Everyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons has thought of the epic battles between two wizards evenly matched - where a sharp wit and keen mind determines the outcome of the battle rather than the roll of the dice.

In this game, two (or more) wizards battle fight in a battle until the last man (or woman) is left standing in the Graven Circle. Each wizard has the ability to summon monsters and elementals, cast fireballs and throw lightning bolts and muddle the minds of other wizards.

All these spells are cast by movement of the hands -

Each wizard has two hands (never more, never less) and each hand can preform one action each turn. Some spells require two hands for an action, such as a clap. However, if both hands come up in the 'P' position, this is a sign of surrender (but you get out with your life). It takes some degree of skill to make sure you never paint yourself into that corner or make such a mistake.

One of the main concepts in the game is that spells can overlap. The best say to see this is to look at part of a game.

     + +
The sequence above (RH means 'right hand' and LH means 'left hand' and a '+' indicates a spell being cast) shows the one of the variations of the classic Amnesia to Invis opening. In Firetop Mountain the spell DPP is Amnesia, PSFW is Summon Ogre and PPws (the lower case means the 'W' and 'S' must be done with both hands) is Invisibility. The ending of the Amnesia spell is the beginning of the Invisibility spell.

The list of spells below is for Firetop Mountain standard spell book. Lower case letters indicate gestures that need two hands. A quick glance should show that there are many overlapping spells and countless strategies that can be employed.

c D P W                 Dispel Magic
c S W W S               Summon Ice Elemental
c W S S W               Summon Fire Elemental
c w                     Magic Mirror
D S F F F c             Disease
D W W F W D             Poison
D W S S S P             Delay Effect
D F F D D               Lightning Bolt
D W F F d               Blindness
D F P W                 Cure Heavy Wounds
D F W                   Cure Light Wounds
D P P                   Amnesia
D S F                   Confusion
F P S F W               Summon Troll
F S S D D               Fireball
F F F                   Paralysis
P W P F S S S D         Finger Of Death
P W P W W c             Haste
P D W P                 Remove Enchantment
P P w s                 Invisibility
P S D D                 Charm Monster
P S D F                 Charm Person
P S F W                 Summon Ogre
P                       Shield
S P F P S D W           Permanency
S P P F D               Time Stop
S P F P                 Anti Spell
S P P c                 Time Stop
S S F P                 Resist Cold
S W W c                 Fire Storm
S F W                   Summon Goblin
S W D                   Fear
S D                     Missile
W F P S F W             Summon Giant
W D D c                 Lightning Bolt (once only)
W P F D                 Cause Heavy Wounds
W S S c                 Ice Storm
W F P                   Cause Light Wounds
W P P                   Counter Spell
W W F P                 Resist Heat
W W P                   Protection
W W S                   Counter Spell

Waving Hands is the original implementation of the game 'Firetop Mountain' (a play by email game that can be found at http://eiss.erols.com/~fm/). The game was originally published in the zine called Sauce of the Nile by Richard Bartle under the name Spellcaster. The rules to the original game can be found at: http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/WavingHands.html. Spellcaster is also the name of the X11 version of the game. At the time of the writing, the source can be found at http://www.eblong.com/zarf/spellcast.html http://www.serc.rmit.edu.au/~rob/spellcast.html. To any who do know of this game and the history, you will probably be happy to know that Richard Bartle is not dead, just at Compuserve. Permission to distribute the game and derivations has been given by the author, as long as it remains free.

Below is a list of Everything people who play Firetop Mountain.

Strategy nodes

  • None yet

Please /msg me with additions.
