During the pandemic of 2020, I, like many others, found myself with a surplus of free time.
Not one to be discouraged, I put it to good use by buying myself a big box of Sculpey polymer clay, and building equipment for one of my favorite board games of all time, chess.
I didn't want it to just be any old chess set you could just buy at your local game store for like, a buck, though, so I decided to make it special, by making (mostly) all the pieces look human.
Then, I had some clay left over, so I started making more pieces, from different variants of chess!
I'll make this a thread showing off all the pieces and their movement patterns.
The King, the most important piece on the chessboard. Without him, there would be no game of chess. His loyal subjects have been tasked with upholding his safety, and threatening that of the other King. The King can move one square in any direction. (On this board, valid moves will be marked with poker chips.)
While the King is the most important piece on the board, you might find his movement to be rather lacking, in that it's limited to only one square. His wife, the Queen, is much more powerful, in fact being the most powerful piece available in vanilla chess. She can move any number of squares, in any direction, so long as her path is fully unblocked.
Bishops are the King's right-hand men, trusted to give him advice, both religious and tactical. I wanted to give them a sort of "scholarly" look because of this, hence the glasses. Bishops can move diagonally, for as many squares as they desire. This allows them to sneak around the board quickly and quietly, but it also restricts their movement to only half of the squares on the board, specifically all of the ones of the color they started the game on.
Knights are the face of chess for many players. Their unique horse shape stands out among the others, who look more like ornate pillars or columns. However, at the time, I couldn't figure out how to model a horse, and I wasn't about to just put a horse head on a regular clay figure, so I made the knights human instead, which is just as well considering that the knight is the person ON the horse, not the horse itself. I also had the dilemma of how to handle their armor, since it's all shining and silver. To compensate, I made both their cape and lance team-colored, so you can see which side they're on from either side of the table. Knights move two squares orthogonally, and then a third square perpendicular to the first direction they moved. Uniquely, they can also jump directly to their destination square without having to worry about pieces blocking them.
Did you know? When chess was first invented, the rooks represented charioteers, and were the most powerful piece on the board since they were the only ones who could move any number of squares. At some point, though, people decided that the rook should instead represent a castle. I tried making chariots to represent the rook in this set but quickly found that it was still too difficult, so I just made them castles as well. Rooks can move any number of squares orthogonally (forward, backward or sideways.)
The Pawns. Numerous, but low-ranking. Truly, a metaphor for the common man. They sacrifice themselves selflessly for their king, despite outnumbering him eight to one. Legend has it that the reason two pawns standing face-to-face will never kill each other is because they finally get a good look at who they are, the person they've become, by allowing their king to sway them into this war. Pawns move one square directly forward, but can move two squares forward if they have not already moved yet this game. Uniquely, they capture diagonally forward instead of the same way they move. A pawn that reaches the other end of the board can promote into a more powerful piece, usually a queen.
SHADOW WIZARD MONEY GANG, WE LOVE CASTING SPELLS!
Now we're getting into non-standard pieces! The Wizard comes from a variant called Omega Chess. (His Omega Chess rendition is represented by a crescent moon, but c'mon, you can't show me a piece called the Wizard and NOT expect me to make him look like the wizardiest wizard who ever wizarded. Wizards can either make a (3, 1) leap, meaning three squares along one axis and one square along another, OR they can step one square diagonally. In either case, they, like the Bishop, are color-bound.
The other variant piece from Omega Chess is the Champion. This piece is more faithful to the design it has in its own variant, looking like a Roman centurion. Champions can move one step orthogonally, or jump exactly two squares in any direction.
Chess first originated in India, as the game Chaturanga, and while the game most of us know as chess mostly came from European influences, several other games can trace their lineage back to Chaturanga. One such game is Xiangqi, also known as Chinese Chess. The Cannon is a piece from this variant, functioning as a slightly less powerful Rook. It moves like a Rook, but in order to capture, there must be a third piece, typically called a "screen", standing in between the Cannon and its target. The Cannon jumps over that third piece, landing on the intended target and capturing it. The Cannon cannot jump otherwise.
