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The table, the hall, the rules and the guide: three boards drawn in Gygax's colours, a drake to play, the article in full, and the pages that walk a player in

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CCLa2PaEeCj8njQZSWGqHx
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Eric WagonerandClaude Fable 5.1 committed 2026-10-26 16:39:50 -04:00
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src/routes/rules/+page.svelte
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<script lang="ts">
// The rules page: the game's own text, structured for reading mid-game.
// Keep the original rules text verbatim in docs/ and render from it
// where you can, so the page and the engine follow one source.
// The rules page: the game as this table plays it, piece by piece, then
// Gygax's article in full from docs/source.md, which the engine follows.
import { page } from '$app/state';
import { sections } from '$lib/source';
/** Opened from a table, the page offers the way back to it and carries it to its cross-links. */
const room = $derived((page.url.searchParams.get('room') ?? '').toUpperCase());
const withRoom = (path: string) => (room ? `${path}?room=${room}` : path);
const source = sections();
/** The article proper runs from its title to the end of "Putting together a game"; the notes around it are the transcriber's. */
const article = source.filter((s) => s.id !== 'the-source-text' && s.id !== 'decisions');
const decisions = source.find((s) => s.id === 'decisions');
</script>
<svelte:head>
@@ -17,31 +21,187 @@
<header>
{#if room}<a class="back" href={`/join/${room}`}>Back to your game</a>{' · '}{/if}<a class="back" href="/">Back to the hall</a> · <a class="back" href={withRoom('/guide')}>How to play</a>
<h1>The rules</h1>
<p class="lede">One paragraph on where these rules come from and which edition or text this page follows.</p>
<p class="lede">
Wyrm plays Dragonchess as Gary Gygax published it in Dragon Magazine No. 100, August 1985. The article is the only rules text there is. It is transcribed in full at the foot of this page, and the game follows it word for word, with the handful of readings the text leaves open settled under <a href="#decisions">What this table decides</a>.
</p>
<nav aria-label="Sections">
<a href="#boards">The boards</a>
<a href="#winning">Winning</a>
<a href="#air">The air</a>
<a href="#land">The land</a>
<a href="#underworld">The underworld</a>
<a href="#between">Between the boards</a>
<a href="#decisions">What this table decides</a>
<a href="#source">The original text</a>
</nav>
</header>
<section id="turn">
<h2>A turn</h2>
<p>What each player does on a turn, in order, in short paragraphs. Put the thing a player checks mid-game first.</p>
<section id="boards">
<h2>The boards</h2>
<p>
Three boards lie one above another, each twelve squares wide and eight deep. The top board is the air, the middle board the land, and the bottom board the underworld. Gold and Scarlet each have 42 pieces, and Gold moves first. A square is named by its board, its file and its rank, so <strong>3g1</strong> is the air above Gold's King and <strong>1g8</strong> the underworld beneath Scarlet's. The files run a to l from Gold's left, the ranks 1 to 8 from Gold's side, and the square at Gold's near right corner, l1, is light.
</p>
<p>
A move takes one piece to one square. A piece lands on an empty square or on an enemy piece, which is taken, and never on a friend. Some pieces live on one board for the whole game, and some pass between boards in ways of their own. There is no castling, no two-square first step for a Warrior, and so no capture in passing.
</p>
</section>
<section id="winning">
<h2>Winning</h2>
<p>How the game ends and who wins, including draws.</p>
<p>
A King attacked by an enemy piece is in check, and a move may not leave your own King in check. A King in check with no way out, by moving, by taking the attacker or by putting a piece in the way, is checkmated, and the game is lost. A player who is not in check but has no legal move at all is stalemated, and the game is drawn. The game is also drawn when the same position stands for the third time with the same side to move, and when fifty moves pass on each side without a capture.
</p>
<p>
A Basilisk in the underworld freezes the enemy piece on the square directly above it. A frozen piece cannot move, cannot take and threatens nothing, though it still blocks the square it stands on. A frozen King cannot step out of check, so it is mated by any attack that cannot be answered by a capture or a block.
</p>
</section>
<section id="air">
<h2>The pieces of the air</h2>
<p>
<strong>Sylph</strong>, six a side. A Sylph is a pawn turned inside out. It moves one square diagonally forward and captures the square straight ahead. It can also capture the enemy piece directly beneath it on the land, and that is the only way down. On the land it cannot move except to climb back, without capturing, to the square directly above it or to any empty one of its six starting squares. A Sylph that reaches the far rank can go no further on the air board, but it can still strike down, and once it has it may climb again into a starting square.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Griffon</strong>, two a side. In the air a Griffon leaps two squares one way and three the other, over anything in between, the way a knight leaps one and two. It can drop to the land on any of the four squares diagonally next to the square beneath it, taking a piece there or not. On the land it loses its flight and moves one square diagonally, and it rises again to any of the four squares diagonally next to the square above it.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Dragon</strong>, one a side. The Dragon never leaves the air. It slides any distance along a diagonal, or steps one square in any direction. It also strikes from afar. Without moving, it can take an enemy piece on the land that stands directly beneath it or on one of the four squares beside that one. The piece is removed and the Dragon stays where it is. That strike is the Dragon's whole move, and it counts as an attack for check.
