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    The Mentor 

Your very own Evil Mentor, and the narrator of the game. He is the one that guides you through the game. It seems he is an old Keeper that now helps you, new Keeper, adjusting to the game.


  • Affably Evil: He is super snarky and sadistic, but is noticeably your most loyal servant in the game and is happy to explain everything.
  • Ambiguously Human: Since he never appears on screen, we don't know what he looks like or what sort of creature he is.
  • Card-Carrying Villain:
    • Comes with the territory. The Mentor is darkly enthusiastic about the creeping destruction you inflict upon the land, and considers the horrible fates inflicted upon the surface dwellers to be satisfying.
    • If you lose to in the final mission of the sequel, part of his disgust for your failure will be that Reginald will use the scattered portal gems for good as a result.
  • Cloudcuckoolander : Sometimes, some of his quotes are... weird. Most of the time, however, he is sane (if evil).
  • Comically Serious: Being this and a Deadpan Snarker comprise the humor with him in the sequel. One of the defeat lines has him note that fairies will attempt to cure you of evil with smiles.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Hilariously and awesomely so. Here are some of his gems :
    • "The very rock yawns with anticipation of your next fascinating move" (when doing nothing for some time)
    • "Your nocturnal perseverance has earned you a hidden gaming tip, GO TO BED!" (if playing late at night)
    • "You have an excess of Mistresses. There's a word for keepers like you" (if you have a lot of Mistresses)
    • "If you were any kind of real Keeper, you would've won by now" (if taking your time in a mission)
    • "You'll go blind, you know" (if looking for too long at Mistresses in a torture room)
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs. He doesn't approve of playing the game late at night.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He sometimes expresses dismay at the peasants choosing to live happy, peaceful lives instead of butchering one another.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Very much so. His menacing voice adds to the comedy of his dialogue.
  • Faux Affably Evil: In the second game. He will acknowledge the strength of your enemies if you win, praising you for overcoming them, but if you lose, he will mock you for losing to weak enemies. The only enemy you fight he seems to legitimately respect is King Reginald.
  • Laughably Evil: Especially in the original, thanks to his snarky dialogue all round devotion to evil.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He is a Card-Carrying Villain, but advocates for being a Benevolent Boss since being a Bad Boss will leave you with no minions.
  • Servile Snarker: He may be your most loyal servant, but he won't hold back if he thinks you are doing something stupid.
  • So Proud of You: As much as he hates affection, he still can't help but sincerely congratulate and praise the player after completing either game.
  • The Stoic: Speaks with a dry and sardonic tone, not impressed by any opposition or how badly you're outmatched in a given dungeon. Unless your dungeon heart is under attack.
  • To Create a Playground for Evil: Implied to be his motive in the second game. He isn't interested in taking over the world himself, merely assisting someone he thinks has the potential to gather the portal gems so that they can invade the surface.
  • The Voice: Is heard in voice in both games, but never appears on screen.
  • Worthy Opponent: Sees King Reginald as this. He clearly dislikes him, but unlike the rest of the enemies you run across he legitimately respects Reginald as a powerful and dangerous adversary. If you lose against Reginald, he will mock you for losing when you had everything in your grasp, rather than losing to a weak enemy.

From Dungeon Keeper

    The forces of evil 

Beetles

The beetle is a stronger fighter and flyer than the fly, but is not as fast. One of the first creatures you get in the game, and they gain the ability to freeze when they reach higher levels.


  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Giant beetles.
  • Crutch Character: A particularly horrid example. You need them in order to win in the first stage... Then they are entirely outclassed by stronger units as soon as the second level. The only thing they really excel at is being rather tanky cannon fodder.

Bile Demons

While slow, the bile demon is still an excellent fighter, and manufacturer. They are immune to gas and wind attacks, but are vulnerable in combat to most types of undead.


  • Big Eater: If a Keeper is planning to have any number of Bile Demons, they better have a large Hatchery. Most minions will eat 2-3 chickens for a meal. Bile Demons eat 6 at a time, and they're hungry often.
  • Gasshole: Any fight involving a large amount of these guys is going to be gassy. Sometimes you can't even see what's going on.
  • Mighty Glacier: Their bulk makes their strength and defense high, but their speed is terrible since they don't even have legs.

