Dicke Dämonen

In the game of Dicke Dämonen, the players are magicians trying to rule the world. Curiously the world is smaller than you might think because in the eyes of a magician the world consists only of magical power lines and power fields, specifically four power lines: earth, fire, air and water. Wherever these lines enfold the space, the power fields are created; wherever the lines cross each other, the corners of these fields materialize. (In game terms, four colored strings — each tied to a ring — are placed on the table overlapping one another at the start of the game.) The magicians summon ghosts and demons to rule the world — but at the start of it all nobody knows which type of creature will be the strongest: Ghosts – white creatures – appear in the center of a power field, and wherever they are summoned, everything freezes in terror. Neither ghosts nor demons may appear in a power field once a ghost has been summoned there. Demons – in the colors of the power lines – appear in the corners of the power fields adjacent to the lines of their color. No demon will enter a field where a ghost was summoned. Each magician summons again and again one of the four creatures at a place of his choice, thus filling the world with ghosts and demons. (Ghosts and demons are wooden pawns drawn from a cloth bag.) As soon as no more creature can be summoned, the fate of the world is decided – and one of the colors will be the strongest. Only once during the game can each magician predict a color, whether one of the demon colors or ghostly white, and each magician must predict a different color. (A player predicts a color by placing a pawn of the color in front of him.) This look into the future costs a lot of energy, and as soon as someone predicts a color, he will be harassed by fate and the other magicians. Thus, which color to predict is an important decision as well as when to predict it. The magician who predicted the color which is the the strongest in the end rules the world.