Post by Xaa on Feb 23, 2006 21:37:47 GMT -5
This is an excerpt taken from the 3rd "Wench of Woe" book (to be completed soon). This is a chapter told from Sasha's perspective - she is watching Corvid, a friend, learn chatto from Eddas Ayar.
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"Okay, so I can forge this piece against mine or yours?" Corvid said, pointing.
Eddas nodded. "Theoretically, yes, but I'd have to see your cards to know. You have two cards you set aside for movement, peek at their color and rank and see which would be best to choose. Black cards allow you to end your move on black squares, white cards allow white squares, half distance if you have to use black for white or vice versa. If you forge against your piece, there's no draw or change in the cards, you get a silver ring for his staff. Fill the staff with eight silver rings, you pull them off and put a gold ring on the bottom - it's now easier to fill the staff and get another. If you forge against mine, you have to choose whether you destroy it or not. If you do not choose to destroy and just do a peaceful forging instead, we contest it with a draw from our forge stacks. Win, and you pull off any silver rings he has, you get a gold ring and the ability to take one of my cards. Lose a peaceful forging, and nothing happens. The risk, however, is that you'll be next to my oiliphant there, and he might crush you on my turn - he has an astonishing bonus in attack."
"How astonishing?"
"He treats all squares as being his color in attack, and like the mage, all cards used for attacks as being his color. Defense for him is normal, however, and like the dragon, he treats all movement cards as being the wrong color for wherever he wants to go. You round down on movement but you can't move less than one square, so he can get there no matter what card I play for movement. With his attack bonus, even if I play a white card from those I set aside for fighting, he'll treat it as black - my color. And considering he's got two gold rings on his staff, that means he'll have two from his rings, one from the square and one from the card in attack - four. Even a little one white card would give him five in attack, and if I played an eight black, he'd have twelve. Twelve is devastating in attack, you don't have a piece on the board that could survive it even if you played an eight white in defense. Ending your turn next to that oiliphant is not wise, unless you're convinced I have low cards for fighting and you have high cards. Oh - on your side, he's not the oiliphant, he's the giant instead. Joy always plays white so she can stomp me with the giant, she finds it quite amusing."
"I see," Corvid replied, grinning.
"Why the difference?" I asked.
Eddas smiled. "Well, it's just the way we Hyperboreans looked at things. We couldn't ever see a giant fighting a giant, so black has the oiliphant, instead. For the same reason, I have an axeman who looks quite a bit like a dwarf instead of the archer Corvid has with white, who looks suspiciously like an elf," Eddas said, and winked.
I grinned, and Corvid chuckled as Eddas turned to look at him, pointing at the board again. "Now, if you choose to forge and destroy my piece or just launch a simple attack, I can allow it or contest it. If I allow it, he's removed from the game and your turn ends, even if you could have played more cards, your piece ends up in the square mine was in if he wasn't there already, and you remove any silver rings from his staff and get a gold ring. Despite that it forces your turn to end, this is a good thing. It permanently weakens my force and the removed piece counts towards your score - quite a bit, because he was promoted once to reach oiliphant and he has two gold rings - and your piece ends up stronger. If I contest it, we use those three cards there you set aside for fighting. Note, however, you promoted that one to chariot the last turn. It can move twice, and can pick up a friendly piece whose square it enters, carry them as long as it wants, and drop them in any square next to the one it ends a turn in if there's an open square, or have both pieces fight on one fight card - that means they're treated as one piece, and any gold rings they have are added together. For example, it could move, pick up that piece there, and move again carrying that piece, stopping here next to mine to forge, or stopping in the same square to attack. If you try to forge against my piece, it's very risky, that oiliphant has two gold rings and your pieces have none because you just promoted both of them recently and haven't had a chance to forge them again - that gives me a two point bonus in forging, where colors don't count. Win, you pick a card from me, you pull off any silver rings on their staves and get a gold ring for each, I don't get to replace the card you took until the beginning of my next turn, then we see whether or not my oiliphant dies with a fight card from each of us - I have three, but if I had one and you chose it and left me with none, he loses and dies. Lose the forge, you don't get a ring, I pick a card from you, you play down a card until your next draw at the beginning of your next turn, and we see if your chariot and it's passenger dies - both at once on one fight card from you. And remember, when you take a card from me, you choose from either of the three stacks; fight, move or forge."
