A Wraith is the spirit of a person who has made an evil bargain to persist after natural death or has been forced involuntarily into its current undead state. This transformation frees them of the limits of a natural lifespan and grants them immunity to diseases, poison, and loss of lifeforce. Wraiths also need to have little fear of cold, and they can see well in the dark. A Wraith's corporeal form has terrible vulnerabilities: fire and most holy word are dangerous to Wraiths. Their tenuous form makes them quick and somewhat hard to hit, but also weaker and less hardy.

Wraiths have a strong affinity to magic, especially cold spells, and are very strong spell casters. However, they cannot use fire spells for fear of self-destruction. Players wishing to use fire spells later in the game may prefer to select another race such as an elf or human, and become a follower of Devourers, if they can live without the race-specific perks.

Wraiths also do not heal naturally or gain sustenance from food. Instead, they have to feed off the living using Wraith Feed.

The wraith is selectable by players as their race. It has the following modifications:

• +100 drain
• +100 ghosthit
• +100 poison
• +30 cold
• -25 fire

• Denied fire path magic
• Undead status (vulnerable to holy word attacks)

• High sustenance
• Can see in dark
• Attuned to cold path magic
• Cold and Physical attack

Get protection from fire. Consider walking away from burning hands and dragon's breath traps!

To survive, it is necessary to switch to wraith feed very quickly. Keybinding to switch to wraith feed when another weapon is NOT applied: ready_skill wraith feed; shoottype skill Unfortunately, a generic command to un-apply ANY melee weapon is not known. One must hard-code a match of the weapon name in a keybind (i.e. apply -u hammer; ready_skill wraith feed; shoottype skill. One workaround to this problem is to rename all melee weapons a character will wield with a unique prefix like the player name (i.e. rename <weapon name> to <playername weapon name>). Once this is done, use apply -u playername; ready_skill wraith feed; shoottype skill.

Use the command unarmed_skill wraith feed. This should assure wraith feed is used by default when a weapon is not equipped.

Speed and protection are likely the best ways to level wraith feed in the early game. Find a few speed +2 rings, and/or throw in some Str + boosts to increase base damage. Ignore Spell regen penalty and armor up the character, have a good weapon on hand for use when wraith feed isn't sufficient.

While wraith feeding, hug corners and walls to reduce contact with monsters. As needed, and if possible, speed-run to the exit and do not try to clear hard rooms.

At least in the early game, generators give more experience than low-level monsters. It is sometimes reasonable to attack the generators with wraith feed to get experience faster. This may seem counter-intuitive, however, it is sometimes less boring (faster gameplay).

Life stealing does not do a lot of damage, but it gives damage done as HP to the player. It only does 1/30'th normal damage. In comparison, wraith feed gets 1/2 damage (vs. 1/30th damage). See Also: server/attack.cpp. Even so, sometimes it is best to use weapon or magic on tough monsters to shorten fights if one can soak damage dealt.

The attack-type of wraith feed is life-stealing. A victim is protected by either drain or life stealing resistance. The higher value is used in resolving attack damage.

In a crowded room, it may be easier to survive by targeting many different monsters. According to wraith_feed when wraith feed hits, it can slow down creatures. (Is this actually true?)

Watch damage messages. If You feed upon … does not appear, wraith feed is not in use.

You can't steal life from something undead or not alive. This includes golems, doors, etc.

Try to avoid getting totally surrounded and bogged down in a crowd of undead creatures.

Healing potions and spells are helpful as per usual.

Sell the food you find. You do not need it.