The Archer is a piece intended to be analogous to the Cannon, in that both of them use ranged weaponry. However, while the Cannon comes from Chinese Chess, the Archer instead comes from Gross Chess, a variant named for the 12x12 board on which it is played. Archers share the same "must jump over a screen to capture" limitation as Cannons do, but instead of moving like a rook, they move like a Bishop.
The Archbishop is a piece from Capablanca Chess. It is sometimes also called the Princess (keeping the theme of pieces that are a combination of two others being female) or the Paladin (the holiness of the Bishop, plus the combat prowess of the Knight). The Archbishop, like the Queen, is a fusion piece, which combines the powers of the Bishop and the Knight. This gives it the unique and formidable distinction of being able to checkmate a King without any help at all, if the King is backed into a corner.
If the Queen is a combination of a Rook and a Bishop, and the Archbishop is a combination of a Knight and a Bishop, then the Chancellor completes the trio, by combining the powers of the Rook and the Knight. The Chancellor is another piece from Capablanca Chess, and is occasionally also called the Marshal or the Empress, although the name Empress is controversial since it implies that this piece is more powerful than the Queen, which isn't necessarily true.
I wasn't quite sure what a chancellor looks like, so I made these guys Vikings instead.
What would a game about medieval warfare be without dragons?
In myths and legends all across the globe, dragons are feared and revered for their immense power. On the chessboard, this is no different. The Dragon functions as a threefold fusion piece: it combines the movement of the Rook, the Knight AND the Bishop. Like an Archbishop, it can also singlehandedly checkmate a King. It also has complete control over the entire 5x5 square of squares surrounding itself.
If the Queen is a more powerful King, then the Unicorn is a more powerful Knight, in exactly the same way. This piece is also called the Nightrider, but when I looked up that name, I found that it also has ties to the KKK, and I wanted to avoid that association, so I made them unicorns instead. The Unicorn can make any number of (2, 1) leaps in the same direction, so long as every square it would pass through is unoccupied.
Unlike all of the previous pieces, the Ninja is a completely original creation of mine. The Ninja moves like a Unicorn, but rather than capturing in the same way, the Ninja captures by stepping backward or diagonally backward one square. This behavior is intended to emulate the Ninja sneaking up on their target, then quickly assassinating them with a strike to the back.
Did you know? A female ninja is called a "kunoichi".
The Pirate is another of my original creations, because what would a Ninja be without Pirates to battle against? Pirates carry the unique distinction of being Chess's first naval piece, and as such, they are restricted to the edges of the board, the "coastlines", so to speak. Otherwise, they move like a Queen would, which leads to bizarre situations like crossing through the board to land on the opposite shoreline. I guess the chess world is just a big island?
The Fool is a piece used in an advanced ruleset for Omega Chess. While it never really received its own piece shape, the icon used to represent it was a jester's cockscomb. I personally couldn't decide whether to represent the Fool as such, or as the Tarot fool, so I decided to use both simultaneously, hence the bindle. In many other games, jesters, jokers and clowns represent a wild card, and in chess, the symbolism is the same. The Fool has the remarkable power to copy the movement of the last piece your opponent moved. If that piece was a Fool, then your Fool will copy the piece that Fool was copying, and so on. The Fool also finds starting the game already on the board to be boring and trite. Instead, he can make a dramatic entrance on the board within 20 turns of the game starting. He can do this whenever one of two conditions are met: either a piece moving for the first time, or making a capture. In either case, the Fool will enter the board on the square the piece just left.
When chess was first invented in ancient India, as the game Chaturanga, the lineup of pieces had two glaring differences from what we would call modern chess. First, the Queen was only a mere Advisor, only able to move one square diagonally at a time. Second, the Bishops were Elephants, as the game was intended to represent the four branches (the word "Chaturanga" is Sanskrit for "four-armed") of the Indian military: the infantry (Pawns), the cavalry (Knights), the chariots (Rooks) and the elephants. The Elephants, like their modern counterparts, move diagonally, although their movement is much more limited. Elephants move exactly two squares diagonally, but they are not impeded by any piece on the square in between. Because of this, an Elephant on the usual starting squares for Bishops will only ever be able to reach eight different squares on the chessboard, no matter how hard they might try.
⚠️WARNING: CHALLENGER APPROACHING!!⚠️
In ancient Greek mythology, centaurs were a warrior species, human from the waist up, but horses from the waist down. On the chessboard, the Centaur has the abilities of a King and a Knight.
