Negative Energy

Negative Energy is an otherworldly phenomenon that fueled the genesis of undead to naturally spawn or rise from corpses in Xostya. It is primarily part of the reason why undead monsters continued to exist in the world of the living and serve to bolster their power each passing time.

Overview
Different types of undead monsters are often born from the negative energy that is contained in the surrounding area. The process of an undead to be birth differs for some but functions similarly by the necessity of having negative energy to encompass its creation. In this case, to successfully craft a Skeletal Dragon must required two months of elaborate rituals and an immense quantity of negative energy for it to be possibly achievable. With ample negative energy existing in several regions of Xostya, there are always bound to be a spawning ground for where a frequent amount of low-ranking undead would roam about aimlessly. As many undead entities have negative energy, so are their feelings toward the living being negative with a few exceptions. It seems apparent that negative energy from the fallen is a composition of their resentment at how each one died, why each one died, or how each one was treated after death respectively. Due to the malicious atmosphere exuding from that presence of negativity, prayers and burial practices were often done to show great respect and care as a way to pacify this negative energy. Those like evil magic casters in that regard, who was once part of the living after dying will face an unnatural rebirth, becoming part of an undead race where its body is now made up of negative energy.

Mechanics
Among the undead, there are creatures like Elder Liches who possessed a skill that allows them to inflict negative energy damage on anything they touched. Particularly, those who are part of the living as it could prove to be detrimental to their health. Compared to the undead, negative energy flowing into a living creature’s body will only be served to rob them of their vitality or positive life force. It was possible for this ability to deactivate temporarily by the user. In order for the living to protect themselves from negative energy, one may need to consider casting the defensive spell, [Protection Energy - Negative] on themselves against it as resistance. Wearing a fully-equipped armor alone doesn't defend oneself from a negative energy's touch. The ability-damaging negative energy touch can easily bypass through the living being's armor and harm them without a problem.

Spells like [Greater Lethal], [Undead Flame], and [Ray of Negative Energy] or the magic items that have them stored are made of negative energy served to help them survive despite taking damage by positive energy. For instance, wounded undead entities can receive any types of healing from them as long as it connects to the negative energy provided. Using negative energy attack spells on undead-type foes won't deal any damage to them whatsoever as that will only be served to heal their wounds off from it. This could even affect an undead's hair being restored back to its original length after cutting it with normal means like a scissor. Furthermore, non-living objects like doors would take less damage from negative energy bursts while the living sustains more than their counterparts.

However, negative energy and undead can go on existing spiritually without needing to have a physical form. The only way to drive away from the negative energy in areas that contained it is by using holy/divine power through a priest, cleric or magic item capable of doing so. Once the cleansing has been thoroughly done, the air in such an area that was initially filled with negative energy will now have its own fill of freshness as if a cool breeze had just passed by. Depending on the amount of negative energy surrounding an area, it will sometimes be proven possible or impossible for prayers to cleanse. For the latter case of E-Rantel's Cemetery, massive prayers will not be enough to completely purify it all away due to the many souls whose resentment lingered upon that graveyard, causing the negative life force or energy to converge together.

On the other hand, certain individuals possessed a special ability that would cause negative energy flowing through her body to overload. Through doing so, they can then infuse every attack spells they cast imbued with negative status effects. Spells like [Undying Flame] can do something similar to it, adding negative energy and elemental-type as fire damage together. In other words, this could suggest the notion that enhancing one's spells with negative energy can grant the user the power to inflict negative status effects. Particularly, such negative status effects ranged from poisoning, deafness, fatigue, blindness, and so on. They were all ineffective against the undead, but not with the living.

Additionally, there are items like Orb of Death that requires consuming a specific amount of negative energy to make use of its ability by the user. Summoning powerful undead creatures through an item like it as a catalyst consumes a lot of negative energy. One of the ways to quickly recover all the depleted negative energy is to spread mass amounts of deaths throughout different areas such as a city. One could store all the negative energy comprising of the undead, in order to create a birthing place for higher-tier undead to spawn among the lower-tier ones.

In the case of becoming a supposed high-tier undead creature, one got to gather a massive amount of negative energy by killing an entire city's worth of people. Afterward, turning them into low-tier undead minions to harness the negative energy they would generate upon conversion. Hence, one can create the undead just from harnessing its negative energy. This has been the objective for conducting the Death Spiral ritual, gathering all the negative energy acquired from it in one place before then sealing it into oneself, successfully turning the caster into a powerful undead.

Trivia

 * It's currently unclear whether Negative Energy has a direct connection with a person's Negative Karma Value.
 * There are also skills like [Negative Protection] or spells such as [Negative Burst] that may have some correlation to Negative Energy.
 * In Xostya, there were negative mind-affecting effects that can affect the living.
 * In Xostya, killing someone who had gained an incurable status affliction, beating them into a near-death state and then resurrected would eliminate the negative status effect.