Prison

The Prison is a room in Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2. It is a facility meant to host troublesome heroes and enemy creatures after your own creatures have knocked them unconscious.

Description[]

General[]

After knocking enemy heroes or creatures unconscious, it is possible to store them in the Prison. They can be left there to rot, or put in the Torture Chamber. If the player wishes to leave them to rot, eventually they will rise as Skeletons.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] The Torture Chamber can be used to convert enemy heroes or creatures, or coerce map information from them.

Creatures often have money on them, and any money that a creature has will be dropped on the Prison floor when it dies. This allows you to make some cash on the side by warmongering and taking prisoners. Beware, though, creatures in the Prison may pick up the newly dropped gold before you do. This won't be a problem if you are not planning to leave any prisoners alive. You may also want to have separate Prisons for those you are planning to convert, so they don't take the gold and leave when converted.

If your Torture Chamber is full and there are still heroes in the Prison you want to have converted later, make sure to heal them by using the Heal spell or (force-)feeding them.^[3]^[4]

Dungeon Keeper[]

Only humanoid creatures can rise as Skeletons. If a creature has the Heal ability, it is unlikely to lose enough health by starving to die. The Keeper must first enable the Imprison mode; otherwise, enemies will be killed instead of stunned.^[2]

Prisons are good places to quarantine diseased creatures or shield creatures from scavenging if one does not have a Temple.^[2] While a Temple may seem preferable for scavenging protection because it protects other creatures in addition to itself, creatures can and will leave it (and therefore expose itself once more) when they need food or rest; they cannot leave a Prison.

A jailbreak can occur if you overcrowd a Prison, if the prisoners' owner gets to it, or if there's an enemy tile next to it.

Dungeon Keeper 2[]

A Prison is yet again a highly important room in the sequel. This is the hub where all your manpower trophies need to go through, the unconscious bodies of defeated heroes, creatures of opposing Keepers of all colors, either A.I. or player controlled, or rebels of your own or of any other Keeper. They need to be on your territory for you to be able to collect them with an Imp or a Dwarf. It is here where you can decide what to do with conquered foes:

Use them in a Combat Pit while still hostile,
use them as live targets in simulated real combat by getting them (preferably melee ones) stranded on a Stone Bridge surrounded by lava to shoot at by ranged creatures,
turn them into a Skeleton in the Prison,
convert them in a Torture Chamber,
torture map information out of them,
turn them into corpses to rot away into its soil to eventually create Vampires in a Graveyard by either:
- turning imprisoning off as they are lying outside the Prison (after imprisoned once they will need to be knocked unconscious again),
- slap them fast enough in the Prison to rot away instead of starving doing the killing blow,
- map information torturing them for this particular purpose also getting a corpse,
using them as part of Temple sacrifices,
or put them near the land and/or forces/traps of a different Keeper (best if human controlled) to let him decide; or in case of an enemy Keeper with his own creature, you can effectively give his creature back.

Most heroes are worth converting. However, if money is a problem, then the Skeleton is free, has no upkeep, and is as strong as a Goblin!

However, no matter the creature you kill in your Prison, you will not spawn new Skeletons if your Skeleton count is maxed, regardless of how you came to have them. The number of Skeletons you can have in your undead legion depends on the size of your Prison. A Prison's capacity is the number of inner tiles it has plus one.^[4]

You can turn imprisoning off in any Prison you have by closing the bolt on the door.

Tips[]

