Lair

Lair
Details
Appears in	Dungeon Keeper Dungeon Keeper 2
Icon
Attracts	Bile Demon - 25 tiles (with Hatchery) Beetle - 1 tile Dragon - 15 tiles (with Treasure Room) Spider - 9 tiles (with Hatchery) Tentacle - 9 tiles (with Temple) Vampire - 9 tiles (with Graveyard) (DK1) Firefly Goblin - 5 tiles (DK2)
Health per Tile	200 (DK1) 10000 (DK2)
Cost (Buy/Sell)	100/50 (DK1) 300/150 (DK2)
Turns to Research	1000, but usually already available (DK1)
Zoom-to Key	Shift+L
First Appearance	Eversmile (DK1) Warcry (DK2)

The Lair is a room in Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 where Creatures may establish their homes.

Dungeon Keeper

One of the "basic five" rooms, the Lair is among the first dungeon features introduced in the campaign, being available in Eversmile. This is where creatures go to heal after getting injured or simply to rest after a hard day’s work. While sleeping, creatures slowly heal and, if agitated, calm down. Some creatures take up multiple slabs in the Lair: Bile Demons and Giants use two each, and Dragons use four. The number of slots available in a Lair depends on its slab count and efficiency; the more efficient it is, the more creatures it can accommodate and the faster their recovery rates.

Creature Ingress

Lairs affect the dungeon ingress mechanics (see Portal). After doing "check-in" at the Dungeon Heart, a newly-arrived creature makes a beeline for the Lair to establish a home in the dungeon; if this somehow fails, the Mentor sends the notification, "Your creatures need a bigger Lair," and the Portal is quietly deactivated until the situation changes. Homeless creatures will check for lair space when changing tasks, including food and pay, which may lead to endless pestering by this particular message from the Mentor.

Note that these homeless creatures will not get angry merely from lacking a dwelling; rather, their anger mounts rapidly once they get injured and have no place to recover. Exceptions to this type of annoyance are the Fly, Skeleton, Ghost, and Thief.

Natural Enemies

Creatures who are natural enemies will attack each other when they are in the same Lair, even if one is just passing through. The following creatures are natural enemies:

• Fly - Spider
• Demon Spawn - Hound
• Warlock - Vampire
• Bile Demon - Skeleton
• Dark Mistress - Samurai

Hosting these creatures in the same dungeon requires having two Lairs that do not lie along the paths between tasks.

Other Behaviors & Table

Certain creatures also gain experience as they sleep if their dwelling is directly adjacent to a specific tile. These are Warlocks beside a gold seam, Dragons beside lava, and Tentacles beside water; however, the nominal training per turn is not properly multiplied by 256 as it is when the creature is in combat or training. Therefore, the benefits of this mechanic are negligible in the retail version of Dungeon Keeper.

Even if they do not have enemies and favored tiles, all creatures have their own attitudes towards sleeping ("Sleep Anger") and innate recovery speed when sleeping. Vampires and Dragons are noteworthy lovers of their lairs, whereas the Horned Reaper will slowly work himself into a rage in there; meanwhile the Tentacle, with its high health and slow recovery rate, is a notorious sleep addict. Most creatures also feel a sharp anger spike if they are slapped awake. Semi-sentient monsters like Beetles, Flies, and Ghosts are relatively indifferent to this, while the Mistress, being a bit too sentient for her own good, enjoys it more than actually sleeping.

