Welcome back, Underlord. I fear your recent...setback....may have left some of your mental faculties in a less than desireable state, and you may have lost much of the knowledge required to wage your War for the Overworld. Because of this, I have taken the liberty of preparing a series of grimoires for you - in them you will find all the basic knowledge required to keep your dungeon in a working state, and to bring down the Empire - or any rival Underlord that would dare to oppose you.

This particular guide will cover magical department - the pulse of your dungeon. Being an Underlord, you are etherial in nature, and your physical presence in this world is limited to the very dungeon core that binds you to it. But this does not mean that you are unable to manipulate the material realm - quite on the contrary, your hand of evil is quite capable of dragging around (or slapping) your own minions, you have a plethora of spells and alchemy potions that you throw at friend or foe, and the powerful rituals your cultists may channel in the sanctuary will affect the realm as a whole. With a bit of luck, you may also stumble upon one of the ancient artifacts that are hidden away in the underground, just waiting to fall into your malevolent hands.

A last thing - the gods of this realm are a bit..fickle..in nature, and may frequently change the behavior and qualities of both your minions and your enemies. Thus, this guide may sometimes seem inaccurate or lacking parts, but do not worry - any change will be duly noted and accounted for in due time.

(Last updated: WftO Ver. 1.4 + Heart of Gold DLC)

The Hand of Evil is a physical manifestation of your own malevolent will, and acts as your primary tool for manipulating objects within your dungeon.

Apart from designation areas to be dug out or transformed into rooms, your Hand of Evil has three core function:

1. Picking up and dropping objects: Your hand can pick up a variety of things, be it your workers and minions, micropiglets, potions, gold piles, defense parts, or artifacts. Once in your hand, you can subsequently drop them somewhere more fitting - intelligent minions dropped into a room will try to work there (if possible), workers will prioritize tasks like claiming tiles when dropped on or next to them, and you can speed up the construction of defenses by manually dropping defense parts from your foundry on them rather than letting your imps haul the parts.

There are some restrictions, naturally. Firstly, you can not pick up or drop objects from or onto tiles owned by your enemies, nor from neutral tiles that are not bordering your own territory. Secondly, you can not pick up enemy or unconscious/dead minions; the latter have to be hauled into your base by your workers. And thirdly, your hand can only carry up to eight (8) objects at any given point of time. In addition to the last point, any minions (but not objects) held in your hand temporarily locks away a bit of your maximum mana.

2. Manipulating objects: Many of the rooms and defenses in your dungeon can switch between two distinct operational modes - a rack in your torture chamber may either let succubi convert enemies to your side or turn them into spirits by incinerating their bodies, for instance. Other objects, like the explose underminer or the package containing the augrum wall need to be "activated" with your hand of evil. To do either of these things, just however your hand above the object in question and give it a click.

3. Slapping minions: If you feel that the work pace of one of your minions or workers leaves something to be desired, you can always give them a good slap. Though this will do little to brighten their mood and does in fact hurt them a bit, it also raises their productivity for a short time, and you can slap your minions wherever you want so long as they are not within an enemy prison. Sadly, it is not possible to slap enemy minions.

Apart from your Hand of Evl, spells are perhaps the most straigthforward way of manipulating the material realm, and allow you to perform a variety of actions ranging from electrocuting enemies with a bolt of lightning to annexing unclaimed tiles. Speaking of tiles: Most of your spells can only be cast on your own territory and neutral tiles bordering your territory. Only a few can also be cast in enemy territory, and these usually are pure utility spells that can not be used to harm your enemy.

Regardless of their effect, all spells share the same base resource: Mana.
Whenever you cast a spell, a certain amount of mana will be drawn from your total mana pool, and you unsurprisingly will not be able to cast any further spells if your available mana is insufficient. Fortunately, your mana will slowly start to regenerate a few seconds after you have cast a spell, and the rate at which it regenerates will keep growing until your mana reserves are full again.

Another important thing to keep in mind regarding your mana is that it is also used to maintain most of your defensive structures and any workers beside of the five that your dungeon core sustains. Thus, you may find that you have a lot of mana in total, but that a considerable part of it is locked by either a strong defence or a strong workforce. And while you will always have at least a minimum of 500 mana to use on spells, this is not particularly much, with most spells needing 200 or more mana to be cast. Thus, it is vital to balance your economy, your defense, and your magic around your total amount of mana.

How much mana in total you have depends where you are - if you are in the campaign for Kairos, you will immediately start with a maximum of 1500 mana. Should you instead fight a skirmish with a rival Underlord, you will begin with only 600 mana, but can increase this number by earning sins and spending them in your Veins of Evil. Each sin adds another 15 mana to your total pool. And to keep your cultists from mindlessly slaving away in the archive when you actually don't need any new sins, you can have a maximum of three sins stacked up at any time.

Useful as your Hand of Evil may be to ferry around your minions, its range is limited to your own territory. Should your minions thus find themselves in neutral or enemy territory, you will have to rely on another means to retrieve them: The Recall spell

Once cast upon one of your minions, Recall will shroud them in arcane energies that will send them back to their lair (or beast den, respectively), after a build-up time of five seconds, allowing them to rest and lick their wounds in the relative safety of your dungeon.

But be careful - all but the smallest papercuts to your minions while the spell is powering up will abort it (a safety measure added after seeing only the lower half of a minion fall into its lair stopped being hilarious). Thus, if you should want to perform a Mass Recall as form of tactical retreat, try to establish a certain safety distance from the enemy force before casting Recall, or you suddenly will find half of your army back home and the other half being beaten to a pulp in the enemy keep.

