Barrow Wight

Kvasir of Midgarth describes barrow wights as grim, evil things prowling the tombs of ancient lords, learned in dark magic and eager to extend their dominion over any mortal they catch. Most scholars think they are related to ghouls, perhaps a variant. They look much the same, but a wight keeps its body hair, looks less like a corpse and hates light far more. Some suggest the difference comes from the strength of the original victim's life force, noting that wights usually turn up in the tombs of kings, lords and generals, as if the powerful and strong-willed are likeliest to become wights.

Wights lack the ghoul's venom and do not eat dead flesh. Instead they drain the life energy of the living by touch, which is both their deadliest weapon and their only food. They prefer to dwell underground in tombs and crypts, though at night they may come out to look for living prey near the tomb.

They are highly intelligent, can speak, and many know some black magic or mysticism (the appendix gives 30% of them Black Magic at 1st-3rd level); a handful are illusionists who befuddle travelers and lead them into traps. Ordinary weapons do half damage to them, while magic and magic weapons work fully. Like ghouls they have remarkable senses, and some are said to detect astral presences, though scholars of the undead still argue over this. Each claw hit also drains 1 point of energy per level of the wight, and a wight can sense living beings up to 200 feet away.