Also, from this point onward, all of the pieces I made will use BakuCores instead of poker chips. This is due to the fact that I took these pictures while we were moving and didn't have my usual poker chips handy.
The Spider is a piece coming from Musketeer Chess. It was named for its movement pattern, which resembles a spider's web. The Spider in actual Musketeer Chess has a tower shape, but I felt that that was overdone, so I made it a tank instead. The Spider can either slide up to two squares diagonally, or make either a (2, 0) or (2, 1) leap.
The second Musketeer Chess piece is the Fortress. This piece is unusual in that its (2, 1) leaps must be made with the two-square step being vertical. Other than that, the Fortress can either make a (2, 0) leap, or it can slide up to three squares diagonally.
The third new piece from Musketeer Chess is the Hawk. As a flying piece, the Hawk's movement consists exclusively of jumps. It can jump in any direction, but may only jump exactly two or exactly three squares in those directions.
I can't model leopards.
The Leopard, nonetheless, is the fourth and final Musketeer Chess piece. Its movement is effectively that of a less powerful Archbishop, sharing all of its knight movement, but having diagonal movement that is limited to only a two-square-maximum slide.
Why did I make this?
The Drunk Pawn, known to more "normal" chess-variant enthusiasts as the Berolina Pawn, is effectively the opposite of a normal pawn. It stumbles around the board, moving diagonally forward, but capturing straight forward.
This concludes the thread for now, but I have one more piece which I have yet to get pictures of. Additionally, if I ever make more pieces, they will be added to this thread as I make them.
Welcome to scenic My Back Patio! I've got four more piece types to discuss now.
(This post is best read while listening to this.)
The first piece among the new ones is the Time Machine! This piece normally moves like a Queen (I didn't have enough blue chips to make all the possible destination squares blue, so I made the orthogonal directions red instead), but rather than just moving straight to its destination, the Time Machine also moves into the future! That's not easy to replicate in real life, though, so instead, the solution I propose is as such: when you move the Time Machine, you declare what square it's going to land on, then remove it from the board. After you've made three more moves since the Time Machine left the board, return it to the board and capture whatever piece is currently there, regardless of what side it's on. (A King standing on the destination square of any Time Machine that only has one turn left before it comes back is in check and must be moved off that square.)
The Bomber is the second new piece! I adapted this one from Chess Evolved Online, although I made it slightly more powerful than it is there.
Bombers move one square in any direction. (In Chess Evolved Online, they could only move straight forward, and would teleport back to the first rank when they reached the end.) However, their main strength comes not from this increase in mobility, but from the large bomb they carry. If a Bomber captures or is captured by an enemy piece, their bomb will explode, killing both pieces!
(Optional rule: If one Bomber captures another Bomber, it triggers a Big Bang, which also destroys pieces in the neighboring eight squares!)
The third new piece is the Sumo Wrestler. I'm not really sure if this one exists in any variants yet (same with the Time Machine), but if you do invent one, please let me know so I can try it!
Sumo wrestling is the national sport of Japan. It involves two competitors trying to throw each other out of a ring, but the catch is that you're not allowed to actually hit your opponent.
As such, the Sumo Wrestler cannot capture pieces directly. It can move up to two squares in any direction. If there's an enemy piece on the square it wants to move to, it can still move to that square, so long as the next one in that direction is empty. The other piece doesn't get captured, but it does get pushed into that square. The exception to the "cannot capture" rule comes when the piece being pushed is on the edge of the board. If the Sumo Wrestler can push the piece off the edge of the board, that piece will be captured. (This unusual method of capturing doesn't grant it any sort of immunity from the Bomber's explosion, though. Watch out!)
The fourth and final new piece this time around is the Prince! This piece appears in several variants, most notably in Courier Chess, as the "Man". Princes move the same as a King would, but they aren't "royal", meaning that check and checkmate do not apply to them.
(Optional rule: Princes serve as an extra life. If you are checkmated, you can continue playing as long as you have at least one Prince left. Your opponent must capture your King if able, and then one of your Princes immediately promotes into a new King. Pawns can promote into a Prince.)
I never did get pictures of that other piece I promised to. That'll probably come in the next wave though.