Tuesday 20 January 2015

Auvade

Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001), Part One, Chapter VI, section 3.

Auvade is a three-sided board game with human pieces who fight for possession of tiles:

Stars move in straight lines like castles;

Planets move diagonally like bishops;

Moons zigzag like knights;

Meteors move in straight lines but no more than six tiles unless victorious at their end point, overleap like knights, although only across friendly players, and, if they reach a board edge, can cross to the opposite edge and proceed from there;

Players move simultaneously, watching an overhead screen view of the board.

Mikel Belov, a Sirian Comet whose allowable moves include two tiles sideways, one forward, one oppositely sideways, two forward, defeats an Altairian Moon and a Betelgeusean Meteor. However, in the judgment booth, the Supreme Steward consistently criticizes Mikel's form, orders his team marked down and implies collusion with the stewards until Mikel's father, present at the stewards' invitation, punches him on the nose. Although they are in his Presence, the Regnant does not intervene. A crisis indeed.

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