Treasure Room

Cost Per Tile: 50

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Demon Spawn 25 Training Room
Dragon 25 Lair

The Treasure Room is one of the most important rooms, where you store any riches that you may find during the course of your conquest. Your Imps will run here when their pockets are full and will empty them out onto the piles of gold. You can also drop any money you find yourself into it with the Hand of Evil. Each pile can only hold a certain amount, which depends on the size and efficiency of the Treasure room. Creatures will immediately head here on pay day, and they will become enraged if they either cannot make it because of an obstacle, or if you have no money when they get there.

Note that money is always subtracted from the latest Treasure Room you have constructed first, but that there must be at least one pile of gold in a Treasure Room or your minions will refuse to use it. They will instead head for a Treasure Room that appears to contain gold.

Placement of treasure rooms is very important. Your first should be near the Dungeon Heart and Lair so that creatures only have a short jaunt on pay day. As you fan out to mine distant gold or gems, you should build secondary Treasure Rooms near by so that your imps can mine faster. This room can function surprisingly well even with low efficiency, so shape is less important than usual. This allows you to construct Treasure Rooms in some very odd places.

Remember that gold is useful for winning back angry minions' loyalties. If you grab some treasure from the Treasure Room and sprinkle it on them, it may calm their rage. You can also trick minions into skipping their pay day by giving them a bit of gold while they are on their way to the Treasure Room.

Hero plunderers will often head straight for this room, so keep an eye out for thieves whenever your dungeon is breached.
































 Lair

Cost Per Tile: 100

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Beetle 1 None
Spider 9 Hatchery
Dragon 15 Treasure Room
Bile Demon 25 Hatchery
Vampire 9 Graveyard
Tentacle 9 Temple

The Lair is where your creatures go to sleep and heal their wounds, and for many species, this is where they will idle when they have not been given a job. Lairs should be very large and efficient, with a good Hatchery nearby.

If minions cannot make a lair when they first enter your Dungeon, or if their lair is subsequently destroyed, they will be become restless and angry.

Upon entering your dungeon, minions will make their home in the first Lair they find with enough space. You don't have to settle for this, however. If you don't like where they've taken up residence, placing them down in another Lair with the Hand of Evil will convince them to live there instead. This is extremely important when dealing with rival species, because it is the Lair that is always the source of interspecies conflicts. Be extra careful that paths between Lairs, Hatcheries, and Treasure Rooms do not cross other Lairs, since rivals will begin fighting even if they enter only to eat or take their pay.

For completeness, a list of lair rivals is as follows:



The Horned Reaper will not immediately fight any particular species in the Lair, but being around other creatures while idle makes him angry even faster, Then again, you should never leave Horny idle...

Most creatures use only one tile of Lair, but there are three exceptions. The Bile Demon's bulk takes up 2 tiles, each Dragon needs 4 whole tiles, and any Giants you may convert will need 2 tiles.

Some creatures will slowly gain experience if they make their lairs near certain dungeon terrain. Greedy Warlocks will gain experience if they sleep near gold, Tentacles like water, and Dragons will be enhanced if they stay near lava. This gain is very small, but since you stand to save both time and money, making these arrangements is worth it whenever possible.

Note that Imps do not need lairs, but converted Tunneller Dwarves do.
































 Hatchery

Cost Per Tile: 125

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Spider 9 Lair
Bile Demon 25 Lair

The Hatchery is where your minions can go to satiate their hunger by feasting on cute, defenseless little chickens, which occasionally hatch from its fertile, magic soil. Be sure to build Hatcheries at least 25 tiles large. If your Hatcheries become low on chickens, creatures will begin to starve to death and will become angry.

Note that you can pick up chickens and drop them onto creatures in order to improve their health, or to put them into other Hatcheries that have become sparse. This may be useful in Prisons and Torture Rooms if you are low on cash. For kicks, you can also try possessing a chicken in the Hatchery.

Some Keepers maintain that throwing chickens into the midst of battle can confuse your enemies.
































