Barrow-wights

Barrow-Wights

Other names:
Barrow-dwellers, Wights

Origin and History:
While Wights share many of their characteristics with Wraiths and they, too, may enter their cursed world, they themselves are not Wraiths and their origins are very different. Wights have never been Humans or Elves, even though they are what reanimates the decaying body and cold bones of those long dead.

Instead they are spirits from the Unseen, corrupted and twisted, pulled or lured forth by means of dark sorcery. Some of them were given form and lost it, the mightiest of them Maiar who once manifested as powerful creatures, such as Balrogs or giant spiders, but were corrupted and eventually slain.

Yet, the Unseen, from whence they came, allows for neither good nor evil dispositions. Those spirits who have chosen or been forced to choose one distinct nature have no more room among their brethren. The neutral Unseen is barred for them and they have no bodies of their own, no way to interact with or manifest in the World of the Living. Therefore they hide in often precious objects that protect them from the sun and that will eventually be carried off and handed around among the living.

They do so only until they can reanimate a suitable corpse or choose a victim among the living which they will try to get killed or even kill themselves to take over their form.

They can be found in the darkest places of Middle Earth. Many have been sighted beyond the Old Forest where the Barrow-downs, the oldest burial ground of Men lies. It is said that the Witch-King of Angmar himself lead them there and drew them forth, helped them reanimate the corpses of the fallen warriors and kings of old.

Physical characteristics:
Barrow-Wights appear as the reanimated corpses that they have chosen, moving bones and decaying flesh, ripped clothes and broken armor, ancient jewellery rattling as they move, surrounded and held up by whispering shadows and with icy lights for eyes. Their voices ring deep, hollow and cold, and as cold is their touch.

Typical behavior:
A body, any body or bodily form, is what Wights desire most. With their own body lost and cut off from the Unseen they suffer, like any soldier who has lost a limb, feel pain that is no longer there, long for touch, for movement, for being.

This pain is what drives them, jealous and desperate. If they cannot find a suitable body among those already laid to rest, they will choose a victim among the living and do anything in their power to have them killed. The stronger ones among them will either lure their victim into their barrow, where they are the strongest, from the outside and kill them themselves or they will try to invade their minds, numb their will and force their steps in the right direction from the inside.

They force their victim to lie down in their crypt, bind them in pale cloth and precious jewellery and chains of gold and with a sacrificial sword or knife they kill, shattering mind and will but leaving the body as intact as possible for them to inhabit.

Even in this new form, however, they are easily hurt by sunlight and will flee from it. Sunlight can break the spell that binds the corpses to them and make them fade like mist.

Affiliation:
Many were corrupted and pulled out of the Unseen by Sauron and his most powerful servants. Now they are forced to serve their will, wittingly or unwittingly due to their nature and desires.