Morphomania
By Gerd P. Degens
The game requires a 9 x 9 board. The pieces change depending on the color of the square reached or the rank achieved.
Setup
Pieces
Standard set of pieces - plus archbishop, chancellor, amazon and dragon horse. Details in the rule section.
Rules
Except for the following changes, the Fide rules apply.
There is no capturing en passant, castling and promotion of pawns takes place.
Bare king loses.
Stalemate is a win.
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With the exception of the pawns, pieces are played as in standard chess - regarding archbishop, chancellor, amazon and dragon horse see below.
In Morphomania pieces change their appearance and function depending on the color of the squares they reach or the rank they achieve.
The king is excluded from this.
In general:
Knight:
If the knight changes from white to black it becomes a chancellor (additional moves of the bishop); back to white the moves of a knight remain.
Rook:
If the black rook changes to white, it can also move as a knight - and v.v.
Queen.
The white queen becomes an Amazon when moving to black - and v.v.
Bishop:
The bishop becomes a dragon horse on the even ranks with additional move options of the wazir; on the odd ranks, the bishop's move options remain.
Pawns:
Pawns can move a maximum of two squares forward on white squares, on black squares they become 'Speedpawns, with the possibility of moving a maximum of 3 squares forward.
In detail:
Kight, Rook, Queen, Archbishop, Chancellor, Amazon
The following diagram illustrates the changes:
The rook mutates from black to white to a chancellor and back again from white to black to a rook.
The knight mutates from white to black to an archbishop and vice versa.
The queen becomes an amazon when changing from white to black; the amazon becomes a queen again when changing from black to white.
Bishop / Dragon Horse
The following diagram illustrates the changes:
A bishop on ranks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 remains a bishop. At ranks 2, 4, 6, 8, the bishop mutates into a dragon horse.
A dragon horse at ranks 2, 4, 6, 8 mutates into a bishop when it gets to ranks 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9.
The bishop moves as in standard chess.
The dragon horse moves as follows:
The dragon horse and bishop can change color diagonals using the dragon horse's wasir move option!
Pawns
The following diagram illustrates the changes:
A pawn remains a pawn on white squares. As soon as it reaches a black square, it mutates into a speedpawn.
In reverse, the speedpawn mutates into a pawn when it moves from a black to a white square.
Pawn (Morphomania)
The pawn moves one square forward and captures opposing pieces. If an opponent's piece is two squares away, it can be captured if there is no other piece in between. The pawn does not jump over pieces.
A pawn on the opponent's baseline can be promoted as follows (white POV): 
Speedpawn (Morphomania)
The speedpawn moves one or two squares forward and captures opposing pieces. If an opponent's piece is three squares away, it can be captured if there is no other piece in between. The pawn does not jump over pieces.
A speedpawn on the opponent's baseline can be promoted as follows (white POV):
Archbishop
The archbishop is a hybrid piece of knight and bishop.
Chancellor
The chancellor is a hybrid piece of knight and rook.
Amazon
The amazon is a hybrid piece of knight and queen.
King
Castling: This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its original square three squares towards the rook on its original square, then that rook is transferred to the square just next to the king.
Notes
Play it !
Morphomania on Game Courier
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By Gerd P. Degens.
Last revised by Gerd Degens.
Web page created: 2024-03-20. Web page last updated: 2024-06-05