Battlechess, promoted as “the Sport of Kings”, is a team sport played by two teams of sixteen players in a battlecube made up of 512 blocks arranged in a three-dimensional 8 x 8 x 8 cubical pattern. It combines the conventional chess game with a three-dimensional playing field and pieces (players) that are armed and armoured. The pieces are moved on all three axes and, instead of the simple capture of one piece by another, the pieces attack and defend their positions in each block. Each piece has a point value and defeating the opponent’s piece awards those points. Defeating the piece in possession of the opponent’s Crown awards additional points. Unlike conventional chess, the endgame condition is not the capture of the king-analogous piece – the Sovereign – but the defeat of the piece in possession of the team’s Crown. The Crown can be moved from one piece to another, counting as a move. The team that captures their opponent’s Crown is the winner and it is common for a team to win the match with fewer points than their opponent. Points scored in a match are tallied in league play to determine playoff seeding.
ETYMOLOGY
In the Star Kingdom of Persica, the sport was coined battlechess by its creators at Royal Threnody University in 3013.
HISTORY
Battlechess was created by Zedward Rothgar and Fiona Chen, engineering sophomores at Royal Threnody University. The first set of rules was drafted in Octobris of 3013 and the first functioning battlecube was finished in Januarius, the following year. Key to this was ability to adjust the directions and magnitudes of gravity within the battlecube. The first battlechess match was played on Augustus 7, 3014 between multi-ed (non-binary) teams from Royal Threnody and neighbouring rivals University of Atramentar. Battlechess has been played in the Star Kingdom by teams of mixed gender since the first match.
Battlechess was originally played with live players wearing frangium armour but has since developed into a VR sport, with players battling bio-quantumly (with biotronic quantum processors), their avatars displayed to the venue via enlarged projections. The changeover officially occured in Octobris 3383, ahead of the 3384 season, considered to be the beginning of the BQP Era. Consequently, team uniforms have evolved from interactive holographic images displayed on frangium armour segments to fully customisable avatars. Many contemporary avatars are quite stylised, for instance the Threnody Thunder of the Premier Battlechess League (PBL) feature players as dark anthropomorphic storm clouds, occasionally flashing with arcs of blue lightning; the Auriga Archangels appear as beings of light, clad in shining silver armour.
Frangium Armour
Until 3384, each piece was clad in light, medium, or heavy armour. These classifications described not only the defensive quality of the armour, but also its mass. As such, players wearing heavy armour tended to be bigger and stronger, while light armoured players tended to be faster and more agile. The armour protected the players from hand and weapon strikes, kicks, and headbutts, and also provided the primary metric by which a piece was considered to be defeated. A piece’s suit of armour was made up of segments that covered the head, torso, and limbs, and included the shield. Each segment was constructed of frangium, a material that could be formed to bear a specific level of structural integrity; heavy armour had a high level of integrity and light armour had less. There was also a direct correlation between the integrity and mass of an object made of frangium: the more integrity an object bore, the higher its mass, at a measurable ratio. The integrity of a frangium object was degraded by cumulative force exerted upon it, until the object disintegrated into a fine, non-toxic powder. In this way, segments of battlechess armour were destroyed as the players exerted force upon them through strikes and – in the case of the Cavalier’s Lance – powered charges. When a certain percentage of armour was destroyed – called the threshold, the piece was considered defeated. A player knocked unconscious in combat was also considered defeated.
Armour integrity percentages and thresholds marking the defeat of a piece were codified in the rules of different leagues around the galaxy. For instance, in the professional Premier Battlechess League (PBL), the threshold is currently 60 percent; in Persican Collegiate Athletics Association (PCAA) matches, the threshold is 50 percent; in many youth leagues around the star nation, the threshold is as low as 20 percent. Currently, the integrity of the armour and the forces exerted upon it are calculated through the biotronic quantum processors that translate the players’ physical movements into their avatar’s actions in the battlecube.
