Sorchess
Sorchess is exquisitely simple to understand, if you are already familiar with Classical Chess.
Sorchess is itself an evolution of Classical Chess whereby the only difference is the implementation of a new piece, known as the Wizard.
Yet what strikes this game apart from other variants that include "extra" pieces, is that Sorchess only includes ONE extra piece, or Wizard, per player.
I have spent decades studying different methods and mechanisms for evolving Chess and, to shorten an eternal story, I unwaveringly agreed with myself in the end that a larger board does not fulfill the game's evolution and likewise any further "pairs" of pieces only contribute to its unfulfillment.
However it was absolutely obvious to me that Classical Chess was missing a new piece and was also in need of a new methodology.
My decision:
Each player has one Wizard, absent from the board at the start, but which may be dropped into play at any moment.
The Wizard piece was originally invented in 1992 by Daniel MacDonald, for his game Omega Chess, another popular Chess variant.
Yet whilst this piece has become immortal in my mind, I have always felt its colour boundness to be, not only a weakness of its footprint, but therefore an illogical trait of character.
Herein, the Sorchess Wizard is itself an evolution of the Omega Wizard, by allowing it to change the square colour by which it is bound.
There are inevitably some rules regarding the Wizard and they are as follows.
- The Wizard moves like an elongated Knight, 3,1 as opposed to 2,1, and ONE square diagonally, in any direction.
- However, the Sorchess Wizard MAY ALSO move ONE square orthogonally WITHOUT CAPTURE, but only ONCE in the game.
- The Wizard enters play by being dropped to ANY VACANT EDGE SQUARE, at ANY TIME of play. For example the first move of any game could be 1. Wa4.
- However, the Wizard MAY NOT CAPTURE an UNMOVED piece. Thus a Wizard CANNOT CHECK the King if the King has NOT YET moved.
- The Wizard MAY NOT be DROPPED to BLOCK or DELIVER Check, regardless of whether the opponent King has moved.
Promotion: Pawns may promote to a Wizard, but only if the player promoting does not currently have a Wizard on the board. Only one Wizard in play, per player, is permitted throughout the game.
Why no capture? Aside from the piece being almost omnipowerful whence placed within a 64sq board, at the very heart of my game's design is a somewhat subtle theme of spirituality.
I crafted the character of the Sorchess Wizard to be one of power, yet also one of compassion. The piece is both a soldier, yet also as like a moral arbitrator of the game. Thus the reason why the Sorchess Wizard MAY NOT CAPTURE an UNMOVED piece is because until the enemy piece HAS moved, it is not yet actually a threat, or if you prefer, not yet declaring any "wrongdoing" upon the battlefield.
Here then doth the Sorchess Wizard reveal its purity of power.
©2021 S.E. Jepps.
To learn more, for latest news, to discuss or download PDFs, please visit the website, linked below:
www.chec-toe.org/sorchess
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By Simon Edward Jepps.
Last revised by Simon Jepps.
Web page created: 2021-07-02. Web page last updated: 2021-07-15