"Hmmm... Question: Is there ever a time you would allow a destruction?"
"Well, that depends on the player, the board position, and what cards they're holding. Keeping track in your head of what cards you've seen played lets you guess at what would be left and the odds your opponent has a high card to play, you might do it if you're expecting to draw a high card on your next turn and don't want your opponent to get it. But, that only matters until the deck is empty, then we shuffle the discard stack and put it back over there to draw from again. Largely you would do it so as to end an opponent's turn before he can do something serious, giving you a chance to recover from a bad position - you sacrifice one piece to move or forge others. For example, I could allow the oiliphant to die if you attacked, ending your turn and preventing further damage, then forge this knight, here on my turn - he's just two squares away, nearly any card will get him next to you. A peaceful forging against an enemy is contested, but if I win, I get a gold ring and a draw of your cards - if I lose, nothing happens. Then, since he's a knight, he can then use a second movement card to run away so you can't smash him. I can keep the gold, forging him even stronger, or I can promote him to either battle-mage or warrior - if I promote to warrior, however, since he's already moved, he couldn't move again. I'd choose the ring and run away, however, to keep him away from you and keep him stronger than you. The limitation is that if I do all that, the Oiliphant is gone. I can't promote my mage over here to Oiliphant to replace the one I lost and continue working up that promotion line - you'd have destroyed that piece, he's placed by your side as retired for the rest of the game and counts as part of your score to win, and the mage is just stuck where he is in promotion. He can still earn rings, but he can never be promoted further. I could, however, promote the knight to warrior or battle-mage, and retire the knight piece to my drawer to be pulled out later when I promote another piece."
I shook my head. Marilith was still bathing, and I had been watching Eddas and Corvid work through Corvid's first game. It was an immensely complicated game, from my perspective.
Corvid stroked his chin. "Ah, but you wouldn't sacrifice that oiliphant, I'd end up in his square, and that could put your king at risk. At four squares distance, there's a lot of cards that could bring my piece within striking distance. Lose the king, and you lose the game."
"Well, yes - the crown is heavy, whoever has it can only move one, regardless of what card you play to move. The only way I could avoid a loss is to immediately transfer the crown marker to an adjacent piece before you get there and try to get him into one of my castles. My nearest castle is my forest, and right now, my priest is the only piece who could even reach the king for the transfer, and you'd slap him silly the following turn long before he made it to the forest, his entire purpose is forging other pieces, he can't fight worth a damn," Eddas said, and winked.
I shook my head again. "I'm not even sure how you win at all."
Corvid grinned. "That's the easy part to understand - the longest way is to win on score at the end of an agreed time. Scoring is one for pawns, and eight for mage, fighter or merchant, sixteen for the next rank up, and so on - plus one for each gold ring on the staff. You get score for each piece of yours on the board, plus each piece you've destroyed of the enemy. The other ways to win are by capturing all your enemy's castles, or you can win by making the other player lose. You lose if you have no pieces on the board, or if you lose your king."
Eddas nodded. "Right. See that little gold disk my mage is sitting on, Sasha? That's the crown, it means he's my king, currently. Theoretically, you could promote a piece to something useful, then forge it to eight full gold rings - virtually indomitable - then make them king. If the king can't be beaten, you can't lose that way. It's not wise to do it, however, you'd be wasting a lot of valuable forging time you could be spending on pawns to build them up, and the resulting piece would be burdened by the weight of the crown, and far less useful than he otherwise might be. Better to have the king marker shift from time to time, to keep it out of reach of your opponent. Meanwhile, with one ultimately powerful king and the rest weak little pawns, your opponent could sweep all your pawns while you're fiddling with just one piece, then bring all his forces to bear against that piece at once by shifting cards to his movement stack to bring them all together in one turn, and have them all fight on one card. When two or more pieces fight on one card, the attacker chooses which piece is leading the assault, and they total all their rings together. The king falls, and you lose. Or they could just withdraw to their castles and defend if you're near the time you agreed to stop - the four castles in your home row are on squares of your color, Fortress, Forest, Mountain, City. The Tower, sometimes called the Outpost, is your fifth castle. You can place anywhere on your half of the board in your first turn, it doesn't move thereafter, but it works the same as the others. In addition to the color bonus for the square, a piece in a castle can't lose drawing from an empty stack, they just draw from one of the others. If you've had your enemy sweep all your pawns except your king and he then hides in his castles to wait for time to expire, well, they'll win on score. One of the largest parts of the game, however, is keeping one's face absolutely smooth. You don't want to let your opponent know what kind of cards you've drawn, and you don't want your gaze to reveal where you're really thinking about moving."