Creature	Lair		Recovery per turn	Anger per turn	Experience per turn	Anger: slapped awake
Beetle			5	-1		+50
Bile Demon		2 tiles	4	-6		+300
Demon Spawn			5	-1		+200
Dragon		4 tiles	3	-10	3	+400
DruidFX
Fly			5	-1		+50
Ghost			4	-1		0
Hound			8	-2		+250
Horned Reaper			8	+2		+3000
Dark Mistress			9	-1		-200
Orc			7	-4		+150
Skeleton			5	-1		+150
Spider			2	-1		+100
Tentacle			1	-1	2	+200
Troll			6	-3		+200
Vampire			9	-7		+1750
Warlock			6	-4	1	+250
Hero	Lair		Recovery per turn	Anger per turn	Experience per turn	Anger: slapped awake
Archer			2	-1		+200
Avatar			9	-1		+2000
Barbarian			5	-3		+100
Fairy			2	-1		+210
Giant		2 tiles	5	-6		+100
Knight			6	-1		+250
Monk			8	-4		+200
Mountain Dwarf			4	-3		+200
Samurai			9	-1		+250
Time MageFX
Thief			4	-1		+200
Tunneller			4	-3		+200
Witch			3	-1		+200
Wizard			4	-1		+250

Dungeon Keeper 2

In Dungeon Keeper 2, the Lair is made available in Smilesville. A Lair can be any size and shape and costs 300 gold per tile. The number of Lair tiles in a dungeon affects the number of creatures that will come through a Portal. If you don’t have a Lair, only one creature will come through the Portal. All creatures need one space in the Lair, except the Skeleton, which never sleeps.

Evil creatures and converted heroes rapidly become unhappy in each other's company, as they hate each other (especially direct counterparts). This means they shouldn't usually share a Lair. Separate Lairs are easily made, as they can be of any size and placed anywhere; they just need to not touch each other at the edges to count as separate rooms.

Creatures will periodically need sleep here, during which time they will heal if necessary. Or outright go to sleep specifically to heal if so low on health. Your own unconscious creatures are also dragged here either during/after real combat, or being defeated in a Combat Pit.

Tips

• From a Keeper's perspective, the benefit of Lairs is that they automatically heal your creatures as opposed to requiring your specific manual input.
• Can be as small as 1x1 for one creature truly without drawbacks. That is, of course, as long as every creature gets 1 tile. Except those that do not need a Lair.
• Skeletons and Imps do not have use for a Lair at all.
• Dwarves need 1 tile of free open Lair to regain consciousness when knocked out and dragged there but will not make a bed.
• Build separate Lairs for your evil creatures and converted heroes. It will mean a world of a difference in eventual moods.
• It may be a good idea to place manufacturer Lairs close to Workshops, researcher Lairs close to Libraries, guard duty performer Lairs close to Guard Rooms. On some time sensitive levels it may also be a good idea for Lairs not to be far from one or more Training Rooms to gain experience faster.
• The Lair is where injured creatures flee to. The sooner they reach it, the sooner they can run back to battle if there is a Call to Arms.
• A Lair may sometimes be necessary to break a cycle of sulking with unhappy creatures.
• If Imps do not have access to the specific bed in a specific Lair of an unconscious creature, they won't be smart enough to drag it to a different one.
  • Fireflies, Salamanders, Giants, Fairies, do not need a Stone Bridge to get to their Lair across a river of lava, but Imps won't be able to drag them there when unconscious.
• You can usually get away with putting Vampires in a far away lair thematically together, without them becoming unhappy too fast.

Bugs

• Some creatures may sulk with such buggy code that all that they may want to do is sleep, yet when they reach their bed they change their minds.
• The Princes, Lords, and the King may totally fail at creating a bed.

Trivia

• Freshly converted creatures of all kinds usually immediately want to make a lair and need to sleep in it to heal.
• If someone didn't play the first game, the evil and good Lair separation necessity for mood is so non-tutorialed, it is not at all learnable by simply playing the game.
• Some creatures may have a cartoonish snoring zzzZZZ graphic above them when sleeping. Mostly creatures that have armor.
• Every evil creature has a different bed. All converted heroes have a simple looking bed, except the Fairy that has the same as a Dark Elf.
• Game development photos revealed preliminary stages of how the Lair was formed in different design philosophy and completion phases. Initially it had no carpet, just a barrel and uncomfortable light sand brown-yellow marble floor. Originally Lairs had pillars tightly in the furthest corners. These were obviously visually in the way of some corner beds.