Single Comment

The promotion rule is an interesting one, and would make for variety as a minor variation to stanadrd Chess and any number of other variants (although it would not suit Shogi). I notice that each lion is limited to just a ninth of the squares - a smaller proportion than the elephants in Chaturanga! Furthermore lions of the same colour are confined to the same group of squares, like Xiang Xi elephants. Was the king's partner in this game really called 'Griffion', suggesting a trisyllabic pronunciation? The correct spellings for that creature are Griffin and Gryphon, the latter favoured by Lewis Carroll (whose characters also included a mangy-looking Lion and a dandyish Unicorn).