POSITIONS
A battlechess match is played between two teams of sixteen players, analogous to the pieces on a chess board: one Sovereign, one Noble, two Crusaders, two Cavaliers, two Sentinels, and eight Vanguards. Each team is led by a Director who acts as both a head coach and the strategic commander.
Sovereign
The Sovereign is analogous to the king in chess and can move one block in any perpendicular direction; there is no battlechess version of the chess maneuver called castling, but there is a rule against having opposing Sovereigns in adjacent blocks. Players at this position are clad in medium armour, bear a small shield, and wield a long slender striking weapon called a Sabre. A Sovereign is worth nine points when defeated and begins the match in possession of the team’s Crown.
Noble
The Noble is analogous to the queen in chess and can move any number of blocks in a straight line forward or backward (in rank), side to side (in file), or diagonally but cannot pass through occupied blocks – a maneuver called “leaping”, a term borrowed from the board game. Players at this position are clad in light armour, bear a medium shield, and wield a large powered fist weapon called a Gauntlet. A Noble is worth seven points when defeated.
Crusader
The Crusader is analogous to the bishop in chess. When moving, a Crusader can move any number of blocks diagonally but cannot leap. Players at this position are clad in medium armour, bear no shield, and wield a long slender weapon with two clubbed ends called a Pike. A Crusader is worth three points when defeated.
Cavalier
The Cavalier is analogous to the knight in chess. With the most complex movements of any piece, a Cavalier can move two blocks in rank and one in file, or two in file and one in rank. Additionally, a Cavalier may leap another piece. Players at this position are clad in heavy armour, bear no shield, and wield a mid-length weapon called a Lance with one clubbed and and one end that can be empowered with one or more of a total of three charges. A Cavalier is worth three points when defeated.
Sentinel
The Sentinel is analogous to the rook in chess and can move any number of blocks in rank or file but cannot leap. Players at this position are clad in heavy armour, bear a large shield, and a one-handed clubbed weapon called a Hammer. A Sentinel is worth five points when defeated.
Vanguard
The Vanguard is analogous to the pawn in chess and can move one block in rank or file. With the increased maneuverability of three-dimensional movements, there is no rule about attacking pieces diagonally adjacent – a Vanguard can attack a piece adjacent in rank or file, regardless of axis. Players at this position are clad in light armour, bear a large shield, and wield a Gladius, a shorter version of the Sovereign’s Sabre. A Vanguard is worth one point when defeated.
Crown
The Crown used to be a physical object, carried by the possessing piece. It was not long, however, before players were tossing the Crown into a corner of the block to avoid treading or tripping on it, an occurrence considered gravely unlucky by players. In 3027, teams began to utilize a holographic image that could not interfere with combat and could also be stylized into almost any form. Defeating the piece in possession of the Crown awards ten points, though it is entirely possible to capture the Crown and end the match victorious with fewer points than the opponent. A maximum score of 56 points is possible by defeating the entire opposing team and capturing the Crown.
Director
The Director is not just a highly skillful player of chess, s/he has also mastered the nuances of the game as played in three dimensions. Further, the Director is a team’s primary manager, training and developing battlechess players in variable-gravity combat. This combination of physical and intellectual is what makes battlechess such a spectacular and popular sport and what makes the Director’s position so very important to a successful team. During a match, a Director is seated in a specialized pod that allows them to monitor their players and avatars, plan their strategies, and move around the outside of the battlecube.
GAMEPLAY
Since the start of the BQP Era in 3384, players no longer physically interact in an actual battlecube. The match is one of virtual reality, facilitated by biotronic quantum processors that translate a player’s physical maneuvers into that of an avatar. Avatars are limited Virtual Intelligence constructs, entirely bound to the player and with no self-determination. The players themselves are encapsulated in small spherical chambers called Avatar Controller Environments, or ACEs; they are also known more simply as "rigs" or "hamster balls". Players execute their maneuvers remotely from their sideline which are instantly translated into physical action by their avatar within the battlecube. This change to the game was instituted as a harm-reduction measure to ensure player health and safety, particularly at the amateur level. Other leagues, unaffiliated with the PBL, continue to have first-person combat.