FUNCTION: Teleports the targeted minions to its lair/beast den after five seconds. If the target takes more than 5% of its maximum health in damage while the spell channels, it is cancelled.

MANA COST: 0

RESEARCHED IN: Available from default

As an Underlord, you will mostly see the underground from a bird's eye perspective. Though this is very handy to keep an overview of what is happening in your dungeon, you sometimes may wish to experience your halls from the eyes of a lowly minion.

By cramming a portion of your mind into the skull of one of your minions, Possession allows you to do just that - you will see the world through its eyes (or whatever else it may have in place), and may make out small details in your rooms and hallways that would otherwise be hidden from your view.

Needless to say, your awesome presence within the head of a minion will supercharge its powers, allowing it to work significantly harder than should be normally posible. You can also form and lead warbands while possessing a minion, allowing you to personally lead raids into enemy dungeons!

FUNCTION: Takes control of the targeted minion and sees the world through its eyes. Possessed minions work twice as fast as regular ones, gain 50% increased speed, 25% increased attack damage, 25% resistance to all damage, 100% increased experience gain and can form warbands, which will follow the possessed minion. The needs of possessed minions will not deplete.

MANA COST 0

RESEARCHED IN: Availiable from default

When you first start a battle, you will only command the five workers that your dungeon core generates automatically. Sooner than later, however, you will need more of the little buggers to expand and maintain your dungeon. For this purpose, you may use the Summon Worker spell.

Each casting of this spell creates one additional worker to carry out your will, allowing you to quickly create a large workforce where needed. However, do keep in mind that all workers above the fifth one lock up 50 points of your maximum mana, and that you can not summon further workers if this would reduce your availiable mana pool to less than 500 mana.

Should you acidentally have summoned to many worker, or want to free up some of the locked mana, you can always get rid of them by dropping them into your dungeon core, or by slapping them to death if you feel like it.

FUNCTION: Summons one worker at the designated location (only works on player-owned territory).

MANA COST 50 (for the spell itself, not counting the mana lock)

RESEARCHED IN: Availiable from default

The best friend of Underlords since eons, the Lightning spell is your personal and most direct response to any and all enemy minions that make the mistake of entering your territory against your will.

While it unfortunately may not be quite as strong as the bolts found above the surface of the world, your lightning strikes nonetheless deal a good bit of damage to whatever minion it hits, and may fully electrocute enemies that have already been weakened. Even if the victim should survive the bolt, it will remain stunned for a short moment, making it easy prey for your own minions.

Lightning is especially effective against the enemy workers, only requires a few bolts to kill those nasty little buggers while they are busy humping your walls or floor tiles. However, be aware that repeatedly casting Lightning will quickly burn through your mana reserves, so should the workers be persistent, slap some of your minions into guard duty, or place a defence in the area.

FUNCTION: Deals 100 damage plus 5% of the target's health (1% for bosses and titans) to a single enemy minion and stuns it for 2 seconds. Can only be cast on player-owned territory.

MANA COST: 100

RESEARCHED IN: Available from default

As part of their handiwork, your minions will inevitably catch at least a few bruises, cuts, and probably the odd cranial trauma while conquering the Underworld for you. As you want them to continue with this occupation as long as possible, it is in your best interest to patch up those wounds every now and then, namely by using the Heal spell.

Each application of this spell will restore up to 650 hitpoints for an individual minion. Furthermore, should the targeted minion require less than 650 points of healing, any healing that would have "gone to waste" can instead be transfered to another wounded minion, and to even more should each of them only have minor wounds. The spell even is clever enough to prioritize more heavily wounded minions or those with paper cuts when jumping from its primary target to a secondary one. Magical science!

Unlike Lightning, which can only be cast on your own territory, you may cast Heal wherever you like, so that this spell will likely be your primary tool when supporting your minions in hostile areas.

FUNCTION: Heals the targeted minion for 300 points plus 12,5% of its total health (but only 1% for bosses and titans). If the spell heals more damage than the minion has suffered, any leftover healing will be transfered the most injured nearby minion,

MANA COST: 200

RESEARCHED IN: Available from default

Though your minions may follow your orders, they have the incessant tendency of prioritizing their need for sleep, food, or even wages over working themselves to death in your dungeon. To quell this problem, you may make use of the Obey spell.

Obey functions two-fold: Firstly, it will increase the efficiency of the minion it was cast on, allowing it to work faster than normal. Secondly, a minion treated with the Obey spell will temporarily prioritize his work over everything else (including his bladder - for the sake of of public decency, please don't excessively abuse this spell, Underlord).

As you may imagine, Obey is a very versatile spell. Cast it on workers to let them mine gold or dig out rooms faster; use it on your Cultists, Necromancers, or Witchdoctors to speed up the generation of new Sins for your Veins of Evil, or employ it to increase the amount of experience minions can gain in the barracks. The only minions that do not profit from this spell are your beasts, as their tiny brains can not comprehend the word "efficiency".

FUNCTION: Increases efficiency of the target worker or intelligent minion by 50% and forces it to prioritize work over tending to its needs for a short time.

MANA COST: 150

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Information is power Underlord - knowing where the enemy has set up camp, and through which tunnels his minions crawl is of decisive importance in any battle. Thus, the Prophecy spell is a basic but immensely powerful tool at your disposal.

Once casted onto an area, Prophecy will remove the Fog of War that looms over the battlefield, revealing anything hidden under it - enemy dungeons, minions, or even just changes in the local terrain and you and your foes dig through the underground.

