This realm hosts a three-Keeper free-for-all. Each contender has a high creature limit and gems at-hand... the stuff of a protracted battle. Heroes are mounting a defense in the center. Indeed, the first Keeper to stumble out into open water risks getting slaughtered by them.
There are two ways to complete Woodly Rhyme. Either eliminate all heroes and Keepers in conventional conquest, or cast the Armageddon spell and let the blood flow over your Dungeon Heart. This is also the first level in which the player can manufacture the Word Of Power Trap.
A subterranean river of sorts runs through this realm. The first hazard of life in Woodly Rhyme is tunneling out into the water too early. It is tempting to redesign Red's cramped rooms and twisting corridors into a large, streamlined workspace, so beware of sneaky, watery inlets during expansion. A Knight and his two Samurai guards (all Level 10), are ruthlessly determined to squish the first player to open a valid path from the water to his Dungeon Heart. They will bash down the doors of their own fortress and charge out.
Provided that Red remains cautious, Blue may be the first Keeper to reach the water while hollowing out his basic rooms. Without solid spell research, the Keeper will almost always be destroyed. There are scripted messages for both Blue and Green alerting the player when a rival is running too low on creatures— this situation was obviously anticipated— but the messages were not implemented properly.
Laying a Guard Post slab adjacent to water makes the bank too steep for non-flying creatures to travel, severing routes. Useful for covering a mistake or even forcing an early confrontation between the Heroes and one of the other Keepers.
Groups[]
Squatting in the water is a Hero-owned dungeon, an ancient redoubt with "great archeological significance" and the most heavily-trapped place in the entire Dungeon Keeper campaign. Waves of heroes rally to its defense.
Hero Party "ONE"
This party appears in the corridor just beyond the unclaimed Treasure Rooms, in conjunction with party "FOUR". There are two triggers for it in this corridor, so it appears twice. The Archers each carry 500 gold. The Wizard carries 600.
Hero Party "TWO"
These Mountain Dwarves each carry 800 gold. They enter the white dungeon's left-anterior room 500 turns (25-30 seconds) after the human player enters it, and attack.
Hero Party "THREE"
This party enters the white dungeon's right-anterior room 1000 turns (~1 minute) after the human player enters it, and attacks. Each Priestess holds 1800 gold. Their mission seems to be maximum confusion, since they all have Wind spells but no spammable attacks.
Hero Party "FOUR"
This party appears in the corridor just beyond the unclaimed treasure rooms, in conjunction with party "ONE". There are two triggers for it in this corridor, so it appears twice. Each Barbarian holds 900 gold.
The white dungeon's gold hoard, unclaimed creatures, and one Increase Level special (which requires claiming a tile with five traps on it) are worth capturing at any time. The final rooms seem to be an elaborate warding system of some kind, concealing the location of a hidden realm, Secret 3.
Inner chambers of the White Dungeon
Keepers[]
Resources[]
The Red Keeper has access to two open Gem faces. The AI players each have access to four gem faces, to keep pace. If one of these players were to meet an untimely death by digging out a doorway for questing Heroes, one might consider walking in and assuming control over the gem seams and Portal.
Creatures[]
There is greater variety than Sleepiburgh. The Portals are slow but very steady in this realm, and the creature limit for each Keeper is high (40, 35, 35). Dragons are back for Red, Trolls are back for the opponents, Orcs are back for everyone, and unusually, there are 3 Vampires in the creature pool that are attracted by Graveyards (possibly leading to a scavenging competition).
Once again, there is a conspicuous absence of Bile Demons. There are none in the creature pool, and exactly 1 on the map, locked far away from any real use. If he dies or is sacrificed, 1 Bile Demon is added to the creature pool... but no players can attract them in this realm. If you transferred a Bile Demon from Sleepiburgh, he can scavenge the creature pool, though. This would be the only way to form a team of Horned Reapers, should that be appealing.
Armageddon[]
Better late than never, Armageddon has arrived. Rather than train a proper invasion force, this spell can be an entirely different approach to the match. Fill an enormous treasure room and press the red button. Blow all the gold reserves with maximum-charged Lightning Strikes while the opponents are forcibly massed around the Dungeon Heart, and the map is done.
"You seem to have started a trend. Two other Dungeon Keepers also have designs on this dark domain. Expect no quarter from your rivals."
