Wild Rose Chess

The idea that came to me at the beginning of this year may seem somewhat strange and unusual to you, but I assure you that it is more than valid and fruitful. And this time, friends, I hope you will be able to appreciate not only the beauty of this chess variant, but also catch the scent of those beautiful Wild Roses, from The Gardens of Yin or other visions that were revealed to me in January...

Wild Rose - this piece combines the functions of the Queen and the King: it can move and capture like a Queen, it cannot be captured, but it can be declared check or checkmate like a regular King in chess.
Players' roses can declare mutual check and even checkmate to each other!

Avoiding check is not necessary, but it does affect on >>>
Win/Loss Conditions
After your move:
- By giving check to two of your opponent's Wild Roses at the same time, you win the game (checkmate)
- By putting your two Wild Roses under attack (in check), you win the game (blossom roses)
- Leaving your opponent without pieces (only with Wild Roses) - you win the game (fading roses)
- Leaving one of your Wild Roses under attack means you lose the game (rose cutting)
Winning Conditions always prevail over the only Losing Condition. Or in other words, the first one to fulfill one of the three winning conditions wins.

In addition to the Wild Rose, in this version of fairy chess we have pawns and other pieces that have different properties from classical chess pieces.
Pawn is an ordinary pawn from standard chess that moves and captures according to FIDE rules.

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Nightrider is a fairy chess piece by Thomas Dawson. It can make a move like a Knight, but then can continue to move in the same direction. Thus, it can make one or more successive Knight-leaps, all in the same direction: the spaces visited by all but the last jump must be empty.

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Crusader is a combined Bishop and Dabbabarider (jumps two squares orthogonally, leaping over any intermediate piece with continuation of movement in a given direction).

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Raven is a combined Rook and Nightrider.

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The initial arrangement of the pieces is shown in the picture below:

Raven is in the rook position, Nightrider is in the knight position, Crusader is in the bishop position, and Wild Rose is in the queen and king positions. Pawns, as in classical chess, are located along the second and seventh ranks.
Wild Rose Chess can be played using a regular set of chess pieces. In this case, the initial arrangement will look like this:

No castling. Yes en passant.
Repeating a position is prohibited and is considered an illegal move.
Pawn Promotion is very different from the usual option accepted both in standard chess and in countless variants of chess and is called Growing Roses.
Growing Roses
A pawn that reaches the last rank is removed from the board, turning any opponent's piece into a Wild Rose. Thus, the opponent has another Wild Rose.
The player who brings his pawn to the last row himself decides which of the opponent’s pieces will become the Wild Rose and makes a move again!
In other words, a 'pawn promotion' looks like this (step by step):
- The player moves his pawn to the last rank.
- The pawn is removed from the board and no longer participates in the game.
- The player, at his discretion, replaces any opponent’s piece with a Wild Rose of the same color.
- The player makes another move with any of his pieces (if at the same time one more pawn can reach the last rank, then the whole procedure is repeated again).
- The move to 'promote' the pawn is over.
- Now it's the opponent's turn.

Now let's look at examples of Win/Loss Conditions and Growing Roses for a more complete perception of the events and phenomena taking place on the chessboard.

Checkmate
1. d3 Cc6 2. Wb4 Cf6

White wins by giving check to two black Roses:
3. Wxe7 #

In this case, it does not matter that Wild Rose on e7 remains under attack after White’s move. One of the three Winning Conditions always trumps the Losing Condition (rose cutting).
Another example of checkmating.
1. d3 f6 2. Wb4

Black wins by giving check to two white Roses:
2. ...Rb5 #

Black Raven on b5 attacks White's two Wild Roses on b4 and d1.

Blossom Roses
1. d3 f6 2. Wc3 Rb5+

White wins by putting his two Wild Roses in check:
3. Wdd2 #br

The Raven from square a8 delivers check to Wild Rose on d2. Both of White's Wild Roses are in check. White won.
In addition to the move Wdd2, White could win in other ways, by exposing his Wild Rose c3 to the attack of black pieces.

Fading Roses
White wins in one move.

White wins, leaving his opponent with only Roses:
1. Wxh8 #fr

Another example:

And again White eliminates all of Black’s material:
1. Wxc7 #fr

The Wild Rose on c7 remains under attack after White's move, but as we remember - Winning Conditions always prevail over the only Losing Condition - White wins by Fading Roses.

Rose Cutting
1. c3 d6

Rose Cutting usually happens due to inattention and haste in the game.
2. Wc2 ...#cr

Black wins after making just one move in the game. White, after completing his move, has only one of his Wild Roses in check, which leads to immediate defeat for him.

Growing Roses
'Pawn Promotion' in Wild Rose Chess is a unique option that cannot be found in other chess variants.
White wins in one move.

Remember that when a pawn reaches the last rank, we perform three actions at once: we remove the pawn from the board, replace the enemy piece (except for Roses) with a Rose, and move one of our pieces on the board.
1. h8=e5W=Wa5 #br

White wins by Blossom Roses.

Such an unusual concept of the game poses completely new and unique challenges for us, confronting us with tasks that we have never encountered before in chess and chess variants.
Perhaps the idea of Wild Roses would be even stronger on boards of much larger sizes, say 12x12 or 16x16, but that, as they say, is a completely different story...