Needless to say, this tactical information gathered via this spell can be priceless - learn the enemy's strategy by observing the layout of his dungeon, spot enemy sneak attacks or ambushes, see whether portals or shrines have already claimed by your foes, or peek into the bathrooms of your adversaries as they shower. Just keep in mind that prophecy only lasts for a few, precious seconds.

FUNCTION: Removes the fog of war from the targeted area for a few seconds.

MANA COST: 200

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Although the ability to drive others quite mad was formerly thought to be unique to the long-extinct beasts known as "Trolls", your cultists recently have rediscovered the secret magic behind this power and transformed it into a spell: Enrage

Casting Enrage upon one of your minions will increase its movement speed, attack speed, and the damage it may deal out. However, anger is the cousin of carelessness, and thus an enraged minion will also take more damage than usual.

Due to its drawbacks, Enrage is best used on ranged fighters, such as the Crackpot or the Bafu, who are less prone to suffer from its negative effects and instead can make full use of its positive ones. At the same time, making the Behemoth just a tad angrier that it already is by default makes for quite a show.

FUNCTION: Increases the movement speed, attack speed, damage dealt, and damage taken by the targeted minion for 20 seconds. Enraged minions will not run away from enemies.

MANA COST: 200

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

The menial tasks required to to increase the size of a dungeon usually are reserved for the lowly workers, who don't mind working 168-hour weeks without retirement plans or dental care. But if you want it done right, you will (sometimes) have to do it yourself. The Annex spell exists for this purpose.

Annex has two functions: If you cast it on a tile of earth or a fortified wall tile of your own, said tile will be excavated. On the other hand, should you cast annex on an unclaimed tile, it will become yours as if it had been claimed by one of your workers.

The spell has many uses - you can use it to speed up the construction of your own dungeon by claiming tiles within an unfinished room while your imps are still digging out the last parts of it, claim tiles in areas which your cowardly workers will avoid due to nearby enemies or defenses, or dig an attack tunnel for your minions. But be aware that you can only cast Annex on your own and neutral territory - crushing enemy walls or claiming tiles controlled by your rivals is not possible. Furthermore, the spell's mana cost may limit its usefulness early on, when you may wish to spend your limited mana on more effective spells such as Prophecy.

FUNCTION: Deals 200 damage to a neutral or player-owned tile of earth OR claims an unclaimed tile for the player. Does not work on enemy territory.

MANA COST: 75 Mana

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Especially when you fight alongside other Underlords, you may occasionally run into situation in which your overly eager workers may claim areas or shrines which you would rather see in the hands of your ally. Fortunately, this needs not be a permanent problem, for you have the unclaim spell.

Unclaim does exactly what its name implies - it revers any tiles claimed by your own workers to regular dirt tiles, allowing other Underlords to claim it instead. In adition, Unclaim also can be used to remove your influences from shrines and gateways, so that your ally can use them instead.

Do bear in mind that unclaim will not prevent your workers from promptly trying to claim the abandoned area or structure again - if you wish to prevent this, you will have to place an Impasse flag atop of the undesired area.

RESEARCHED IN: Available by default

MANA COST: 0

FUNCTION: Unclaims the selected tile, gateway, or shrine. This allows other players to claim them instead. Does not work on regular room tiles.

Back in the day, some Underlords liked to kill their hapless victims by covering their entire body with liquid gold - a practice that not only was excruciatingly painful for the receiver until death set in, but also resulted in the creation of very fashionable decoration objects. Thanks to the advances of magic, this technique has been refined into the spell Blood Money, which turns the entire body of the victim into a solid gold statue.

Although this process naturally will kill the minion the spell was cast on and thus is best reserved for unwanted prisoners (or particularly annoying subjects), Blood Money will reward you with more than just a pretty statue: By virtue of being pure gold (with traces of blood here and there), you workers can mine a statue much like they would with an actual gold vein, allowing you to proverbially cash in on your minions. How much gold exactly you can mine from such a statue depends on the minion - the more hitpoints it had in life, the longer your workers may mine it until it crumbles to nothing.

As mentioned above, Blood Money is best utilized on unwanted prisoners, as most minions are more useful when they work in your rooms of fight for you. On the other hand, pressing financial issues may sometimes warrant a...noble sacrifice...of one of your own.

FUNCTION: Turns a player-controlled minion into a gold statue. Workers can mine gold from this statue, the amount of which scales with the sacrificed minion's level and unit value.

MANA COST: 100

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Under normal circumstances, your defenses will be constructed with the aptly-named defense parts and automatically repair any structural damage they may take after a short moment. Should you desire to speed up the process, you may use the Forge spell.

The function of Forge is two-fold: If cast on a defense blueprint, Forge will advance its construction as if you or a worker had brought a defense part to it. Should you instead cast Forge on an already finished defense, it will repair the structure, making it into the mechanical equivalent of your Heal spell.

In terms of construction, Forge is especially useful if you wish to build defenses that are far away from your foundries and thus would take a while to build with normal defense parts. It also is highly effective should you need to quickly finished the construction of a partially-built defense in the case of enemy attack, given that your workers will often fail to deliver defense parts to besieged areas of your dungeon. Other than that, you may consider Forge to be the mechanical equivalent of your Heal spell, although its higher mana cost and the mana locked by the defenses it is supposed to repair may limit how often you can make use of it.

