Dicke Dämonen
Dicke Dämonen Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Material out of the sack
50 creatures (10 white ghosts, 10 yellow air-, 10 red fire-, 10 blue water- and 10 green earth demons) and 4 power lines (strings which must be tied into circles before the first game).
Set-Up
The demons and ghosts are placed in the sack. The oldest player places the power lines in a way that each power line overlaps at least two others. All areas enclosed by power lines are power fields. There is also an outermost power field, which encircles all the power lines. The corners of a field occur at each location where two power lines cross each other.
Examples (from the diagrams): The outermost power field has 5 corners and 1 knot in the example. The power field formed only by the red and the yellow power line has 2 corners. Lines: line of water, line of fire, line of air, line of earth. A power field can have 2 corners, or 3 corners and 1 knot.
Start of the game
Each player draws four creatures at random out of the sack and hides them in his fist - he may look at them at any time. The player to the left of the oldest player goes first - the others follow in clockwise order.
Goal of the game
The colors are not initially assigned to the players but during the game each player predicts a color he thinks will dominate the world. Whoever is correct - wins.
A game turn
First a player must summon one creature that means he must place either a ghost or a demon from his fist. He then may predict a color and finally will redraw one creature.
First: Summon a creature
If summoning a ghost (white), the player places it into the center of the power field of his choice excluding the outermost power field (it does not have a center).
A ghost may be summoned into a field where demons are already present - but as soon as a ghost appears in a given field, the field is frozen: no more ghosts nor demons may be summoned there!
If summoning a demon, the player places it into an unoccupied corner in a power field which doesn't have a ghost standing in it. One of the two power lines of the corner must match the demon's color!
Ex.: The red pawns indicate the corners where a fire demon can be summoned. It could not be placed into the corners where only the air and water lines cross nor could it be summoned into the power field containing the ghost.
Then: Optionally predict a color
After summoning a creature a player may place one of his remaining creatures from his fist in front of him thus predicting the winning color.
If predicting a color the player must put all remaining creatures from his fist back into the sack afterwards!
Each player may take this action only once in the game and each player must predict a different color.
Finally: Redraw a creature at random
After summoning a creature (and optionally predicting a color) the player draws a creature at random from the sack - if there is a creature left in it. Even if the sack is empty the game continues.
As soon as a player predicts a color his only option in all his remaining turns is to summon the creature he has redrawn from the sack in his prior turn.
End of the game
The game ends immediately as soon as a player cannot summon a creature - because his fist is empty or there is no location left for the creatures in his fist.
Which color wins?
Examine each power field to determine if a demonic color (red, green, yellow or blue) has a majority there - if so, this demonic color gets as many power points as there are corners and knots in that field. Without a majority no demonic color gets power points there. The color white always gets as many power points as the total number of ghosts summoned.
The color having the most power points wins the game. It is possible that several colors win simultaneously.
And which player wins?
The player who predicted the winning color (or any one of the winning colors) first, wins the game. If nobody predicted a winning color all players lose.
Example for scoring
Players predicted red, blue, yellow and white (Players 1 to 4 in the diagram):
- Red dominates the outermost field only: 8 points.
- Yellow dominates one field having 2 corners and one field having 4 corners + 1 knot: 7 points.
- Green has a field with 3 corners, one with 2 corners + 1 knot and one with 5 corners: 11 points.
- Blue has a field with 2 corners + 1 knot, one with 4 corners and one with 3 corners + 1 knot: 11 points.
- 8 ghosts were summoned, so White scores 8 points.
Green and Blue win and thus player 2 wins the game.
Solitaire game
The layout of the power lines in the solitaire game is fixed.
If predicting a color in the solitaire game the player keeps all remaining creatures and redraws one as usual.
He may thus predict up to three colors but each time he must immediately also predict which of the first three positions the color will gain at the end. If all his colors reach the topmost positions and he predicted these positions correctly he gains the triple points of his best color, the double points of his second best color plus the points gained by his third best color. In all other cases he loses.
Ex.: The player predicted red on position 2 and green on position 1. If green wins with 9 points followed by red having 8 points (and all other colors having 8 points or less) the player wins and gains 43 points. Else - if for example Yellow got 11 points - the player loses.
The world - power lines and power fields
To the eyes of a magician the world consists of power lines and power fields crossing each other.
There is a line of Fire, a line of Water, a line of Earth and a line of Air. These lines create power fields and wherever two lines cross each other the corners of the world are created.
Ghost and demons
The magicians try to dominate the world by summoning ghosts and demons.
Ghosts - the white creatures - are summoned into the centers of the fields but will never appear in the outermost field which surrounds all existing power lines - because nobody knows where the center of the outermost field is.
Whenever a ghost appears in a field everything there is frozen in terror - that means - in this field no ghost and no demon may be summoned any more.
Demons - the colored creatures - are summoned into the corners of a field - one demon per corner. A demon may only appear in a corner if one of the two lines creating the corner shows the color of the demon - additionally no demon may be summoned in a field containing a ghost.
Summoning
At the start each magician draws four creatures at random from the sack and hides them in his fist.
On his turn a magician must summon one of his creatures from his fist. At the end of his turn he redraws one creature from the sack, if the sack is not empty yet. Then the next magician - sitting on the left of him - takes his turn.
The color ruling the world
The world is filling up with ghosts and demons until there is no space left to summon any more of these creatures. At this point the fate of the world is decided and it becomes clear, which color dominates the world - either the color white or one of the demon colors wins.
Concerning the demons this depends on the fields a demonic color dominates - if a demonic color holds a majority in a field it gains as many power points as there are corners and knots in the field. The white ghosts will always earn as many power points as ghosts were summoned in the game.
Whichever color earns the most power points, dominates the world.
The magician ruling the world
But which magician rules the world now? Each time a magician has summoned a creature he may - once in the game - predict which color will dominate the world.
To do this he selects one of his remaining creatures and places it in front of him thus proclaiming the color which will - in his opinion - win. Then he puts all his other creatures back in the sack and redraws as usual.
No magician may predict a color already predicted by another magician.
Whoever predicts the winning color wins the world... or at least this little game.