William Overington wrote on Thu, Oct 31, 2002 07:03 PM UTC:
> Another comment is on the naming of the two additional leapers:
The earl is well-known as camel -- and that name has old historic
roots even before Carrera. The viscount is known as zebra usually.
> What's your motive to use other names?
Well, I was wanting to have a game which had the look and feel of being
played in a paved tree garden of a castle or a country estate and so I had
the idea of having different types of courtly persons as the names of the
pieces.
Also, I did not like the idea of designing a game involving animals
fighting and being attacked, so I assigned the names earl and viscount to
the pieces, thus, as the saying goes, painting two birds on one canvas.
I am now pleased to introduce a variant of Tree garden chess, named 'Tree
garden chess, the game of the marquesses'.
In this variant, there are four marquesses added to each side.
The marquess is a 4,2 jumping piece.
The game starts with white also having a marquess, M, at each of the
squares e2, e3, f2, f3 and with black also having a marquess, m, at each
of the squares e8, e9, f8, f9.
In this variant, pawn promotion is to queen, champion, centaur, marquess,
earl or viscount at the choice of the player.