MANA COST: 250

RESEARCHED IN: Sloth Tree

FUNCTION: When used on a defense blueprint, adds one defense part to it. When used on a defense, restores 550 points of health plus 25% of the defense's base health.

Crowd control is an often underestimated form of art that can turn solid enemy formations into scattered pockets of confused and dazzled victims just waiting to be torn apart by your own minions. To fabricate this effect, you may make use of the Shockwave spell.

Though it may only be cast on your own territory and will not directly harm enemies, Shockwave will throw their bodies around as if they were mere dolls. Atop of this, the force of the impact will also leave enemy minions stunned for a short moment - more than enough time to gut them.

As already noted, the primary use of Shockwave lies in scattering your enemies, pushing them away from your own fragile ranged fighters while in turn allowing your melee specialists to close in on the enemy spellcasters. If you feel a bit more malicious, you can also use Shockwave on a bridge spanning over lava, and enjoy and the resulting smell of burned flesh.

FUNCTION: Pushes away enemies from the site of the impact and stuns them for two seconds. Can only be cast on player-owned territory.

MANA COST: 300 Mana

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral

In case you shouldn't have noticed: Most of your minions are actual living beings, and thus sadly require a bit of sustenance every now and then. While you are unlikely to see them starve, a hungry minion may experience a drastic mood swing for the worse and may even rebel at you. To prevent this, you can cough up a bit of Magical Meat.

Casting magic meat will summon a small horde of micro-piglets to the designated location. Apart of their baffling quality of materializing from thin air, the meat of a magical micro-piglet is three times as filling as that of a regular pig, making them an ideal snack for the busy minion that still has a few heads to cave in but suffers from a grumbling stomach. As a matter of fact, the pigs even are fed on a coffeine-heavy diet before being summoned, so they do not only sate your minion's hunger, but also their need for sleep!

As you can cast Magical Meat even in enemy territory, it is a very useful tool to uphold prolonged sieges, where your minions normally might get to hungry or sleepy and scurry back to their lair before the enemy dungeon is razed. Beast minions in particular profit the most from magical meat - it covers all of their needs, and thus allows them to stay away from their lair indefinitely, if needed. Intelligent minions on the other hand will sooner than later want their wages, and the micopiglets sadly are not made out of gold.

FUNCTION: Summons a score of micro-piglets that satisfy your minions' need for food and sleep, as well as sating the tavern need of intelligent minions. Can be cast everywhere on the map.

MANA COST: 300 Mana

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Even if you're not a very sociable person, building bridges between you and your enemies is a vital task, as it allows your minions to cross any form of liquid obstacle and destroy them faster. The Volcanic Bridge spell is a highly useful tool for this purpose.

As its name implies, this spell can be used to create a bridge over water or lava, allowing your minions to pass over both and your workers to claim tiles on the other end of the bridge. However, do keep in mind that the Volcanic Bridge will initially be neutral when first spawn, and you will have to capture it before you can claim tiles on the other end. On the other hand, this is somewhat offset by the fact that you can place the volcanic bridge wherever you want, allowing you to build bridges in territory which you have not conquered (yet).

As the Volcanic Bridge is nestled deeply in the Wrath vein of evil, those Underlords who pursue more aggressive strategies will often pass on researching the Stone Bridge and go for the Volcanic one instead, making it unnecessary to invest further sins into the Neutral Tree.

FUNCTION: Creates a bridge over water or lava tiles. Spawns as a neutral structure, must be captured before it can be sold or used to claim tiles on its other end.

MANA COST: 100 (per tile)

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

As soon as a sentinel or a colossus joins your army, you will come to the realization that these golden warriors can not be healed with your conventional Heal spell. Instead, you will have to use the Gild spell, a special type of magic that consumes gold instead of mana to be cast.

Each application of the Gild spell will remove 500 pieces of gold from your vaults, but in turn also restores 500 hitpoints to the targeted sentinel and colossus. In addition, the 500 pieces of gold will also be deducted from the wage of a sentinel for the next payday, if the spell is cast on one.

In addition to the sentinel and the colossus, you may also cast gild on regular, intelligent minions. Though this will not heal them, it still will lower the amount of gold they will demand during the next payday.


FUNCTION: Drains 500 gold to heal either sentinels or the colossus for 500 points of damage. Gives gold to intelligent minions when cast on them, decreasing the amount of gold they will demand at the next payday.

MANA COST:: 0 (consumes 500 gold instead)

RESEARCHED IN: Becomes available as soon as either the Colossus or Sentinel aspects have been unlocked in the veins of evil.

Once you have an Alchemy Lab set up and running, you can order the Crackpots running it to create of potions for you - magical draughts that can enhance your own minions, introduce a minor ice age, or simply blow things up.

The use of potions essentially is a four-stage process. Firstly, you will need to order the potion, which will cost you a variable amount of gold. Once the order has been set up, the potion-in the making will occupy one of the cauldrons that stand in the center of the Alchemy Lab. Be aware that you can not brew any additional potions if all of your cauldrons are already occupied by other potions.

Next, one of your Crackpots will start to mix the potion, which will take a short amount of time. Once the potion is finished, it will remain in the cauldron, ready to be used by you at any time. Should you want to get rid of an unwanted potion, simply slap it to free the cauldron for a new potion (though you will not get back any gold invested into the destroyed potion).

To actually use the potion, you have to pick it up with your Hand of Evil and drop it at the desired location. Keep in mind that your Hand of Evil can not drop objects into enemy territory, and the same holds true for potions.

Despite of this limitation, potions can be extremely useful tools if used correctly, and may end entire battles in your favor so long as you have the right ones at hand.