"How do you even know how many cards to draw?" I asked, still boggled.
Eddas smiled. "At the beginning of your turn, if you have less than eight, you draw from the top of the deck until you do have eight. If the deck runs dry, you shuffle the discards and move them there to form the deck again. You then assign the cards in your hand to the three stacks - fight, forge or move - and you can change them at the beginning of each turn. Controlling your expression and gaze is critical, there. You just do not want your opponent knowing what you're planning, or being able to tell that you're saving a particular card for something."
Corvid nodded. "The promotions were the only complex thing to understand - eight silver rings to get a gold, then you only need seven, then six, and so on until the last one is a given. Instead of a gold you can promote, which costs you the rings but improves the piece. Pawns have no staff, they can't gain rings, but they promote on any forging that doesn't kill them. Pawns go up to one of three categories - fighter, mage or merchant, who have bonuses to move, attack, or forge, respectively. Fighter goes up to archer for white or axeman for black, they go up to knight, knight goes up to chariot, and chariot goes up to warrior. Mage goes up to oiliphant for black or giant for white, oiliphant or giant goes up to catapult, catapult goes up to dragon, dragon goes up to warrior, again. Merchant goes up to scholar or craftsman, scholar or craftsman goes up to mason, mason goes up to priest, and priest goes up to warrior, again. The top three tiers of mage move at half, the top three tiers of fighter have half penalty to forge, and the top three tiers of merchant have half penalty to fight."
"Correct, but remember that in forges between pieces on the same side, scholars and craftsmen give one extra ring, masons and smiths give two, and priests give three."
"Smiths?" I asked.
Corvid nodded again. "Each line has a "spur" which goes nowhere, but allows different abilities. Catapult can "spur" to ship which can't promote further, but can carry another piece like the chariot and doesn't have a movement penalty. Mason can "spur" to smith, which can't promote further but has no penalties to fighting. Knight can "spur" to battle-mage, which can't promote further but has no penalties to forging."
Eddas grinned. "That's right!"
Corvid grinned back. "The one thing I don't understand is why warrior is considered the highest promotion. Well, I understand it from the point of the game - no penalty to move, forge or fight, and the warrior can't lose to an empty stack, he just draws from another, it's like he's got a castle around him all the time. If you can't force him to lose through an empty stack, but instead an empty stack allows him to choose at will from the other stacks, that makes him very deadly. But why the name 'warrior'?"
"Well, that's because in your language, you just say "warrior". In Hyperborean, the word is Krigat. He isn't just a warrior, he is the warrior. It's part of our culture - we had a concept of the 'ultimate warrior', the character appeared in our literature, plays and songs quite a bit. Sometimes he's a mage, other times he's a mundane, but he's always the best, indomitable. He's always marked in some way, so he's seen as being lesser than he is. A scar, missing one arm, missing an eye, something. And he has a weakness - the Krigat in our literature and plays is only ever defeated through his weaknesses. He's always a tragic hero, and even when he wins, there's always something he lost doing it."
(snip a short conversation)
"Come - it's your turn."
Corvid nodded, studying the board. "Alright, that Oiliphant looks a bit risky, I think I'll just forge this chariot against my fighter, instead..."
(snip exposition, Sasha is now playing Eddas with Corvid and Marilith helping her)
In short order, I had the two of them seated at my sides, whispering into my ears and peeping at the stacks of cards every now and again between whispering to each other. Eddas had very sharp hearing, I knew, but he promised he would deactivate his ring of translation. That would allow us to speak in Vilandian (a language he said he didn't know but Corvid did) when considering our moves. Such a promise seemed rather hollow, given he was an expert at reading expressions and gazes while controlling his own, but I had no choice but to trust him, I had really no idea what I was doing.
"Mmm... Not that one, the other one," Corvid said.
"Which other one?" I asked, looking at the board.
