Now we just need to relaunch the Knightmare gamebooks in a more Fighting Fantasy style and we're SORE-TED!

T

I'm also sure Folly called it an 'underworld' at some point in the tv series,, possibility a episode which aired recently. Which makes sense really.

And as the dungeon is all magic, originally conceived by Mogdred (at least the wizard in the book meets his description) the dungeon wont have a logical structure, always shape shifting, portals to and from different works being opened and closed.

I'm reminded a little of the show Trapdoor, in which the trap door under the castle lead to the swamp outside the castle.

That the troll fell through portals is a reasonable explanation given the 'logic' of the dungeon. But it's not a satisfying one - I get the feeling the producers were trying to show the troll plummeting down through the levels of the dungeon rather than just portalling here and there.

The Brollachan also says that it's been asked to build a 'shaft' (having first ascertained what a 'shaft' is) from Goth up to Knightmare Castle, which does suggest that the one is vertically below the other.

Then in Series 8 there's the matter of the Great Mire, which I'm sure was said to be hundreds of miles across, and manages to be located underneath two more or less conventional dungeon levels.

That does appear to have been the notion that the early seasons of Knightmare more or less adhered to, and the idea was that the dungeoneers from the modern world were explicitly travelling into the past.

From about season 4 onwards though, the series seemed very gradually to divorce itself from that concept, though without admitting it. The idea was slowly replaced with the notion that the Knightmare universe is not in any specific timezone as such, but exists in a reality 'below' our own - whatever that means. This was why, when Dicken's team won their quest, Merlin was able to say, "Nothing like this has happened since 1988!" which would have been a very weird thing to say in previous seasons, if the series were set in the early 13th Century, as had been implied. So from about that point, dungeoneers were not travelling into the past as such, but dimension-jumping. And that also meant that Dunshelm could be almost anywhere, in almost any reality, and any timezone.

For my own part, I still feel the earlier notion needs acknowledging, and that it's perfectly possible to assume that the future 'lies above' the past, when thinking fourth-dimensionally. (Nod of thanks to Doc Emmett L Brown there.) This, in case anyone was wondering, is why the audio plays always make very specific, very contemporary references to early-13th Century England.

Ultimately though, the 'world below our own' references can mean almost anything you want them to mean. Which is why no map could ever be definitive, even from an official source.

Im sure I remember it being called a 'grim, northern keep' though. I suppose everything's relative!

Knightmare castle is in Norfolk, according to the first book.

And isn't KM Castle in the north of England? Are all the other places supposed to be there too or is the castle a gateway to this other world?

No doubt this has been discussed to death somewhere on the forum so if someone knows where please let me know!

Moving around the dungeon and surrounds was done using portals, hence one minutes your in dungeon or woods and next on a boat or something.

The troll came up through he dungeon beneath the castle but when fell back he must have fell through a few portals.

The dungeon must be behind the whole of the town/woods than just beneath the castle itself.

It does make me think about the issue of dungeon dimensions though. In my head, everything on this map is actually within Knightmare Castle. Does anyone know the official position on this or is it just wildly inconsistent.

The S7 troll for example - infiltrates KM castle but then falls down through level three which is in Goth...?

Regardless, great map!

The writing is a bit small in places, the Cloudwalker galleon, Wolfenden, Dungarth etc.

I always like to believe that the whole place exists and that the big shift at season's end was just the path through changing and various locations still appear or are mentioned one season to the next.

The map is not complete yet.

What do you think?

I always prefered to think that the places and characters were not destroyed and reformed but what changes between the seasons is the path, the quest itself, not the dungeon.

My take on it is that the dungeon 'surfaces' or becomes available to outsiders for a short time, hence the seasons in which dungeoneers head down there. Then it 'folds up' and becomes unavailable for a while. Because of its tendency to shift, sometimes old characters get caught outside of the available challenge area but are still safe, we just don't see them. And whtn new characters turn up they've just happened to have been released on that particular season.

Perhaps?

But I'm up for seeing a map!

In fact, Knightmare's explicitly shifting geography makes it far from ideal for mapping. (Not just across series, but within: for example, I doubt that there was consistency in the areas Smirkenorff flew over to get from A to B in Series 5.)

...I must admit, when I first heard of this idea I thought it was insane on account of the Chaos Architecture involved in the dungeons and surrounding landscape... But there does seem to be something successfully charted.

Maybe a topographical map [think London Underground map] of dungeon interiors rather than a geographical map would make more sense for them?

I did have an idea to make a 3D version with the 3 levels moving down like a layered cliff face, with level one at the top and three at the bottom with Goth towering up the side of all three from the bottom. This will have to be a hand drawn piece I think. Having said that Treguard's blurb and the view from Smirkenorf's flights would seem to imply that the levels are not geographic.

Obviously, Knightmare is not like fantasy worlds such as Middle Earth and Earthsea, which had fixed maps for all adventures. In fact, Knightmare's explicitly shifting geography makes it far from ideal for mapping.

So... Would you say the map should be four or five dimensional, then?