For centuries, the alchemists of the Empire have tried to turn various substances into gold, often with highly amusing (that is, explosive) results. Fate has a sense for irony, however, and thus led your utterly haywire Crackpots to discover an actual formula for a transmutation potion that didn't lead to a violent exothermic reaction in nine of ten cases.

If picked up and dropped, the transmutation potion will enrich all earth or wall tiles within a three-by-three radius with fool's gold. Each tile can be enriched with up to 750 gold, and a maximum of 6000 gold can be created this way.

Especially if you do not control a gold shrine and have already mined out any nearby gold veins, transmutation potions can be a very handy method to keep your vault well-filled. But bear in mind that the fool's gold created by this potion can not be absorbed by either Aureate Monoliths, or the Colossus.

FUNCTION: Enriches all dirt or wall tiles within a 3x3 radius with gold (up to 6000 in total). Gold created via transmutation potions can not be absorbed by Aureate Monoliths and Colossi.

GOLD COST: 2500

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Treee

Even the most diligent of your minions can only work so fast, Underlord. Or rather, they could only work so fast if you wouldn't shower them with the magical steroid that is the Work-a-lot potion.

For a relatively modest price, the work-a-lot potion will temporarily raise the efficiency of your minions to an astonishing 500%, more than quadrupling the speed with which they research new sins, gain experience in your barracks, or produce new defense parts. You can even drop a Work-a-lot on your Crackpots so they produce new Work-a-lot potions faster. That's what I call versatility!

Unfortunately, this phase of hyper-productivity will not last however - quite on the contrary, the efficiency of your minions will gradually fade back to normal levels as soon as soon as the boost kicks in. Another drawback of the Work-a-lot is that it does not actually force the minions do to anything worthwhile with their heightened productivity - in the worst case, they might start a lunch break immediately after you threw the potion at them. As such, it is generally advisable to use this potion on larger groups only, as this minimizes the risk of it going to waste.

FUNCTION: Raises minion efficiency to 500%. Efficiency gradually returns to normal levels within roughly ten seconds.

GOLD COST: 750

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Sometimes, you've got to go fast, Underlord. To this end, the liberal application of Haste potions can turn your minions into world-class sprinters that make racing horses look like sloths with a bad case of arthritis and four broken legs.

It goes without saying that such a useful potion has a variety of applications - you can use it to allow your minions a quick escape from a lost battle, reduce the time they would spend footslogging to the enemy dungeon, or, should you know the latter to be lacking any kind of defensive gates or doors, have your minions run straight past the defenders and let them hammer your rival's dungeon core to pieces before the latter quite knows what in the hells is going on.

Just don't forget that the effect of the potion only lasts for 45 seconds, after which your minions will return to their normal movement speed.

FUNCTION: Increases the speed of minions by 300% for 45 seconds.

GOLD COST: 750

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Although your dungeon may lack air conditioning and thus may not always meet the expectations of your more sensitive minions, there is a surefire way of silencing any complaints about overheating: The Quick Freeze potion.

Once dropped on the desired area, the quick freeze potion will cause a violent chemical reaction and create a massive block of ice at the impact site. Any minions - including yours - unlucky enough to be in the area of effect will be enclosed by the ice and, while this process is not harmful but in fact shields them from any damage, are unable to move or do anything at all for the next 15 seconds.

Quick Freeze is a highly versatile potion - freeze invading enemies with it or clog up the entrance to your dungeon with a thick ice wall. Bait them onto your territory, cool them down, and attack the gates they were defending. Or, alternative, freeze your own minions to shield them from harm. In emergency situations, you can even drop the quick freeze potion on your own dungeon core to make it impervious to damage for a short time.

Finally, it goes without saying that being locked in a solid block of ice is rather nasty for the fiery Ember Demons.

FUNCTION: Creates an impassable 3x3 ice block at the designated location. All minions in the area of effect become frozen, suffer minor damage and can not move, but also are shielded from outside damage. Ember Demons caught in a quickfreeze blast are killed instantly. Lasts for 7.5 seconds.

GOLD COST: 2500

RESEARCHED IN: Sloth Tree

Though retreat of any kind is often seen as a cowardly and dishonorable act by the Imperial generals, no small number of them currently is unable to preach this dogma by virtue of being stone-cold dead. Should you want to spare your minions from a similar fate, consider using the Wormhole potion.

As it's name implies, this potion will create a rift in space and time that will immediately transport your minions back to your dungeon core, saving either their hide should they be facing a battle they could not possibly win, or your hide if your enemies should have successfully launched a sneak attack on your core. One way or another, it's significantly faster than your Recall spell, and can not be interrupted, either.

That being said, there are some drawbacks. Like all potions, Wormhole can only be used on your own territory, so don't expect minions stranded inside the enemy dungeon to be back home overly soon. Furthermore, the wormhole is indiscriminate whom it sends to your dungeon core - in the heat of battle, you may accidentally send more enemy minions than your own straight to your dungeon core, which they unsurprisingly will attack immediately.

FUNCTION: Teleports all minions in the area of effect to your dungeon core, including enemy ones.

GOLD COST: 7500

UNLOCKED IN: Neutral Tree

As it turns out, the old saying that experience has to be bought with training is plainly wrong - it can also be bought with gold, namely in the form of the Wisdom Juice potion.