Dark Mistresses

The kinkiest of all creatures, one who enjoys pain and inflicting it on others. She has no special job apart from visiting the torture chamber to be tortured. Slapping her makes her happier and she rushes off to a battle as soon as one starts. An excellent fighter.


  • Combat Sadomasochist: They love inflicting pain on others, and especially love to inflict pain on themselves.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Capable of holding their own against anything short of Samurai and Horned Reapers due to their high offense and blinding speed. Becomes somewhat literal, since Mistresses can learn the Lightning spell as well.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Has an accentuated hourglass figure, and wears a tight, black bodysuit.
  • Sex Is Violence: These ladies go for the "moaning after being hit" approach.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The only female creature that the Dungeon Keeper can recruit.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: They put themselves in the torture chamber for fun. If you capture an enemies mistress and torture her, she'll join your side out of gratitude.
  • Torture Technician: Mistresses are experts in the many arts of torture. The second game has these degenerate dominatrixes assist in "convincing" victims in the Torture Room.
  • Villain Teleportation: At level 10. Which is what makes it difficult to keep them out of the torture chambers.
  • Whip of Dominance: They are leather-clad Dark Mistresses women who embody Bondage Is Bad as minions of your Villain Protagonist, with their openly sadistic personalities and being vocally enthusiastic about fighting and torturing. In artwork and cinematic they're often seen wielding whips, but in the game itself they fight with magic or hand-to-hand combat, although they do have a lighting whip spell. Their torture animation in the torture chamber also has them being whipped, though they're shown to enjoy it.

Demon Spawn

A fairly good fighter, that can walk over lava unharmed. Spends most of its spare time training. After your demon spawn trains to level 10, they continue training and level up into a level 4 dragon.


  • Crutch Character: Effective throughout the early levels. Later on, outclassed by stronger units, especially when you can get Dragons right off the bat.
  • Magikarp Power: Not very impressive when they first arrive, being a serviceable front-line fighter for early levels. The reason you should keep them around is that Demon Spawn transform into dragons at level ten.
  • Non-Indicative Name: They're called Demon Spawn, but they're actually dragon hatchlings and will grow up into proper Dragons once trained for long enough.

Dragons

The dragon is one of the toughest creatures in the game. Quick to learn from training, and a good resource in any library. As you would expect, they are immune to the effects of lava, and actually gain experience from sleeping next to it.


  • Badass Bookworm: They are among the strongest creatures in the game and they enjoy reading, making them a good minion to have in the library.
  • Breath Weapon: Given it is a dragon, it can breath long streams of flame.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Starts out as a little monster, grows into a big dragon after some experience. These Dragons also enjoy a good book.
  • Stone Wall: Their damage output, with their Flame Breath, is actually very low and its usefulness is in its super low cooldown. However, they have high health and Heal, which allows them to survive for long periods of fire.

Flies

The fly is a weak fighter and does not last long in battle, however they are a very fast unit and great for exploring as they can fly over water and lava.


  • Animal Jingoism: They hate spiders. Understandable seeing as spiders eat flies.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Despite the uselessness of this species, they are giant flies sentient enough to seek employment.
  • Crutch Character: Flies are almost useless in combat with their low health and attack, they don't get much better after leveled up. They are least better than beetles as they at least make good scouts and can even fly over lava, but this becomes a moot point once you get hellhounds who are just as fast, can swim in lava, and are actually good combatants.
  • Too Dumb to Live: A Fly's sole purpose is to buzz around and reveal the map to its Keeper. If it finds any enemy along the way, it'll attack on sight. Flies are incredibly squishy even at high levels. This can be avoidef by toggle"Flee" option.

Ghosts

Weaker than the skeleton in fighting ability, the main use of the ghost is in research. Given the chance, these creatures will tend to congregate in your temple and will need manual duty allocation. Ghosts can fly, see invisible creatures, and are immune to poison gas.