All creatures can become Skeletons, except ones that are already Skeletons (including the Elite, Bane), Vampires, or Imps. All that can, become a basic humanoid Skeleton with a sword and shield, seen in the CGI FMV cutscenes, albeit without hair in-game. Contrary to Imps, Dwarves CAN become Skeletons. Every Skeleton emerges level 1. Creatures need to die to the Prison's inherent starving damage, not anything else, for Skeleton creation to work.
- Dying creatures drop gold, which the player needs to pick up. But it needs to be done fast because other living creatures can pick it up. And since there is a maximum they can hold, and if either already max or if they themselves are converted, that money is lost forever - which is not ideal on maps that have no Gem Seams.
Your own creatures can also be converted into Skeletons. Either if you don't want weak creatures like uninvited Goblins that join you, Skeletons are currently your strongest available creatures and you'd want to get/transform as many as possible, or being annoyed by a particular creature for being troublesome (like a Bile Demon eating too much). Regardless of Dwarves being so similar to Imps in their role, they can still become Skeletons when you have previously converted them.
You can take large chunks of health off a creature by slapping it to speed up their death, just make sure not to do the killing blow, again, they need to die strictly and directly to the Prison's inherent starving damage tick system to become Skeletons. Somewhere between glowing and blinking 2 petals on the health flower. Warning: There is no going back -> creatures you slap many times become unhappy or angry! Pro tip: Practice in single player with Quick Save and Quick Load!
Since Prison tiles have a moderate cost, it may be more worthwhile to use Skeletons as cannon fodder in an army in some cases, not training them at all, and replenishing them with the freshly killed creatures as they die off.
You can have multiple Prisons, but your largest will determine your Skeleton limit.
If you are at your Skeleton limit, dying creatures will simply become rotting corpses (without an audio notification) on the side of your Prison room itself compatible only with the Graveyard, but that way you will miss out on tortured map information which would have resulted in giving you the same corpse in the end.
A gaolbreak / jailbreak can occur if you overcrowd a Prison (the only way to do this is to drop too many creatures into a Prison; Imps leave stunned creatures outside full Prisons). Under the right circumstances, the chance of an overcrowding gaolbreak is 50 per cent every second.^[4] Alternatively, jailbreaks can be caused by hero raiding parties or enemy evil creature invaders. (May be Troll, Rogue, Thief, Dwarf.) Or, depending on game version, any possessed creature, either enemy or you yourself in your own Prison. There are two types of prison breaks:
- one where only the door opens,
- and one where the cage also gets damaged allowing the prisoners to walk through the cage walls anywhere. ^{(Information needed - No idea what extra criteria causes this.)}
A Prison can also function as a collecting area where you can put your Skeletons so they keep out of trouble, if you do not have a Guard Room, a Temple, or above level 8 a Combat Pit (below level 8 is also fine for 1 creature per pit).
- Other creatures if yours can also be put here for safe keeping for a short time, but they will "[...] become unhappy because [they] have been imprisoned." Needless to say this is not ideal, unless they are on their way to becoming Skeletons or Vampires.
When you build a Prison over a live enemy, he won't work as a prisoner and may even destroy your Prison tiles from the inside of the cell yard. (This might be a developer oversight, but it's fair.)
Prisoners can be used in the Combat Pit.^[4] If you are bored, and possessing a creature, you may shoot ranged projectiles at the prisoner in the pit to help your favorite creature win.
The Prison, like the Temple, and the Combat Pit, have a central no walk zone that can slow invaders that would head to your Dungeon Heart from an entrance if strategically placed. Same if the walls around a Portal are likewise strategically dug due to its central chasm. If these are heroes, and lack Dwarves, you can deny even such a desire from them by using Secret Doors. But if they do have one or more, or if it is a Keeper with Imps (especially human controlled), they may either dig through any diggable walls you'd have towards a common area, or if attempting to do the same with what they think is a Reinforced Wall but actually turns out to be a Secret Door, the door will be uncovered, and will be broken down by creatures that don't even need the ability to dig.
Caution is advised with hero raiding parties because they can destroy tiles of your rooms, and if Prison tiles get destroyed that may put prisoners on the outer side of the cell!
If you do not yet know what to do with prisoners, heal them with either the Heal Spell or the Heal Creature spell when possessing a Warlock or a Monk. They can also be fed chickens.
If possessing a creature, and bored, you can target practice ranged attacks on prisoners. Be careful not to kill them yourself if you want Skeletons!
Ranged projectiles may freely be targeted through and travel through the cell yard at foes between opposing forces. This natural occurrence may be a smart tactic to exploit to separate Support units from the rest upon dealing with intruders, especially Blitzers.
If you turn imprisoning off in all your Prisons, your Imps will wait until unconscious bodies becomes corpses, and take them to a Graveyard.
If you see an Imp drag an unconscious creature to a Prison, it is a great idea to cast Haste Creature on it with a Monk. Especially if it is a Dwarf!
Sadly finding and "claiming" neutral Skeletons before reaching your Prison Skeleton limit normally counts against your limit as if you had created them. This means, finding neutral ones brings you closer to not being able to create your own ones in your Prison which you paid for, potentially needing to convert future beaten enemies which normally you wouldn't like to. Unless you are able to expand your Prison. It would be ideal to find neutral ones after reaching your maximum, but that most of the time just isn't viable. (A remaster could change this.)
- After reaching max, you may use a Vampire to turn corpses into Skeletons with their Raise Dead spell at level 10, effectively going over your max, like finding neutrals after reaching max.
An online tactic tends to be building a Prison close to the front line to imprison beaten enemies faster.
An online game streamer may ask his or her viewers which creature to convert from the cell.

