I don't think there is any need to show a separate image of an empty board. It is easy enough to recognize the board in the image where it has pieces on it.
The remark that "the black queen swaps places with the black king" is confusing rather than illuminating, because one could think this is an allowed move in the game. Presumably it intends to say that the initial setup is rotation symmetric rather than reflection symmetric, but the formulation doesn't make sense, because this is not an 8x8 board, there is no more commonly used start position on this board that has the black Queen and King in swapped locations, and to get from 8x8 FIDE to the given position you have to do a whole lot more than swap black King and Queen.
What does it mean that "a King cannot be checkmated"? A player is only allowed to deliver check when the opponent is left with at least one move that resolves this check? (A rule somewhat similar to the Shogi rule that you cannot checkmate by dropping a Pawn. It could also be formulated by saying checkmate is a win for the checkmated player.) [Edit] OK, I see that you answered that below. But it should be clarified in the article, not in the Comments.
'Columns' of a chess board are usually called 'files'. It would be clearer to write an explicit "(i-file for white, h-file for black)" rather than saying "(from each player's perspective)". And similar for 8th and 9th rank.
What if a normal Pawn ends up outside the central 8x8 area? Would it also promote on 12th or 5th rank, would it promote on 16th/1st rank, or can it no longer promote at all?
I don't think there is any need to show a separate image of an empty board. It is easy enough to recognize the board in the image where it has pieces on it.
The remark that "the black queen swaps places with the black king" is confusing rather than illuminating, because one could think this is an allowed move in the game. Presumably it intends to say that the initial setup is rotation symmetric rather than reflection symmetric, but the formulation doesn't make sense, because this is not an 8x8 board, there is no more commonly used start position on this board that has the black Queen and King in swapped locations, and to get from 8x8 FIDE to the given position you have to do a whole lot more than swap black King and Queen.
What does it mean that "a King cannot be checkmated"? A player is only allowed to deliver check when the opponent is left with at least one move that resolves this check? (A rule somewhat similar to the Shogi rule that you cannot checkmate by dropping a Pawn. It could also be formulated by saying checkmate is a win for the checkmated player.) [Edit] OK, I see that you answered that below. But it should be clarified in the article, not in the Comments.
'Columns' of a chess board are usually called 'files'. It would be clearer to write an explicit "(i-file for white, h-file for black)" rather than saying "(from each player's perspective)". And similar for 8th and 9th rank.
What if a normal Pawn ends up outside the central 8x8 area? Would it also promote on 12th or 5th rank, would it promote on 16th/1st rank, or can it no longer promote at all?