If you thought Kari-Mar was aggravating, forget about it. This realm is pure annoyance from start to finish. You are mostly limited to three types of creatures, you can build virtually no useful rooms, and you have no Workshop, so you cannot use traps or even doors - this latter fact has dire implications for your Imps. The entire strategy for this realm can be summed up as another round of "Trick or Treat" through the largest hero dungeon you have ever seen. You will be harassed by heroes on your home turf throughout, and as you try to claim into enemy territory, you will repeatedly grind to a halt as your expendable Imp is slaughtered time and time again by innumerable traps.

If there is fun to be had, it is elsewhere. But then, who said being a Dungeon Keeper is always fun? Trust me when I say that when you finally finish this realm, you will possess a grim sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. And of having wasted from six to eight hours of your life.

Begin by using the large rooms that have been hollowed out for you to build four of your Basic Five. Use the largest room to the west of the heart as a Lair, the southern room as a Hatchery, the eastern room as a Library, and the northern room as a Training Room. You were allotted enough cash to build these rooms to full size immediately. Before claiming your portal, you may as well mine out the gold too - this way you can have full treasure rooms awaiting your training minions.

When tunnelling out of your dungeon, do not tunnel straight toward your portal, or south toward the Impenetrable Rock below your dungeon. There is a cave between you and the portal which runs diagonally southeastward containing four level 3 Mountain Dwarves. To get to the portal, tunnel to it from the north edge. Build a large treasure room here, since your sole gem block is here. Do not mine out the western-most blocks of the gold - beyond lies a cave containing the valuable Conceal Monster spell, but approaching it will trigger an attack by heroes - save it for later.

Once you're all stocked up, open the portal. Only Warlocks and Bile Demons will come at first - try to get five of each. Let the Warlocks do what little research there is to complete as your Bile Demons begin training. Once research is finished and you have built a Torture Room, throw out all Warlocks, and continue to throw any more Warlocks or Bile Demons that come in back out - you want to obtain five Dark Mistresses.

Let your Mistresses train - your Training Room should be large enough to accomodate all ten of your minions at once. Fortunately, what minions you have take low salary and are cheap to train; a small blessing in a realm full of curses. In very little time everyone will have reached level 10. At this point you should open up the cave west of your gems and retrieve the Conceal Monster spell, defeating the minor hero party that arrives. Then tunnel south from your Lair and break into the Dwarves' cave, killing them all and revealing a passage south through the Impenetrable Rock. Now your adventure begins in earnest.

Unless you want to lose the level 3 Imps you were started with, you will need to begin holding all but three of them in your hand at all times that you are connected to unclaimed hero areas. This becomes a huge burden, and is perhaps the worst aggravation in this realm. By breaking down the door in the south cave, you will discover a large lava lake with a winding unclaimed path running through it which branches off into two directions. On islands scattered throughout the lava are mid-level heroes - Archers and Wizards. Fortunately you have Conceal Monster, so you can hide and haste an expendable Imp and have him claim the path (if he dies during the process, just replace him - you are going to lose several dozen Imps during this conquest no matter what you try).

Drop some Mistresses down near the islands one by one and have them zot the heroes with their lightning. When the lake is clear of heroes, phase 1 is complete. Only three more to go...

Breaking down the door to the small hero building nestled in the western rock at point 1 will net you an Increase Level special. This will be useful later, so haul it back to your Library for safe keeping. It's just a shame you couldn't capture the high-level Thieves that were guarding it.

Of the two doors leading into the fortress on the south edge of the lake, I recommend breaking down the eastern one first. The fortress is only sparsely defended here - few if any heroes will emerge as you break down the doors, since the doors here are locked. Throughout the remainder of this realm, you will need to have your minions ready to defend your dungeon on a moment's notice - opening up your dungeon from the Lair helps with this enormously, since your Bile Demons will always be idling there. You will also need to use your Cave-In and Chicken spells liberally once the heroes begin to be of higher level. At first, your minions will have no trouble dispatching them. Cave-In is still useful to separate groups, however. Never allow more than a couple of heroes to stay together in a group.

Heading toward point 2 straight south from the entrance will earn you the Protect Monster spell, and this is also the first room that you will find heavily trapped. When your expendable Imp dies, spawn another one as quickly as possible, and he may claim the tile fast enough to cheat the trap out of the rest of its activations. This is going to run into a bit of cash at first since the price of Create Imp is high. Fortunately you will be getting a Temple soon and can fix that problem when the time comes.

Head next to point 3 toward the east and you will trigger some hero parties. The first party consists of an Archer and Wizard at level 4, a Giant at level 6, and a Priestess at level 6. Do not allow this Priestess, or any Priestess, to reach your dungeon, as she may end up blowing some of your precious Mistresses right out into the lava. Kill her using Chicken and Cave-In spells if possible. If she does reach your dungeon, send only your Bile Demons against her, since they are immune to her stupid Wind spell. The second party has two level 4 Archers, two Wizards at levels 6 and 7, and a level 7 Giant. Once both parties are dead, heading further east will allow you to free a level 6 Horned Reaper to join your mad quest. Put him to training immediately.

Stop breaking in from this direction for the time being and turn your attentions now to the western door. Upon breaking it down, a large number of heroes will stream out of the nearby unlocked doors - use Cave-In to break them up into smaller units that your minions can handle with ease. Not far from the entrance in a southern direction you will discover a Treasure Room and a Temple. Claim and then sell away both. Take the gold that was in the Treasure Room to your main room (my main Treasure Room was 145 tiles large, by the way), and build a new Temple in a safe location on your own turf. Just west of the temple you will find a level 4 Beetle and level 4 Spider who are keen on joining you. However, it couldn't be more obvious that you need to throw them into that Temple you just built, for out will pop another Dark Mistress, and you can never have too many of those, Keeper.

