Starting configuration for playing Wolf Chess [Source]
My journey began on the discovery of a chess variant known as "Wolf Chess", which I indirectly found due to this class, finding it when looking for a creative-commons licensed picture of a wolf.
I took a particular interest in it since I actually have a character in one of my larger projects who has alternate versions of herself which are based on chess pieces. Wolf Chess adds an extra row to each side of the board, making it a 10x8 chess board, and also adds several additional 'fairy pieces'. The pieces added are the Wolf (Rook x Knight), Fox (Bishop x Knight), Nightrider (Knight with the ability to jump several times in a line), Sergeant (Pawn with the ability to also move diagonally forward) and the Elephant (Queen x Nightrider).
From the Wolf Chess page, I decided to check out a link to the page on "Fairy Chess Pieces" to learn more about them.
What I came to learn was that fairy pieces are used in a lot of chess variants, as well as in chess exercises to help alter the way strategy plays out. They come in two primary varieties. The first of which is simple pieces, which can broadly be placed into three major categories: Leapers, Riders and Hoppers. Leapers move directly to a square a fixed distance away and thus cannot be blocked with an opposing piece. Riders can move an unlimited distance in one direction, provided no pieces block their path. Hoppers are not seen in orthodox chess and are pieces that must hop over another piece in order to move, be they friendly or opposing. The other category is combination pieces, which combine the movements capabilities of two or more simple pieces.
From there I investigated three specific fairy pieces: the "Princess", the "Empress" and the "Amazon"
These three pieces are among the most common fairy pieces, most especially the so-called Princess and Empress. The Princess, which is also sometimes called the Archbishop or Cardinal, is a combination piece of the traditional Bishop and Knight (Same as the Fox in Wolf Chess). The other common fairy piece, the Empress, which is sometimes called a Marshal or Chancellor, is a combination piece of the Rook and Knight (Same as the Wolf in Wolf Chess).
Less common, but still shared between multiple games is the Amazon, which combines a Queen with a Knight (Similar to the Elephant of Wolf Chess, but slightly weaker). The reason it's not as common as the other two is that it has remarkable offensive power. An Amazon has complete battlefield supremacy over everything within a 5x5 square.
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