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Well, you'd certainly want a large board, so starting at 10x10 is good.
Since all the pieces in this game jump (but not [currently] the pawns) the
effects of square loss would be effectively reduced. You might even want to
let the 'High Priestess' replace (or even add) squares. And if you did
that, you might let the 'Minister' destroy squares. Their ranges would
logically be any empty squares they could legally move to. They would
cancel each other out at squares within the range of both. But letting the
Minister destroy occupied squares would swing the game far over to offense,
unless, maybe, you allowed the High Priestess to resurrect... Anyway, that
the 2 pieces have limited movement (for ABS) is a decent limitation for
pieces that can create or destroy squares. The priestess could extend the
board; a decent restriction would be that a square surrounded on 3 of 4
sides by emptiness cannot be connected to a square that will have more
than 1 side next to emptiness. So bridges would have to be 2 squares wide.
This particular application of player power over the board probably pushes
well into the shallows of the Rubicon itself. This is terrain in a
wargame. But it is true that holes are as good a terrain abstract as
squares. How many chess variants have specific pieces that create or
destroy the board itself? That destruction of squares could well be going
too far, especially since this is not a wormhole variant we're talking
about. That would be a different game.