</p>
</section>
<section id="land">
<h2>The pieces of the land</h2>
<p>
<strong>Warrior</strong>, twelve a side. A pawn that cannot take a double first step. It moves one square straight forward and captures one square diagonally forward. On reaching the far rank it becomes a Hero, with no choice in the matter. It never leaves the land.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Oliphant</strong>, two a side, moves like a rook. <strong>Unicorn</strong>, two a side, moves like a knight. <strong>Thief</strong>, two a side, moves like a bishop. None of the three leaves the land.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Hero</strong>, two a side. On the land a Hero moves one or two squares along a diagonal, leaping over whatever is on the square between. It can also go up to the air or down to the underworld, landing on any of the four squares diagonally next to the square above or below it, and may take a piece as it goes. Off the land, its only move is back, to any of the four squares diagonally next to the square above or below it.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Cleric</strong>, one a side. On any board the Cleric moves one square in any direction, like a king. It also steps straight up or down one board. It is the one piece that plays the same on all three boards.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Mage</strong>, one a side. On the land the Mage is a queen, sliding any distance along a rank, file or diagonal. It can also move straight up or down one board or two, though to pass through the land the square there must be empty. In the air or the underworld it is reduced to one square sideways, forward or back.
</p>
<p>
<strong>King</strong>, one a side. On the land the King moves one square in any direction, and it may step straight up to the air or down to the underworld. On either of those boards it can do nothing but come straight back to the land.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Paladin</strong>, one a side. On the land the Paladin has the king's move and the knight's leap together. It can also leap between boards the way a knight leaps on one, one board up or down and two squares along a rank or file, or two boards and one square, over anything in between. In the air or the underworld it keeps only the king's step.
</p>
</section>
<section id="underworld">
<h2>The pieces of the underworld</h2>
<p>
<strong>Dwarf</strong>, six a side. A Dwarf moves one square straight forward or one square sideways without capturing, and captures one square diagonally forward. From the underworld it can take the enemy piece directly above it on the land, and on the land it keeps the same moves. It comes back down only to the empty square directly beneath it. A Dwarf on the far rank can still move sideways and between the boards, and it never reaches the air.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Basilisk</strong>, two a side. A Basilisk moves one square straight or diagonally forward, taking what is there, or one square straight back onto an empty square. It never leaves the underworld. The enemy piece directly above it on the land is frozen for as long as the Basilisk stays beneath it.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Elemental</strong>, one a side. In the underworld the Elemental moves one or two squares along a rank or file and captures the same way, with the nearer square empty before it can reach the further. It can also move one square diagonally, but never captures that way. It climbs to the land only to capture, moving one square along a rank or file to an empty square and then straight up onto an enemy piece. On the land it can do nothing but come down, straight down through an empty square and then one square along a rank or file, taking a piece there or not.
</p>
</section>
<section id="between">
<h2>Between the boards</h2>
<p>
Five kinds of piece pass between boards. The Griffon, the Hero and the Paladin leap, and nothing in the way stops them. The Mage and the Elemental do not leap. A Mage going from the underworld to the air needs the square on the land between to be empty, and an Elemental needs the square beside it empty on the way up and the square beneath it empty on the way down. The Sylph, the Dwarf, the Cleric and the King move straight up or down, one board at a time, onto the square itself.
</p>
</section>
<section id="decisions">
<h2>What this table decides</h2>
<p class="muted">
Gygax's text contradicts itself in two places and leaves a few cases unsaid. These are the readings the game follows, as recorded with the transcription. Two of them are choices the host makes when opening a table.
</p>
{#if decisions}{@html decisions.html}{/if}
</section>
<section id="source">
<h2>The original text</h2>
<p>The full source text, in collapsible sections, so a rules question can be settled by the words the engine follows.</p>
<p class="muted">
"Dragonchess" by Gary Gygax, Dragon Magazine No. 100, August 1985, pages 34 to 40. Transcribed from the keeper's copy. The diagrams are described in words where they stood. Open a heading to read that part.
</p>
{#each article as s (s.id)}
<details>
<summary>{s.title}</summary>
<div class="source">{@html s.html}</div>
</details>
{/each}
</section>
<p class="word">If this page reads a rule differently from the original text, that is a bug. Please <a href="mailto:eric@ericwagoner.com">send word</a>.</p>
</main>
<style>
nav {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
gap: 0.3rem 1rem;
margin: 1rem 0 0.5rem;
font-size: 0.95rem;
}
p + p {
margin-top: 0.7rem;
}
details {
border-top: 1px solid var(--rule);
padding: 0.5rem 0;
}
summary {
cursor: pointer;
font-weight: 500;
}
.source {
padding: 0.5rem 0 0.4rem 1rem;
border-left: 2px solid var(--rule-strong);
color: var(--bone-dim);
font-size: 0.95rem;
}
.source :global(p + p),
.source :global(pre + p),
.source :global(p + pre),
.source :global(table) {
margin-top: 0.7rem;
}
.source :global(pre) {
font-size: 0.85rem;
line-height: 1.35;
overflow-x: auto;
}
.source :global(table) {
border-collapse: collapse;
}
.source :global(th),
.source :global(td) {
padding: 0.15rem 0.8rem 0.15rem 0;
text-align: left;
}
#decisions :global(ol) {
padding-left: 1.4rem;
}
#decisions :global(li + li) {
margin-top: 0.5rem;
}
.word {
margin-top: 2rem;
color: var(--bone-faint);
color: var(--bone-dim);
font-size: 0.9rem;
}
</style>