Gothic Chess

Initial setup

f1, f8: King
d1, d8: Queen
e1, e8: Chancellor
g1, g8: Archbishop
a1, a8, j1, j8: Rook
c1, c8, h1, h8: Bishop
b1, b8, i1, i8: Knight
a2-j2, a8-j8: Pawns

Piece	ID	value	Moves (Betza notation)	Remarks
King	K	-	WF	Can castle with Rook, moving 2 steps towards it
Queen	Q	9.5	WWFF
Chancellor	C	9	WWFF
ArchBishop	A	8.75	WWFF
Rook	R	5	WW
Bishop	B	3.5	FF	Color-bound
Knight	N	3		N
Pawn	P	1	mfWcfF	Promotes to Q, R, B, or N on reaching last rank

Pawn peculiarities

Pawns capture differently from how they move (straight move, diagonal capture).
Pawns can move two squares ahead from their initial position, provided they are not blocked.
On the move immediately after such a double push, they can be captured en passant by another Pawn, as if they had only moved 1 square ahead.
Pawns promote to another (non-royal) piece of choice when they reach last rank.

Castling

A King that has not moved before can move two squares in the direction of a Rook that has not moved before, in which case that Rook is moved to the square the King skipped over. This is only allowed when the King is not in check, on the square it came from and would not be in check on the square it skipped over.

General rules

It is not allowed to expose your King to check.
The game is won by checkmating the opponent's King.
Stalemate (no legal moves, but not in check) is a draw.

Differences with FIDE

None.

Strategy issues

It is not possible to force checkmate on a bare King with just a single Bishop or Knight (in addition to your own King).

Bishops are confined to squares of a single color. Having Bishops on both colors compensates this weakness, and is worth an extra 0.5 on top of their added value.

As Chancellor and Queen are nearly equal in value to Queen, under-promotion is very common.