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Negation is a powerful effect that removes nearly all magical powers and abilities from a creature or item. There are four sources of negation:

  • Scroll of Negation: Affects everything within line of sight including yourself and the square you are standing on.
  • A Charm of Negation: Same as the scroll except with a limited radius.
  • A Wand of Negation: Fires a bolt that affects only a single target and is subject to reflection by reflective enemies and terrain features.
  • A negation spell (cast by an ally or enemy): Same as a wand of negation.

If you are negated, the items in your inventory are not affected. Creatures such as golems that are described as "animated purely by magic" will die instantly if negated.

Having your allies negated can be devastating as they will permenantly lose their inate abilities. They will also lose any abilities they have learned as a result of empowerment. However, they will be able to learn a number of new talents equal to the number of times they were empowered.

Negation is very effective. Therefore, it's far easier to list what isn't affected or neturalized by negation.

  • Ranged physical attacks (centaurs)
  • The ability to submerge in water
  • The tendency to flee when near death
  • The ability to (spear) attack two enemies in a line (goblins)
  • The ability to (axe) attack all adjacent enemies simultaneously (dragons and nagas)
  • Quick health regeneration
  • Weakness
  • Scrolls and potions

What is affected by negation is covered in the next two headings.

Negating Creatures[]

Negation removes the following temporary effects from enemies, allies and yourself:

The following permanent abilities are also removed by negation:

  • The ability to cast spells (Firebolt, Lightning, Protection, Heal, Negation, Slow, Haste, Discord, Blinking)
  • The ability to cause hallucinations on hit (toad)
  • The ability to steal items and flee (monkeys and imps)
  • The ability to breathe fire
  • The ability to shoot webs
  • The ability to poison on hit
  • The ability to weaken on hit
  • Spawning a dungeon feature upon death (bloats, explosive or infested mutants)
  • Splitting in two when hit (jellies)
  • Death upon attacking (bloats)
  • The ability to seize enemies (kraken or bog monster)
  • Vampiric attacks (bat or vampire)
  • Innate Fire Immunity
  • Innate invisibility (phantom)
  • Fiery (also extinguishes the creature)
  • Acidic attacks and defense (acid mounds and acidic jellies)
  • Immunity to physical damage (revenant).
  • The ability to Fly, and the flitting behaviour that most flying creatures have.
  • The tendency to remain at a distance.
  • Reflection

Negation will affect the above abilities even if they were added by a mutation.

Negating Items[]

Items on the floor can be negated through use of the negation charm or scroll. 

  • Weapons and Armors will be stripped of runic powers and curses, have their enchantment set to +0, and lose protection from acid.
  • Rings will have their enchantment set to +0 and become uncursed. The ring's type will not change, but it will be useless until enchanted at least once.
  • Staves will be stripped of stored charges. They retain their core identity and maximum number of charges.
  • Wands will be stripped of all charges. They will retain their core identity, but will be useless until enchanted at least once.
  • Potions and Scrolls are unaffected.

In general, do not use unidentified scrolls in sight of equipment unless you have already identified Scrolls of Negation. However, if you have an item that you know is cursed yet has a good base type, you may want to drop it next to you before reading an unidentified scroll. If the scroll is negation, the item will become usable.

Negation-Casting Enemies and Allies[]

Monsters with the ability to negate will negate the player or opposed monsters under several circumstances.

- when hasted/protected

- when flying over chasm/lava

- when fire-protected in lava

- when animated purely by magic (but apparently not golems, because of the danger of reflection)

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