This realm will test your patience in every possible way. You are warned as you begin that you have come to this realm unprepared, and you will realize why when examining the information above. Rooms and Spells cannot be researched in this realm; they must be found by claiming rooms and stumbling upon spellbooks scattered throughout the realm.

But that isn't all. You have no permanent source of funding nearby. The only viable gem vein in the realm is firmly under the control of powerful heroes to your east. And to compound this even further, you will not be able to sell Magic Doors at all, and you will not receive the ability to construct or sell Boulder Traps until much later.

This realm is going to be one long slog, so you may as well hunker down and prepare for a protracted battle. It took me six hours to defeat this realm, although I did take the scenic route for the benefit of this guide. Aiming only for speed, it should be possible to defeat it in much less time. This would entail skipping most of the fighting in this realm, however, which is something I find to be boring.

Begin by tunneling straight south of your Dungeon Heart until you run into an unaligned door. Behind this door you will find the majority of your Basic Five preconstructed for you, and claiming each room gives you knowledge of how to build them. Not a shabby start at all. You will see two portals nearby, but you should move to claim neither at this point. Instead, enlarge the Treasure Room you found until it measures somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 tiles and begin mining the gold to your south. Get to the gold by tunneling around it to the west - do not break down the door in front of the gold vein or you will receive a level 1 Bile Demon who will only begin taking precious gold on every pay day. Leave 1 tile of gold all the way around the area enclosed by that door when mining. Break down the door to the south of the vein to find a Barracks, which you should sell but for the single tile necessary to attract Orcs through the portal.

After you finish mining the southern gold, turn your attention to the eastern vein. However, you must be extremely cautious when mining this vein, because the northeastern edge of it borders a large lake of lava in which dwell deadly level 6 Fairies who will destroy your Dungeon Heart without fail. Save the game first, and mine carefully when you reach the edge - it is usually possible to tell which tiles are safe to mine by looking at them very closely. You will see what I mean. While mining the gold you will also locate a Library to complete your basic dungeon.

Once your mining is complete, you will have built up a respectable amount of gold and can now afford to let creatures into your dungeon. Be sure to build all rooms to the necessary sizes before connecting to the portals. Beware of the two unaligned doors attached to the south edge of the southern portal. Behind the left door is a level 1 Dragon who will join you, but he should not be retrieved until after you have reached your portal maximum of a measly ten creatures. Behind the right door is a dangerous Poison Gas Trap which will damage your currently irreplaceable Imps.

With a creature limit so low, you will need to micromanage your portal. Throw out any Beetles, Spiders, Trolls, or Demon Spawn you get. There's no Temple in which to sacrifice arthropods in this realm, Bile Demons will do your manufacturing for you, and Demon Spawn take far too long to train when you can obtain pre-made Dragons. Also, do not allow too many Warlocks to enter, since you can get two for free, and you have very little research to complete.

The game is now a race to claim the gems which are under hero control to the east. Once you hit your portal max, release the Bile Demon and Dragon to join you, and then tunnel northeast along the Impenetrable Rock to point 1 where you will find the two level 4 Warlocks.

With your army at the currently maximum size of 14, let as many of your minions train to level 6 or level 7 as possible, but do not let your money drop below the neighborhood of 30000 gold. At point 2 you can find an Increase Level special that is safe to get as early as you wish, and this can save you a lot of cash when used effectively. Once you get too low on money, temporarily sell your Training Room to minimize further expenses.

Before heading to claim your gems, visit points 3 and 4. At the first you will find the Create Imp and Heal spells, but you will also trigger a large hero attack. Your minions should be able to handle this. To the south you can find another Increase Level special and the Speed Monster spell, but it is also guarded by some heroes, one of whom is a dangerous level 8 Barbarian.

