A non-vegetarian foodstuff that happens to be a bird. Not only was chicken the inspiration for Knightmare's Life Force indicator - according to knightmare.com's The History of Knightmare, '[The computer game] Attic attack had an on-screen life-force clock which indicated the health status of the player by representing the carcase [sic] of a chicken. If you got down to bare bones you died! [Tim Child] wanted something like it for Knightmare' - but chicken also featured in various quests as a food for replenishing the Life Force. The picture shows (what is presumably) a chicken as encountered by Team 5 of Series 2 on Level 1. The inclusion of the plate and cutlery on this sole occasion could be tongue-in-cheek on the part of the production staff, since a dungeoneer consumed food via his or her knapsack.

Live chickens could be seen and heard in the Greenshades eyeshield sequence.

When dungeoneer Martin of Series 3 Team 11 was asked by Motley to tell him a joke, the one he chose was: "Why did the punk cross the road? Because he was stapled to the chicken." This is based, of course, on the joke "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get the other side" - which Team 7 of Series 4 told to Motley during their quest, earning a JOKE spell. Various members of the Knightmare Discussion Forum have enjoyed making up variations upon this joke, with different KM characters giving their own versions of the punchline. Punchlines were later written in that way for Knightmare forum members too, but it could be said that many of those are creepy, ostentatiously drawing attention to forum users' throwaway remarks in what might be considered to be a slightly obsessive manner.
In Series 4, Motley described Dickon, who had just freed him from the pillory, as being "no chicken". A little earlier in his quest, Dickon had replenished his Life Force with a chicken. This picture shows the chicken found 5 quests previously on Level 3 by Team 1 of Series 4.
This is the chicken found by Team 4 of Series 3 on Level 3. The series before, Team 13 of Series 2 had picked one up in the Level 1 wellway room.

[Earlier version: 2007-01-28 23:31:15]

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