Character Pieces
Explorers, Cavalry and Cannon
Right now we are making these pieces as actual characters rather than symbolic objects.
Finding “Her”
The explorer in Kotay is also the builder. When I explain the game to people, I always assume that the explorer is a “he”, just like every piece other than the Queen in chess is implicitly male in my head.
So, the explorer and builder in Kotay will be female. We are working with that in mind now.
Cavalry likely to become Archers
We haven’t really got far into thinking or building the cavalry. Although we have thought of converting this piece to an archer, to make it consistent with the way the piece attacks.
Cannons – Zamburak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamburak)
I only mentioned cannons on camels and elepahants in passing to Chris. He seems quite taken by the idea. Who wouldn’t be :)!
So we might model cannons as Zamburaks – camels mounted with guns. Used mainly by ancient Iranians is war.
Famously, used in the Battle of Karnal(1739 A.D.) between Nader Shah and the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah – at the end of which Delhi, the capital of Mughal Empire in India was ransacked and areas to the west of the Indus river were annexed to the Persian empire. The persian army with its hundred of cannons and zamburaks was victorious over thousands of cannons and war elephants. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karnal)
<Image Atribution: MohammadReza Domiri Ganji (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons>
Kotay 