Fey ChessCromlyn GamesFebruary 23, 2015

The Fey Kingdoms ritual dance to elect a new king and queen is aboutto begin. Two players compete with their teams of nobles drawn fromdifferent Fey races.

Figure 1:

Objective

Take the crown by the other heirs in a ritual dance before they takeyou!

Setup

Start: You need a chess board, and some playing pieces for bothcolours. A good set might be two pawns, rooks, bishops and knightsper player. You also need 4 tokens numbered 1-4 on one side. Pen-nies and a little paint would work well.

By the end of setup, both players will have 8 pieces in 4 uniquepairs (similar to how there are two rooks, two bishops ect in chess).

Each player chooses two of the nine fey races to join the ritual.This gives four races in total, to be assigned to the four Court Po-sitions. Players have to use the same four races, but do not haveto assign them to the same positions. They will place each race cardthey have underneath each Court Position Image to show what raceis taking which position.

Figure 2: The Court Position cards

The four Court Positions have different base movement styles.

• Lord and Lady of the Mountain can move up to 2 spaces in aorthogonal line (similar to a rook in chess)

• Lord and Lady of the Wind can move up to 2 spaces in a diagonalline (similar to a bishop in chess)

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• Lord and Lady of the River move 1 space in a orthogonal line andthen 1 move in a diagonal line (with a similar result to a knight inchess, but harder to block than an L shape move.)

• Lord and Lady of the Forest can move 1 space in any direction(similar to a king in chess)

One of these positions is additionally chosen to be the Heir. Likethe Fey Races, each player can assign a different Court Position as theHeir. You win the game by taking the opponent’s two heirs beforeshe takes yours.

An example of what a finished setup for one player looks like is inFigure 3.

Figure 3: The Court Position cards withRaces and Heir assigned

The nine Fey Races each have a special rule

• Blinks teleport from one square to another. Like knights in chess,they cannot be blocked. These tiny white fey vanish when lookedat directly, but dance eerily in the falling snow.

• Sparra can move an unlimited amount in one direction (example:a Mountain Sparra moves exactly like a rook in chess). Rude anddangerous, nobody risks offending a Sparra.

• Mare’s Tail cannot be taken. The oldest of all the races, by tradi-tion these graceful ancients cannot be taken in the ritual, but maynot take the throne themselves. They cannot be the Heir.

• Hedgeweed bind neighboring opposing pieces in place. Two op-posed Hedgeweeds will tie each other down until the game endsor one is taken. Coarse and cheerful, they love a good joke.

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• Gnarltoads cannot take pieces by moving into the square, but cantake pieces by jumping over them (like checkers). They hone theirskills on slippery river stones.

• Pugglings can take pieces, or choose to knock them back a square.Any second piece knocked into by the first one is taken instead.These fairies chew gravel for fun.

• Skiradee can move off the edge of the board and move back onat the corresponding spot on the opposite side. Slightly crazyclimbing experts, they mostly live in the tops of the trees, rarelycoming down to the ground.

• Berry Born can intervene when another piece is taken. If a BerryBorn uses it’s ability, remove the Berry Born instead, and placethe saved piece where the Berry Born was. Of all the Fey, they aremost in touch with the cycles of nature.

• Dappled can switch places with another piece they are touching.With one wing peppered black and the other peppered white, theydelight in mischief and misdirection.

After creating their Fey Chess pieces, the two players take turnsplacing them on the board, in a setup position shown (Figure 4).

Play

At the start of the game, and each subsequent round, the playerssecretly place their Order Tokens on the four Court Position

cards. When both players are ready, these are flipped over. Pieceshave to be moved following the order of the tokens. In the examplein Figure ?? one of the two Mountain Dappled must move first, thenthe opponent’s first piece moves, then one of the two River Mare’sTail moves and so on. If you have lost both pieces of a Court Position,you do not get to move anything when it is time to activate. You stillplace tokens on all four cards as normal. After all four tokens havebeen activated, each player collects them in in order to secretly placethem for the next round.

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Figure 4: Each player can only placepieces into the safe area

Figure 5: Setting the order of pieceactivation

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Figure 6: Race cards for Printing

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Figure 7: Race cards for Printing

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Figure 8: Court Positions for BothPlayers