  • Magikarp Power: They are always going to be physically frail, but if you can level ghosts up they learn some powerful spells.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: The only way you get these lost souls is by torturing people to death. They are then subservient to you, oh dark one. Also, they have a fondness for worshipping dark gods and can move through all doors making them good for espionage and sabotage.

Horned Reapers

The Horned Reaper is the most destructive, psychotic fighter of the game. Summoned only using your temple, they are one of your fastest creatures, and have the power to slow any enemy fighting them. The reaper is immune to lava and has a good field of vision. If allowed to get annoyed (which happens very easily), they will go on a general rampage. It's best to build them their own personal dungeon, behind a locked door.


  • Ambiguous Gender: The official strategy guide refers to them as female, but the manual and their official character designer have referred to them as male. Either way, there has never been explicit confirmation what their gender is, or if they even have one.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: They're easily the most powerful creature you get, unless you get the Avatar on your side, but They're just as likely to attack you as the enemy. The Horned Reaper is only really useful in the final levels of the campaign, otherwise they are usually too much trouble to use.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Left to their own devices, they will pursue all enemies until they're a pile of sliced meat.
  • Ax-Crazy: They want nothing more to kill things, be they the enemy or your own minions when they're really angry.
  • The Berserker: They're barely controllable and will fly into a rage attacking everything they see.
  • Big Red Devil: Red, muscular beings with horns on their head.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: There is one working for the heroes in the last level, and a level 10 one at that.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Bile Demons and Dragons may outlast them, but the Horned Reaper's offensive strength is unmatched and their speed is above average.
  • Psycho for Hire: One of the finest examples. One of the better strategies for keeping a Reaper happy is to build them their own little dungeon, i.e. putting them in solitary confinement. Having the entry corridor be completely full of locked security doors is optional.
  • Sinister Scythe: Their signature weapon, a huge scythe which they use with one hand.
  • Unstoppable Rage: As soon a Keeper's Horned Reaper snaps, they are not coming back. They will not stop until you, your minions, and your entire dungeon is broken and bloody. Or They're dead.

Hellhound

The hound is a good fighter and has the ability to travel safely over lava. Hounds will tend to follow your more powerful creatures around as bodyguards, but will attack your own Demon Spawn if given the chance. Placing Hounds in your graveyard will speed the appearance of Vampires.


  • Breath Weapon: Learns Flame Breath, like the dragon.
  • Hell Hound: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, it is a demonic two headed dog.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Has the same duty as the Fly, but is specifically looking for things to kill while it's running around. And just like the Fly, it won't hesitate to attack enemies despite relative strength or numbers. Unlike the fly the Hellhound can actually do good damage and if it gets into trouble on its own it can likely take some enemies down with it.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Strong, powerful, and fast.
  • Multiple Head Case: Has two heads, both with glowing red eyes and sharp fangs.
  • Urine Trouble: A fittingly dark usage of the trope. Hellhounds will do one other duty, which is to urinate on fresh corpses in a Keeper's Graveyard. This makes the bodies decay faster, leading to quicker Vampire production.

Imps

The imp is the basic laborer, who carves out your dungeons, mines your gold, reinforces and decorates your dungeon, and carry things like bodies and traps around. Imps are the only creatures that give their loyalty for free, and are also the only creature that can be created magically, however the price to create an imp increases with the number you posses.


  • Fragile Speedster: A little time spent dodging spiked balls in the Training Room, and these little guys can cast Speed on themselves. Especially experienced Imps can teleport at will.
  • Happiness in Slavery: They don't require beds, food or wages to willingly carry out your fiendish designs, and the only disloyal thing they do is pledge allegiance to another keeper if captured alive and sent to the torture chamber.
  • Our Imps Are Different: Imps are the basic Worker Unit doing all the digging, land claiming and logistics. They are also made out of mana and have undying loyalty.
  • Worker Unit: Nothing will move in your dungeon without Imps. Other minions are too lazy to dig gold, set traps, reinforce the dungeon walls, or build rooms of any description.

Orcs

These are good all round warriors and like to be allocated guard room duties. They are quick to learn from training, and form a good basis for any close quarters combat. Orcs will refuse any research based duties.