 Training Room

Cost Per Tile: 150

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Demon Spawn 1 Treasure Room
Orc 9 Barracks
Skeleton 9 Prison

The Training Room is where your creatures will probably gain most of their experience. Some creatures will train at their own volition, and others must be placed into the room before they will see its value. Training is a very expensive activity however, so when you are low on cash you will need to keep your Training Rooms small and place doors in front of them to lock creatures out when necessary.

Be sure to rotate creatures like Warlocks and Bile Demons, who prefer to do other jobs, between those jobs and the Training Room. If you wait until your Library and Workshops are full, you'll have an irritatingly long training phase.

You can speed up creatures' training time with the Speed Creature spell. This is always recommended as long as you can afford it.

When you have decided to tunnel out of your dungeon, the Training Room is a good place to start your corridors, as invaders who enter will surely stumble upon a room full of high-level minions ready to kill them.
































 Library

Cost Per Tile: 200

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Warlock 9 None

The Library contains ancient tomes and scrolls of knowledge that have been passed down through the ages by Keepers of all walks. Those minions of yours that can read are able to extract runes and incantations, as well as knowledge of dungeon engineering, from these works. In order to use advanced rooms or spells, you will need to build a Library.

Once spells have been researched, their formulations are placed in books by your Warlocks, and these books will remain in the Library. Be careful! Even though you may be tempted to sell the Library once you are done with research, doing so will cause you to lose any spellbooks that sit on the tiles you sell! Always leave your library in place. In addition, claiming an enemy Library will automatically give you any spells contained within it, even if you were unable to research them yourself.

When you locate Dungeon Specials, your Imps will bring them to the nearest Library for safe storage. You can use them at any time.

Beware of placing the Library on a path between other rooms. If creatures begin entering and exiting the library frequently, your researchers may become annoyed and will start firing on them. Always keep your Libraries off the sides of halls, in quiet, isolated places.

Also, if your Warlocks or Wizards are at high level, they will become annoyed if creatures with less research skill, such as Dark Mistresses, are assigned to the Library. Beware, as this will start a one-sided fight.
































 Bridge

Cost Per Tile: 30

The Bridge allows you to provide better passage for your minions across water and lava, and allows you to extend your presence to their far shores.

Always watch carefully for enemy bridge construction - quickly claim and sell any bridges which contact your territory.

































 Guard Post

Cost Per Tile: 50

Guard posts are useful lookout points. Put them in high-risk areas that need constant defense, such as near your Imps while they mine. Also, you should always surround areas that touch water and lava with Guard Posts. As long as no bridge is built up to them, walking enemy creatures will not be able to enter your dungeon.

Note that Orcs, when left idle, will voluntarily assign themselves to Guard Post duty. They make fine watchmen. Vampires and Horned Reapers can also be kept busy with Guard Post duty to avoid having them remain idle.
































 Workshop

Cost Per Tile: 200

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Troll 1 None

The Workshop is where you can produce traps and doors to defend and fortify your dungeon, or to sell on the dungeon black market for money. Several species of creatures manufacture by default, and almost all species will manufacture if you place them into the room (including Dragons, Dark Mistresses, and virtually all Heroes).

As with the Library, be especially sure to rotate manufacturing creatures to the Training Room occasionally. Bile Demons will spend all their time in the Workshop if you allow them, but you need their brute strength in combat.

Trolls are solely manufacturers, and this makes them relatively useless if you have Bile Demons. Watch the Portal carefully and if you get too many Trolls, throw some back out using the Hand of Evil.

Whenever your Workshop fills up with doors and trap crates, you'll hear a message saying that your Workshop is not big enough. This doesn't always mean you really need to make it larger though; you'll always get this message whenever it is full. Either close off the Workshop for the time being, or place and/or sell some of the items your creatures have made to free up space.
































 Prison

Cost Per Tile: 250

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Skeleton 1 Training

The Prison can be used to punish unruly minions and put an end to revolts, and also to keep creatures that you have captured in combat. In order to capture creatures rather than kill them, you must enable the "Imprison" icon on the Information Panel, and then be careful to use creatures that are skilled at imprisoning, such as Dark Mistresses and Orcs. Bile Demons and Dragons are poor choices because of their gas and flame attacks, which can still kill creatures by accident. Once your enemies are subdued, drop Imps nearby and they will drag your convicts to the Prison.

