John Norman’s Gor series includes as background a chess-like game named Kaissa. In its first incarnation it has no more than allegorical significance, but it gains some substance in later books, especially Beasts Of Gor and, to a lesser extent, Players of Gor. At no time is enough information given to make a definitive statement of the rules of the game possible, but the synthesis below makes a playable game that incorporates as much as possible of what the author wrote and contradicts as little as possible. (Some pieces of nonsense such as “Ubar’s Tarnsman to Physician Seven” as the first move of the terrible “Centian Opening” can’t be slotted into a rational description of the game.)
The game is played on a chequered board ten squares by ten with the squares and the pieces coloured yellow and red rather than black or white (though I personally would find that colour-scheme an eyestrain). Yellow moves first and the object of the game is to capture the enemy’s Home Stone, for which see below.
The pieces and their powers are as follows:
Initiate (I) – A member of Gor’s religious caste. Moves as a bishop.
Builder (B) – Also includes practitioners of most of the physical sciences. Moves as a rook.
Scribe (S) – Also includes most clerical professions. Moves as a bishop but with a 6-square range limit on any given move.
Tarnsman (T) – A warrior mounted on a giant raptor. A (3,2) leaper (cf the chess Knight, a (2,1) leaper) that while in its own half of the board can instead make a non-capturing move as if it were a King. This is known as a “positioning move”.
Ubar (U) – Warlord, similar in function to the Tyrant of Earth’s classical era; supposedly appointed only for the duration of a military emergency. Moves as a queen.
Ubara (A) – Ubar’s consort. Moves as a queen but with a 7-square limit.
Physician § – Moves as a rook with a 4-square limit.
Rider of the High Tharlarion ® – A warrior mounted on a bipedal dinosaur. Moves as a king but with no game-losing significance (cf. the “Mann” of fairy chess).
Spearman (O, or no symbol in algebraic notation; the letter represents the warrior’s shield) – Moves and captures as a pawn. Its first move may be up to 3 squares, except: the spearmen that begin on the edge files (“Flanking Spearmen” ) start on the third rank, and have no multi-square option. Promotes to Tarnsman or Rider only. A Spearman on the ninth rank may make a diagonal move to the tenth, even as a non-capturing move. (Note: The author makes one reference to the Spearman being able to move sideways or diagonally ad lib, but I beg leave to override him on grounds of playability. There is no intimation of any en passant capability.)
Home Stone (H) – National flag, crown jewels and Stone of Scone all rolled into one. Begins off-board and must be placed on-board after the player’s first move and before his eleventh. (I think, from context, it must be placed on the back rank, which would explain this stipulation.) A Home Stone moves as a chess King but cannot capture.
The initial array looks like this:
+= = = = = = = = = =+
|i b s t u a t s b i| (h)
|p r o o o o o o r p|
|o . . . . . . . . o|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|O . . . . . . . . O|
|P R O O O O O O R P|
|I B S T U A T S B I| (H)
+= = = = = = = = = =+
(Yellow pieces are in caps.)
The books use descriptive notation throughout but algebraic notation, either short or long, works just fine… unsurprisingly the files are lettered from a to j instead of a to h as in chess, and the ranks numbered from 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 8. There is no equivalent to castling and hence no need for any such special symbol.
Any takers?