Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

I think Nightwalkers have been in the game since 3e - at least, that’s when I first saw them along with other “Night-something” high level undead. Here, they’re only on the Monster Manual.

The Lore

The Shadowfell is the antechamber of the afterlife. Whenever someone dies, their spirit spends a time here before the Raven Queen sends it to its final destination. If an extremely strong-willed evil person dies, though, they might be able to hold on and stay in the Shadowfell through sheer orneriness. These eventually become Nightwalkers.

This origin is actually quite similar to those of Devourers, evil people who also avoid being sent to the afterlife and make new undead bodies for themselves. Could it be that the two are related? Maybe a Nightwalker is what you get when a Devourer eats enough souls. Or maybe they’re simply the luckier psychopaths who got to make themselves a body of solid shadow instead of having to settle for corpse bits.

As mentioned above, Nightwalkers have bodies made out of the stuff of the Shadowfell. This gives them the ability to control the energies of that plane to some extent, which manifests as a series of cold and necrotic powers in combat. They’re also expert ritual casters. One of the rituals they know is the one that makes bodaks, though power-hungry PC wizards will be disappointed to know it only works on the Shadowfell when cast by a nightwalker on someone they themselves killed.

Nightwalkers communicate through telepathy, and understand Common. They’re highly intelligent and no doubt always have an evil scheme or two cooking, with bodaks acting as their agents in these matters.

The Numbers

Nightwalkers are Large Shadow Humanoids with the Undead keyword. They’re Level 20 Elite Brutes with 464 HP and a host of passive traits. Darkvision, immunity to disease and poison, 20 resistance to cold and necrotic, and 20 vulnerability to radiant. They walk at speed 8.

They also emit a 5-square aura of Void Chill, which does 5 cold and necrotic damage to anyone caught inside.

The nightwalker’s basic attack is a Reach 2 slam that does some physical damage plus bonus cold and necrotic damage. Once per round as a minor action they can use a Void Gaze (close Blast 5 vs Will) which does a bit of necrotic damage, pushes the targets 4 squares, and give them a -2 penalty to all defenses (save ends). This is not a fear effect, so protection from fear doesn’t work against it.

Once per encounter, it can use the dreaded Finger of Death spell (ranged 5 vs. Fortitude). This can only be used against a bloodied target, but if it hits the target immediately drops to 0 HP. Necrotic resistance is useless against this! It’s a nice thing to use with an action point as soon as someone becomes bloodied.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

We have two:

  • Level 20: 1 nightwalker, 4 bodak reavers. Master and minions!

  • Level 22: 1 nightwalker, 1 tormenting ghost, 3 death giants. This would be more of a gathering of equals.

Those encounters cover the basics of how you can meet a nightwalker: they bow to no master, and surround themselves with either servants (all of the bodaks) or with other creatures they respect as equals.

I like the concept of nightwalkers a lot, though I have to say I prefer the 3e illustration that included nightcrawlers and nightwings. Those shadowy indistinct shapes were a lot scarier than the thing pictured here. I can see why the crawlers and wings didn’t make it here - they were basically the same monster with different shapes and levels. It would be relatively easy to homebrew them back into the game.