Prisons must be highly efficient in order to keep creatures within their confines. Always make them square, fortify all the walls around them, and seal them off with the strongest type of door you can manufacture. If your prisoners escape, your mentor will tell you, and you will have to battle them again. If any free enemy enters your Prison, all prisoners of the same allegiance will be set free at once.

Excepting Skeletons and Imps, creatures in Prison will slowly starve to death, and if they do not have the Heal spell, they will eventually die. If a humanoid creature dies in prison, it may rise as a Skeleton warrior ready to do your bidding. Skeletons are not very strong, but they train quickly and possess the fearful Lightning spell. They make very good expendable minions.

A better option for some creatures is to keep them healed until you have time to torture them in the Torture Room, which is covered below. You can either cast the Heal spell on them, or drop chickens into the Prison. Your prisoners will compete for their meal - survival of the fittest!

When Spiders have time off, they will go to your prisons and freeze any prisoners inside. This does not damage them, but rather prolongs their lives while you are tending to more urgent matters.
































 Torture Room

Cost Per Tile: 350

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Dark Mistress 9 None
Ghost 1 None

Torture is another form of punishment more severe than simple imprisonment. Creatures placed within will involuntarily proceed to a torture table, where they will be subjected to unspeakable, automated forms of pain and gibbitude. Torturing your own minions is not very useful most of the time, but torturing any prisoners you've captured is always a good idea.

Three things may happen when you torture creatures. First, enemies whose owners have dungeon hearts may begin to reveal information to you. Your mentor will mention this aurally, and if you examine the map, you will be able to see expanding areas of your enemy's territory. Very useful!

If you leave creatures on the torture table for too long, they will eventually die and return as an angry, sulking Ghost. Ghosts are almost totally useless however, so this option is not recommended.

More advantageous is the final possibility of conversion. If you heal a creature for long enough, its loyalty will finally break and it will join your ranks. This method can be used to obtain many creatures not normally available to you, including most heroes. This is one of the best ways to increase your ranks when you are outnumbered.

Note that Dark Mistresses are not damaged by torture and that it actually improves their happiness rating. Mistresses who are maximum level or who cannot currently train will come to the Torture Room and either voluntarily torture themselves, or watch other creatures be tortured. This has the disadvantage of filling up your torture room though, so you may need to build an extra one for torturing your prisoners.

Two reasons to torture your minions include putting an end to revolts as well as getting your creatures to take less pay. If you torture a creature just before and during a pay day, all others of the same type will reduce their salaries by half in fear of your wrath. After pay day, remove the creature and sprinkle a small pile of gold on it to make it forget the pain. It is best to do this with a low-level creature, since higher level creatures are more difficult to calm.
































 Barracks

Cost Per Tile: 125

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Orc 1 Training Room

The Barracks can be used to group minions into platoons. Place a number of them within its confines and then watch carefully to determine who has taken the lead. Possess the leader and you will be able to walk about with a party of your minions following you. This can sometimes be strategically useful, but most of the time you will find it unnecessary. Just build a Barracks of 1 to 9 tiles so that you can attract Orcs, and most of the time this will be all that you need to think of it.































 Temple

Cost Per Tile: 350

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Tentacle 9 Lair
Horned Reaper 9 None

The Temple is where you and your minions may pay homage to the Dark Gods. High-level creatures who are idle may come here at random to pray.

Placing creatures around the perimeter of the temple can have a number of effects:



Just be sure to distinguish between the perimeter of the Temple and its pool, because the Temple can also be used as a means to sacrifice creatures to the Dark Gods. Depending upon the number and combination of minions thrown into the pool, you may either please or annoy the Dark Gods. The rules of sacrifice are as follows:

