Dungeon

The Dungeon is the subterranean town of Heroes of Might and Magic 3: home of the Overlord (might) and the Warlock (magic), it recruits Troglodytes, Harpies, Beholders, Medusas, Minotaurs, Manticores and Red Dragons, each with an upgrade, up to the Black Dragon, which is immune to all spells. The official strategy guide calls it "an expensive town to complete" that "requires a heroic quantity of sulfur", best suited to longer games: slow to start, but once running it produces strong armies and is a great support center for spellcasters (Prima's Official Strategy Guide, p.113). It is one of the nine Towns, and its warlords of Nighon are among Queen Catherine's enemies in the 1999 story.

Quick facts

All numbers on this page come from the official guide to The Restoration of Erathia (Prima's Official Strategy Guide, 1999); The Shadow of Death's 2000 stat update changed no Dungeon creature (The Shadow of Death manual, p.24).

Dungeon creatures

Each cell gives the base creature, then its upgrade. Speed is in hexes a round; growth is per week from the base dwelling, before a Citadel, Castle or Grail adds to it (Prima, pp.130-133).

0:38 Troglodytes are immune to Blind; Norovo, in his Dungeon overview, adds that being eyeless also makes them immune to the stone gaze of Medusas and Basilisks. Harpies swoop: they fly out, strike and return to the hex they started from, and the Harpy Hag's attack cannot be counterstruck. Beholders and Evil Eyes are shooters (12 and 24 shots) with no hand-to-hand penalty, so they fight in melee at full damage (Prima, pp.130-131).

5:11 Medusas shoot too (4 shots, 8 for the Queen) and have Petrify: a 20 percent chance to freeze the target for three rounds or until it is attacked, and an attack on a petrified stack does 50 percent damage. Minotaurs carry +1 morale. Manticores and Scorpicores fly and Paralyze their targets, binding them to the ground (Prima, pp.132-133).

5:02 In the Remake's gameplay overview, the narrator sends "spell resistant Black Dragons" through packed lines after an Armageddon, and the clip shows dragons fighting on a sand battlefield. In the 1999 game, Red Dragons fly and are immune to spells below level 3. Black Dragons are immune to all spells and do 150 percent damage to Giants, the Tower's level 7 creatures (Prima, p.133). The Titan returns the grudge, with 150 percent damage to Black Dragons (Prima, p.156). See Creatures for every town's line-up side by side.

How the Dungeon army plays

2:30 The guide is frank that Dungeon armies "aren't particularly effective at low levels": the Troglodyte is too slow to attack, the Beholder works best as a shooter, and Harpies "are just too easily slain", so it advises upgrading the Harpy Loft as soon as possible, because the Harpy Hag's unanswerable, longer-range swoop keeps it out of trouble (Prima, p.133).

Higher up, Medusas and Manticores give two ways to disable enemy stacks. The guide's tactic is divide and conquer: petrify a stack, switch to an active enemy, ignore the frozen one for its three rounds, then set up a gang attack for when it wakes. Since the Dungeon's shooters suffer no melee penalty, they can also join gang attacks as ground troops. The full army is "pretty awesome", the guide says: every upgraded melee creature is fast enough, and although the Black Dragon cannot fly the whole battlefield in one move, using Wait lets it reach any enemy that steps forward (Prima, p.134). Waiting, gang attacks and counterstrikes are explained on Combat.

11:24 Norovo agrees the line-up leans on its dragons: he grades it "a low b or a high c", calls it one of the frailest and lowest average damage line-ups of all towns, and gives it a B only because of the big starting stack of Troglodytes and its fast creatures.

20:37 His verdict on the whole town is an A: strong, "but not necessarily a beginner-friendly one", since it is easy to waste the Mana Vortex or the Portal of Summoning or to fail to plan the route to Black Dragons.

5:37 Quick Save's 2018 ranking of the nine towns, an opinion piece, puts the Dungeon fourth, praising the Harpies that strike without retaliation, the Black Dragon as "the coolest looking unit in the game" and the Portal of Summoning, while noting the town is "quite costly".

Heroes

12:09 The Overlord is the Dungeon's hero of might. Attack leads, Defense follows closely, and Tactics is the class's most likely secondary skill, then Leadership, Offense, Artillery, Ballistics and Logistics; the guide calls Tactics, Leadership and Offense together "a devastating first couple of combat rounds" (Prima, p.50). It names the Overlord the best high-level general of all classes (Prima, p.60), and Norovo also calls the Overlord one of the best classes in the game, likely to raise Attack and to be offered Tactics, Offense and Logistics.

12:46 The Warlock is, in the guide's words, the game's "most highly specialized" magic user: the highest starting Power of any class, Sorcery and Wisdom as its main skills, and Earth and Fire Magic as its likeliest schools. Warlocks are weak before they have a full spell book, so the guide advises leveling them quickly (Prima, p.54), and it names the Warlock the best spellcaster in the game (Prima, p.60). Norovo disagrees: he rates the Warlock one of the worst classes as a main hero, unlikely to gain Attack and Defense and often offered Scholar, Eagle Eye and Mysticism, though strong in Earth Magic. Spells and schools are on Spells and Magic.

13:24 Norovo's picks among these are Gunnar, whose Logistics lets a main hero travel much further on large maps and who also starts with Tactics, and Shakti, who starts with a huge stack of Troglodytes; for a Warlock main he suggests Jeddite, who starts with Resurrection.