"The one with the bow - your archer. He's got six silver rings, if you forge him against your scholar, he can promote to knight and give you the reach to strike deeper into Eddas' territory next turn. The scholar can bump a piece to forge himself or he can be bumped to forge the piece that moved to him - this is like any other piece. The scholar is along the merchant line, he specializes in forging. He's a second promotion, he gives two rings, and he can forge a piece by moving into it. But, if he moves to that archer, he'll be closer to Eddas' knight and might be lost, so it's best to keep him back and have the archer bump him."
Eddas looked up briefly from the book he was reading at the sound of his name, but as it was obvious we weren't speaking to him, he went back to reading a moment later. I knew he was a tremendously experienced opponent, he already had six of his starting eight pawns promoted, whereas I'd only managed three.
"But what about-" I said, lifting my hand, and Marilith grabbed my wrist.
"Careful, Sister. He said he wouldn't listen, but he certainly will see you point."
(snip a short conversation)
"No. Like this," I said, reaching for the movement stack. Picking the middle one, I turned it over. "Three white," I called. "This scholar moves to the archer and forges him to a knight."
"Alright," Corvid said, and made the move for me, then put the card in the discard pile. I waited until he'd removed the rings and put them back in the drawer on my side, replacing the archer with a knight from the drawer and putting the archer away in it's little padded slot. Eddas, noticing I was moving, looked up from his book and watched.
"Five white - the knight moves over to the square next to the oiliphant."
"Err... Next to?" Corvid asked.
"Yes, the white square to the right."
"Sister, what are you doing?" Marilith asked.
"Taking a gamble," I replied, as Corvid moved the piece.
"You're going to forge against him?"
"Yes, and I want to capture him after. He's got two cards set aside for fighting. I can do this," I said, and picked up a forging card, glad I'd placed the less useful black cards in the forging pile.
"She intends to destroy, Master Eddas," Marilith said, in Hyperborean, my bracelet letting me understand her.
Eddas nodded, reaching out to the board and moving my knight into the square with the oiliphant, then picking up the oiliphant and setting it to the side. "And that ends her turn," he replied.
I blinked, and Marilith looked at him as Corvid slipped a gold ring over the staff for my knight. "You're just going to let it go?" Marilith asked.
"Naturally," he said, then looked at me, and smiled. "A nice thought, Sasha, but I'm not going to allow you to take my king that easily," he said in Vilandian, apparently having activated his translation ring again.
"But... But how did you...?"
"You smiled too much when you laid down your fight cards. I think you've got a pair of eights, there," he said, and winked. "Forge to distract me, fight to get me to expend a good card to save the piece and lose it anyway, then charge the king in my city when I've only one card left that likely isn't an eight? It seemed obvious. If you were bluffing, however, I congratulate you on an excellent bluff, you cost me a piece and a line of development."
(snip a short conversation)
"Four white, right next to your knight," he called moving his fighter next to my knight. "Forge," he called, selecting a card from his forge stack. I looked at the cards in my forge stack, then pulled one out, holding it in my hand. Colors didn't matter in forging, and it wasn't a bad card. When I was ready, however, Eddas flipped over a white eight.
I sighed, laying down the black five I'd selected. Eddas nodded, reaching to my fight stack and drawing a card, and leaving me with one. "Since that was a forge against an enemy, I get a gold rather than a silver," he said, pulling off the silver rings from his fighter, then slipping a gold ring out from the drawer on his side of the board and dropping it over the empty staff of his fighter before putting the silver rings away. The card he drew from me, he placed in his forge stack, then drew another card from his movement stack.
"Five white, right beside your knight," Eddas called, moving his knight four squares to settle it beside the square mine was in. "Forge and destroy," he said, pulling out a card from his forge stack and holding it. It was not the card he'd taken from me, I still had a chance. I looked at what I had left, and selected the highest card I had. Eddas then laid down the white six he had selected. I sighed again, showing the black five I had selected. "You have one gold ring and I have none, colors don't matter in forging. Tie - second card?" he asked, picking up the card he'd gotten from me before. I turned over my last forge card - a black two - and Eddas nodded. Eddas again drew a card from my fight stack, leaving me with none, and placed a gold ring on the empty staff of his knight.
"And now the fight for destruction," he said, and laid down the card he'd just drawn from me - a white eight. "You have none in the pile, and that isn't a castle," he said, and reached out to my knight, taking it and placing it to the side.
