Just as Knightmare has effortlessly found a place in many young hearts, so has toilet humour. And what finer way for the former to acknowledge the latter, than by incorporating the concept of children almost becoming human poos on their path to knighthood?

By mishap or trickery, several dungeoneers in Series 1, 2 and 3 found themselves in the stomach of a large creature of some kind. (Production notes, shared in David Rowe's Art of Knightmare, refer to it as the Stomach Room.) Since this area was accessed most often via the carved serpent's mouth in Level 1 (after which, the dungeoneer might be seen sliding in from the right-hand side), it is frequently assumed that the creature was a serpent; but, bearing in the mind the range and number of monstrously oversized animals seen in the Dungeon, we cannot be certain. In any case, the dungeoneer's pressing task was to escape from the creature's pulsating innards, before he or she fell victim to the "gruesome process of digestion". To quote Treguard: "Now see where you are, trapped in [a monster's] stomach ... there's only one way out of here. Well, two actually, but we won't go into that."
Team 4 of Series 1 were the first to encounter the great stomach. They had arrived via the serpent's mouth in Lillith's Domain, and since it didn't always lead to the stomach, we might surmise that Lillith orchestrated this detour. Dungeoneer Danny threw a sack of salt he'd acquired from the Level 1 clue room, and caused the monster to expel him.
Richard of Team 6 of Series 1 was next to suffer this predicament, and rubbed a block of soap against the 'floor' of the stomach, to upset it. This worked, and Richard was discharged.

Tony of Team 5 of Series 2, believing that he was being guided into a wellway to Level 2 conjured up by Mildread, was in fact deceived into entering the monster's stomach. As fortune would have it, his team possessed a DOWN spell, and casting it ensured that Tony was safely egested (or otherwise transferred) into the second Level. The Monster's Stomach was seen a further few times in Series 2 as an option on the Wheel of Fate, but it never came up.
The two appearances of the monster's interior in Series 3 were somewhat contradictory. The first time, Ross of Team 6 of Series 3 ended up in the stomach because he was not quick enough to step off the serpent's tongue which intermittently unfurled from the familiar mouth, although he had the right clue item to enable his egress - an egg, which he threw across the chamber to cause stomach upset.
In contrast, Douglas of Team 8 of Series 3 walked straight along the tongue and into the mouth, where he was able to proceed simply by advancing along an intestinal corridor as he would a standard dwarf tunnel. Leo of Team 4 of Series 3 encountered the same type of passage, though he was on Level 3 at the time and hadn't entered the serpent's mouth beforehand.

Thus, this absorbing yet sparingly used location lent new meaning to the phrases 'a dungeoneer needs guts' & 'that dungeoneer is crap'.

In 2014, in one of his Art of Knightmare updates, David Rowe shared 'an interesting document ... needed ... for continuity and to demonstrate the progress order in the dungeon.' A plan of Level 1, apparently from Series 1, it showed several possible sequences of rooms and events. In one possible sequence, Lillith was to give out a spell called YUCK which was later to be used in the Monster's Stomach.

In addition, the Monster's Stomach featured in France's version of Knightmare, Le Chevalier Du Labyrinthe. On at least one occasion, it provided no apparent hindrance: the dungeoneer simply crossed from the near side to the far side, and then he was out.


[Earlier versions: 2008-11-08 14:56:09, 2007-12-12 18:10:17, 2006-04-12 12:07:49, 2005-12-06 23:13:59]

login to vote

From TES issue 18 (November 2002)

Series 1/2/3. Level 1.
THE MONSTER'S MAW

Four dungeoneers in the first three series were unlucky enough to experience as one of their level one challenges being dumped into a giant red stomach of a creature, boasting heaving red walls and digestive noises. In series 1, Danny and Richard ended up in the stomach by walking through a stone archway shaped like a serpent's mouth, as did Ross in series 3, while Tony from series 2 entered via a wellway. Once the dungeoneer was inside the stomach, Treguard informed the team that they would be digested by the monster unless they could find a way out of its body. You can imagine the enormous potential for giggling that this situation presented. ("There's only one way out of here; well, two actually, but we won't go into that." - Treguard.) The fact was, however, that the dungeoneer had to cause the monster to burp in order to escape. Danny achieved this by dropping a bag of salt, while Richard rubbed soap onto the floor, which caused them to be belched into the [Great Corridor of the Catacomb]. A similar effect was realised for Tony as his team cast a spell called DOWN that Gretel had given them. Of course, if Tony really did go down instead of up before he escaped then it is perhaps best not to dwell on his experiences. It was back to the tried and tested for series 3, though, when Ross found himself trapped in the monster's gut. Although this team were somewhat slow on the uptake - not just during this challenge, I might add - Ross managed to give rise to a burp by throwing an egg onto the floor. This challenge never presented much of an obstacle to teams, as they all managed to escape quite easily, but its very unusualness and vulgarity marks it as a memorable room. This was not the only place to find burps on Knightmare, of course: during his series 1 encounter with Danny, Granitas burped three times. He pardoned himself afterwards, though. Anyway...

Difficulty: 3 Quite easy with the right object or spell.
Killer Instinct: 1 Never really a death-threat.
Gore Factor: 2 We can only speculate, but it can't be pretty.
Fairness: 9 Vulgar maybe, but not a major obstacle.

login to vote