Wight (4e Race)

Wight

Whatever you were in your previous life, now you serve the whims of another.

Racial Traits

Average Height: Any from your Past Life Race

Average Weight: Any from your Past Life Race

Ability Scores: +2 to one Ability Score tied to your previous Race and +2 to Strength. In the case of choosing Human as your Past Life Race, gain +2 to any Ability and +2 to Strength.

Size:

Speed: The Speed of your Past Life Race +1 squares

Vision: Darkvision

Languages: All from previous Race as well as one other Language that your Necromancer Master speaks.

Skill Bonuses: +2 Endurance,+2 Intimidate.

Special: When you create your character, you have to choose another race as your Past Life Race, this race determines your Height, Weight, Size, Speed, Languages and contributes to Ability Score, Feat choices and Paragon/Epic choices. This race cannot already have the Undead keyword.

Living Dead: You are considered both alive and dead, you have the Undead keyword for the purposes of effects that relate to creature origin. You do not need to eat, drink or sleep however you do need to allow the arcane energy that reanimated you to recharge your body, 4 hours of uninterrupted rest is sufficient for this. During that period you are considered to be entirely aware of your surroundings.

Straddling the Threshold: When your hit points are reduced to 0 or fewer, you make death saving throws as normal however rolling 2 to 9 does not count as a failure, rolling 10 to 18 does not change your condition, 19 or 20 will allow you to spend a healing surge but rolling a 1 will be a failure as normal and you still die when your hit points are dropped to your bloodied value expressed as a negative. Whenever you would gain hit points from a power with the Healing keyword, you instead gain temporary hit points, also, rather than using the healing skill to assess wounds or help heal your character, the Arcane skill is used instead.

Enthralled: When creating your character, collaborate with your DM to also create a "Necromancer Master", this character's Will Defense is used for attacks against you (or when making saves) for Dominating or Controlling effects. You may choose one of your Master's Languages to add to your list of known Languages. See below for more on Necromancer Masters

Undead Resilience: You are immune to disease and do not need to make checks to resist the effects of extremes in temperature or weather. You have Resist Poison and Necrotic 2 + your Constitution Modifier but you have an equal amount of Weakness to Radiant damage.

Necrotic Aura: You gain the Necrotic Aura Racial Power.

Necrotic Aura	Wight 4e Power Type::Utility Power
You feel the arcane power that animates you coursing through your emaciated body, by releasing some of this energy you might suffer but your enemies will surely suffer more.
4e Power Usage::Encounter  Arcane, Necrotic
4e Power Action Type::Minor Action	Close Burst 2
Target: All creatures in the burst area
Effect: You take your Healing Surge value as damage to activate this power as a Minor Action and it remains active until you are reduced to 0 hit points or the Encounter ends, the initial damage cannot be reduced or negated in any way. Any creature that ends its turn within the burst area takes your healing surge value plus half your level Necrotic damage.
Special: You can choose to deactivate this power as a Minor action, if you do so, you may add your healing surge value +Con Modifier damage to your next Damage roll.

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In your past life you could have been anything or anyone; perhaps you were a towering Human warrior, maybe a pious Halfling cleric, a deadly Gnome ranger or even a powerful Dragonborn wizard. None of that matters now. Now you are a Wight, raised by dark magic for the mysterious purposes of a powerful arcanist; bound to their will but given enough autonomy to suit their needs, whatever they may be.

Physical Qualities

Wights tend to look similar to the Race they belonged to in their Past Life. Usually their bodies are gaunt with hardened musculature and pale skin, white eyes with almost translucent irises are common but sometimes they may also be other colours based on the magical preferences of their Necromancer Master. In some cases, especially if they have been in the service of their master for a very long time, Wights may visibly display arcane energy coursing and crackling through their body.

Attitudes and Beliefs

Wights tend not to hold their own attitudes or opinions of the world or (un)life but instead are compelled by the motivations of their Necromancer Master. Due to the domineering nature of the magic used to reanimate them, Wights don't normally have a patron god or gods unless it suits the needs of their master. All that being said, some Wights reject their master and attempt to escape their control, this can be difficult and few who succeed ever pass the news of their success on to others.

Wight Communities

Given the nature of their creation, Wights do not have communities in the sense that other races do. Wights under the control of their Necromancer Master might cohabitate with other Wights under that necromancer's control however family units are impossible and it is very difficult for Wights to trust others; if you knew how likely it was that there might be another person looking out through your friends' eyes, you would probably feel the same way.

Necromancer Masters

As a Wight, you have been resurrected by a being skilled in the Necromantic arts, this is usually a wizard but it can be any class (or even creature) that you and your DM like. When you create this character, you are mostly just working out what their known languages are and what their Will defense will be for the purposes of combating against your enemies' domination effects, however you can choose to make your Necromancer Master as basic or in depth as you want. When creating this character, discuss your Wights' origin, goals and the way that it fits into the world that you will be adventuring through; perhaps your master is a demon who is using you to help bring about the end of existence or maybe you are the proverbial sword-arm of a Gnome wizard attempting to stop evil by any means necessary. You might be traveling with your master or your master might be a mystery even to you, the possibilities are as expansive as with your own character and you both level at the same rate.

Wight Adventurers

Three sample Wight adventurers are described below.

Barbarian: Scarlet Sonya was a Half-Elf in her first life, but that came to an abrupt end when she led a band of warriors from her village against the stronghold of a mysterious cult encroaching on their lands, she and her comrades were all killed and her village sacrificed to a dark lord of the abyss. She was raised a mere day later and is now the unwilling servant of a demon bent on domination and bloodshed.

Fighter: Sydriss was a Dragonborn warlock in his first life but when the deal he had with his arcane patron turned sour he was left powerless and weak in the bowels of a dank dungeon. He died after weeks of starvation and torture only to be raised as a thrall to his enemies, luckily the mage that controls him is weak willed and prideful; Sydriss escaped and has been on the run ever since. Not wanting to place his trust in the arcane after what happened last time, Sydriss uses his new found physical prowess to battle his foes with a very large sword instead.

Warlord: Tyberius Hammerschmidt was one of the shrewdest Dwarven generals during the last eighteen years of the Great Goblin Wars, but that was over 500 years ago. Five centuries after his death at the hands of a rather ferocious ogre, Tyberius has been raised by a cleric of Erathis to help combat the rising tide of evil and chaos that threatens the civilized realms. Along with his team of skilled combatants, Tyberius has been given a second chance at life and a new sense of purpose, he gladly aids the cleric in her efforts to maintain order and defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Roleplaying a Wight

When creating a Wight adventurer, here are a few points to consider.

You're Dead You might be walking and talking like everyone else in the tavern but you are technically a corpse and some people might not be as accepting of that as others, expect to get some strange looks and maybe even barred from some establishments.

You're Enthralled... You are being controlled by a potentially unseen and/or unknown entity, many people may have an issue with this as there is no way of knowing who or what may be eavesdropping on their conversations or manipulating their actions.

but You're Autonomous You are more than a lowly zombie or ghoul, you have been given greater physical integrity and enough mental acuity to be able to accomplish fairly complex tasks. Your master may have endowed you with these traits so that you would be able to better fulfill their needs (who wants to have to micromanage every henchman after all) but what you do with these privileges is mostly up to you. Telling people that your body has a mind of its own usually won't cut it, especially with the ladies.

Wight Characteristics: Dour, untrusting, foreboding, detached, resilient, powerful.

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