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Those who wish to actually attempt to build a chatto set and/or ask questions about the various pieces and such so they can actually play the game are free to post questions to this thread. If you do, I'd like to see images (photos) of completed boards you may make.
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"Okay, so I can forge this piece against mine or yours?" Corvid said, pointing.
Eddas nodded. "Theoretically, yes, but I'd have to see your cards to know. You have two cards you set aside for movement, peek at their color and rank and see which would be best to choose. Black cards allow you to end your move on black squares, white cards allow white squares, half distance if you have to use black for white or vice versa. If you forge against your piece, there's no draw or change in the cards, you get a silver ring for his staff. Fill the staff with eight silver rings, you pull them off and put a gold ring on the bottom - it's now easier to fill the staff and get another. If you forge against mine, you have to choose whether you destroy it or not. If you do not choose to destroy and just do a peaceful forging instead, we contest it with a draw from our forge stacks. Win, and you pull off any silver rings he has, you get a gold ring and the ability to take one of my cards. Lose a peaceful forging, and nothing happens. The risk, however, is that you'll be next to my oiliphant there, and he might crush you on my turn - he has an astonishing bonus in attack."
"How astonishing?"
"He treats all squares as being his color in attack, and like the mage, all cards used for attacks as being his color. Defense for him is normal, however, and like the dragon, he treats all movement cards as being the wrong color for wherever he wants to go. You round down on movement but you can't move less than one square, so he can get there no matter what card I play for movement. With his attack bonus, even if I play a white card from those I set aside for fighting, he'll treat it as black - my color. And considering he's got two gold rings on his staff, that means he'll have two from his rings, one from the square and one from the card in attack - four. Even a little one white card would give him five in attack, and if I played an eight black, he'd have twelve. Twelve is devastating in attack, you don't have a piece on the board that could survive it even if you played an eight white in defense. Ending your turn next to that oiliphant is not wise, unless you're convinced I have low cards for fighting and you have high cards. Oh - on your side, he's not the oiliphant, he's the giant instead. Joy always plays white so she can stomp me with the giant, she finds it quite amusing."
"I see," Corvid replied, grinning.
"Why the difference?" I asked.
Eddas smiled. "Well, it's just the way we Hyperboreans looked at things. We couldn't ever see a giant fighting a giant, so black has the oiliphant, instead. For the same reason, I have an axeman who looks quite a bit like a dwarf instead of the archer Corvid has with white, who looks suspiciously like an elf," Eddas said, and winked.
I grinned, and Corvid chuckled as Eddas turned to look at him, pointing at the board again. "Now, if you choose to forge and destroy my piece or just launch a simple attack, I can allow it or contest it. If I allow it, he's removed from the game and your turn ends, even if you could have played more cards, your piece ends up in the square mine was in if he wasn't there already, and you remove any silver rings from his staff and get a gold ring. Despite that it forces your turn to end, this is a good thing. It permanently weakens my force and the removed piece counts towards your score - quite a bit, because he was promoted once to reach oiliphant and he has two gold rings - and your piece ends up stronger. If I contest it, we use those three cards there you set aside for fighting. Note, however, you promoted that one to chariot the last turn. It can move twice, and can pick up a friendly piece whose square it enters, carry them as long as it wants, and drop them in any square next to the one it ends a turn in if there's an open square, or have both pieces fight on one fight card - that means they're treated as one piece, and any gold rings they have are added together. For example, it could move, pick up that piece there, and move again carrying that piece, stopping here next to mine to forge, or stopping in the same square to attack. If you try to forge against my piece, it's very risky, that oiliphant has two gold rings and your pieces have none because you just promoted both of them recently and haven't had a chance to forge them again - that gives me a two point bonus in forging, where colors don't count. Win, you pick a card from me, you pull off any silver rings on their staves and get a gold ring for each, I don't get to replace the card you took until the beginning of my next turn, then we see whether or not my oiliphant dies with a fight card from each of us - I have three, but if I had one and you chose it and left me with none, he loses and dies. Lose the forge, you don't get a ring, I pick a card from you, you play down a card until your next draw at the beginning of your next turn, and we see if your chariot and it's passenger dies - both at once on one fight card from you. And remember, when you take a card from me, you choose from either of the three stacks; fight, move or forge."
"Hmmm... Question: Is there ever a time you would allow a destruction?"
