#latrunculi

Most of the tables games from yesterday have mechanic where you can block or capture your opponent's pieces by landing on or near them, and it's my conjecture that this inspired the first ever pure strategy games in Ancient China and Ancient Greece, sometime between 600 and 400 BCE. Both of these games feature two-dimensional grids (instead of the linear tracks of the race games) and a mechanic where surrounding an opponent's pieces eliminates them – but that's where the similarities end: the Chinese Yi (now known as Weiqi or Go) involves placing immobile pieces onto an otherwise empty board to capture areas of it, whereas the Greek Petteia (also called Polis) has each player starting with an army that must be mobilized to surround and eliminate the opponent's side, piece by piece. And so this also marks the point in history where we start to see an explosion in the diversity of forms: the more complex the games, the wider the scope of possibilities.

So lately I’ve taken an interest in board games. It started a couple months back with trying to think of a good Yule gift for a friend. He’s going to a medieval event this month, I was supposed to go with him but things came up on my end so I had to cancel. Anyway, I was thinking of something I could give him to take to the event with him, and that’s when I discovered Hnefatafl, a viking board game, also called Tablut, and it’s Welsh counterpart, Gwyddbwyll. I put my 3D printer to work and got my woodburner and paints and threw together a travel set for my friend and started researching some more. 

I read also about a game called Latrunculi, or Polis. It’s a game that dates back to the Hellenic and possibly Mycenaean civilizations. The rules aren’t exactly known, but there are a few reconstructions available to play around with. I made a board and designed a set of pieces. 

Since the Greek name of the game translates to City, I made the pieces with an Athens vs Sparta motif. I’ve played a few games with the kids trying out the different versions of the rules and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve made more game tokens themed after most of the Olympians and the cities they patronized. Kade made his own set of tokens with the Monster energy drink logo. 

Designing the tokens in TinkerCad was so cool. A lot easier than I thought it would be at the outset. I’ve always liked playing around with GiMP though so I don’t know why I thought 3D design was going to be so insurmountable. 

Realizing how easy designing the game pieces was gave me the idea to look into Pai Sho. I know, it’s a fantasy board game rather than historical, but c’mon, I love A:TLA. 

I wasn’t surprised that fans have made Pai Sho a reality, but I WAS surprised at the sheer number of rule variations in existence. I like Skud Pai Sho the best, although I also like Iroh Pai Sho as well. 

Once I printed out a set of freeware tiles and made a playing board (leather this time) and got the hang of playing with the kids, I started designing my own set of tiles for Skud Pai Sho. I need to put some final tweaks on a couple of pieces, but I’ll have them in my Etsy store some time in February. 

In the meantime, I’ve also started designing a completely unique set of Pai Sho tiles based on the Swamp where I live. The rules for the game are broadly similar to Skud Pai Sho, with 18 tiles all based on the plants and elements found in my own little grove. I’ll have more details about it next month and might add it to my Etsy store as well if there’s any interest. 

The kids and I are also working on a rules variation for Skud and Iroh Pai Sho that’s a lot of fun. It’s been nice to see them take interest in this project the way that they have. I’ve been letting some other projects kinda sit on the back burner for a bit but having both of the older kids involved the way they have been has been really cool. Now if I could get them to get along with each other… ah, one can dream.

All of this has been such a fascinating diversion from my spinning and weaving. I’ve picked up a few books about the history of board games and it’s so neat how some games with ancient roots tie into ritual and mythology. My Bardic studies have really been undertaken with a heavy interest in storytelling and mythology so seeing this tangent come around and tie into my Druidry in an unexpected way has been very exciting. I’m anxious to see what opportunities for further study this all leads to. 

I think that about wraps up this post, lovelies. I’m about finished with Part 4 of the Survivor’s Guide, so that should be posting in the next week, we’ll be taking all of the research from the first three parts and starting to put it into some kind of action this time, so it’s gonna start getting bumpy. Fun times ^_^

our latin club is having a latrunculi tournament next next week