With all of that business out of the way, you are now prepared to open up your dungeon. At some point along the northeast, break out into the lava lake (be sure to choose a tile which borders lava, since you will want to protect it with a Guard Post as usual). Four level 6 Fairies that are flying around the lake will eventually take note of your presence and will come to destroy you. Now is the time to drop down all of your trained minions to slaughter them, because these Fairies are of sufficient experience to know the Lightning spell and are thus very dangerous as a group. Beware also of the fact that they can cast Conceal on themselves, and watch your dungeon map closely for invisible Fairies flitting about.

Bridge to the south toward point 5 and you will find the Call to Arms spell along the shore. Do not allow your Imps to blindly claim along this path, however. If you do, as you pass along the shore near point 6 you will trigger a massive attack by more Fairies, and this attack may be more than your fledgling troops can handle. Instead, begin to dig into the earth here against the Impenetrable Rock and follow it to the northeast until you reach point 7, where lies the only entrance into the well-defended northern hero keep.

Once you get here, without allowing any minions to trigger the Fairies (you cannot pass even one tile to the west of the door), break down the door and begin a room-by-room assault of the keep. You will encounter heroes ranging in level from 5 to 8, and of virtually every type in the game, including numerous Mountain Dwarves and yet more dangerous Fairies. At various points, heroes will drop down into the keep from the land above to launch surprise attacks, so be prepared.

Before reaching the gems, you should uncover a Workshop, two Resurrect Creature specials, and a level 4 Dark Mistress who will join you (snatch her up quickly when you find her, as she will begin fighting with a group of heroes who seriously outrank her). Beware of the fact that there are numerous traps in the keep. I recommend using a possessed Dragon to both fight heroes using his powerful Flame Breath and Grenade skills and to take out any traps in advance of your Imps.

Once you reach the door south of the gems, enter cautiously and a group of very powerful heroes, including high-level Samurai, will enter to protect their money. A bit late for such efforts, I think. Extinguish their passions in whatever way you see fit, and beware of the Lava, Poison Gas, and Lightning traps near the gem vein. Go ahead and clear out the area to the immediate north to locate the Destroy Walls spell, which is required to defeat this realm. You can use it immediately to break down a suspicious plus-shaped area inside the keep where you can find a valuable Steal Hero special. However, I suggest you wait until having mined the gems before you do this, as your gold will be running very thin. Also, I recommend saving at least one Steal Hero and all Resurrect Creature specials you find in this realm - there's something very interesting that can be done with them, but we shall discuss that in a moment.

Having claimed the gems as well as a Workshop, you can now relax and begin training creatures full-scale. There are four passages in the Impenetrable Rock to your south, one of which you may have explored up to point 8 already. This is the main entrance to a gigantic hero keep, the primary objective of this campaign. Avoid it for the time being and instead focus your rage toward the southwest corner of the realm beginning at point 9. Just to the west of the pass here you will find a level 4 Skeleton imprisoned in the soft earth. Release him to join your army, but beware. On islands in the lava are some powerful heroes including several level 8 Priestesses. If you attract the attention of the Priestesses, they will activate their Flight spell and you will be unable to prevent them from entering your Dungeon. Be smart and prepare some doors and traps along your southward-reaching corridor to negate them.

At your leisure you may eliminate all of the heroes in this lava lake. In the structure to the very south you can find an amazing three Dungeon Specials - two more Resurrect Creatures and another Steal Hero. However, each one is guarded by a very powerful hero party, so you'll need to deal with them, preferably one at a time. Lure some heroes out of the structure by connecting it to your Dungeon temporarily with a bridge, then sell the bridge off to trap the heroes outside. Your minions may then finish the majority of them off from a safe distance.

Now, let's discuss what you should do with your Steal Hero and Resurrect Creature specials. What I would do is use one Steal Hero to get a high-level Samurai. Your chances of getting one in this realm are extremely good. Then, use the other to obtain a Thief. Why? Because together with your Resurrect Creature specials, you can abuse him to raise a legion of Knights! Each time a Thief trains past level 10, he becomes a level 3 Knight. However, he is also added to the list of departed creatures when this happens. This means that you can use a Resurrect Creature special to revive your Thief, and then train him into a Knight once again. Using this trick, I was able to obtain a grand total of five Knights. How often do you get to do that?

