kawashiro nitori (touhou) drawn by ninamo

ThunderBird said:
See? Complicated stuff.
What upgrades into what? How do the leveled up pieces move and capture? Which piece can cross the river, and which can't (I think it's the Elephant, but I'm not sure about the name even)?
If I'm ever playing shogi against a live opponent, human or youkai, I want a manual to look at for reference. I'll work out the strategy myself, but I can't do that without knowing my assets...

You're thinking of Xiangqi, Chinese chess. In Shogi, there's no restrictions on which pieces can or cannot cross to your opponent's side of the board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi

ThunderBird said:
I'll need a written reference for the movements and captures, shogi is pretty complicated to learn...

It's Japanese chess. It's not too hard to learn the game, you just need to know the moves of the pieces, and the rules on promotions and dropping captured pieces.

THE MOVES

(Note that in the picture above, all pieces are in their starting positions.)

Backmost rank (horizontal row), from center outward:

*King - moves as in chess; checkmate the opponent's king to win. Does not promote. Unlike Chess, there is no castling move (but read Wiki for details on defensive positions called castles)
*Gold Generals - move one square in any direction except diagonally backwards. Does not promote.
*Silver Generals - move one step diagonally or straight forward; promotes to Gold General.
*Knights - move similarly to the knights in Chess, however they move only forward, not sideways or backwards (so only forward plus left-diagonal or forward plus right-diagonal); promotes to Gold General, but must promote upon reaching the farthest two ranks.
*Lances - move any number of unobstructed squares forward (like a rook, but cannot move sideways or backwards). Promotes to Gold General, must promote upon reaching the farthest rank.

The arrangement, from left to right, is this:
|L|N|S|G|K|G|S|N|L|

Second rank, left to right:
*Bishop - moves exactly as in chess (any number of unobstructed diagonal spaces). Promotes to a Dragon Horse, which moves as a combined Bishop and King.
*Rook - moves exactly as in chess (any number of unobstructed spaces forward, backward or sideways). Promotes to a Dragon King, which moves as a combined Rook and King.

Third rank:
*9 Pawns - move and capture one square forward. Unlike Chess, there is no option to move two squares on the first move; and pawns capture only forward, not diagonally, so the Pawns cannot support each other and there is no En Passant captures of Enemy Pawns. A Pawn promotes to a Tokin, which moves exactly as the Gold General does.

PROMOTION

The promotion zone is the three ranks farthest from your starting position(i.e. your opponent's starting area). Any piece you control may promote whenever they move into, out of, or through the promotion zone.

Promotion is optional, you can keep a piece unpromoted for as long as you control it so long as it can make a further move from its current position; Pawns and Lances must promote upon reaching the farthest rank, and Knights in the farthest two ranks, as those pieces would have no further legal moves if not promoted to Golds/Tokins.

To show that a piece has been promoted, it is turned over to the other side where its promoted value is printed, usually in red.

The King and the Gold Generals do not promote, nor do any pieces which have already been promoted.

DROPS

When you capture an enemy piece, it is not permanently removed from play. Instead, you have that piece "in hand" and may place it on any empty square on the board at any time instead of moving one of the pieces you already have on the board - this is called "dropping" a piece.

There are some restrictions on where you can or cannot drop a piece:

*You may not capture an enemy piece by dropping a piece on top of it. Pieces may only be dropped on empty squares.
*Any piece you drop must be in its unpromoted state. So if you capture an enemy Dragon King, for example, you may only drop it into play as a Rook, even if you drop it into the promotion zone.
**However, you may drop a piece into the promotion zone and promote that piece by moving it on any subsequent turn.
*Pawns and Lances may not be dropped on the farthest rank, nor may Knights be dropped on the farthest two ranks. Those pieces would be unable to move from those locations.
*You may not drop a Pawn onto a file (vertical row) which already has an unpromoted Pawn.
**There is no limit to the number of Tokins (promoted Pawns) you may have on a file, and you are permitted to drop a Pawn onto a file that already has a Tokin if there is space to do so.
*You may not drop a pawn into any position which causes an immediate checkmate of the enemy King. However, this restriction does not apply to any of the other pieces, and it is possible to win a game by dropping any non-Pawn piece into a mating position.
huh huh huh, "mating position"

There's a bit more to the rules than what I've posted, such as perpetual check being prohibited (the player giving check loses), position repetition rules, time limits, and other things. For details on those, read the Wiki link.

Artist's commentary

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