Once brewed by your Crackpots and thrown into your dungeon, the Wisdom juice will give all minions in range a sizable experience boost, although minions farther from the impact site will gain less experience than those closer to it. Unfortunately, the crackpots are rather secretive about the exact workings (and the ingredients) of this potion, so that I currently can not say which other factors play into the experience distribution.

Nonetheless, Wisdom Juice allows you to quickly reshape your minions into seasoned veterans, and at a very reasonable price at that. Compared to the cheap but lengthy training in the barracks and the short but prohibitively expensive magic of the Spirit Chamber, the Wisdom juice potion can be seen as a middle ground of sorts. Unlike the two other alternatives, you can also use it to raise the experience of beast units, who otherwise can only gain experience through actual fights or mock fights in the arena.

FUNCTION: Gives an experience boost of 2500 points. If multiple minions are in the area of effect, the experience will be split.

COST: 750 Gold

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

In the Overworld, Snowmen are cherished for their adorable looks and the fun that building one gives to the younger generation. In the Underworld, Snowmen are produced via Frost Weaver potions and are cherished for their ability to maul, maim, and smash unwelcome trespassers. I think we can agree which of the two sides has got its priorities right.

Just as the name implies, dropping this potion inside your dungeon will summon a single Frost Weaver, a type of elemental being with limited lifespan whose combat abilities are especially effective at slowing down and stunning enemies. Because of this, Frost Weavers ideally are used as a form of back-up for your regular defense lines (should you have any), and are quite capable at impeding the progress of small attack groups until your other minions can arrive to clean up the mess.

While a individual Frost Weaver is not particularly strong, a sufficiently large alchemy lab can store multiple of Frost Weaver potions until you actually need them. In theory, this could allow you to amass an entire army of these beings and crush your enemy with them, yet the relatively high price of the potions makes this a fairly expensive tactic.

FUNCTION: Summons a Frost Weaver (the individual abilities of the Frost Weaver can be seen in the Grimore of Minions )

GOLD COST: 3500

RESEARCHED IN: Sloth Tree

To my own astonishment, the notoriously scatter-brained Crackpots that run your alchemy labs have only created a single potion that actually is intended to explode - the Hellfire Potion.

Very simply put, the Hellfire potion will blow most wall tiles in a three-by-three area around its impact site to smithereens, allowing you to create a very handy hole in the enemy walls where there wasn't supposed to be one.

In many respects, the Hellfire potion can be seen as a more efficient form of the Underminer - both are purely made to destroy fortified walls, but unlike its construct counterpart, Hellfire potions actually are strong enough to completely destroy walls with a single blast - just pick up the potion, throw it against a wall tile, and watch the firework. The only downsides are the potion's relatively high price, and that you can only throw in on tiles owned by you.

FUNCTION: Deals 300 damage to all wall tiles in a 3x3 radius (most fortified walls have exactly 300 hitpoints). Stuns and deals minor damage to all minions (including allied minions) in the impact area.

GOLD COST: 2500

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Many veteran Underlords complain that, back in their day, Imps were harder, better, faster, stronger, and more useful in general. While it is debatable whether or not such minions ever existed, you nonetheless can get your hands on a few supercharged ones with the Spirit Worker potion.

Once dropped, this potion will create five of the eponymous spirit workers; a spectral version of your regular old imps that is not only impervious to any harm, but also moves and works significantly faster - think of normal workers hooked up to Haste and Work-a-Lot potions at the same time. Unfortunately, the ethereal nature of the Spirit Workers also has its drawbacks - they can not claim enemy tiles or besiege enemy walls, and only have a very short lifespan of little more than twenty seconds.

Although they will vanish quickly, the effective user of Spirit Worker portions can dramatically increase the speed with which you can dig tunnels to your enemies, expand the size of your own dungeon, mine gold, or fortify your walls if threatened by an enemy attack. And even though they can not directly "assault" the enemy dungeon, they still are quite capable of rescuing your knocked-out minions from enemy territory or hauling unconscious enemies to your prison.

FUNCTION: Summons five extremely fast Spirit Workers that last for ~40 seconds

GOLD COST: 750

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Due to your immense power as an Underlord, you are capable of casting most spells without further preparation once you have unlocked in the veins of evil. Some of the magic available to you is so potent however, that you will have to channel them in the form of Rituals before you can unleash them.

In order to perform rituals, you will first have build a Sanctuary. It are these blood-filled halls in which your loyal cultists will begin to channel the desired ritual after you have ordered it. Once the ritual is fully channeled, you can unleash it, releasing the tremendous amount of magical energy that has built up.

Compared to your more conventional spells, most rituals only give you passive beneficial effects, but these in turn are influence the entire realm, both on your territory and enemy lands (although your enemies naturally will not enjoy the advantages of the ritual).

Be aware that you can only channel one ritual at a time, regardless how many sanctuaries you have built. Due to this, it is highly recommended that your carefully chose which ritual you want to channel and, if need be, wait for the perfect until you unleash it.

Greed is nothing to look down upon, and many of the most influential tyrants both above and under the ground were known chiefly for their enormous hunger for gold. Should you have the same motivation or simply need a bit of cash in your pockets, you can channel the Avarice ritual.

Once unleashed, Avarice will slowly convert your entire availiable mana pool into gold, with every point of mana giving you roughly fifteen pieces of gold. So, should you for instance have a total of 1000 mana, the Avarice ritual will give you 10.000 coins of gold. Naturally, any mana locked by workers, defenses, or Ember Rifts will not count towards this conversion, and if you are out of mana, Avarice can only transform what little you have into gold.

