening.
  • The barrow wight knows the exact location of any creature within 6 miles of its barrow that is carrying an item stolen from the wight.

REGIONAL EFFECTS

The region around the barrow wights lair is subject to the emotional whims of the creature, creating the following effects:

  • The barrow wight can alter the weather within 6 miles of its barrow. This effect is identical to the control weather spell.
  • The barrow wight can pierce the veil between the Material plane and the Ethereal within 6 miles of its barrow, causing visions of dead spirits to appear in the region. These spirits are typically mindless husks posing no physical threat to Material world, but a creature encountering one or more of these spirits makes saving throws against fear effects at disadvantage while in the region.
  • The barrow wight can alter the appearance of the terrain within a 6-mile radius centered on its barrow. This effect is identical to the hallucinatory terrain spell.

ABOUT

Forlorn and fearsome, barrow wights were once warlords or princes of old. While some few came to their current state by the powerful curse of a darkling power, most earned an eternity of unlife through their own dire and dreadful predations, whether in war and conquest or in the oppression and exploitation of their own people.

Immortal Greed. Barrow wights are usually sealed in death within ancient burial grounds, in grand cairns and mausoleums meant as both memorial and remonstrance for future generations of the exploits and final fate of tyrants. Arising into unlife, some barrow wights harbor no grandiose ambitions, preferring to simply lie forever in dark repose upon their funerary biers, surrounded by the treasures carried with them into the afterlife. Despite their seeming quiescence, however, their undead spirit loses none of its potency, and the power of its avarice infuses its resting place as it jealously tallies and catalogues every relic of its former glory, ready to unleash hell itself upon any with the effrontery to rob them.

Reign of Death. Most barrow wights, however, seek to establish kingdoms of the dead (or rarely of the living), that they may continue their reign in death as in life, sitting enthroned as a lord of old upon thrones hewn from the very living rock. While greed runs deeply in the cold heart of a barrow wight, it is not only avarice but a thirst for power and authority that drives them into their restless undead state. They crave obeisance and honors from others, be they mindless corpses, undead spawn, or cowed living minion.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Faerie Bestiary (5E) © 2022, Legendary Games; Authors Matt Kimmel, Michael “solomani” Mifsud, Miguel Colon, Robert J. Grady, Jason Nelson, Jeff Ibach, Tim Hitchcock.

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