Bugs[]

Freshly created Skeletons tend to have a problem walking out the Prison door if there is a Call to Arms active, possibly if they'd need to turn a sharp corner after going through the door.
- A.I. Keepers aren't even smart enough to take these Skeletons out of their own Prisons. They remain in there forever, decreasing their Prison capacity.
If the Keeper picks a freshly created Skeleton up from the Prison after he has opened the door but before he closes it, the door may remain open indefinitely, although it will not hinder prisoner quarantine in any way. To close the door, simply click the imprisoning bar once to close it, once again to continue imprisoning.
Hypnotised prisoners, when the effect ends, do not return to the state of being a normal prisoner but become simply a stranded inner yard active hostile, who, again, may attack and destroy from the inside, like with the above mentioned developer oversight.
When entering Possession close to a wall decoration grated gate with a half Skeleton, sometimes the player may see behind it as the spell camera goes closer mid-air.
A.I. Keepers aren't smart enough to take gold out of their Prisons.
Some neutral creatures may suffer starving damage in a Prison, while they shouldn't. This necessitates fast rescues. Either claim the Prison in which they are in and take them out by hand, or cause a prison break for them to be able to get out.
Sometimes Imps don't drag bodies through the cell door, but go around it directly next to it through the fence wall.
Programming Oversight: A player also may get the message 'a creature is starving in your prison' if the creature is not starving, in case of Skeletons and Vampires.

Trivia[]

The Prison doesn't have wall appliances.
Fireflies, Rogues, and in multiplayer, Thieves, and Fairies, due to their exploring habit, are likely to land on your doorstep to be slain, for you to turn them into your resource. Or, likewise in multiplayer, any possessed creature.
The rats are a sign of a fine Prison. However this "fact" may have no effect on gameplay whatsoever, likely just worldbuilding to set the mood. Nonetheless rat animals may roam around your Prison over time, even wandering outside.
In the Torture Chamber, most victims put in an electric chair visually appear as Skeletons for temporary time segments. Except the Firefly, Bile Demon, Salamander, and Maiden.
You cannot configure the location of the cell door. This can sometimes lead to the player's 'Imp body dragging time frustration' on large maps with large Prisons.
The only thing that can imbalance creatures in a Prison and make them fall to the ground, is the Whirlwind creature spell.
Like Skeletons, Vampires also do not starve in the cell.
Jackpot Winners can be dropped in a Prison but they will not act like prisoners, not starve, and can be possessed to look around inside the cell.
The Dark Angel at level 10 can create temporary level 1 Skeletons with his Skeleton Army spell.
To remind you of a new inhabitant or an old task you still haven't decided upon, the Mentor will exclaim "A creature is starving in your prison."
The Mentor will also notify you if your creature has been imprisoned by an enemy Keeper.
Contrary to some erroneous tips, Dwarves do starve in a Prison.
The Prison also had corner columns in pre-release development, showcased by older photos.

References[]

↑ ダンジョンキーパープレミアム勇者撃退ガイド. (Japanese). p. 24. Tokyo: NTT Publishing. (1998). ISBN 978-4-87188-897-4.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Prima's Official Guide To Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition. p. 119. Prima Publishing. (1998). ISBN 978-0-7615-1581-4.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 ダンジョンキーパー２コンプリートガイドブック. (Japanese). p. 20. Tokyo: Keibunsha. (1999). ISBN 978-4-7669-3293-5.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 ^4.4 Dungeon Keeper 2 : Prima's Official Strategy Guide. p. 87. Rocklin, CA: Prima Games. (1999). ISBN 978-0-7615-1805-1.

[Premium-1] ダンジョンキーパープレミアム勇者撃退ガイド. (Japanese). p. 24. Tokyo: NTT Publishing. (1998). ISBN 978-4-87188-897-4.

[PrimaGold-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Prima's Official Guide To Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition. p. 119. Prima Publishing. (1998). ISBN 978-0-7615-1581-4.

[Complete-3] 3.0 ^3.1 ダンジョンキーパー２コンプリートガイドブック. (Japanese). p. 20. Tokyo: Keibunsha. (1999). ISBN 978-4-7669-3293-5.

[Prima2-4] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 ^4.4 Dungeon Keeper 2 : Prima's Official Strategy Guide. p. 87. Rocklin, CA: Prima Games. (1999). ISBN 978-0-7615-1805-1.

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