Blue has at least 10 Creatures and at least 1.5 paydays have elapsed
"Can you see how vulnerable one of your opponents has become? Then kill him."
Green has at least 10 Creatures and at least 2 paydays have elapsed
"I spy a keeper with hardly any creatures left under his control. I spy a Keeper who's about to die."
Player researches Armageddon
"You have developed the Armageddon spell. That's quite a name to live up to. Make sure you're the most powerful force in the region before casting it."
Player researches Destroy Walls
"This ancient dungeon possesses great archaeological significance. This simply means there should be some interesting treasure worth stealing. Now that's what I call practical archaeology."
Blue researches Destroy Walls before player
"Your librarians have learned a spell that can break through fortified walls. Give them a slap for not learning it earlier."
"One of your opponents has developed a spell that can break through fortified walls. Typical. Be on your guard."
Sound Bytes[]
"Woodly Rhyme. A village of such obscene contentment, it's criminal that a horde of undead vigilantes hasn't massacred every soul in the place. If there's any justice, this will soon happen, my lord."
"Hassomloch. Vampires have sucked the life out of everyone here. They've poisoned the well, and smeared dung on all the door handles as a joke. No sophisticated sense of humor, these undead blood-suckers..."
— Canon Outtro
New Game Plus[]
In the New Game+ version of Woodly Rhyme, the path to the Transfer Creature special is blocked off if any Keeper loses a battle (i.e. a creature) before all heroes are destroyed.
Trivia[]
The messages foretelling the impending demise of a rival use the wrong logical operators, so they are more likely to be seen when the rival is thriving.
The messages concerning research landmarks for Destroy Walls also appear to be erroneous.
Woodly Rhyme's outtro speech file, BAD15.WAV, makes more sense if renamed to BAD14.WAV to correspond with the previous realm, Sleepiburgh. Tulipscent's outro file, BAD16.WAV (Hassomloch), makes more sense renamed to 15 to correspond with Woodly Rhyme. These files are in the game subdirectory \SOUND\ATLAS\.
Mismatched OC soundbytes
Intro
Matching File
Reasoning
GOOD01.WAV
BAD01.WAV
Anthrax
GOOD02.WAV
BAD02.WAV
Mention of Demon Spawn
GOOD03.WAV
BAD03.WAV
Inhabitants' altered viewpoints
GOOD04.WAV
BAD18.WAV
Mention of Trolls
GOOD05.WAV
BAD05.WAV
The quietude broken by screams
GOOD06.WAV
BAD07.WAV
What became of the bunnies
GOOD07.WAV
BAD08.WAV
Lady Catherine
GOOD08.WAV
BAD09.WAV
War arrived
GOOD09.WAV
BAD10.WAV
The legions of Hell rode in
GOOD10.WAV
BAD11.WAV
Inhabitants' violent death
GOOD11.WAV
BAD06.WAV
Feeding on the dead?
GOOD12.WAV
BAD13.WAV
Fairy ring
GOOD13.WAV
BAD14.WAV
Being together, in a mass grave
GOOD14.WAV
BAD15.WAV
Sleepy farms got "developed"
GOOD15.WAV
BAD16.WAV
Undead massacre
GOOD16.WAV
BAD17.WAV
No more flowers
GOOD17.WAV
BAD12.WAV
Razed completely
GOOD18.WAV
BAD19.WAV
A great battle
GOOD19.WAV
BAD04.WAV
Poisonous fumes
GOOD20.WAV
BAD20.WAV
Skybird Trill named
The names for this level in other languages are as follows:
Translations: Woodly Rhyme
Language
Translation
French
Allayc-Sandrain
Italian
Bosco Quieto
German
Knittelvers
Dutch
Bosrijm
Polish
Sielanków
Czech
Swedish
TRÄRIMMA
Russian
Вуди-Райм
Japanese
ウッドリー・ライム
Chinese
林木韵律 / 木诗国
'Woodly' is presumably intended to refer to woods ('woodly' is an old word meaning 'furiously', which hardly fits the realm's halcyon air), yet Woodly Rhyme as depicted in the level map is far from arboraceous, having just a couple of pyramids and some huts.
The Japanese objective is mistranslated as the enemy Keepers having mimicked the design of the domain (the translator apparently misunderstood the phrase 'have designs on') and that you cannot get money from them (the translator apparently misunderstood the meaning of 'quarter' in this context). This is fixed in KeeperFX.[2]
