Dragon, Negative Energy

Negative Energy Dragon

Negative energy dragons, often shortened to negative dragons, are the exact opposite of positive energy dragons. They are made up of the very essence of undeath. Because of this, they are viewed as evil by many creatures. This is completely untrue; they care no more for good or evil than do positive dragons.

Negative dragons superficially resemble gold dragons (as do positive dragons). They are pure black in colour, however, and seem to suck the light out of an area. Their eyes are a cold, steely gray, and emanate the very essence of undeath.

Negative dragons speak their own language, the language of xeg-yi, and a language common to all elemental dragons. At birth, 20% of them can speak with any intelligent creature. This chance increases by 7% per age category.

COMBAT: Negative dragons are cunning and devious. They use whatever means they have to defeat their opponents.

BREATH WEAPON/SPECIAL ABILITIES: A negative dragon’s breath weapon is a cone of negative energy that is 45′ long, 35′ wide, and 20′ high. Creatures caught in the cone lose 1/4 (round up) of their life energy (levels or HD) permanently, and suffer damage; a successful saving throws vs. breath weapon reduces the life energy lose to 1 level and only take half damage. Negative plane protection prevents this life energy loss. A character reduced to 0 or fewer levels dies and becomes a wraith in 2d4 days unless a Restoration or properly worded Wish spell is cast upon them.

• A negative dragon casts spells and uses its magical abilities at 15th level plus its combat modifier.
• Negative dragons are born immune to energy draining and with the ability to hide in shadows with a 45% base chance of success; this ability increases 5% per age category to a maximum of 95%. Negative dragons are also immune to most forms of physical and magical attack. They take double damage from positive energy attacks. They are harmed normally by weapons of +3 or greater enchantment.
• As they age, they gain the following additional abilities: Young: Spectral hand at will. Juvenile: Vampiric hand at will. Adult: Slay living three times per day. Mature Adult: Death spell three times per day. Old: Energy drain three times per day. Very Old: Destruction three times per day.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Negative dragons, like all elemental dragons, rarely, if ever, leave their home plane. Negative dragons have been seen on other planes when there is a large congregation of undead. It is rumoured that Factol Skall of the Dustmen has learned how to bind these creatures to his will. Somewhere along the line, one of the previous Doomguard factols is thought to have discovered a similar technique. Of course, he disappeared shortly after he is said to have summoned a few to Sigil to cause a little entropy.

Like positive dragons, all negative dragons are true neutral, with no bend towards chaos, law, evil, or goodness. They are commonly viewed as evil because of their association with undead, though.

ECOLOGY: Negative energy dragons live off the life force of other creatures. Unlike positive dragons, who merely bask in it’s presence like a lizard in the sun, negative dragons actually absorb the energy. They very rarely (once every few hundred years) need to do this, however.

Age Category	Body (‘)	Tail (‘)	AC	Breath Weapon	Wizard/Priest Spells	MR	Treasure	XP Value
1	13-25	12-22	-2	4d12+1	Nil	Nil	Nil	20,000
2	25-37	22-34	-3	6d12+2	Nil	Nil	Nil	21,000
3	37-49	34-44	-4	8d12+3	1	35%	E, S, T	23,000
4	49-61	44-56	-5	10d12+4	2	40%	H, S, T	24,000
5	56-73	56-66	-6	12d12+5	2 2	45%	H, S, T	25,000
6	73-86	66-76	-7	14d12+6	2 2 2	50%	H, S, Tx2	27,000
7	86-99	76-90	-8	16d12+7	2 2 2 2 / 1	55%	H, S, Tx2	28,000
8	99-112	90-101	-9	18d12+8	2 2 2 2 2 / 2	60%	H, S, Tx2	29,000
9	112-126	101-114	-10	20d12+9	2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	65%	H, S, Tx3	31,000
10	126-140	114-126	-11	22d12+10	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2	70%	H, S, Tx3	32,000
11	140-154	126-139	-12	24d12+11	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 2	80%	H, S, Tx3	33,000
12	154-168	139-152	-13	26d12+12	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2 2	85%	H, S, Tx4	35,000

Source: John Kastronis, Jon Winter-Holt