Scoring
When one piece enters a block occupied by an opposing piece, the two players enter into combat; the attacking player attempting to capture the block and the defending player attempting to prevent its capture. Both pieces try to eliminate the other piece from the battlecube and the match. When a piece is defeated, the player or avatar is removed from the battlecube and the opposing team is awarded points based on the position of the defeated piece.
Officiating
Before matches, officials known as reeves inspect and measure a team’s equipment for compliance with league standards and rules. Everything from the length of a Pike to the brightness of a team’s image displays falls under the purview of the reeves.
The sole battlecube official in a battlechess match is the referee. Since players are isolated from each other in their blocks, and only one combat occurs at a time, there is little for the referee to officiate. However, the referee is vitally important in that s/he tracks the armour integrity of every piece, halts combat when a piece’s threshold is reached, and immobilizes any piece – often mid-strike – that is endangering another. The last is most commonly used when a threshold is reached amidst furious combat. If combat is to be resumed, the players/avatars must first separate and assume a neutral position from which the can re-engage. The referee also oversees the operators of the tractor mechanisms - field reeves - used to extract defeated players from the battlecube.
The Battlecube
Battlechess matches were once played in a highly manipulated physical area called a battlecube (sometimes simply called a ‘cube). The battlecube was composed of five hundred twelve smaller, equal-sized cubes called blocks, arranged in and 8 x 8 x 8 three dimensional grid. Each block measured ten meters to a side and had three main properties manipulated were: gravity, permeability, and opacity. Since 3384, Battlecubes are adjustable projections of the virtual match being played out and the permeability attribute has become obsolete.
The standard gravitic configuration of a battlechess block in the Star Kingdom, under the Battlechess Codex of the PBL and PCAA Battlechess Rules and Regulations, is approximately spherical with two-meters’ diameter of null gravity in the center, and one G on the six interior faces. It is only approximately spherical because, while the gravity changes from the center of the block to the faces in a sphere, the cubical edges and vertices have inexact boundaries where the gravity is one full G. This became the standard configuration when early PBL commissioners judged it to be the most versatile, allowing for normal combat on any of the block faces, spectacular acrobatic maneuvering through the middle of the block, and ease of piece movement from block to block. Some versions of battlechess have blocks with no gravity, greatly affecting the styles of combat. Occasionally, a player will become trapped in the null-G centre of a block, rendering them unable to maneuver and vulnerable to a savage attack from their opponent.
A block’s opacity is typically quite low, with each face faintly glowing and clear lines of definition along each edge. Traditionally, this glow and definition is green in colour, with red faces indicating moves. Many matches have featured battlecubes defined in almost every visible colour, often to match those of a professional franchise or amateur team.
Historically, the permeability of a battlecube block face was altered to allow movement from one block to another. Typically, all of the interceding faces from one end of a projected move to the other were rendered permeable or “open” during the movement of a piece; the faces “close” behind players as they moved into each block toward their destination. Many leagues, including the PBL, altered the ambient colour of a block face to indicate a move; some leagues did not, simply having the Director communicate to his pieces through internal comms. PBL commissioners had long held that displaying the moves as they happened was beneficial to spectators and provided a better viewing experience.
LEAGUES AND TOURNAMENTS
Premier Battlechess League
The Premier Battlechess League and Persican Collegiate Athletics Associations (PCAA) are the most popular battlechess leagues in Persica. The Premier Battlechess League as it is currently organised was founded in 3083 and has since become the largest and most popular sport in the Star Kingdom. The PBL has the highest average attendance of any sporting league in the realm, with an average attendance of 86,530 during the 3420 PBL season.
