Gewinnen

Gewinnen is a board game with some parallels to Earth's chess. It requires mana to play and thus is the exclusive domain of nobles in Yurgenschmidt. It is in many ways similar to a round-based version of Ditter and thus even used as teaching material for apprentice knights.

The gewinnen board is rectangular and longer than it is broad and usually highly decorated with elaborate carvings and studded with many feystones. The two short sides, where the players sit, have a compartment that contains five big feystones, though this compartment is kept closed most of the time and opened only for the setup of a match.

While the figures need to be recognizable as their type, nobles tend to have them custom-made or modified in various way to fit their tastes and show off. Usually they are coloured in a way that reflects their owner in some way, with many nobles choosing their eye- or hair colour as a base, while others prefer to go with the colour associated with their birth season instead.

There are six types of figures: Bow, Sword, Spear (also sometimes called Lancer), Scholar, Support, and Treasure.

Prior to a match the two contestants hand each other the box containing their playing pieces so they can ascertain that their opponent's figures are free of any residual mana from previous matches.

Once these checks are done, the two players open the compartment with the feystones and charge the agreed upon number. The five stones correspond to a sort of difficulty setting. Each stone enables a certain number of figures to be moved, which in turn enables more complex tactics. Regardless of how many stones are played, each player must have one treasure piece in the setup. Verbally, nobles call a match an x-stone game, with x standing for the number of difficulty feystones that are used.

Once the stones have been charged and both players check to make sure their opponent only loaded the agreed upon number, the compartment is closed. Opening the compartment again at any point during the game means an immediate disqualification of the player in question.

Players can choose to modify the characteristics of each individual piece to increase their offensive or defensive power and speed.

Much like in ditter, the goal is to capture the opponent's treasure piece.

Players take turns to move their pieces, though unlike in chess the players can move multiple pieces each turn. To determine who goes first one of the players conceals a support piece in one hand and a scholar piece in the other. Their other player chooses one of the hands of their opponent. If the other player picks the hand that holds the scholar they can start, otherwise the person holding the pieces has the first turn.

Pieces are moved solely with mana.

One-Stone Games are a sort of beginner's setting and have some special rules that limit the options for each side, so as to not overwhelm beginners.

Both players are limited to 10 pieces each, and the scholar and support pieces are banned. Furthermore, in this game setting, no modifications to individual pieces is allowed. Apart from the banned types and the mandatory treasure piece, players are free to choose any combination of the sword, spear, and bow pieces, even nine of the same type if they wish.