"Well, that depends on the player, the board position, and what cards they're holding. Keeping track in your head of what cards you've seen played lets you guess at what would be left and the odds your opponent has a high card to play, you might do it if you're expecting to draw a high card on your next turn and don't want your opponent to get it. But, that only matters until the deck is empty, then we shuffle the discard stack and put it back over there to draw from again. Largely you would do it so as to end an opponent's turn before he can do something serious, giving you a chance to recover from a bad position - you sacrifice one piece to move or forge others. For example, I could allow the oiliphant to die if you attacked, ending your turn and preventing further damage, then forge this knight, here on my turn - he's just two squares away, nearly any card will get him next to you. A peaceful forging against an enemy is contested, but if I win, I get a gold ring and a draw of your cards - if I lose, nothing happens. Then, since he's a knight, he can then use a second movement card to run away so you can't smash him. I can keep the gold, forging him even stronger, or I can promote him to either battle-mage or warrior - if I promote to warrior, however, since he's already moved, he couldn't move again. I'd choose the ring and run away, however, to keep him away from you and keep him stronger than you. The limitation is that if I do all that, the Oiliphant is gone. I can't promote my mage over here to Oiliphant to replace the one I lost and continue working up that promotion line - you'd have destroyed that piece, he's placed by your side as retired for the rest of the game and counts as part of your score to win, and the mage is just stuck where he is in promotion. He can still earn rings, but he can never be promoted further. I could, however, promote the knight to warrior or battle-mage, and retire the knight piece to my drawer to be pulled out later when I promote another piece."
I shook my head. Marilith was still bathing, and I had been watching Eddas and Corvid work through Corvid's first game. It was an immensely complicated game, from my perspective.
Corvid stroked his chin. "Ah, but you wouldn't sacrifice that oiliphant, I'd end up in his square, and that could put your king at risk. At four squares distance, there's a lot of cards that could bring my piece within striking distance. Lose the king, and you lose the game."
"Well, yes - the crown is heavy, whoever has it can only move one, regardless of what card you play to move. The only way I could avoid a loss is to immediately transfer the crown marker to an adjacent piece before you get there and try to get him into one of my castles. My nearest castle is my forest, and right now, my priest is the only piece who could even reach the king for the transfer, and you'd slap him silly the following turn long before he made it to the forest, his entire purpose is forging other pieces, he can't fight worth a damn," Eddas said, and winked.
I shook my head again. "I'm not even sure how you win at all."
Corvid grinned. "That's the easy part to understand - the longest way is to win on score at the end of an agreed time. Scoring is one for pawns, and eight for mage, fighter or merchant, sixteen for the next rank up, and so on - plus one for each gold ring on the staff. You get score for each piece of yours on the board, plus each piece you've destroyed of the enemy. The other ways to win are by capturing all your enemy's castles, or you can win by making the other player lose. You lose if you have no pieces on the board, or if you lose your king."
Eddas nodded. "Right. See that little gold disk my mage is sitting on, Sasha? That's the crown, it means he's my king, currently. Theoretically, you could promote a piece to something useful, then forge it to eight full gold rings - virtually indomitable - then make them king. If the king can't be beaten, you can't lose that way. It's not wise to do it, however, you'd be wasting a lot of valuable forging time you could be spending on pawns to build them up, and the resulting piece would be burdened by the weight of the crown, and far less useful than he otherwise might be. Better to have the king marker shift from time to time, to keep it out of reach of your opponent. Meanwhile, with one ultimately powerful king and the rest weak little pawns, your opponent could sweep all your pawns while you're fiddling with just one piece, then bring all his forces to bear against that piece at once by shifting cards to his movement stack to bring them all together in one turn, and have them all fight on one card. When two or more pieces fight on one card, the attacker chooses which piece is leading the assault, and they total all their rings together. The king falls, and you lose. Or they could just withdraw to their castles and defend if you're near the time you agreed to stop - the four castles in your home row are on squares of your color, Fortress, Forest, Mountain, City. The Tower, sometimes called the Outpost, is your fifth castle. You can place anywhere on your half of the board in your first turn, it doesn't move thereafter, but it works the same as the others. In addition to the color bonus for the square, a piece in a castle can't lose drawing from an empty stack, they just draw from one of the others. If you've had your enemy sweep all your pawns except your king and he then hides in his castles to wait for time to expire, well, they'll win on score. One of the largest parts of the game, however, is keeping one's face absolutely smooth. You don't want to let your opponent know what kind of cards you've drawn, and you don't want your gaze to reveal where you're really thinking about moving."
