The Piececlopedia is a collection of articles describing individual Chess variant pieces in detail. Articles usually detail their history of usage in games or fairy chess, how the piece moves, and artwork, photographs, or images depicting the piece. Depending on availability, they may also include details for purchasing pieces or for printing them on a 3D printer. This page presents these articles in a taxonomic way. You may also view listings from our database:
A compound of two pieces may move as either one of the pieces. In Chess, for example, the Queen may move as either a Bishop or a Rook. Compounds with the King may or not be royal, depending upon the game. If not royal, the piece may move one space in any direction, but it is not subject to check or checkmate.
Leapers go directly from one space to another, and they cannot be blocked. The Knight is the paradigmatic example of a leaper in Chess.
Elementary Leapers
Elementary leapers can leap to any space that is a certain distance away in terms of ranks and files. The Knight from Chess is an elementary leaper that can go directly to any space that is two files and one rank away or two ranks and one file away, making it what we might call a 1-2 leaper. Other elementary leapers can be defined in a similar manner by specifying a pair of numbers, each representing one dimension of the distance it can leap.
Unlike elementary leapers, the spaces an asymmetric leaper can leap to do not fall into a symmetric pattern. So instead of being defined by a single distance shared by each legal move, they are defined by specific distances to each space they may go to. However, some might be defined more compactly by mentioning an elementary leaper that covers some moves and describing the remaining moves with more specificity.
Barc - Reverse of Crab. Leaps as Knight narrow backwards or wide forwards.
Divergent pieces have different moves for capturing and for not capturing. These may be mutually exclusive, as they are for the Pawn in Chess, or there may be some overlap.
Lion (Murray) - Moves or captures as Alfil or Dabbabah, or captures as Ferz or Wazir
Double Leapers
A double leaper may leap twice, allowing it to capture two pieces or to capture a piece and go to a safe space.
A rider moves across a series of empty spaces using a single type of elementary leap until it reaches an occupied space, which it may capture if it belongs to the opponent. Since it moves one space at a time, it may be blocked where another piece stands in its way. The Bishop, Rook, and Queen are examples of riders in Chess.
Elementary Riders
These are like elementary leapers except that they may continue with more leaps in the same direction until another piece blocks them or they go as far as the board allows. Like elementary leapers, their powers of movement are perfectly symmetrical, and each may be defined by the dimensions of its basic leap.
These are not perfectly symmetrical in the directions they may move. So their directions of movement are defined individually instead of with a single elementary leap.
A curved rider moves in a circular direction instead of a straight line. This will result in a change of direction as defined by Cartesian coordinates.
Rose - Can make consecutive knightmoves in a circle.
Orbital Riders
An orbital rider is a restricted curved rider that requires another piece to move around.
A hopper moves like a rider except that it must hop over an intervening piece before reaching its destination. As with a rider, the spaces before the intervening piece should be empty, but unlike a rider, it cannot move to any of those spaces, and it cannot move to the space the intervening piece is on. Its legal moves start after the intervening piece. So its legal moves are completely different than those of the corresponding rider.
Elementary Hoppers
Elemenary hoppers are like elementary riders except that they can move like a rider after moving past the intervening piece. The closest thing to an elementary hopper that is in use is the Cannon in Korean Chess, but it does have the restriction on it that cannot hop over another Cannon.
Restricted Hoppers
Most of the hoppers in use are restricted in some way. For example, some may move only one space past an intervening piece, and some must be adjacent to the intervening piece.
Bishopper - Moves along diagonal line to first square after jumped over piece.
Equihopper - Jumps across a piece in any direction with the same distance before and after the hurdle.
Grasshopper - Moves along queenlines to first square after jumped over piece
Kangaroo - Moves on Queen lines to first square after second jumped over piece.
Mao-hopper - Moves as knight must must jump over occupied orthogonal square at first movement.
Non-stop Equihopper - Jumps across a piece in any direction with the same distance before and after the hurdle.
Hopper Compounds
Lion - Fairy piece that moves on Queen lines but must hop over exactly one piece. A compound of the 1-0 and 1-1 elementary hoppers.
Hybrids
AI Concept Art of a Manticore
Hybrid pieces do not strictly fall into the Leaper, Rider, and Hopper categories, because they mix together elements of different categories.
Lame Leapers
Lame leapers are not true leapers, because they can be blocked. A lame leaper can go to the same spaces as a leaper, but it must go there via a certain path, and if something obstructs its path, it is blocked.
Rabbit - A doubly-bent rider making a series of Knight leaps at different angles.
Wolf - A doubly-bent rider moving in a Ferz-Rook-Ferz pattern.
Leaper / Hopper Compounds
Pancake - A piece that moves and captures like a non-royal King or a Nightrider-style cannon.
Rider-Hopper Snipers
A sniper can move as one piece without capturing and capture as another. These pieces can move without capturing as a rider and capture as the corresponding hopper, which means there is no overlap between their capturing and non-capturing moves.
Supernumerary Pieces
AI Concept Art of a Pushmi-Pullyu
The preceding pieces have been based directly on Chess pieces, or they differ from them only by having different powers of movement. The pieces in this section differ by having new kinds of powers. They may have these in addition to or in place of the sort of powers of movement and capture a Chess variant piece usually has. In A Guide to Fairy Chess, Anthony Dickins decided to use the term supernumerary pieces for "pieces that are not derived from normal chessmen but have movements or powers that are entirely new." We shall follow that usage here, though restrict it to pieces with different kinds of powers, as pieces that just differ in powers of movement are covered by the preceding categories.
Non-Displacement Capture
These pieces can capture a piece without moving to its space. In Chess, the Pawn's en passant capture of a Pawn making a double move is an example of this.
Advancer. Moves like a Queen, but captures by approach.
Bowman - Moves as knight, and takes a piece that is an additional knight's move away in the same direction.
In A Guide to Fairy Chess, Anthony Dickins divides pieces into the categories of LEAPERS, RIDERS, HOPPERS, and SUPERNUMERARY PIECES, and he also mentions many pieces listed on this page.
Written by Fergus Duniho
WWW page created: September 4, 1998.
Last modified: January 8, 2025.
