"Welcome watchers of
illusion,
to the castle of confusion. I, Treguard challenge you to the ultimate
adventure.
The next phase of the dungeon is now complete, the door to your world
is open,
so enter stranger..."
-
Treguard, opening to Series 2.
For those of you
currently wondering what the fuck I'm on about, Knightmare
was a British children's TV gameshow that ran from 1987 to 1994. The
premise?
Well, imagine if you will a Dungeons
& Dragons LARP made
much simpler,
with no combat and one active player. Hmmmm, that wasn't a good
description,
let me try again...
This
is Treguard the Dungeon Master. He rocks my socks.
The man in the rather
fetching leather outfit above is Treguard, the
Lord
of Knightmare Castle. Beneath Knightmare Castle (at least in the
earlier series)
was a three-level dungeon system full of traps and odd people. (One was
the
easiest, Three the hardest) Teams of four adventurers (aged roughly
between
10-16) would attempt to conquer these dungeons by retrieving a quest
object/person.
Later simplified to 4 objects, the Sword of Truth, the Shield of
Protection,
the Cup that Heals and the Crowning Glory. One of the four would be the
"dungeoneer".
David from Series
1. The first Dungeoneer ever. Now
he
dead from darkness.
Yes, all Dungeoneers had to wear that helmet, known to
fans
as the Helm of Justice. Yes, it's SUPPOSED to cover your eyes.
Originally
this was explained by Treguard pointing out that Justice is also blind.
But
it was really because the entire adventure took place in a single
Chromakey
room. That would be bluescreen, or CSO to BBC wanks. (PS to BBC wanks:
I hate
you, your fucking TV License extortion and your fucking Eastenders. There will be a
reckoning. Oh yes.)
The remaining 3 team
members were the advisers. Their purpose was to
watch
the progress of their dungeoneer and to direct him/her. They were
basically
the Dungeoneer's eyes in the dungeon. 80% of Dungeoneer deaths can be
put
down to the advisers or the Dungeoneer being unable to distinguish left
from
right.
Tom, Craig and
Brian. Advisers for the first team of
Series
3. Also one of the rare Scottish teams. Also quite crap, their quest
lasted
a whole 11 minutes.
Those are advisers. The chest they're sitting in front
of
contained a TV screen showing their Dungeoneer. Later series replaced
the
chest with a "magic mirror" (read: large TV screen in wall) and a magic
pool.
(read: TV underwater)
And the dungeon itself?
Well, rather than go through each series in
detail,
I'll just give you an idea of what kind of dangers the Dungeoneer had
to face.
(as I'm horrendously biased, expect to see only my favourite rooms)
The Corridor
of Blades. Hold me.
Ah, where better to
start than the infamous Corridor of
Blades?
This Level 3 (usually) room was a moving corridor with sawblades
randomly
appearing from the walls, as shown above. These could come from left or
right,
head height or knee height. Cue excessive and hilarious flailing about
from left to right.
One of the biggest Dungeoneer-killers and one of the longest-running
rooms.
(series 4-8) It was absolutely crucial for the advisers here to remain
calm
and know their left from their right, (a skill many lacked) since their
Dungeoneer would have
to
run to each side to avoid the blades. Incindentally, the Dungeoneer
above
(Alistair of Team 2, Series 4) wasn't fast enough and got chopped.
Ooooo,
nasty.
This team did not know
their right from their left. Twats.
The Block and
Tackle, another major cause of death.
Here the
floor would fall away from the left, while random blocks from the wall
would
move from left to right. This room was usually found in Level 2, in
Series
3 and 4. Incidentally, the poor Dungeoneer (Simon of Team 4, Series 4)
above
was directed STRAIGHT INTO THE PIT by his advisers. Poor bastard.
Someone set
up us the bomb! I'm sorry, I couldn't
resist...
I love the Bomb
Rooms. (AKA "Chamber Mined") I love
them 'cause
they're so stupid. I mean, come on, it's a random levitating bomb for
fuck's
sake! A BOMB! In a medieval dungeon! I can't really blame the advisers
for
being slow to react, 'cause a random anachronistic giant BOMB is really
quite
unfair. Bloody technomagic...
Anyway, these bombs were
also rather unpredictable, sometimes the fuse
would
take FOREVER to burn and sometimes you'd need a special item to stop
it. Fannying
about in the room was never a good idea, as some teams found out. Like
the
Dungeoneer
above, (Douglas of Team 8, Season 3) who was blown to bits.
HA! Stupid
goblin...
Since I've been
extremely biased towards the earlier
series,
here's a room from Level 3/2 in Series 7/8. It's "Play Your Cards
Right" AKA "Cards of Chaos" AKA "that room with the cards", in which
the advisers had to instruct the Dungeoneer to touch a specific
card
on the wall to make a path. Touching the wrong card made the block they
were
standing on retract into the wall. (causing unfortunate and
inconvenient side-effects,
such as death)
Admittedly I like this
room mainly for the fact that the last team of
Series
7 got to drop a Goblin off a ledge. (pictured) This is also the first
image
I've used where the Dungeoneer and team actually went on to win the
game.
If only said Dungeoneer didn't annoy the fuck out of me...
Anyway, that about does
it for what I'm going to say about the
technical side.
for me, the best part of Knightmare was always the characters.
So
the following links will take you to pages about my particular
favourites.
(and a few not-so-favourites)
The
Powers That Be
Neutrals
The
Opposition
At this point I would
like to give a major thank-you to Illusion, the
webmaster
of Knightmare.com for letting me abuse
use his images. Anyone who wants to know more about the show should
visit his site without
further delay,
as it's far more in-depth and informative than this little shrine.
Also, Martin Odoni's
The
Other
Side Of The Greater Game is
well worth a visit. As long as you don't take Knightmare completely
seriously. If you do, you need serious help. Dude. I highly recommend
trying his Knightmare
Drinking Game. As long as
you don't prize your liver too highly.
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