Luxfield

Luxfield is a game played by mages from the realm of Magicians' End.   It has some similarities with chess, a game that will be more familiar to natives of Earth Zero, and Earth Stable. Like chess, luxfield is a two player game with alternate moves. It is also a game of "perfect information" where the full state is visible to both players, unlike, for example, the game of Clients and Patrons. Luxfield requires a special board and sets of pieces which conform to a traditional design but now the similarities with chess come to an end.   In Luxfield the object of the game is to gain control of territory and to build and control certain patterns on the board. Whilst pieces can on rare occasions be captured and removed, they can also be added. Furthermore, they can change sides and can also be neutral, acting in a number of ambiguous ways that benefit both players. Even the board itself is not fixed. Squares can change colours with the resulting "field" (as it is called by players) affecting subsequent possible moves.   Luxfield pieces are illuminated and the spells which control this mildly magical aspect of the game ensure that it can only ever really be played by mages who can tweak the colour and intensity of the light. It is thus considered something of an elite pastime because it is not playable by the general population, but it has been popular at the various institutions of magical learning down the years and in other places wherever mages gather together.   Luxfield is an intentionally beautiful game with a subtle interplay between the elements of the rules and the design of the pieces which promotes aesthetic solutions to the problems posed in play. Traditionally it is played at low levels of illumination to enhance the visual effect of the glowing pieces.  

History

  Luxfield was first played in the middle period of the Old Pale Empire. There is no record of the original inventor and early versions of the game were simpler and less sophisticated than the forms which developed towards the end of the Empire. It was really only under the Puzzle Lords Directorate, however, that the modern form of the game became established and the rules have not changed since.   Notation became standardised in the same period and a wide variety of games have been recorded for posterity, the most famous of which have been given their own names. These include such classics as "The Red Wall", "Fade into Stone" and "Breaking Waves", which are all well known to aficionados of the game.