Barrow wight

W barrow wight
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Weapon 0d0 drain life, spell-casting, claw 1d4

W barrow wight
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Weapon 0d0 drain life, spell-casting, claw 1d4
Base level	3
Base experience	90
Speed	12
Base AC	5
Base MR	5
Alignment	-3 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1200
Nutritional value	0
Size	Medium
Resistances	Cold, sleep, poison
Resistances conveyed	None
A barrow wight: does not breathe. has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. does not eat. (*) is undead. is normally generated hostile. can follow you to other levels. can pick up weapons and food. never leaves a corpse.
Reference	monst.c#line1881

The barrow wight, W, is a monster that appears in NetHack. They are members of the wraith monster class; like most other wraiths, they have a level draining attack, are resistant to cold, sleep and poison, and typically do not leave corpses.

Barrow wights have a small handful of monster spells that can stun the player, increase their speed, heal themselves, or assault the player's mind.

Generation

A barrow wight always generates with a long sword and a knife.

Barrow wights typically begin appearing once a character has gained a few experience levels and is on their way Minetown or the Oracle. They are among the monsters that can be generated as part of the second quest monster class for the Wizard quest. Characters that die at the hands of a barrow wight will leave a named wraith in bones instead of a ghost.

Strategy

Barrow wights move at the same speed as an unhasted, unburdened hero, and can be more troublesome than expected. They will often throw their knife (and any other projectiles they comes across) upon spotting you; however, a barrow wight's melee attacks are not particularly strong, but can drain levels and still cause significant damage using the long sword. Their spellcasting can also potentially prolong a fight, and may be even more trouble when fighting multiple foes. Alert players, especially ones that can stay out of melee range, can handle them fairly quickly and without too much trouble.

Once a wight is destroyed, the long sword may be of interest to lawful characters looking to dip for Excalibur. Barrow wights are also a source of knives for roles capable of utilizing them as projectiles, e.g. Healers and Rogues.

History

The barrow wight first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Origin

A "barrow" is a burial mound, such as the ones used in Neolithic times, while the word "wight" generally refers to a form of undead; the latter word describes a living human being in its original Old English usage, and has since come to be used within fantasy works such as A Song of Ice and Fire and Vampire: The Masquerade to describe immortal ghost-like beings. The earliest example of the modern wight is in William Morris's 1869 translation of the Grettis saga, a work of Icelandic family prose; here, haugbui (referring to undead monsters Glámr and Kárr) is translated as "barrow-wight".

NetHack derives barrow wights from J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth, which in turn bases them on Nordic folklores such as the ones translated by Morris, and they are typically depicted as wraith-like evil spirits; in The Lord of the Rings, the hobbit Frodo and his company narrowly escape a barrow-wight with the aid of Tom Bombadil, who then arms the group using "barrow-blades" and ancient swords from the wight's treasure-hoard (the basis for the barrow wight's NetHack starting inventory).

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM and other derived variants such as SlashTHEM, barrow wights are a decent monster form for early Dopplegangers due to their resistances and level-draining attack, though their carry cap is somewhat low.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, barrow wights are slightly more common; if a player is killed by a Nazgul, they will rise as a barrow wight in the bones file.

Encyclopedia entry

When he came to himself again, for a moment he could recall
nothing except a sense of dread. Then suddenly he knew that
he was imprisoned, caught hopelessly; he was in a barrow. A
Barrow-wight had taken him, and he was probably already under
the dreadful spells of the Barrow-wights about which whispered
tales spoke. He dared not move, but lay as he found himself:
flat on his back upon a cold stone with his hands on his
breast.

[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]