The board has 10 x 10 squares.
The game is inspired by pemba replacing giraffe by grasshoppers. Like Pemba, Elephantine is an African island. The use of elephants and locusts is an allusion to Egypt: the island of Aswan and the 7 plagues.
Moves as in usual Chess, except there is no castling.
Exactly as in usual Chess.
Exactly as in usual Chess.
Exactly as in usual Chess.
Exactly as in usual Chess.
Moves one or two squares diagonally. When an Elephant moves two squares, it is allowed to jump, i.e., the intervening square does not have to be empty. The Elephant moves as the combined Alfil and Firzan (Ferz) from Shatranj, two pieces which were also present in mediaeval Chess and have disappeared with the birth of modern moves for Queen and Bishop.
As in Metamachy, a well known piece from medieval Muslim great Chess like Tamerlane's Chess. It jumps to the opposite case of a 2x4 rectangle, like an extended Knight. No matter what intermediate cases contain. Note that it always stays on the same color of square.
moves without taking like a Rook, but it takes by going in a straight horizontal and vertical line and jumping over exactly one piece. When a Cannon takes a piece, there must be exactly one piece between the original and final square of the Cannon's move - this piece may be of either color. (This is identical to the move of the Cannon in Xiangqi.)
moves as a chess Queen, but must jump exactly one piece (of either color) when it moves, and it stops at the square immediately after the piece it jumped. .
it is an orthogonal counterpart of the Elephant as it moves 1 or 2 squares orthogonally, jumping over the first square if it is occupied. Then, it combines the moves of old Dabbaba and Wazir found in ancient Muslim Chess variants. The word Dabbaba designated a siege machine at war in Arabic, hence the name given for this piece.
Crocodile or bow : it is the diagonal counterpart of the Xiangqi's Cannon. It moves like a Bishop (which was named Crocodile in Grant Acedrex) and needs an intermediate piece between itself and its victim to capture it. The Crocodile jumps the intermediate and takes the victim on its square. The intermediate is left unaffected. Also known as Vao by problemists.
