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A game from the canon
Hessethean Chess
In development
Hessethean Chess is a chess of war, not of patience: 216 pieces to a side, arranged in nine ranked lines. It descends from chess but answers to its own laws, drawn from the same canon as the rest of the Machine: the Clergy and the Dark Legions, Boulders and Arrows, Angels and the High Court, with legions named for the underground that built this place.
Each piece keeps its own law. Boulders roll and vanish. The Falanx falls only to seven sacrifices. The Vampire of Melancholy cannot die, and turns the fallen to its own side. The Emperor freezes a single piece where it stands, and dies the moment his Shieldmaiden does. It is offensive, intricate, and meant to be played in the round.
The Nine Lines
- First — The Clergy — bishops that stride the diagonal, two to six fields by their height
- Second — The Dark Legions — towers, falanx, and the named legions, each with its own law
- Third — Boulders — they roll forward, crush the first that stands in their path, and are gone
- Fourth — Arrows — they answer arrow with arrow, and reach further as the towers advance
- Fifth — Angels — seven fields forward, then the patient step of a pawn
- Sixth — Pawns — the first rank of the lower courts
- Seventh — Lower Court — rooks, knights, bishops, kings and queens, and a Lion that leaps
- Eighth — Court — arc angels, emos, panthers that move in the nirvana cross, and artists
- Ninth — High Court — elvins over eleven fields, vampires exactly six on the diagonal
The pieces are being modelled in 3D and the full rulebook set down. When both are complete the board will be built to play in the round, here at the entrance to the Machine. This page is the vision, not yet the game.