''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' is a single-player

adventure gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

written by Steve Jackson and

Ian Livingstone Sir Ian Livingstone (born 29 December 1949) is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur. Along with Steve Jackson, he is the co-founder of a series of role-playing gamebooks, ''Fighting Fantasy'', and the author of many books within that se ...

, and illustrated by

Russ Nicholson Russ Nicholson is a British illustrator, best known for his black and white fantasy art. Education Russ studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Scotland which later became part of Dundee University. He moved to Engla ...

. Originally published by

Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...

in 1982, the title is the first gamebook in the ''

Fighting Fantasy ''Fighting Fantasy'' is a series of single-player role-playing gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volume in the series was published in paperback by Puffin in 1982. The series distinguished itself by mixing Choos ...

'' series. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2002, and Scholastic Books in 2017. As well as launching the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series, the gamebook inspired two direct sequels and five novels, and has been adapted into a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

, an

audio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...

and a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

Publication history

In 1980, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone attended a Games Day, and after meeting with a Penguin editor decided to create a series of single-player gamebooks. Their first submission, ''The Magic Quest'', was a short adventure intended to demonstrate the style of game. ''The Magic Quest'' was eventually accepted by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...

. The original cover of the book was illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones, with the interior illustrations by Russ Nicholson. Jackson and Livingstone approved all artwork. The title, like the game books that followed in the ''

'' series, distinguished itself by featuring a fantasy role-playing element, with the caption on each cover reading "a Fighting Fantasy gamebook in which YOU become the hero!" Uncertain as to how popular such a new and untried concept might prove to be, Penguin ran a first printing of just 5,000 copies. These quickly sold out, leading Penguin to do additional print runs. The success of the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series (distribution in over 17 countries) allowed for numerous reprints of the original title, although the cover of subsequent versions changed due to deliberate redesign, printing errors, and releases in different markets. When the franchise was acquired by Wizard Books in 2002, the title (as with others in the series) was the first to be reprinted, again with a completely different cover, the rationale being that the old cover did not suit the modern market. In 2007 Wizard Books released a special 25th anniversary edition, which included supplementary material. The cover for this edition had the original picture from the 1982 edition. In 2009 Wizard Books released another edition of the original book, with yet another new cover. In 2017 Scholastic Books began publishing ''Fighting Fantasy'' books, and released a new edition of ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' with new interior art as well as a new cover. In 1984 the book was reprinted in the first two issues of ''

Warlock A warlock is a male practitioner of witchcraft. Etymology and terminology The most commonly accepted etymology derives ''warlock'' from the Old English '' wǣrloga'', which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver" and was given special applicatio ...

'' magazine, with a different solution to the keys puzzle at the end and therefore a different route through the mountain.

Rules

Plot

''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' is a fantasy adventure scenario involving a quest for "an untold wealth of treasure" of a warlock in a dungeon. The player takes the role of an adventurer travelling to find the treasure of a powerful

, hidden deep within Firetop Mountain. People from a nearby village advise that the treasure is stored in a chest with two locks, and that the keys are guarded by various creatures within the dungeons. The player must then navigate the dungeons beneath Firetop Mountain, battle monsters and attempt to locate the keys.

Reception

Nicholas J R Dougan reviewed ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' for ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

'' #36, giving it an overall rating of 10 out of 10, and stated that "The book would make an ideal present for anyone who has expressed an interest in role-playing games, or indeed any young brother (or sister!). I imagine that the minimum age would be about ten, but I would recommend it to novice and veteran players alike for quite a few hours of entertainment." In the inaugural issue of ''

The Games Machine ''The Games Machine'' is a video game magazine that was published from 1987 until 1990 in the United Kingdom by Newsfield, which also published ''CRASH'', ''Zzap!64'', ''Amtix!'' and other magazines. History The magazine ran head to head with ...

'', John Woods found that random chance played too great a part in the game, saying, "At several points a single wrong guess or unlucky dice roll spells doom for your character, and success often comes in an equally arbitrary fashion. There is little feeling of player skill having any influence on the outcome." ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' was chosen for inclusion in '' Hobby Games: The 100 Best''.

