Colorful Osmosis Chess
Colorful Osmosis Chess uses four basic piece types (plus Kings and Pawns). Two basic pieces are colorbound and two are colorswitching. Of the colorbound pieces, one is a slider and the other is a leaper; likewise for the colorswitching pieces. Basic pieces can create compond pieces by capturing enemy pieces, in some games this process is called absorbtion, here I use the synonym osmosis. Colorful Osmosis Chess is played on a ten-by-ten board.
Setup
White's pieces are set up as follows: Camels on the corners. From left to right on the second rank are Harvestman, Knight, Bishop, King, Bishop, Knight, and Harvestman. On the third rank are ten Pawns, Black's army is placed in mirror symmetric positions on the eighth, ninth and tenthranks. Because of the limitations of the Diagram Designer, the Harvestman is represented as the Rook icon but it has a different move.
Pieces
- King moves as an FIDE King but cannot castle.
- Pawn moves as an FIDE Pawn including en passant. Pawns promote on the enemy Pawn line to any basic or compound piece.
Basic Pieces
- Bishop moves as an FIDE Bishop. The colorbound slider.
- Knight moves as an FIDE Knight. The colorswitching leaper.
- Camel moves two squares straight a one square diagonally or vice versa. The colorbound leaper.
- Harvestman moves one square straight then continues as a Crooked Bishop (https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/crookedbishop.html). The colorswitching slider.
Compound Pieces
- Cardinal moves as a Bishop or a Kinght.
- Caliph moves as a Bishop or a Camel.
- Evangelist moves as a Bishop or a Harvestman.
- Gnu moves as a Knight or a Camel.
- Battlemaster moves as a Knight or a Harvestman.
- Imam moves as a Camel or a Harvestman.
Rules
The usual FIDE checkmate, stalemate, triple repetition and fifty-move rules apply. In addition, whenever a basic piece captures an enemy basic piece with a different move, a new piece belonging to the capturing player is created on the capture square according to the following rules:
- If a basic piece captues a Pawn or the corresponing basic piece does not create a new piece, the captured piece is removed from the board.
- If a basic piece captures any other basic piece, the compund piece with the combined move of captor and captive is created.
- If a basic piece captures a compound piece which shares the captor's move, he captive's basic moves the captive is recreated belonging to the capturing player (in essence swiching sides).
- If a basic piece captures a compound piece which does not share the captor's move, a compound piece combing the captor's move with one but not both of the captive's basic moves is created. (Capturing player chooses.)
This process is called osmosis.
Notes
Colorful Osmosis Chess began as an effort to use both colorbound and colorswiching sliders and leapers. Three of them are Bishop, Kinght, and Camel. For the fourth basic piece I used Jörg Knappen's Harvestman from his Seenschach. The osmosis rules are adapted from the assimilation rules of Fergus Duniho's Assimilation Chess with the following changes:
- Kings do not participate in osmosis.
- Compound pieces do not split.
The abscence of castling ,Pawn promotion before the last rank and especially the promoion of non-Pawn pieces are reminiscent of Shogi.
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By Michael Nelson.
Last revised by Michael Nelson.
Web page created: 2023-10-27. Web page last updated: 2024-01-21