Skeletons

The skeleton is another good fighting unit at high levels, and they are attained when a humanoid creature starves to death in your prison. Skeletons advance quickly when trained, and are immune to the effects of poison gas.


  • Dem Bones: A classic warrior skeleton wielding a sword and shield.
  • Glass Cannon: Can deal some damage, but are very poor at taking it.

Spiders

The spider is your first reasonable fighting unit and by far the most useful of the bugs. Good physical attributes are complimented well by a nice selection of combat abilities. The spider responds well to training.


  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Being giant spiders and all.
  • Giant Spider: Big spiders the size of mastiffs.
  • Harmless Freezing: Sufficiently high-level Spiders learn a Freeze spell that they will happily use in battle. When they have no assigned tasks, they will meander to the Keeper's Prison and freeze the captives within. This has a side effect of making the prisoners live longer without input from the Keeper.

Tentacles

Bizarre living tentacles that hit quite hard and are fairly durable, which make them good fighters when combined with their freeze ability. They are the only monsters you can't attract to your dungeon normally, you will instead have to recruit them yourself by find them wandering in underground rivers.


  • Combat Tentacles: Literally a slithering tentacle that exists to fight.
  • Our Monsters Are Weird: A creature with three tentacles for legs, and one for a head. They have no eyes of any description whatsoever.

Trolls

The troll is best used for manufacture, and has been known to turn down less manual jobs, such as research. Initially poor in combat, the troll gains good firepower at later levels. However, they are unlikely to use range attacks unless possessed.


  • All Trolls Are Different: These trolls are small green humanoids that are slightly below-average melee fighters but skilled artisans that will happily staff your workshop.
  • Non-Action Guy: Trolls prefer to spend all their time at the Workshop and won't bother with much else on their own. That being said, a prudent Keeper will train Trolls for a last line of defense.

Vampires

These undead creatures are vicious fighters and very skilled scavengers. They prove good researchers but will refuse to stay in your workshop. After a vampire's experience is above three, it becomes immortal, and can resurrects itself in its Lair after it dies, at the cost of 1 experience level. As with other undead, vampires can see invisible creatures and are immune to the effects of poison.


  • Berserk Button: Vampires do not enjoy being placed in a Temple. Being in there long enough will make them extremely testy.
  • Looks Like Orlok: An almost carbon copy, the only real difference is these vampires wearing red instead of black.
  • Magikarp Power: They are surprisingly weak at first, but once they get leveled up they are easily one of the strongest monsters in the game.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Powerful undead sorcerers born from the corpses of the fallen. They also don’t like the company of magicians and utterly detest all gods, even evil ones.
  • Power Floats: They never walk anywhere in the first game. It's nothing but floating and fog while they move.
  • Stone Wall: Good health and can drain energy from enemies; however, drain is also his only attack, and does little damage per hit. Downplayed when they get higher levels, where vampires learn some very powerful offensive spells.
  • Villain Teleportation: At higher levels they can instantly teleport across the dungeon to where they want to go.

Warlocks

The Warlock is good at both research and manufacturing, has a good range of attack spells, and gains vast experience if their lair is placed next to an unmined gold square. Unfortunately, they are also poor in close quarter combat.


  • Berserk Button: Warlocks are infuriated by minions (especially imps) wandering into their library while they're researching. If they're at least level 2, they will cast fireballs at the offending minion, often killing them if they're an imp.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Power hungry magicians who want a cut of your research, in exchange they serve you.
  • Glass Cannon: Definitely not the strongest physical fighters, even at level 10, but their powerful spells and general versatility at long range more than makes up for it.
  • Squishy Wizard: They're rather fragile units at the start, having zero ranged capacity at level 1 and being too physically weak to do much impact, spending more time in the library than actually training. However, when trained to a decent enough level, they become one of the most competent ranged fighters in the game.

    The forces of good 

Tunneler

The equivalent of your Imp unit, Tunnelers lead parties of stronger Heroes into your Dungeon, clearing their path to your Dungeon Heart. They are easy to dispatch, and even the weakest of your Creatures should have no trouble vanquishing them.