Chris Pramas Chris Pramas is an American game designer and writer, as well as a founder of Green Ronin Publishing. He is best known as the designer of the ''Dragon Age'' RPG, ''Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay'' (second edition), and ''Freeport: The City of Adventu ...

commented that the book "was a pioneering release that popularized the solo gamebook and successfully brought the roleplaying game experience to a wider audience. This book alone sold over two million copies and it was only the first of the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series. ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' spawned 58 more Fighting Fantasy books in the original series, a support magazine, a board game, an ambitious spinoff series, several computer games, two traditional roleplaying games, and a series of fantasy novels. Then there was the legion of imitators, another sure sign of success. Not bad for a slim paperback less than 200 pages long." In a retrospective review of ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' in '' Black Gate'', Matthew David Surridge said "Modern games are more forgiving than ''Warlock'', I think. Still, all in all, I think the book format may be best: there's a certain effect the mix of image and text gives you that I can't imagine in other formats. All told, I'm glad I picked the book up again. There’s magic in ''Firetop Mountain'' yet."

Other reviews

*''

'' #83 *Review by Julia Margaret Meyers (1984) in

Fantasy Review ''Fantasy Newsletter'' was a major fantasy fanzine founded by Paul C. Allen and later issued by Robert A. Collins. Frequent contributors included Fritz Leiber and Gene Wolfe. Publication history The first issue appeared in June 1978, and Allen c ...

, August 1984 *Review by Jonathan Green (2012) in SFX, September 2012

Sequels

The title was followed by two sequels, one written by Ian Livingstone. The first, '' Return to Firetop Mountain'' (the 50th title in the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series) was published in 1992 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the franchise. The second sequel, '' Legend of Zagor'' (the 54th title in the series) was written by Carl Sargent although it was credited to Livingstone. It differed from traditional gameplay in that the player could choose one of four characters. Sargent also wrote ''The Zagor Chronicles'' which were also partly credited to Livingstone. It was a series of four novels published from 1993 to 1994. The warlock Zagor also appeared in the first ''Fighting Fantasy'' novel, '' The Trolltooth Wars'' (1989), by Steve Jackson.

In other media

A ZX Spectrum video game based on the book was released by Crystal Computing in 1984. ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' boardgame, designed by Steve Jackson, was released in 1986 by

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...

. The game is based on the book, and players must navigate a maze and overcome monsters in a bid to be the first to open the Warlock's treasure chest. The gamebook was also converted into a 40-page d20 System role-playing adventure by Jamie Wallis. It was published by Myriador in 2003 and reissued in

pdf Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

format by Greywood Publishing in 2008. In 2009,

Big Blue Bubble Big Blue Bubble, Inc. is a Canadian video game company headquartered in London, Ontario founded in 2004 by industry veteran Damir Slogar, Renata Slogar, and Claudette Critchley. The company has developed over one hundred games and gained intern ...

released an action-RPG for the Nintendo DS titled '' Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' and based on the original title. In 2010, an electronic version of the title was released for the iPhone and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

. When Big Blue Bubble later lost the license, all its apps were withdrawn. This gamebook has later been released by Tin Man Games. On 10 February 2011 an

Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...

edition of the title was launched by UK developer

Worldweaver Ltd Worldweaver Ltd is a training and technology provider, founded in 1997 by Chris Sterling and Simon Dean. Their first title was a PC-CDROM game Beasts and Bumpkins (1997) published through Electronic Arts. Since formation they have worked on a ...

and in September 2011 a PSP and

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

version was announced by UK developer Laughing Jackal. On 30 October 2015 the Australian game developers Tin Man Games launched a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

project to develop a video game based on the book, which was released in 2016. The gamebook was adapted into a role-playing adventure for the

Advanced Fighting Fantasy ''Advanced Fighting Fantasy'' (AFF) is a British roleplaying game based on the ''Fighting Fantasy'' and ''Sorcery!'' gamebooks, first published in 1989. Just as the gamebooks, AFF is set in the world of Titan. A second edition of AFF was publishe ...

system by Brett Schofield for Arion Games in 2016. In July 2017 the British audio company FoxYason Music Productions, known for their work with

Big Finish Productions Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays (released straight to compact disc and for download in MP3 and m4b format) based, primarily, on cult science fiction properties. These include ''Doctor Who'', the ...

, announced that they had obtained the licence to make an original audio drama based on ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain''. Sub-titled 'The Hero's Quest' the drama is written by David N. Smith and directed by Richard Fox and features many of the characters and locations from the original gamebook. The drama was released in September 2017 and features

Toby Longworth Toby Longworth is a British actor who has appeared on film, radio and television. He is originally from Somerset, where he attended King Edward's School, Bath. He has worked most often as a voice actor, however, notably in several science-fictio ...

as Zagor,

Rachel Atkins Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aunt ...

as Vale Moonwing and

Tim Treloar Timothy David Treloar is a Welsh actor. He is known for voicing the Third Doctor in the Big Finish Productions '' Doctor Who'' audio series and for playing Sergeant Major Tysoe in '' Bombshell''. A well known stage actor, he has also appeared in ...

as Cassius Stormblade.