Hmmmm ... that's more a whim, not a snippet. Maybe I have to explain a little bit ...

Actually it is inspired by Freddy Mercury and Albert Einstein and their opinion about God's addiction to the game of dice. And by Max Pam, Tim Krabbé and Peter Sellers... :-)

I'm not quite sure whether the people of Faerun play chess. But as there is a chess-like board in the basement of the Tanglebrook Estate I guess there might be a similar game.


"Well, sis - do prosper your plans?"
Sehanine lifts her eyes from the crystalline game board.
"Have a look yourself, little brother. In the end your pawn's sacrifice will pay off."

Moved by an invisible hand the white queen crosses the board. Check! The red king backs off to the unchallenged border.
Brandobaris frowns.
"This has not been my decision. You tall ones even didn't bother to ask me", he snarls. "And it's not a ... 'pawn's sacrifice'!"
Sehanine raises a beautiful eyebrow.
"Well ...?"
"It's a gambit. And withal a needless one!"
"It must be done" the goddess insists. "It needs a lion to make a desert giant stumble."
"Tommyrot!" The little demigod grumbles. "A tiny mouse will do. As long as it roars loud enough!"

He turns to the chessboard. A cheeky white pawn - already ventured deep into the hostile lines – makes his move and reaches the end of the board. There he turns into - a rook?
Sehanine had watched it thunderstruck.
"What do you think you're doing??!"
The red player is confused as well. Making an aimless move he plays out and Brandobaris, the irrepressible scamp, smiles. His eyes are sparkling.
"You should've had a wee bit more faith in the small people", he says.

The white king dances with the new built rook. A castling lengthwise the board?! Unexpected and powerful this maneuver realigns the game.
The Mistress of Dreams gasps for breath.
"Brandobaris! You're breaking the rules!!"
"Never, sis. I'm interpreting them: a rook and a king - neither of them drawn until now, the fields between them free and not threatened by any hostile man ... this move is valid!"

The last red knight bustles across the board to fork both: rook and queen. But the halfling god is all smiles.
"Now, sister. Unleash your lioness!"

And the white queen makes a step forward. Checkmate!


OK - Some more wisenheimer information for those of you who are not (yet) familiar with the chess rules I (mis)used here:

- A gambit is a chess opening in which a player, most often White, sacrifices material, usually a pawn (sometimes a knight, a bishop or even a queen) with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position. So as it often is part of the opening and not of the endgame, my story is a poor comparison ...

- If a pawn advances to the eighth rank (the opposite end of the board), it is then promoted (converted) to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color, the choice being at the discretion of its player. A queen is usually chosen for it is the strongest piece. The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move.

- Castling is the only move in chess (leaving aside promotion) that involves more than one piece of the same player. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed. Brandobaris shortly explained the other rules ...
His unusual "interpretation" is the idea of Max Pam and its usage by Tim Krabbé, a Dutch chess-player, finally lead to a revision of the chess rules in the 70s: posting the additional requirement for legal castling, that king and rook must be on the same rank (row).

(if your are interested in more about this, see "Offbeat interpretations of the rules of chess" or the "Pam-Krabbé-Rochade" at Wikipedia)