Before launching the main assault against the hero keep, there is one further area to explore. Through the pass at point 10 lies an area where you can fight off some level 8 Wizards to obtain the Conceal Monster spell, which will help in your efforts against the hero keep, as well as some valuable Boulder Trap crates which, when claimed, grant you the ability to manufacture them in bulk.

Once you are ready, you can attack the hero keep from one of two different points. You can either return to point 8, where the main entrance and the long way through await, or you can use your Destroy Walls spell at point 11, where you will be greeted by some very powerful heroes, but from which point you can go straight for the kill by tunneling toward the heroes' Dungeon Heart.

Within the keep and in the earth nearby it are many non-critical secrets and treasures which I will point out here together, since the manner in which you take down this area is very open-ended. Each is identified by a lower-case letter on the map:

1. Cave-In spell.
   
   
2. Protect Monster spell.
   
   
3. Prison and two unaligned Skeletons, levels 4 and 5. If you claim this early, you can begin imprisoning heroes to let them die and become Skeletons.I recommend enlarging the Prison to 3x7 by knocking down the wall between it and the next room to the north, then fortifying all the way around and adding doors. Don't imprison any spellcasters, since they will heal themselves and thus never die. Actually, scratch that. Imprison a couple of them anyway and let them rot for all of eternity - it's the best they deserve. Just for kicks, I raised an army of 28 Skeletons using this Prison.
   
   
4. Increase Level special. You probably won't need this by now, unless you're making heroes into Skeletons. In that case, fire it off to boost up any who are not yet level 10.
   
   
5. Resurrect Creature special. Go on, make another Knight! Or, bring back any of your elite who may have fallen if that's what you prefer. You can get to this special quite easily by using your Destroy Walls spell.
   
   
6. Lightning Strike spell. You sure could have put this to good use earlier. Still, it can come in handy against the Lord of the Land. Build a small 3x3 Library north of your Prison and you can safely haul spells in this area to it using expendable Imps. Beware of the powerful party that will drop in if you visit the area near this spellbook.
   
   
7. Level 7 Vampire. He is protected by two level 10 Barbarians, however.

Phew. That's a lot of booty to plunder. If you opted to go for the quick kill, you will find that you aren't missing anything other than some hero-slaughtering fun. Either way, you should eventually make your way to point 12 where throbs the Hero Dungeon Heart. You must use your Destroy Walls spell to create an entrance into it - those heroes are beginning to catch on to your evil tricks, I suppose. Too bad it does them no good.

Upon entering the Heart's chamber, the Lord of the Land will drop in with an extremely powerful party. Use Lightning Strikes, if you obtained the spell, to narrow them down. Then, take on the Lord using any or all of your creatures. I was able to greet him with my Vampire, Mistress, four Knights (one mysteriously vanished during the playing of this realm...), and my unstoppable army of 28 Skeleton warriors. Let it be said that no Lord of the Land ever died a more futile and grimly satisfying death.

Once the Lord and his heart have been destroyed, you have once again triumphed over good and added another realm to your ever-expanding empire. Will those heroes ever learn their proper place?

(Note: About my Knight who disappeared - I discovered a new bug in the Dungeon Keeper engine by accidentally turning on the Computer Assistant for a moment. During that time it attempted to enlarge my Library and move one of my Knights into it, even though all research was already complete. By turning off the assistant as it was moving my creature, it took the Knight into oblivion with it. His lair remained empty, and he never appeared on the list of dead creatures. He simply vanished into thin air. To prevent this from ever happening to you, be sure to set the Computer Assistant to Build-Only. This should prevent this easy-to-hit button from doing this sort of irreparable harm.)