What about fundies vs scientists?
Fundies: Kent Hominid:D, Gish etc, bearded bible bearers as pawns
Scientists: Darwin (king), Hawking (knight) et al, freaky beaker types in white lab coats as pawns
Please forgive me as I hijack this thread briefly…
A friend and I had this great idea for a kiddy TV show once: Set in the world of Chess, though it’s not explicitly stated as such, there’s this White Castle and across a few miles of checkerboard fields, an evil Black Castle. The people that we follow the stories with are all Chess pieces.
It’d be stop motion animation, and the story structure would go like this: every episode would be told from a different character’s point of view. So one day we see the Queen’s story, and one day the Knight’s story, and the next one would be the Bishop’s story etc.
All the while they’re battling their equivalent characters at the Black Castle.
Only… I soon realised that it would have racist overtones just because of the whole Black Is Evil, White Is Good premise (that has been prevalent in Fairy Tales since forever).
So I decided it wasn’t quite as good an idea as I first thought. Darn it all.
just use different colors.
Raptors vs. Passerines - Eagles, hawks and owls on one side, cardinals, bluejays and mockingbirds on the other (ever see a mockingbird attack a hawk? it’s not pretty…)
Nocturnal vs. Diurnal - Owls on one side, hawks on the other
Symbolic 60s protest set - Hawks on one side, doves on the other
Predator vs. prey - Cats vs. mice, polar bears vs. harp seals, Orkin man vs. termites, etc.
Suburbia vs. Nature
Suburbia - human figures with all sorts of suburban paraphenalia (lawn mower, bag of “Weed’n’feed”, hedge clippers, yard rake, satellite dish)
Nature - deer eating hedge, squirrel at bird feeder, mole or gopher in lawn, raccoon in garbage can (great for the rook!)
Great idea, but…
Excuse me? With Angua as an obvious choice around?
I think a Maxx chess set would be pretty cool-
Maxx is the King, Julie is the Queen, Mr. Gone is the Bishop and Sarah’s Horse Maxx could be the knight. Maybe an Airwhale for the rook and the Izs would be pawns.
Not really “characters”, but I’ve been muddling with the idea of sports cars from various countries.
You could have and England vs. Germany set (McLaren F1 vs. Porsche GT2 as kings, Jaguar XKR Cab vs. BMW Z8 as Queens, etc…)
or various other countries (USA, Japan, Italy…)
As for characters, one of the most obvious is a Star Wars set (if it hasn’t already been done)
…can’t stand some of the sets that are made available, though where the playing pieces for both sides are the same, just different colours (The Simpsons and Trek:Next Gen sets come to mind).
How about something timely?
Various figures of the RIAA vs. Computer programs
(Pawns are lawyers vs. users)
(Kings are head of RIAA-whoever that is- vs. the big Napster logo)
For the musical artists one, you could have a Blues vs. Rock set, or Rap vs. Heavy Metal, Alternative vs. Pop (Trent Reznor vs. Ricky Martin as kings, Britney Spears vs. Marilyn Manson as queens:), Billy Corgan vs. Jennifer Lopez as bishops…)
For the truly commercial, you could do a Nokia vs. Ericsson featuring various phones…
How about one of action movie stars? North America vs. the rest of the world:
Kings: Jackie Chan vs. Arnie
Queens: Michelle Yeoh vs. Carrie Ann Moss
Bishops: Sly & Bruce Willis vs. Chow Yun-Fat & Jet Li
Knights: Will Smith & Samuel L Jackson vs. Jean Reno & Peirce Brosnan
Rooks: Clint Eastwood & Charlie Sheen vs. Sean Connery & Sean Bean
Pawns: …you get the idea
I could go on, but I think I’d be stretching the imagination especially after that last one.
I would have thought that the Luggage was a an easy pick for the rooks. It’s got a vaguely rook-like shape, and it tends to move in straight lines, crushing everything in its path.
Maybe an Aliens vs. humans set, with Ripley and (naturally) the Queen as queens? I don’t know how you’d get enough variety on the Alien side, though.
Belatedly, it occurs to me that the pawns could be Kane (or the colonists from the nest) with the chest-buster popping out.
That would make for a really gross chess set, wouldn’t it?
When I was in Taiwan during the Cold War I saw a “good” Chinese vs. “bad” Chinese set.
For a certain generation there’s always Cowboys and Indians.
The whole problem with theme chess sets though is the identification factor.