As Avararice will turn all of your available mana into gold, it is generally wise not to unleash it when there are enemies knocking at your dungeon door. Conversely, you should neither cast if if your mana is still regenerating from one such encounter.

FUNCTION: Transforms available mana into gold at a 1 : 15 conversion rate. Will not tap into mana locked by other means.

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Though your workers are perfectly capable of digging through enemy walls, most of your minions will long be on their way into retirement before your workers can actually breach them. Should you thus desire to speed up the process, you may make use of the Besiege ritual.

Once unleashed, Besiege will dramatically increase the speed with which your workers can dig through both enemy walls and regular old dirt, makes them faster, and also allows them to raise constructs (namely the underminer), turning a bunch of otherwise halpless little critters into something genuinely scarry for the enemy Underlord.

Do, however, keep in mind that this ritual only lasts for thirty seconds, so whatever it is you want to do with it, do it quickly.



FUNCTION: Increases the attack power of workers against dirt and wall tiles by 5000%, increases worker movement speed by 150%, increased construct summoning speed by 300%. Lasts for 30 seconds.

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Nine out of ten Underlords agree that bombarding enemy minions with lightning spells is positively hilarious, but feel that their limited mana its slow regeneration decidedly take the fun out of it. Should you share this sentiment, you ca prepare an Overload ritual.

True to its name, unleashing the Overload ritual will not only instantly refill your entire mana bar, but will also overload your passive mana regeneration, drastically increasing the number of spells you can cast while the effect of the ritual is active.

Due to its nature, Overload is best used as a form of contingency, which you can fire up if your minions are in dire need of magical support.

FUNCTION: Fully refills the player's mana bar and drastically increases mana regeneration for the duration of ten seconds.

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Under normal circumstances, the Necromancers that tend to your crypt will raise the corpses stored within them one by one; a process that one might almost call boring. Why not just raise every corpse at the same time and set them on to your enemies with the Uprising ritual instead?

Unleashing the Uprising ritual will transform every body stored in your crypt into a wraith, essentially a spectral form of your own ghouls. Although these wraiths only have a limited lifespan and thus will continuously lose health , a fully-stocked 5x5 crypt will create no less than twelve of them if Uprising is unleashed, and they are sturdy enough to withstand a surprising amount of punishment for something that is incorporeal.

As a ritual, Uprising can be used both offensively, when you may "recruit" the wraiths as a meatshield and the first attack wave on the enemy dungeon, or defensively, when they can drastically increase the number of the local defenders. Yet in both situations, it unsurprisingly is wise to wait until your crypt is completely full with corpses until you unleash the ritual.

FUNCTION: Raises all corpses in the player's crypt(s) as wraiths, minions with limited lifespans and their own control group.

UNLOCKED IN: Neutral Tree

Silly as it may sound, constructing a construct often can be quite difficult - not to the least because most of them are need outside of your sphere of influence and the workers building them thus are at constant risk of being attacked or killed. Fortunately, the Construction ritual allows you to circumvent this little issue.

Being very straightforward, the construction automatically begins to construct all planned constructs you may have placed. This process is not instantaneous, however, and will be cancelled if a construct is attack while being built by this ritual.

Construction's primary use lies in its ability to construct multiple underminers at the same time without having to worry about the imps this usually would require getting squashed by enemies. On the other hand, you can also use it to quickly erect large sections of dirt walls with replacement earth, but do keep in mind that you should probably fortify said walls if you want them to stand the test of time (and the pickaxes of hostile workers).

FUNCTION: Begins to construct all construct blueprints of the player. If a construct is damaged during this process, it will no longer be built automatically.

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

Information is half the battle, Underlord, and knowing how the realm you wish to conquer looks like is half the information. Thus, you can get an impression of the lay of the land using the Prospector ritual.

Unleashing Prospector will show you all shrines, gateways, and all the gold in the realm you are currently to conquer. Apart from its more obvious function (showing you where you can find these strategic resources and places), repeated use of the (relatively quick) ritual allows you to monitor the progress of your enemies by showing which gold veins that have and have not mind yet, and which gateways and shrines they control.

However, the usefulness of this ritual decreases as the battle progresses - especially in the later stages, you will no longer need prospector to show you the extend of your enemy's territory because your and his worker's are fighting fierce battle over the control of the border regions between your respective core territories.

FUNCTION: Unveils all gateways, shrines, and gold veins on the map for 30 seconds.

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

There are few things that can genuinely scare an Underlord, and many of them, like the Whaleshroom, are known to mortals. By comparison, the slight nervousness an Underlord might feel when it sees an army of considerable sizes marching towards its unfortified walls is ailment that can easily be cured with a well-timed Fortify ritual.

True to its name, Fortify will fortify all dirt walls under the player's control, while those areas that have already been fortified by its workers will repaired back to full health should they be damaged - a feat not to be underestimated considering how long it takes a regular worker to fortify or even just repair a wall.

This being said, Fortify is a relatively situational ritual - it can be useful if you plan a massive expansion of your dungeon and immediately want the walls fortified right after your workers have claimed all tiles of the dug-out area, but other than that, it often makes more sense to keep other rituals in the back of your sleeve.

FUNCTION: Fortifies all player-owned dirt walls and repairs all player-owned fortified walls.

RESEARCHED IN: Sloth Tree

Should you suddenly be overcome with the overwhelming feeling of someone watching you and your dungeon behind your back, do not worry about becoming paranoid - chances are your enemy is merely using the Revelation ritual.

