The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (pub. 1982)
Gamers have it easy these days, going on grand adventures simply by moving their fingers. It wasn’t like that when I was a child, you actually had to read to go on adventures and none were more exciting than those provided under the Fighting Fantasy banner.
I was 6 when the first book was released (having been written between 1980-82, half by Jackson and half Livingstone under the original title 'The Magic Quest') and I remember my Grandmother bringing it to me wrapped in paper. Opening the wrapping I was presented with the image of a dragon, appearing to have been summoned by an aged wizard from a magic orb, and my imagination exploded.
Since then, there have been over 60 books written by an assortment of authors with settings ranging from Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror as well as numerous reference books, novels and puzzle books and several conventions known as Fighting Fantasy Fest.
Today I decided I would return to Allansia for a fresh crack at Firetop Mountain and see, with a more mature pair of eyes, how well written this book actually is.
Right off the bat, you have to applaud Peter Jones for the wrap-around cover. Later releases had vastly different cover arts but for me, this is still the most magical one, even if the Warlock does look more grandfatherly than dangerous.
Internally, the art by Russ Nicholson is equally and impressive, appearing wonderfully detailed and not afraid to show scary images of creatures or death with the Cyclops and Ghoul being particular favourites of mine.
Before this though, we are presented with the rules of the game which remain largely unchanged in the later books today (except some books with amendments for reasons
related to that particular story) and are concise, simple to understand and lacking the weighty numbers that other games such as Dungeons and Dragons involve.
Last of all, before the story begins, we have the 2-page back story which is simple, straightforward but sets the tone nicely enough but does lack the world-building that later books would provide.
Playing through the start of the book, I am quickly reminded of the ability the Jackson and Livingstone had to provide just enough information to build a mental image of the situation without becoming bogged down with unnecessary text and it helps to keep the story moving along nicely.
Pretty soon I was set upon by an Orc guard due to a failed Luck roll and my first combat, which is extremely simply and straight forward, began. My foe has Skill of 6 and Stamina of 5 while I (generated via dice rolls via the rules) are Skill of 10 and Stamina of 18. A simple roll of 2D6 (I rolled 4) are added to the Orcs Score (making it 10) and then the same is done for me (a 6 making it 16) and the lower score takes 2 Stamina damage.
There is an extra rule of rolling 2D6 with the aim of getting below your Luck score (mine being 9, originally generated with 6+1D6) which would add an extra 2 Stamina loss to the damage done (or reduce by 1 if unsuccessful). As each use Luck reduces its current level by 1, it isn't something I'd recommend using very often.
As I continued through the mountain, I began to remember how important it is to record my journey as the complexity of the map is surprising and it is easy to find yourself back where you began but never did I feel that the writing was misleading or unclear as to the options open to me.
It was much later, after several clues were provided through notes and signs that I met my first death, this being at the hands of a vampire who hypnotised me. I did realise, as it happened, that I had been forewarned of this and the mistake was purely my own and the death was not unfair in any way. Back to the start I go.
This time I took a slightly different route and found myself passing through a whole collection of new caverns and it is a testament to the writing that you can have such a different experience just by taking a different turn and this time I was a lot more careful and I began to recall a lot of the locations and what I had to do to win.
After completing the adventure I have to say that I am still extremely impressed by how well the book holds up today. Solid writing, interesting creatures and a real sense of accomplishment mean even now, nearly 40 years after its initial release, Warlock of Firetop Mountain remains a highly recommendable book.
A full list of all the book scan be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fighting_Fantasy_gamebooks
The recent re-release of the books that began in 2017 by Scholastic, along with the bran new books, can be found here:
Image © 2020, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.