Twilight of Empires

L&L is a board game played in the European-influenced regions of Lunistria. To help the players conceptualize this game, it is heavily based on modern chess. There are a number of rules changes, many of which appear to exist to ensure the game lasts an entire evening.

Lords and levies uses the same eight by eight grid that chess and checkers use, alternating light and dark squares, usually dependent on the woods or stones used in the construction of the board.

Unlike Chess, L&L uses flat tokens. With the exception of the Lord (King) piece, these tokens are illustrated with a Levy (Pawn) on one side, and a ranked piece on the other side. The Lord's Levy piece has the Bastard Heir piece illustrated on its reverse. rather than the Lord.

• Levy: (Pawn) May move one space forward, or capture on the forward diagonals. If a Levy captures another piece, it is flipped over to its ranking side, and behaves accordingly.
• Elephant: (Rook) Alternatively Mammoth or Sulokil. May move any distance horizontally or vertically.
• Hero: (Bishop) Alternatively Cavalry. May move any distance diagonally.
• Magus: (Knight) Moves as a Chess Knight. In addition, may Castle with any allied piece it lands upon.
• Heir: (Queen) May move any distance in any straight line direction.
• Lord: (King) Also Lady. May move one space in any direction.
• Bastard Heir: May move one space in any direction.

When a player captures a ranked piece, it is not removed form the board. Instead, it is flipped to its Levy side, and places on the back row of the opponent's side of the board, in an open space of the player's choosing. If no spaces are available, the second row may be used.

A high end real world Chess player keeps track of which pawn started where, while a more casual player is going to ignore this trivial detail. In Lords and Levies, it becomes vitally important for both players to remember which levy is which. A common game ending for beginners is the “Promotion Mate”, where a Levy takes an opponent's piece, flips to Magus, and Mate is declared because it can jump the remaining defenders on its next move.