League matches are played between franchises on each of the Star Kingdom's twenty-five inhabited planets, each of which comprise a Division. Within each planet's division are further subdivisions called Tiers and include systems for promotion of teams to higher tiers as well as relegation to lower tiers. Franchises in the highest tier compete for the division championship, awarded to the team that finishes the season in first place. Some divisions have awards for second- and third-place teams. Each division is named for its planet; for example Persica Division, Serratanis Division, etc.
The division champion and second-place team from each planet advance to sector-level Conference play, which is hosted by one of the planets in the sector. Conference hosts are rotated according to a schedule set by the PBL. At the end of the three tournaments, known commonly as the Conference Finals, the first-place team in each is the conference champion and advances to the League Championship along with the second- and third-place finishers. The three conferences are: Cluster Conference, Expanse Conference, and Reach Conference.
The League Championship - also known as the Valkyrie Cup, for the championship trophy - is hosted according to a separate rotating schedule, by a planet that did not host the Conference tournament that year. Fan attendance is highest during the League Championship, and hosting the tournament is considered a prestigious honour. Since its inception in 3099, the PBL championship trophy has been the Valkyrie Cup (also known as the Angel Mug), and is among the biggest events in club sports nationwide. The nine teams compete in a preliminary round of five matches, after which the ninth-place team is eliminated. The remaining eight teams advance to elimination play according to seeding, beginning with the League Quarterfinal: 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, 4v5. Winners advance to the League Semifinal, and then to the League Final where a single team is crowned champion of the entire Premier Battlechess League.
Prominent PBL Franchises
Ambergard Thrashers (Bridon)
Arkminster Shock (Frigia)
Auriga Archangels (Bastion)
Azuria Argonauts (Raen)
Cadianapolis Knights (Cadiana)
Califaxis Fury (Persica Prime)
Chantrim Warlocks (Celadon)
Cinnabar Machine (Vaeringar)
Coronach Ravens (Atramentar)
Hallowgard Shadow (Morrigaen)
Jaragon Venom (Blackguard)
Linmark Starhawks (Cascadia)
Londinium Lancers (Nova Cambria)
Mirabar Force (Vaeringar)
Palladia Titans (Serratanis)
Provost Valour (Deseret)
Skaldroyal Spiders (Aesingar)
Threnody Thunder (Atramentar)
Vanovar Monarchs (Persica Prime)
Winterhaven Seawolves (Orcadia)
Persican Collegiate Athletics Association (PCAA)
College battlechess is the third-most popular sport in Persica, behind professional battlechess and professional football. The PCAA, the largest collegiate organization, is divided into four Divisions: Alpha Division, Beta Division, Gamma Division, and Delta Division. Alpha Division is further divided into two subdivisions: the Battlechess Shield Subdivision (BSS) and the apex-tier Battlechess Cup Subdivision (BCS). The champions of each divisional level of play are determined through PCAA-sanctioned playoff systems. The Alpha Division-BSS features a number of locally sponsored Shield matches, with participants chosen through various means of determination. The champion of the Alpha Division-BCS was historically determined by various polls and ranking systems, but the subdivision adopted an eight-team playoff system in 3395, with the overall winner being considered the champion of all collegiate battlechess in the Star Kingdom.
OTHER STAR NATIONS
+++This section can be added onto by other authors that would like to have battlechess played in their nations.+++
POPULARITY AND CULTURAL IMPACT
Star Kingdom of Persica
“Football and hockey; rugby, baseball, and basketball – are all highly popular in the realm, but battlechess is the national pastime,” according to Xander Rhys-Svensson, former Consul Eruditis of Orcadia. Persica reveres the sport of battlechess and its citizens play the game at every level from Nanite (8 years old and under) to professional. Battlechess is considered an official pastime and tradition by the Crown and Government, and has even been compared to a religion in some parts of the realm, particularly on Atramentar, where the game was invented.
Other Star Nations
+++This section can be added onto by other authors that would like to have battlechess played in their nations.+++