"How do you even know how many cards to draw?" I asked, still boggled.
Eddas smiled. "At the beginning of your turn, if you have less than eight, you draw from the top of the deck until you do have eight. If the deck runs dry, you shuffle the discards and move them there to form the deck again. You then assign the cards in your hand to the three stacks - fight, forge or move - and you can change them at the beginning of each turn. Controlling your expression and gaze is critical, there. You just do not want your opponent knowing what you're planning, or being able to tell that you're saving a particular card for something."
Corvid nodded. "The promotions were the only complex thing to understand - eight silver rings to get a gold, then you only need seven, then six, and so on until the last one is a given. Instead of a gold you can promote, which costs you the rings but improves the piece. Pawns have no staff, they can't gain rings, but they promote on any forging that doesn't kill them. Pawns go up to one of three categories - fighter, mage or merchant, who have bonuses to move, attack, or forge, respectively. Fighter goes up to archer for white or axeman for black, they go up to knight, knight goes up to chariot, and chariot goes up to warrior. Mage goes up to oiliphant for black or giant for white, oiliphant or giant goes up to catapult, catapult goes up to dragon, dragon goes up to warrior, again. Merchant goes up to scholar or craftsman, scholar or craftsman goes up to mason, mason goes up to priest, and priest goes up to warrior, again. The top three tiers of mage move at half, the top three tiers of fighter have half penalty to forge, and the top three tiers of merchant have half penalty to fight."
"Correct, but remember that in forges between pieces on the same side, scholars and craftsmen give one extra ring, masons and smiths give two, and priests give three."
"Smiths?" I asked.
Corvid nodded again. "Each line has a "spur" which goes nowhere, but allows different abilities. Catapult can "spur" to ship which can't promote further, but can carry another piece like the chariot and doesn't have a movement penalty. Mason can "spur" to smith, which can't promote further but has no penalties to fighting. Knight can "spur" to battle-mage, which can't promote further but has no penalties to forging."
Eddas grinned. "That's right!"
Corvid grinned back. "The one thing I don't understand is why warrior is considered the highest promotion. Well, I understand it from the point of the game - no penalty to move, forge or fight, and the warrior can't lose to an empty stack, he just draws from another, it's like he's got a castle around him all the time. If you can't force him to lose through an empty stack, but instead an empty stack allows him to choose at will from the other stacks, that makes him very deadly. But why the name 'warrior'?"
"Well, that's because in your language, you just say "warrior". In Hyperborean, the word is Krigat. He isn't just a warrior, he is the warrior. It's part of our culture - we had a concept of the 'ultimate warrior', the character appeared in our literature, plays and songs quite a bit. Sometimes he's a mage, other times he's a mundane, but he's always the best, indomitable. He's always marked in some way, so he's seen as being lesser than he is. A scar, missing one arm, missing an eye, something. And he has a weakness - the Krigat in our literature and plays is only ever defeated through his weaknesses. He's always a tragic hero, and even when he wins, there's always something he lost doing it."
(snip a short conversation)
"Come - it's your turn."
Corvid nodded, studying the board. "Alright, that Oiliphant looks a bit risky, I think I'll just forge this chariot against my fighter, instead..."
(snip exposition, Sasha is now playing Eddas with Corvid and Marilith helping her)
In short order, I had the two of them seated at my sides, whispering into my ears and peeping at the stacks of cards every now and again between whispering to each other. Eddas had very sharp hearing, I knew, but he promised he would deactivate his ring of translation. That would allow us to speak in Vilandian (a language he said he didn't know but Corvid did) when considering our moves. Such a promise seemed rather hollow, given he was an expert at reading expressions and gazes while controlling his own, but I had no choice but to trust him, I had really no idea what I was doing.
"Mmm... Not that one, the other one," Corvid said.
"Which other one?" I asked, looking at the board.
"The one with the bow - your archer. He's got six silver rings, if you forge him against your scholar, he can promote to knight and give you the reach to strike deeper into Eddas' territory next turn. The scholar can bump a piece to forge himself or he can be bumped to forge the piece that moved to him - this is like any other piece. The scholar is along the merchant line, he specializes in forging. He's a second promotion, he gives two rings, and he can forge a piece by moving into it. But, if he moves to that archer, he'll be closer to Eddas' knight and might be lost, so it's best to keep him back and have the archer bump him."
