Dragonanga

193 Members
Sep 30, 2022
3 Events Played

What is Dragonanga?
Dragonanga is a variant derived from Chaturanga, more focused on the dragon-bishop pieces as the strongest pieces rather than rooks / carriages. 

 

Origin

Playing a lot of Chaturanga led me to create a variation of it such that pawns could promote by crossing centre, and optionally promote to a minister (Wazir) as well. This led for much more exciting and open Chaturanga gameplay, and is quite enjoyable to play. Upon discovery of the Dragon-Bishop piece, I decided to try utilizing them into the game and wound up with the current version of Dragonanga.

 

How to Play

  • Pieces:

Pawn (1): the 4 centre pawns (c, d, e, and f) are regular Chaturanga pawns.


Inverted Pawn (1): the 2 edge pawns on both sides (a, b, g, and h) are inverted or opposite of regular pawns, so they move diagonally and capture forwards.


Elephant / Alfil (1): jumps diagonally two squares only. This piece can only access 8 squares on the whole board.


Fairy / Ferz (2): when a pawn promotes it may become a Fairy, moving one square diagonally any direction.


Minister / Wazir (2): when a pawn promotes it may become a Minister, moving one square orthogonally/straight any direction.


Horse / Xiangqi Knight (2): moves like a regular Chaturanga knight (or chess knight) but requires an open square orthogonally adjacent to it to move in that direction.


Dragon-Bishop (6): moves like the Xiangqi Knight and a regular Bishop. This is the most powerful piece.


King (4): moves like a King in Chaturanga or chess, but it may be captured in this game. The King is not the royal piece in Dragonanga.


The Royal Fairy sits on d1 and d8 (the Queen's squares). It moves like the other Fairies, but this is the piece that is checked and mated.


Additional rules:

  • If one player is left with only their Royal Fairy and cannot make a capture on their turn, they are forfeit (unless opponent also has no pieces which is a draw).
  • A player in Stalemate wins the game.