The Temple is a room dedicated to the dark gods where creatures can worship and/or be sacrificed to gain rewards.
Worship makes creatures happy. This can be exceedingly useful, as it can quickly turn an angered Horned Reaper into a calmer state, saving it from rampaging through one's dungeon. It also protects them from scavenging; any creature assigned to worship in the Temple is supposed to protect two more of its kind being scavenged,[1] and its own immunity to scavenging lingers for about 1½ minutes after it leaves. However, this is not actually the case: what actually happens is it blocks two enemy scavengers from scavenging any creature of that kind belonging to you. Worship also cures the conditions of Chicken and Disease.
One should be aware of the recipes, or be willing to bear the risks, when indulging in sacrifice: not all creatures or recipes produce desirable results.
Worship[]
There are several issues to bear in mind when using a Temple. First and foremost, creatures dropped along the stone-tiled borders of the room will perform worship, but those dropped over the center, the rippling pool squares, will be sacrificed. The number of creatures that can worship in the structure is, as usual, determined by its size and efficiency. Creatures are not talented geometrists; strive to build square rooms; e.g., 5x5, to prevent creatures from getting stuck figuring out a path around/through/out of the room.
The main use for worship is in reducing anger. An announcement is made when a creature becomes angry; otherwise, use the Query tool to determine if a visit to the Temple could be worthwhile.
The only occasion to lay down a particularly large Temple is to combat a disease. The Temple cures the disease and, if large enough, can be a sort of quarantine— without it the disease might just pass endlessly around as creatures sit in the Lair trying to heal.
Quirks[]
Ghosts love moaning in the Temple. In fact, their default task is worship, and they will only engage in their secondary task, research, when the structure is not present or there is no space in it.
Vampires hate the gods. The only way to cure anger on these creatures is to bribe them or let them sleep for a while. They will rapidly become angry when using a Temple (and are the only minion that does so), although a split-second visit can still be useful to protect the fiend from scavenging and to purge enemy curses. In KeeperFX, you can use the Must Obey spell to force them to pray. This is useful in getting them cured, but they certainly won't be happy for it.
Worship is a useful ongoing job to keep idle Horned Reapers happy.
Temple slabs, like Guard Post slabs, can be used to block access to your dungeon from a low terrain, such as water.
The thought bubble for praying is a Horned Reaper's head. Although presumably an allusion to the Reaper's head being a Temple wall relief, the meaning may not be immediately apparent, especially if the creature is not yet actually in one, and merely heading there. According to the manual, this bubble means that a Horned Reaper has gone psycho, which is incorrect. In KeeperFX, praying has a new bubble, whose meaning is unambiguous.
Sacrifice[]
When a new minion is generated by appropriate sacrifices, its level is determined by the following formula:
Level of resulting creature = average level of sacrificed creatures (rounded down) + 1
The centerpiece recipes in the original version of the game include the Horned Reaper and a method for lowering the incremental cost of Imps (allowing any number of them to be amassed at effectively 150 gold apiece). Insects are also useful in a number of rituals. The tables below provide a full listing.
In KeeperFX, new Temple sacrifices can be added and existing ones can be altered in the [sacrifices] section of rules.cfg; however, a few recipes seem to be hard-coded and do not appear in this file.
Gallery[]
Interior slab ripple effect
Dungeon Keeper 2[]
Concept art
The Temple is the last room The Keeper gets access to, and costs 3000 gold per tile. It has a minimum size of 5x5, and attracts a maximum of 2 Dark Angels per Temple hand. (The largest problem with this fact is needing to find the sheer room size slots to dig out to place more than one 5x5 example if a Keeper wishes to do so.)
Building a 3x3 Temple allows the sacrifice of all sorts of things, like chickens, gold, and especially units. All sacrifices generate mana, but sacrificing certain combinations of units will create either a new unit (both creatures and heroes), with a level average to the sacrificed units, or an item.
A Temple becomes useful at higher levels when more powerful portal creatures are available; the weak ones can be sacrificed, and will generate more mana depending on the creature type and level. (Although this is the most wasteful way to make use of creatures.) Resulting creatures from combinations also scale with the ingredient creatures used.
It is usually not a wise move to build a Temple solely for the Dark Angels, unless gold is not a problem. Although it should be noted that a Keeper cannot rely on mana alone to prevail. But a Temple's benefits never really stop at a beginner Keeper's desires' ends.
Be careful when building one, not to build 3x3 or larger rooms where creatures are! When they fall in, they can get sacrificed.