Eddas looked up briefly from the book he was reading at the sound of his name, but as it was obvious we weren't speaking to him, he went back to reading a moment later. I knew he was a tremendously experienced opponent, he already had six of his starting eight pawns promoted, whereas I'd only managed three.
"But what about-" I said, lifting my hand, and Marilith grabbed my wrist.
"Careful, Sister. He said he wouldn't listen, but he certainly will see you point."
(snip a short conversation)
"No. Like this," I said, reaching for the movement stack. Picking the middle one, I turned it over. "Three white," I called. "This scholar moves to the archer and forges him to a knight."
"Alright," Corvid said, and made the move for me, then put the card in the discard pile. I waited until he'd removed the rings and put them back in the drawer on my side, replacing the archer with a knight from the drawer and putting the archer away in it's little padded slot. Eddas, noticing I was moving, looked up from his book and watched.
"Five white - the knight moves over to the square next to the oiliphant."
"Err... Next to?" Corvid asked.
"Yes, the white square to the right."
"Sister, what are you doing?" Marilith asked.
"Taking a gamble," I replied, as Corvid moved the piece.
"You're going to forge against him?"
"Yes, and I want to capture him after. He's got two cards set aside for fighting. I can do this," I said, and picked up a forging card, glad I'd placed the less useful black cards in the forging pile.
"She intends to destroy, Master Eddas," Marilith said, in Hyperborean, my bracelet letting me understand her.
Eddas nodded, reaching out to the board and moving my knight into the square with the oiliphant, then picking up the oiliphant and setting it to the side. "And that ends her turn," he replied.
I blinked, and Marilith looked at him as Corvid slipped a gold ring over the staff for my knight. "You're just going to let it go?" Marilith asked.
"Naturally," he said, then looked at me, and smiled. "A nice thought, Sasha, but I'm not going to allow you to take my king that easily," he said in Vilandian, apparently having activated his translation ring again.
"But... But how did you...?"
"You smiled too much when you laid down your fight cards. I think you've got a pair of eights, there," he said, and winked. "Forge to distract me, fight to get me to expend a good card to save the piece and lose it anyway, then charge the king in my city when I've only one card left that likely isn't an eight? It seemed obvious. If you were bluffing, however, I congratulate you on an excellent bluff, you cost me a piece and a line of development."
(snip a short conversation)
"Four white, right next to your knight," he called moving his fighter next to my knight. "Forge," he called, selecting a card from his forge stack. I looked at the cards in my forge stack, then pulled one out, holding it in my hand. Colors didn't matter in forging, and it wasn't a bad card. When I was ready, however, Eddas flipped over a white eight.
I sighed, laying down the black five I'd selected. Eddas nodded, reaching to my fight stack and drawing a card, and leaving me with one. "Since that was a forge against an enemy, I get a gold rather than a silver," he said, pulling off the silver rings from his fighter, then slipping a gold ring out from the drawer on his side of the board and dropping it over the empty staff of his fighter before putting the silver rings away. The card he drew from me, he placed in his forge stack, then drew another card from his movement stack.
"Five white, right beside your knight," Eddas called, moving his knight four squares to settle it beside the square mine was in. "Forge and destroy," he said, pulling out a card from his forge stack and holding it. It was not the card he'd taken from me, I still had a chance. I looked at what I had left, and selected the highest card I had. Eddas then laid down the white six he had selected. I sighed again, showing the black five I had selected. "You have one gold ring and I have none, colors don't matter in forging. Tie - second card?" he asked, picking up the card he'd gotten from me before. I turned over my last forge card - a black two - and Eddas nodded. Eddas again drew a card from my fight stack, leaving me with none, and placed a gold ring on the empty staff of his knight.
"And now the fight for destruction," he said, and laid down the card he'd just drawn from me - a white eight. "You have none in the pile, and that isn't a castle," he said, and reached out to my knight, taking it and placing it to the side.
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Those who wish to actually attempt to build a chatto set and/or ask questions about the various pieces and such so they can actually play the game are free to post questions to this thread. If you do, I'd like to see images (photos) of completed boards you may make.
