Chakra (chess variant) in "100 Other Games to Play on a Chessboard" (1983, 2002) by Stephen Addison. Chakra is played on a standard chessboard and has many of the standard play conventions as in chess, including check and the winning objective, checkmate. Stalemate, as in chess, is a draw. The king in Chakra is named "emperor". Each player starts with 16 pieces: 1 emperor, 1 empress, 1 samurai, 1 monk, 2 monkeys, 2 courtesans, 2 chakras, 6 swords. The emperor, empress, and monkey perform identically to their chess counterparts (king, queen, and knight, respectively). The others are governed by special fairy rules. There
Hostage Chess It was published in magazines "Nost-algia" (issue 375), "Eteroscacco" (86–88), and "Variant Chess" (32 and later). It was the "Recognized Variant of the Month" in January 2005 at "The Chess Variant Pages". The inventor, John Leslie, is also a philosopher. He mentions in his book "Infinite Minds" that the prevalence of chess variant inventions such as Hostage Chess has led to speculation that there could be infinite possible variations of chess. He contends these will necessarily exceed the capacity of the human mind. Hostage Chess follows all the standard rules of chess excepting how captured men are treated. Each player