Praying[]
Another use of the Temple is to quickly generate mana by forcing creatures to pray by dropping them onto the outer ring of the Temple. Creature level doesn't affect the quantity of mana produced from praying, except in the case that a level 4 creature only seems to generate 1/4 (rounded down) of the normal quantity. Also, converted creatures generate double the usual quantity. Vampires and Warlocks will choose to pray willingly after spells have been researched.
Oddly enough, the Temple is unique in a way that the central pool - which may be 3x3 with a hand idol if the entire room is 5x5 - is used by the Keeper and the Portals, while the outer "ring" is useful for creatures.
Praying also makes creatures happy if their reason for unhappiness is not a factor that they are currently suffering from (like lack of pay or food). Praying also generates an extra amount of happiness. This constant extra accumulation of happiness makes them tolerate their faction origin rivals in the same Temple, and may even sometimes allow them to go further to get their wage and food while staying happy. Also they never get unhappy because they (think they) have no work to do and will rarely choose Casino drinking instead of praying - a slower form of anti-depressant for them.
Vampires have the advantage of praying automatically, if there is nothing to research and there is room for them at an Unholy Temple. They will pray even to the exclusion of training, which is handy as you do not want them to train up to level 4.
Although Skeletons have the lowest mana output, they have the advantage of not having to eat or sleep, and they don't take pay. This means a horde of them can be a good source of mana if you can get them past level 4 (or put them in the Unholy Temple before they train up to level 4), because they will literally stay there and pray forever until you make them do something else. You can lock 24 of them in a 5x5 room, all filled with Unholy Temple except for the center square, and have a constant stream of 720 mana per turn.
HUGE tactical asset: Note that the creatures with which you are blessed by sacrificing other creatures, much like creatures converted in the Torture Chamber, do not count against the total number that your Portals will attract. However, if you are not playing a combat-heavy game mode, you may consider the question if you really do need that many of some creatures.
Compared to the Prison and the Graveyard, the Temple is quite generous with how it grants creatures with sacrifices. Not only do they not need to conform to any Portal limit, nor room pool (pun not intended), but calculating what level creatures the player throws into the pool, a creature sporting an average of the used creatures appears. An example from the top of the above list: Either two level 4 Vampires, or one level 2 and one level 6 Vampire(s), both formulas provide a Level 4 Bile Demon. Thereby the Temple becomes a player's best and fastest way to amass an unlimited army when not playing a My Pet Dungeon. But possibly even then.
Elite Creatures can also be sacrificed without problems, they are worth the same input as their normal counterparts. Proven to even be helpful in Multiplayer by veteran players.
You can quickly sacrifice Imps to gain mana if low.
A Temple may be an expensive one lump sum price to build, but if all is working as intended, all the bonuses far outweigh what the player gains from a Combat Pit and the multiple Jackpots the Casino gives off to creatures.
Another nice thing about having the undead pray; if they are injured, praying will heal them. Since Skeletons do not sleep, this is a handy way to keep them at full health without having to use the Heal spell.
As an important recap: Converted creatures generate double the usual quantity.
Additionally, praying is also a smart occupation to keep your explorer creatures away from danger. A safe hobby for your Firefly, Rogue, Thief, Fairy. If there is enough room for them in the Temple.
Like the Prison, the Combat Pit, and to a lesser extent the Portal & Mercenary Portal, the Temple also has a central impassable/non-traverse center obstacle area which my serve as a defensive hindrance to invading parties of any kind, regardless if they are fliers, in intelligent tactical dungeon design. So keeping Temple placement in mind with tunnel routes for a defensible dungeon layout is a smart player move.
Side praying standing slots are 1 spot per 1 tile. A 5x5 Temple has 16 slots. You can add to these sideline spaces by extending them always only with 1 or 2 tiles, never 3 not to create a pool extension which takes away praying slots. Lone Temple tiles can be added to the edge of an existing Temple, even forming corridors, anything to increase pray space.
Once the Portals may not provide any more creatures and if the Keeper does not want to sacrifice anything, the centermost square can be sold thereby maximizing the "ring" area where creatures can pray on making the pool disappear.
Temples can serve as a small area of effect pseudo Guard Room for some places. Your assigned creatures, who seem to return to the same Temple, do something useful there in the form of generating mana, and when an enemy comes close they can attack it like guards in a Guard Room. Especially since aggro attention works around corners and they get healed once the intruders are dealt with. A central pool isn't even needed, you can even build no pool Temple room corridors to make good use of limited space. Technically if you know enemies are going to come through there, Temple healing is more useful than the danger report zone of a real Guard Room.