Dwarf

Essentially Tunnelers without the Dig ability, these units will be heavily encountered in the beginning levels and are easily dealt with.


Thief

Human units that are easy to kill, and are often encountered with Dwarfs. They will rob you of your gold if they make it to your Treasury and will turn into a Level 4 Knight when trained to "Level 11".


  • Lovable Rogue: Presumably how they're viewed by the Heroes. To a Keeper, Thieves are grubby little annoyances that aim for your gold.
  • Magikarp Power: Low level thieves are annoying pests at worst, at high levels they are fast and dangerous assassins. Even more so once you train them past Level 10, they become an even stronger Knight.

Archers

Look similar to Thieves, and are basically the same unit strength and usefulness-wise. Archers have a wider range of abilities, however, and can fire Navigator Missiles as well as Arrows.


  • Long-Range Fighter: As expected, they are most effective from afar. They can prove to be quite nasty if they have allies to protect them, but if you can reach them they are toast.

Wizards

Old wizards clade in blue, they specialize in offensive magic.


Monk

Fair fighters who do combat with a whip. They can be formidable foes.


  • Vampire Hunter: This is the only Hero that can kill an experienced Vampire on the first try. Everyone else will just send the Vampire back to its coffin.

Barbarian

Strong warriors who appear often throughout the game. They fight with a battle hammer and in great numbers, are deadly.


  • Boring, but Practical: Barbarians have one special ability, which is to get more armor, it's highly useful to stay in the fight, but far from as flashy as some of the abilities other units boasts.
  • Mighty Glacier: Very slow, but powerful.

Priestess

Powerful spell casters with a weakness in hand to hand combat. They protect themselves from this by using a wind spell to literally blow away the competition.


  • Blow You Away: One of their most dreaded abilities, especially in combination with poison gas and lava.
  • Hot Witch: They are well-endowed sorceresses with clothing that leaves little to the imagination.

Fairy

Similar to the Priestess, not as powerful but usually come in large numbers.


  • Fairy Sexy: Have shortcut dresses that show both their ample cleavage and legs.
  • Glass Cannon: Fairies may take only little punishment, but if groups of them come with the lightning spell, they will dole out serious hurt on your minions if you give them the chance.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: They are all benevolent and are human sized.

Giant

In contrast to most giants, these guys are heroic. A very powerful melee fighter.


  • Carry a Big Stick: Giants walk around with a huge, spiked club that causes a lot of damage to dungeon creatures.
  • Glass Cannon: Actually have less health and armor than the similar Barbarian unit, which is however still about twice as much as most other good units. Make up for it with gargantuan strength.
  • Mighty Glacier: Giants are unsurprisingly powerful, both on the attack and can take a fair amount of damage, however, the giant is also slow moving for most of the game, but does get the spell Speed at Level 10.
  • Our Giants Are Bigger: Easily the tallest unit in the game.

Samurai

An excellent fighter, very quick and even a good spell caster.


  • Archenemy: With Dark Mistresses. This is very, very bad in the scheme of minion rivalry. Both will attack each other on sight with intent to kill, and both are extremely valuable minions when leveled appropriately. It will take some deliberate dungeon design to dissuade daily duels.
  • Elite Mook: One of the strongest hero units in the game, as such getting them on your side is very desirable.
  • Lightning Bruiser: They've got it all: Speed, damage, they can take a hit, and they also have powerful spells such as Lightning.
  • Magic Knight: Can use both their katana and magic with equal effectiveness.

Knight

A.K.A. The lord of the land. There is one knight per level unless you train a thief past level 10.


  • Cool Helmet: A regal silver one with tall intimidating horns.
  • Knight In Shining Armour: Of course. Couldn't be an Evil Overlord without one of these fools trying to take you down.
  • Mighty Glacier: Can take a large amount of punishment, given they are essentially bosses it makes sense.
  • Right Makes Might: They certainly seem to think so.
    "IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, WE SHALL DEFEAT YOU!"

The Avatar

You may have seen this guy before. The most powerful warrior in the game. The Avatar makes two appearances in the final level. He owns all the realms you had previously taken over.


