The Heart of This Chess Variant Is a Rose!

Hello there. It’s been quite a while since we last had one of these, hasn’t it? Anyways, I’m excited to inform you that a new 4P Teams variant was accepted today! It’s called Rose, which is clearly inspired by the structure of pieces in the middle of the board.

This variant features a gamerule known as Taboo, which prevents players from checking the royals of other players. (Despite this, there are rare circumstances where a check could accidentally be played.) Since this also means that checkmate is not normally possible, the center of the board also features a hill; if you manage to get your King to that hill, you win! 

To help your King reach the hill, each color receives 21 points of material and can choose from 6 different types of pieces to place on the back rank. The pieces available are: Camel (3 points), Grasshopper (3), Bishop (5), Rook (5), General (5), and Queen (9). You should place your King down once all other pieces have been placed.  

Even with these pieces, the journey to the hill is anything but simple. A variety of intriguing concepts and strange tactics await you, and the closer you get to the rose, the more concepts and tactics there are!

This 4P Teams variant was originally designed to be played with Self-partner enabled (meaning that you would play both colors of the team yourself), but you can also choose to play normal Teams if you desire. Play it now here: https://www.chess.com/variants/rose

This variant was created by @2bHNST, and was submitted for review at https://variants.world/posts/1686