Current active victims of a ChickenSpell can still be used in Temple sacrifice recipes.
Bugs[]
WARNING: If you do not keep an eye on your praying creatures once in a while, sometimes one of them will fall into the pool and eventually even "sacrifice" itself/themselves. Vampires seem to be especially prone to this, for some reason. Also Wizards, Warlocks, and Monks. Sometimes even Guards and Knights.
As a tip, each creature you experience falling into the pool when being notified that 'some of your creatures cannot get to a [room]', you may want to place in an alternate location/room/job instead, like a Guard Room or a Casino.
Trivia[]
This room has no wall appliances, so feel free to build it wherever you want, provide as many access points as you wish, possibly even forgo leaving the walls intact altogether.
When sacrificing something, the Mentor says "The Dark Gods have accepted your sacrifice" but when you sacrifice 2 Dark Mistresses and get a Skeleton, he says "Are you mad? The Dark Gods will punish you for such blasphemy!".
Jackpot Winners can be thrown into the Temple pool, cannot be sacrificed, may be possessed, and the Keeper may look around inside.
The Temple is the only place to get a new Skeleton which is not level 1 without finding a neutral one.
If the player only has access to a Mercenary Portal, he is locked out of performing most sacrifice recipes.
There was a development phase when the bright oil burner bowls were simple candelabras. The pool itself went though many design experiments, one of them being only having four pillars at the corners and a green liquid for water. And also normal water with no pillars at all.
In Dungeon Keeper Online, this room works similarly to Dungeon Keeper 2; it boosts creature morale, and sacrifices to the gods can be made for rewards.[6] It uses the same icon as Dungeon Keeper 2.
Dungeon Keeper Mobile[]
Unholy Temple
Overview[]
The Unholy Temple is a compact (3x3) defensive room unlocked with a Level 7 Dungeon Heart. The Unholy Temple allows for the summoning of the Ghost, the first Minion with the ability to fly over dungeon defenses. Ghosts are critical as these aerial units are unlocked before substantial anti-air defenses.
The Unholy Temple is equipped with its own ranged defense: the Soul Siphon. The Soul Siphon targets a small number of enemy minions on ground or air, continously dealing appreciable single target DPS and continuously applying a movement speed slow and attack speed slow. The total number of enemy minions the Unholy Temple can target simultaneously depends on level, doubling from one to two units after the first upgrade. As with other dungeon elements that also incorporate Slow effects, this effect is most effective when paired with other defenses. Note that the Unholy Temple will not spawn Ghosts to defend it, unlike most other combat rooms.
Since it does damage to one troop at a time it goes well with a high damage combat room.
↑ 1.01.1The campaign has no maps with these creatures in the pool.
↑Does not work in Dungeon Keeper due to a coding error, but is fixed in Dungeon Keeper FX.
↑Easter Egg, and the Spider comes via a Portal rather than the Temple Pool and is a random level. Also only works if you have three or fewer Spiders. When repeating the sacrifice, you need only sacrifice 16 Chickens. This recipe was in certain prototype builds of the original game in slightly varying forms, but appears to have been removed from the retail build.
Create Imp drops[2][3]
Bile Demon[2][3]
Warlock[2][3]
Dark Mistress[2][3]
Horned Reaper[2][3]
Chickens die[2][3]
Diseased[2][3]
Rebound is cast on your creatures
Armour is cast on your creatures
Invisibility is cast on your creatures
Flight is cast on your creatures
Speed is cast on your creatures
Heal is cast on your creatures
Tentacle
Freeze is cast on your creatures
Slow is cast on your creatures
Vampires
Bile Demon[4][5]
Trolls
Warlock[4][5]
Salamanders
Mistress[4][5]
Dark Elves
Goblin[4][5]
Rogues
Skeletons
Firefly[Note 4]
Black Knights
Guard
Turncoat
Knight
Create Imp
Dwarf
Tremor
Giant
Inferno
Wizard
Sight of Evil
Elven Archer
Create Gold
Thief
Heal
Monk
Thunderbolt
Fairy
Call to Arms
Imp
Gas Trap
Boulder Trap
Sentry Trap
Alarm Trap
Fireburst Trap
Lightning Trap
Freeze Trap
Fear Trap
Trigger Trap
Spike Trap
Wooden Door
Braced Door
Steel Door
Magic Door
Secret Door
Barricade
Mana Boost[4][5]
Increase Gold
Make Safe[4][5]
Receive Imps[4][5]
Stun Imps
Make Happy
Make Unhappy