Sacrifice Result
Money "This is no wishing well, keeper!"
Imp Price of Create Imp lowered by $300
Fly + Spider The dark gods send you a Warlock
Fly x2 Current research project will be completed
Beetle x2 Current manufacturing project will be completed
Beetle + Spider The dark gods send you a Dark Mistress
Spider x3 The dark gods send you a Bile Demon
Dark Mistress + Bile Demon + Troll The dark gods send you a Horned Reaper!
Horned Reaper All your minions become angry
Bile Demon x2 Chicken is cast on all your minions
Chicken All chickens in your hatchery are killed
Ghost All chickens in your hatchery are killed
Vampire Disease is cast on all your minions
































 Graveyard

Cost Per Tile: 300

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Vampire 30 Lair

The Graveyard serves as a place for the bodies of fallen minions and foes to decompose. This can be important if battles are waged on your own turf, since if your minions stand or work near the corpses of their friends, their morale may be lowered signficantly. Plus, for every 10 corpses that decay within the dank confines of your Graveyard, a blood-thirsty Vampire will rise, ready to do his dark deeds at your whims. This is another means to increase your army, and Vampires just happen to be one of the most fearsome creatures that you can command.

Hellhounds have a peculiar habit of urinating on corpses that are brought to the graveyard. While this is a wee bit disrespectful, it's also useful in that it speeds up decomposition, allowing more bodies to be put in the Graveyard, and for more Vampires to come out!
































 Scavenger Room

Cost Per Tile: 750

Attracts Tiles Required Other Rooms Required
Hellhound 9 None

The Scavenger Room is expensive and rather grotesque in appearance, with its waving eye stalks, but it can be a very useful room to possess. Dropping in creatures of any given species will allow you to syphon off more creatures of that type both from other Keepers' armies and from the portal pool. Watch your minion count rise when you use this room. The more of any one species you put in, the greater the scavenging value, but the greater the cost to you as well.

Having a Vampire in the Scavenger Room will DOUBLE the scavenging value of all other creatures inside it!

Be extremely wary of enemy keepers who have this room. They can steal away your best minions in a blink of an eye. Place minions under its effect in the Temple to try to protect them (this will not work for Vampires, unfortunately). Each minion in the Temple will extend scavenging protection to one additional minion of the same type.

Note that you can even scavenge Heroes and unaligned creatures. You will never scavenge a Knight or an Avatar, however. They are immune to this room's influence.
































 Portal

Portals can neither be created nor destroyed except through some unknown magic of the ancients, and they serve as gateways from another plane of reality into the caves that we Keepers call home. Once dungeons of suitable stature have been erected and a Portal is claimed, creatures from these outer worlds will take note and will enter the Portal with intent to join you.

The types and number of creatures you can obtain from the Portal differ in every realm, often with drastic consequences to the strategies you will employ in wreaking havoc on the land. Note that the Portal limit in no way effects your ability to gain creatures through imprisonment, torture, or scavenging. If you lose minions in battle, more will enter through the Portal until either your maximum has again been reached, or no more creatures are available to enter in the current realm.

Portals are strategically important in multiplayer games, and you should move to wall off, but not claim, yours early on. Other keepers may head straight for your portals, and if they cut them off from you, they've destroyed your only life line.
































 Dungeon Heart

The Dungeon Heart is the life force of your dungeon, and it is where the epicenter of your extended presence dwells. As long as the Dungeon Heart still beats, there may still be hope for your dungeon. Thus you should always make every effort to have your Heart Room be the last place that enemies can reach, using doors, traps, and the placement of other rooms to achieve that end.

The Dungeon Heart serves as the epicenter of two spells. Hold Audience transports all of your minions to the Heart Room in case of trouble, and Armageddon causes all creatures in the entire realm to be teleported there for one final battle.

Always note the location of enemy Dungeon Hearts when the level begins by listening to the world map. When possible, always strike for the Dungeon Heart directly. Enemy Keepers sometimes foolishly dig out around their hearts, leaving them susceptible to attack. Note that when a Keeper or a Hero force's Heart is destroyed, all of their claimed territory will dissolve into dirt path, and all their fortified walls not adjacent to room tiles will become earth again. This allows you to quickly take over and plunder the remains. To the victor belong the spoils!

It is rare, but if you should spawn in a realm and possess more than one Dungeon Heart, any one of them being destroyed is enough to cause your end. If this situation should ever arise, you will have twice or more the defense to build up.