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Concise Guide to Chess Variants. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jeremy Lennert wrote on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 01:07 PM UTC:
Dullahan (another of the aos si that predicts deaths)

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 01:58 PM UTC:
oh yeah, i like dullahan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dullahan

another idea could be Abaddon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaddon 

grim reaper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_reaper

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2012 07:25 AM UTC:
Where I found Gazelle is indeed puzzling. Neither Gazelle nor Okapi is in the Oxford Companion to Chess (a book) or on the site All the King's Men. I was beginning to wonder whether I had invented Gazelle myself and forgotten doing so, but this comment confirms that as early as 2003 I was under the impression that it was an established name. When I first used the Gazelle in Great Herd there do not appear to have been any question as to where Gazelle had come from, or suggestions of an alternative. Certainly I do recall any reference to Okapi on the Chess Variant Pages, which is why I used it for a Crooked radial mover with echoes of the Girafrider (the okapi is a relative of the giraffe - cf Rhino in terms of the Nightrider). Returning briefly to amphibian pieces, I should have added that I plan to retain Baron for Ferz+Viceroy as it is a purely coprime piece.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2012 10:52 AM UTC:
yeah i was suprised i couldn't find the gazelle listed, maybe the website that used to list it has disappeared.

Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Jan 12, 2012 07:29 AM UTC:
I have decided to go ahead with the switch this weekend as far as square-cell pieces are concerned. The names new to Man and Beast will be as follows, with non-coprime components usually Leaping unless marked $, in which case they are usually Stepping.
	Frock=Cross+Trechick - replacing Tadpole
	Gardener=Point+$Dabchick+$Trechick - new
	Guardian=Wazir+$Dabbaba+$Trebuchet - piece new to MAB
	Lining=Gardener+Restless - new
	Liondog=Guardian+Wrestler - piece new to MAB
	Newt=Elephant+Trebuchet - replacing Rosette
	Nuke=Tusk+Trechick - replacing Rosebud
	Restless=Cross+$Tusk+$Trisk - new
	Toad=Dabbaba+Trebuchet - replacing Treader
	Toke=Dabchick+Trechick - replacing Trekker
	Vestment=Mitre+Trechick - replacing Maypole
	Wrestler=Ferz+$Elephant+$Tripper - piece new to MAB
A few brand new 3d and/or hex ones will get in as well, namely
	Garage=Gardener+Wether
	Guarantor=Guardian+Weatherer
	Liner=Lining+Wether
	Liontamer=Liondog+Weatherer
	Lucky=Key+Lurch
	Reckless=Restles+Wether
	Weatherer=Viceroy+$Eunuch+$Zombie
	Wether=Saltire+$Key+$Lurch
	Wrecker=Wrestler+Weatherer
	Zookeeper=Eunuch+Zombie
I am postponing adjusting cubic Amphibian pieces to consider the fact that different pieces are Amphibian in different geometries. The Toad and Newt are Amphibian in all geometries that have them (2d hex has no Frog or Newt), but the Frog has an unbound component in hex-prism. The Vicbaba is Amphibian in 2d hex but Viceroy+Trebuchet, which is Amphibian on a cubic board, is bound to a third of a hex board. Any thoughts on dealing with other geometries, or should I just not bother with Amphibian-themed names beyond the square-cell board?

Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 05:06 PM UTC:
I love the name Dullahan very much. It has inspired a new experimental army for CwdA, named the Fearful Fairies, to be pulished here soon.

Jörg Knappen wrote on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 08:29 AM UTC:
Some more piece names. Most of them can be found in the Schwalbe list
http://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm or on Jerome Grimbert's site http://jgrimbert.free.fr/pieces/indexa.html

Saurians:
cK - Atlantosaurus 
cQ - Dinosaurus
cB - Brontosaurus
cN - Hippopotamus 
cR - Mammoth

Combinations with a pawn:
p+B - Griff
p+N - Dragon (german: Drache)
p+R - Ship (french: Bateau)
p+L - Lama (L is Camel in Betza notation ...)
p+D - german: Hornochse (literal translation Horned Ox, meanig Blockhead) Maybe we could call it Hornox in english?

Sea pieces:
sea-K - Poseidon
sea-Q - Sirene, Mermaid
sea-B - Nereide
sea-N - french: Hippocampe (sea horse). In fact, a sea-Moo.
sea-N - french: cavalier marine (sea knight) truly hippogonal piece, almost useless on 8x8
sea-R - Triton

Some other pieces:
The Camelrider has a special french name: Mehari
The Taxi is a pawn with an additional backward move, it can go up to 3 steps forward from the first rank.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Jan 28, 2012 08:54 AM UTC:
'Saurians:
cK - Atlantosaurus
cQ - Dinosaurus
cB - Brontosaurus
cN - Hippopotamus
cR - Mammoth'
and the man choosing those names must have been a Doesnthaveathesaurus! Those are really terrible choices - just two genuine specific dinosaurs, one generic, and two names with nothing 'saurian' about them. A modern-day child could name five kinds of dinosaur. At one point I was tempted to use dinosaur names for Bent hex-prism pieces but shied away as Dino-Czars already used such names - including Brontosaurus. Regarding names without dinosaur connections, Man and Beast 09 has a piece namer Hippopotamus and Man and Beast 11 a suffix -mammoth as an offshoot of -mastodon.

Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Jan 29, 2012 09:28 AM UTC:
I don't think all the Saurians were named by one person at one time. don't have sources to early problems for the saurians, but I suspect the Hippopotamus even predates the term saurian. Note that also the locust (an old problemist piece) is technically a sauiran (a saurian grasshopper).

Charles Gilman wrote on Tue, Jan 31, 2012 07:14 AM UTC:
When you said that a Locust was a Saurian Grasshopper I suspected that this was not strictly true and checked the defintions of the three terms. The Grasshopper moves to an empty or enemy-occupied cell as normal, except that the previous cell must be occupied by a piece of an army, which does not get captured. A Saurian Grasshopper is the same except that the destination must also be occupied, but by an enemy that does get captured. The previous cell's occupant still does not get captured. A Locust's destination cannot be occupied, and it is the cell before the destination that must be occupied by an enemy that gets captured. In summary, the Locust and Saurian Grasshopper are different pieces.

Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, Jan 31, 2012 08:35 AM UTC:
Sigh, I always get confused by grasshopper/locust, because the two terms are too close semantically, and I rarely do something with one of these two pieces. Charles' description of the two is perfectly right. Locusts take by overhopping, while grasshoppers are restricted korean cannon-style pieces. Sea pieces are locusts with additional non-capturing moves.

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