Now that you have the Temple, start sacrificing your expendable claiming Imp every time you take a break or whenever he takes damage from a gas trap. Eventually you will reduce the cost of Create Imp to its minimum 150 gold, and so the issue of losing a hundred Imps to traps is suddenly less important.

From here you can continue to attack the hero fortress from one or both sides. You need to clear out the entire thing in order to move on. A few more hero parties will be triggered as you do this, including a party of level 4 Archers, Wizards, and Giants near the west entrance, and at point 4, a party of Archers and Wizards, also level 4. This latter group guards the Heal spell, which you cannot possibly miss.

With the first hero fortress laid to waste, phase 2 is now complete. You should now rest and let your Imps refill your Treasure Room and let your new Reaper and Mistress train to high level. Use that Increase Level special you saved earlier to speed things along if needed. Once you are ready, breaking further south from the first fortress will again bring you into a lava lake with similar winding paths running through it, and similar islands of heroes that need to be dispatched - claim with a concealed Imp and use your Mistresses and possibly Horny to take out the heroes a few at a time. Same old business. Phase 3 complete.

Now the final and worst phase begins. To the south is a large, winding, heavily trapped fortress that is so complicated, I am providing a separate image of it in order to adequately explain its layout:

Though there appear to be three entrances, as you can see by looking carefully, there is only one usable entrance, and it is the eastern-most one. The western door leads only to a Boulder Trap (Boulder Traps are marked with b on the map), and the central door leads to two small rooms and, at point 8, a Steal Hero special which is worth taking the time to get. Unfortunately, approaching the room before it causes a powerful group of heroes to drop in, so deal with them appropriately.

Proceed into the fortress from the eastern entrance. A very large number of heroes will eventually start to stream out, and you must use your Cave-In spell to drive them back and let only a few escape at a time. Beware especially of letting out more than one or two Samurai at a time, as their Lightning and Freeze spells are very dangerous. Once all the heroes stop coming, and this can take a long time, you are ready to start claiming. You can find the first secret at point 5, the first door to the left. Behind the door awaits a level 8 Skeleton, first of three. You will need to build him a separate Lair because of your Bile Demons.

All side rooms that are marked with x are worthless to you - they contain yet more heroes to fight, and entering them will cause progressively stronger parties to drop in, all of which include horribly annoying Priestesses who are too strong to kill with Cave-In alone at reasonable cost. Avoid all the rooms marked with x's, clearing out all others. You will notice that point 6 is inside one of these rooms. There is a Make Safe special here, but explain to me what possible use it could have? Leave it for now and use it after the realm is conquered to have a nice looking dungeon.

Keep progressing along the main hallway of the fortress. Take detours at points 7 and 9 to find the other two level 8 Skeletons. Dig out the wall near point 10 and you will find the awesome Lightning Strike spell. Have your claiming Imp drag it all the way back to your Library and you will now have an extra weapon against these irritating heroes.

Do not break down any of the doors with Boulder Traps behind them; we need to save at least a couple of them for later. Just before the hallway turns toward the north, dig into the wall toward point 11. Here you will find another Increase Level special. Save it for now, since Skeletons train really fast anyway.

Keep claiming to the north. At point 12 is a level 7 Warlock to make up for the ones you tossed out the portal earlier. Do not be fooled by the apparent entrances to the hero Heart Room - only the door on the north side of it is an actual entrance. The others are boulders or dead ends. Going north toward point 13 will secure you a level 8 Dark Mistress, bringing your Mistress count to a grand total of 7. Now that your army is at maximum size, use your final Increase Level special and let your new minions fully train. You have the heroes exactly where you want them now.

Breaking into the Heart Room will attract the attention of the Lord of the Land. He enters with a typically strong party of a Monk, a Fairy, a Priestess, three Giants, and a Samurai, all at level 10. If you are a moron, you can fight these bastards directly by waiting for them to come to you. If you are smart, however, you will allow them to begin coming toward your dungeon, and then either in advance of or behind them, release one of the several Boulder Traps (this is why I have marked their location for you). It takes a level 10 Bile Demon exactly six horn swipes to destroy a Steel Door. Plunk one down and pull him out of harm's way before he is crushed. If necessary, use your Cave-In spell to cause the Lord's party to turn back toward the Heart Room and walk straight into a boulder as it rumbles inexorably toward them. Now that's pathetic.

Once the Lord and his denizens are smashed into paste, use your Horned Reaper and a couple of Skeletons to destroy the Hero Heart. Its destruction secures your victory, but like in some previous realms, if you want this to end well, you'll need to keep playing. By having ignored all of those x-marked rooms previously, we have left a huge number of heroes alive in the realm, and with no doors to hold them back, they are all now headed toward your dungeon.

Start using Lightning, Chicken, and Cave-In like a maniac. Drive all the heroes back into the keep, and continue to do so, letting only a few escape at a time. Keep your army under permanent Call to Arms near the entrance to your dungeon, using Heal, Protect Monster, and Speed Monster on every icon on the Battle Information pane each time it pops up. If you do this diligently, then you will destroy all of the heroes without the loss of a single minion, as I myself was able to do.

(Beware of casting Chicken on any hero who possesses the Rebound skill. Somehow they can reflect the spell toward one of your own minions. This little-known fact rarely comes into play, but it can be deathly important here.)

After this, I was really glad that there are only two more realms remaining.