Armageddon's Blade added the campaign hero Mutare, "a young ambitious female overlord" of Nighon; "All Dragons under Mutare's command receive +5 Attack and +5 Defense" (Armageddon's Blade manual, pp.9-11). All heroes are compared on Heroes.

Buildings and the Grail

15:45 The Dungeon has the usual halls, fort, tavern, marketplace and Mage Guild up to level 5, and these buildings of its own (Prima, p.113):

8:34 The cost the guide warns about is at the top: the Dragon Cave takes 15,000 gold, 15 wood, 15 ore and 20 sulfur and needs Mage Guild II, the Labyrinth and the Manticore Lair; the upgraded Dragon Cave costs the same again and needs Mage Guild III. The guide calls it "one of the most expensive level 7 creature generators in the game" (Prima, p.113). The Resource Silo's daily sulfur helps (p.109). The order to build in is covered on Town Build Order.

17:31 Norovo calls the Mana Vortex "one of the best unique buildings in the game" because it doubles spell points at once, but warns that it works once a week and that a hero in the town's garrison slot claims it instead of the visiting hero.

18:33 He finds the Portal of Summoning "always useful": scout for a Dragon Cave before flagging low-level dwellings, since each one you flag dilutes the pool it picks from, and with a flagged Dragon Cave one town can get up to five dragons a week.

The Dungeon's Grail building is the Guardian of Earth: like every Grail structure it adds 50 percent creature production in its town and 5,000 gold a day, and it gives the hero garrisoned there +12 Power during a siege (Prima, p.111). Fighting on subterranean ground gives Dungeon creatures +1 Attack, Defense and Speed (Prima, pp.165-166).

In the campaigns

The Dungeon Overlords of Nighon sack Steadwick together with the Kreegans of Eeofol at the start of the story (Wikipedia). In the evil campaign Dungeons and Devils, the Groundbreaking map starts the player with a single Dungeon on the subterranean level, and its heroes are mostly Overlords and Warlocks, who can carry over into Steadwick's Fall; the guide's pick of starting bonus there is the Academy of Battle Scholars, for an instant level for every hero hired (Prima, pp.297-301). Armageddon's Blade's Dragon's Blood follows Mutare's war against her neighbor Ordwald for a vial that "will transform a human into a powerful sentient dragon" (Armageddon's Blade manual, pp.9-11), and in The Shadow of Death's Specter of Power, Sandro is helped by "the greedy Dungeon Overlords" (The Shadow of Death manual, p.16). The whole story is on Campaigns.

In the Remake

3:53 In the Remake's gameplay overview, Ubisoft says each of the "nine unique faction towns" has its own buildings, powers and line-up of creatures, and says every faction will be playable from day one in the Remake (Ubisoft on Steam, Aug 27, 2026), which rebuilds the original and both expansions in 3D for 2027. Ubisoft has not shown the Dungeon's town screen or detailed changes to its creatures, as of Oct 21, 2026; its Oct 7, 2026 roadmap says the team has "begun refining several creature models" after feedback on their designs (Ubisoft on Steam).

Frequently asked questions

What are the Dungeon units in Heroes 3? The Dungeon in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 recruits Troglodytes, Harpies, Beholders, Medusas, Minotaurs, Manticores and Red Dragons, which upgrade to Infernal Troglodytes, Harpy Hags, Evil Eyes, Medusa Queens, Minotaur Kings, Scorpicores and Black Dragons.

How strong is the Black Dragon in Heroes 3? The Black Dragon in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 has 25 Attack, 25 Defense, 40-50 damage, 300 health and speed 15, is immune to all spells and does 150 percent damage to Giants, according to the official strategy guide. It costs 4,000 gold and 1 sulfur, and the Dungeon grows one a week.

What is the difference between the Overlord and the Warlock? In Heroes of Might and Magic 3 the Overlord is the Dungeon's might hero, strong in Attack, Defense and Tactics, and the Warlock is its magic hero, with the highest starting Power of any class. The official guide names the Overlord the best high-level general and the Warlock the best spellcaster.

Why is the Dungeon expensive to build? The Dungeon in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 needs a lot of sulfur: its Dragon Cave and upgraded Dragon Cave each cost 15,000 gold, 15 wood, 15 ore and 20 sulfur, and Red and Black Dragons each cost 1 sulfur to recruit.

What is the Dungeon's Grail building? The Dungeon's Grail building in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is the Guardian of Earth, which adds 50 percent creature production and 5,000 gold a day and gives the garrison hero +12 Power during a siege.

What is the Dungeon's native terrain? The Dungeon's native terrain in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is subterranean, where its creatures get +1 Attack, Defense and Speed.

Sources

• Heroes of Might and Magic III: Prima's Official Strategy Guide, Tom Ono, Prima Publishing, 1999, pp.50-51, 54-55, 60, 108-109, 111, 113, 130-134, 156, 165-166, 297-301
• Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade manual, The 3DO Company, 1999, pp.9-11
• Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death user manual, The 3DO Company, 2000, pp.16, 24
• Heroes of Might and Magic III, Wikipedia, revision of Oct 19, 2026
• Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake news: "Welcome Back to Erathia" and "Community Roadmap, Playtest, and Events", Ubisoft on Steam, Aug 27, 2026 and Oct 7, 2026
• Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake - Gameplay Overview Trailer, Ubisoft, Aug 26, 2026 (video)
• Heroes 3: DUNGEON Town Overview / Strategy Guide, Norovo, Mar 21, 2021 (video)
• Heroes of Might and Magic III: Ranking the Town Factions, Quick Save, Jun 7, 2018 (video)