Let’s say you were playing with WWII pieces and your Eva Braun just wiped out the Arch Bishop of Cantabury or worse yet Eleanor Roosevelt. How would you feel?
or if the Conquistidors once again wipe out the Aztecs?
TV
Hip-Hop vs Rock-n-Roll
Crips vs Bloods
Happy Days vs Family Ties
ER vs Chicago Hope
MAS*H vs China Beach
Any Star Trek evolution vs Any OTHER Star Trek evolution
(TOS vs DS9, Voyager vs Enterprise, ad nauseum)
Delta House vs Faber College
(Knowledge is good!)
Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life
and specific single-theme sets…
South Park
King of the Hill
Casts of “Survivor”
Law & Order
Hill Street Blues
Microsoft vs Apple
Clinton Administration vs Kenneth Starr and staff
Cast of “Seinfeld” vs. cast of “Friends”
Jets vs. Sharks
Hawks vs. Doves
Arabs vs. Israelis
Hatfields vs. McCoys
Disney vs. Warner Bros.
The Hole in the Wall Gang vs. The Feds
The Untouchables vs. Organized Crime
All right already. I have a wooden Tolkien chess set. To be precise, Mr. Rilch bought the set and I bought the board.
Black pieces:
King: Sauron.
Queen: Shelob.
Bishop 1: Gollum.
Bishop 2: Saruman.
Knights: Black Riders.
Rook 1: Whatever the tower was that had to be flooded out, where Merry and Pippin met up again with Gandalf & co.
Rook 2: The Dark Tower.
Pawns: Orcs.
White pieces:
King: Aragorn.
Queen: Galadriel.
Bishop 1: Bilbo.
Bishop 2: Frodo.
Knight 1: Gandalf.
Knight 2: Treebeard.
Rook 1: Frodo (or Bilbo’s) hobbit-hole.
Rook 2: Rivendell.
Pawns: Hobbits.
(Mr. Rilch says the other black rook is Isengard.)
It’s sometimes hard to remember Gandalf is a knight. He’s tall and thin, rather like conventional bishops. But he’s aggressive enough for a knight!
I’m always the dark side. I’m much less experienced than Mr. Rilch, so I’m bound to lose. I’d rather lose for the dark side; I’d feel like such a putz if I lost for the light side.
At first I didn’t like to touch Shelob, but I soon got over that. Galadriel parades all over the board like Miss Thing, so Shelob has to keep blocking her, but she can only get close enough to spit.
Gollum is extremely creepy. His eyes are hollows, and they paralyze the Hobbits with fear, so a lot of them end up on my sidelines.
God and the angels vs Satan and the demons
Laff-a-lympics!
(not sure how to spell that…it’s been years)
Men vs. Women.
Each figure is of different size/age. Pawns are little girls/boys.
Woman as the king in the men’s army (and therefore slightly bigger).
Man as the king in the women’s army (and therefore slightly bigger).
I had the same idea. Armageddon on the chess board, baby! Satan and maybe Lilith vs. God and the virgin Mary.
Also, how 'bout Evolution vs. The Garden of Eden? The evolution side features monkey-like critters as pawns, with other pieces moving along our evolutionary line and Darwin as king. On the other side, you have Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and maybe the tree of knowledge as the Rook. The pawns? I have ideas, but they might be to controversial for IMHO.
How about citizens vs. corporate Empires? With, like Microsoft as King and Starbucks as Queen … AOL Time Warner’s the Bishop, Wal-Mart’s the knight …
Dragonblink the Corporate Whore
I can’t believe someone actually knows the name of the juggy Elf on the EverQuest box! 
I’m amazed I’m the first to suggest this, but:
Marvel vs. DC.
Kings: Spider-Man and Superman
Queens: Wonder Woman and Invisible Girl
Knights: Green Arrow and Hawkeye
Bishops: Aquaman and Sub-Mariner
etc.
You could subdivide it more, even: Marvel Family vs. Monster Society of Evil, X-Men vs. Magneto and his flunkies, Legion of Super-Heroes vs. the Fatal Five, Mordru, Time Trapper etc.
Oh, but here’s my favorite idea: Survivor: Pulau Tiga vs. Survivor: The Outback.
Folks, there are already sixteen characters per side!
The first eight voted off for each season will be the pawns.
Kings are Rich and Colby.
Queens are Tina and Kelly.
And of course the colors wouldn’t be black and white, but orange for Barramundi and whatever color they used for Rattanga.
A Tex Avery chess set would rock.