  • Forced Transformation: The ending involves a goblin messing with a magic staff accidentally transforming him into a female goblin, causing every one of the minions to give their new toy a lustful look.
  • Implacable Man: Bordering on The Juggernaut. It takes a lot to bring him down.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: It is possible to torture and convert him to your side, giving you the strongest entity in the game.
  • One-Man Army: The most powerful being in the forces of good or evil by a wide margin, you will need to throw an army at him to take him down.

From Dungeon Keeper II

    The forces of evil 

Imp

  • Butt-Monkey: They tend to be the 'volunteers' of choice for Bile Demons and Warlocks.

Goblin


Firefly


Warlock


Salamander

  • Fiery Salamander: They spit fireballs in combat, can wade through lava without injury and will make their lairs near to lava if given the choice.

Dark Elf


Skeleton Warrior


Dark Mistress

  • Combat Sadomasochist: Enjoys pain and inflicting it on others, and will often go to the torture room to hurt themselves if given nothing to do.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Up to eleven due to the graphical upgrade and her change in outfit in the second game.
  • Shock and Awe: With training, they gain an electrical attack, and at level 10, they can summon hail and lightning storms.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Torturing her actually increases her happiness!
  • Torture Technician: Will assist in torturing other creatures in the torture chamber.

Troll


Bile Demon

  • Fartillery: Weaponize their bodily functions against their enemies.
  • Fastball Special: A keeper who uses the possession spell on one can pick up and hurl dwarves and imps at the enemy.

Rogue


Vampire

  • Weaksauce Weakness: They can't cross water in their humanoid form and Monks can prevent them from resurrecting.

Dark Angel

  • Awesome, but Impractical: You have to construct a 5*5 temple (costs a whopping 75,000 gold) to recruit them, and even then you only get up to 2 (you can get more by building another 5*5 temple).
  • Mook Maker: A level 10 Dark Angel can summon Skeleton hordes.
  • Shock and Awe: At level 7 they gain the ability to summon hail and lightning storms (the same as what the Mistress gets at level 10).

Black Knight

  • Mighty Glacier: Quite slow, but one of the most powerful creatures of the game.

Horny

The Horned Reaper, returning from the first game, but is now a single demon which is called "Horny". He's even deadlier than in the original game, as he can't be damaged. Rather than appearing through a portal, you use a spell to call him in. He's actually needed for the final level as he's the only creature that can damage the Stone Knights.


  • Ascended Extra: Was just a type of creature, he is now an infamous evil warrior who has been key in the efforts to reclaim the portal gems.
  • Ax-Crazy: Every bit as homicidal as in the first game.
  • The Berserker: He will attack everything in sight at the drop of a hat and is almost impossible to control.
  • Big Red Devil: A demon with a big scythe.
  • Famed In-Story: Dialogue by the Mentor implies he is an infamous warrior.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Like the original game, almost anything will set him off.
  • The Juggernaut: He's the strongest creature in the game, and he can't be killed. He's also the only creature that can damage the Stone Knights in the final level.
  • Oh, Crap!: As confident as he is, Horny gets a brief Oh, Crap! moment when he goes to attack a Stone Knight in the closing cutscene, only for his scythe to harmlessly bounce off its armour.
  • Unstoppable Rage: He will fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, and he can't be killed.

    The forces of good 

Monk

King Reginald

  • Achilles' Heel: Two. One, while he heals on his home terrain he's very easy to lure out of it, and two, while he hits extremely hard his flashy style means he attacks very slowly making him easy to overwhelm.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: He dual-wields broadswords and can pretty much one-hit kill most of your creatures.
  • Big Good: Is responsible for the creation of the portal gems that have been cutting the dungeon keepers off from the surface.
  • Hero Antagonist: He is a king who is trying to protect his kingdom from evil doers like you.
  • Papa Wolf: Really, the only reason he decides to face you personally is because you tortured and converted his three sons.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something

Lord Pureheart

  • Mook Lieutenant: He's stated to be one of King Reginald's closest friends and is the last regular Lord of the land you face.


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