Revelation will show you the entirety of the enemy dungeon for ten precious seconds - more than enough time to look for weaknesses, calculate his strategy, and adapt your own one accordingly. To top it off, this ritual is slightly more discrete than the prophecy spell, which produces a rather flashy visual effect for your enemy to see.

Truly, the only major drawbacks of this ritual are that it doesn't reveal neutral territory as well, and that it is situated deeply within the Wrath Vein of Evil, so that you will only get your hands on it in the latter stages of the battle.

FUNCTION: Reveals the enemy dungeon for 30 seconds

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

In many situations, the ability to quickly construct defensive lines can be of vital importance to the continued existence of your dungeon core, particularly if you have a large army marching straight towards it but no actual defenses to speak of. In such situations, an Assembly ritual is worth its effort in gold.

If unleashed, Assembly will magically add a defense part onto all pre-placed defense blueprints, at a rate of one defense part every ten seconds. Though Assembly will only supply a maximum of five defense parts for each individual defense blueprint, this suffices to eventually finish the construct of all defenses safe for ramparts and the shell of the sentinels, which will require additional defense parts from other sources.

Always keep in mind that, while Assembly does allow you to build a large number of defenses even if you only have a very small foundry or none at all, this process is not instantaneous. Do not expect it to be of to much use when you try to build defenses in the middle of a raging battlefield.

FUNCTION: Adds up to five defense parts to all existing defense blueprints of the player over the course of 50 seconds.

RESEARCHED IN: Sloth Tree

Unique amongst all others, this ritual will not give you any sort of passive benefit, but will instead summon the eponymous Vampire into your dungeon.

It works a bit different than your other rituals. While you still will have to wait for your cultists to channel the ritual in your sanctuary, the Vampires are notoriously picky about which Underlord they will serve, and will only enter your dungeon after you have proven that you're willing to tend to their needs by sacrificing three of minions on the altar of your sanctuary (which of course can be prisoners).

After the ritual has been fully channeled and you have dropped three minions onto the altar to be sacrificed, you can unleash the ritual, summoning one of the dreadful vampires into your dungeon. Be advised that, even with the initial sacrifice, a vampire requires a constant stream of prisoners to kill and feed on, lest he will quickly turn on you. In exchange, the Vampire is an extremely powerful fighter that is virtually impossible to kill unless destroyed by another Vampire or one of the Empire's Huntresses.

FUNCTION: Spawns a Vampire under the player's control (the individual abilities of the Vampire can be seen in the Grimore of Minions )

COST: Three player-owned minions (need to be dropped on the sanctuary altar with the HoE).

RESEARCHED IN: Neutral Tree

Some of your more cowardly opponents may prefer to hide their miseable dungeon cores behind layers upon layers of thick, fortified walls. Yet however safe they may think themselves, nothing can protect them from Armageddon.

Once this powerful ritual has been launched, a powerful beam of energy will home in on all dungeon cores of the current realm. After a countdown of thirty seconds, this beam will utterly destroy any and all wall tiles in a three-tile radius around all dungeon cores on the map, regardless of whether said wall tiles are made out of sand or fortified augrum.

The Armageddon ritual is the ultimate weapon to destroy the dungeon cores of weakened yet still heavily entrenched enemies, as if clears a direct way to their cores. There are two things to keep in mind, however: Firstly, Armageddon only affects walls, not defenses or enemy minions. Secondly, Armageddon affects the walls around all cores, including yours! So before you launch this ritual, make sure your enemies don't have an attack force just waiting beyond the gates of your dungeon.

RESEARCHED IN: Wrath Tree

FUNCTION: When activiated, destroys all wall tiles in a three-tile radius around all dungeons cores on the map. Also affects the core of the player who activates the ritual.

While you expand your influence in the Underworld, you may sometimes stumble across an Artifact, a magical object of no small power that has been left behind by an unseen force. However, before you can unlock the arcane power of an artifact, you will first have to identify it by placing it in your archive.

There, your cultists and other researchers will spend some time unraveling its mysteries until you finally get to know what purpose the artifact in question has. Once identified, the artifact will remain in your library (much like potions remain in your alchemy lab), and can be used by you at any time. But know that artifacts only have one charge - once you have used them, they will disappear, never to be seen again.

The following types of artifacts are known to exist:

Artifact of Gold: Adds 5000 pieces of gold to your vault. Any gold you currently can not store will be dropped to the ground.

Artifact of Plentiful Gold: Adds 25,000 pieces of gold to your vault. Any gold you currently can not store will be dropped to the ground.

Artifact of Sin: Gives you a sin you can use in your Veins of Evil.

Artifact of Construction: Instantly completes the construction of all of your planned constructs.

Artifact of Assembly: Instantly completes the construction of all your defense blueprints.

Artifact of Alchemy: Instantly completes all potions currently being brewed in your alchemy lab(s).

Artifact of Sanctum: Instantly completes the preparation for your current ritual.

Artifact of Incantation: Temporarily decreases the cost of all your spells by 40%


Artifact of Experience: Raises the level of all minions under your control by one.

Artifact of Joy: Makes all of your minions happy.

Artifact of Mana: Increases your maximum mana by 500 points (can not go above 1500 total mana).

Artifact of Spirit Workers: Summons two Spirit Workers with unlimited lifespan.

All icons used in this guide are taken directly from War for the Overworld and thus are property of Subterranean Games.

The author of this guide takes no responsibility for any instances of spontaneous combustion, the accidental conjurations of miniature black holes, sudden invasions of micro-piglets, or demonic possession that may result from using this guide. Read responsibly.