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The Piececlopedia is intended as a scholarly reference concerning the history and naming conventions of pieces used in Chess variants. But it is not a set of standards concerning what you must call pieces in newly invented games.

Piececlopedia: Crowned Rook

This page is being deprecated in favor of the Dragon King page

Historical Notes

The Crowned Rook combines the moves of the King and Rook. It is found in the 18th Century Chess variant The Duke of Rutland's Chess as a starting piece, in Shogi (dating from the 16th century or earlier) as the promoted form of the Rook, and in Shatar (Mongolian Chess, another old game) as the Berse or Queen.

This piece's name is probably the origin of using crowned as an adjective to describe a piece that has the moves of a King (Ferz and Wazir) in addition to its ordinary moves

Movement

The Crowned Rook combines the movement of the Ferz and Rook; that is it may either step one square in any direction (like a King), or slide like a Rook. The Crowned Rook is not a royal piece. The Crowned Rook captures the same way as it moves.

Movement diagram

In the diagram, the Crowned Rook can be moved as a Rook to squares marked with a blue circle, and as a Ferz to the squares marked with a green circle.

This is an item in the Piececlopedia: an overview of different (fairy) chess pieces.

Written by Sergey Sirotkin (edited by Peter Aronson).

WWW page created: October 21st, 2001.