Brávellir

This is an ancient nordic game* of battle, probably inspired by

the battle of Brávellir. This battle was fought in the 8th century
at Bråvalla headlands in Östergötland, Sweden, between
swedes under King Sigurd Ring and danes under King Harald
Hildetand. According to sources from the 13th century, the
swedes were victorious after Odin himself intervened and
killed King Harald.

The only known example of this game was found by an amateur horticulturist, just outside of the small
village of Lämmenäs, Sweden.

The board and carved pieces was wrapped in leather, with the rules carved in runes on the back of the
game board. While some details may have been lost in translating the runes, the game is quite playable
and enjoyable with the following rules.

* Brávellir is a work of fiction. The game was designed by Henrik Pettersson in 2018, and the ‘horticulturalist’ refers to the designer’s
mother, who still lives in Lämmenäs with an aging cat. v 0.6

Setup

Brávellir is played on an 8*8 squares board, like chess, but

the original board is not checkered. Each player has 5
warriors, and 1 King. The original pieces had faint traces of
paint on them and was probably a strong red and blue color,
respectively. The blue representing the Swedes, and the
red for the Danes. Your king is placed on your back row
middle right. The rest are placed around him, with four
pieces on the first row, and two in the middle on the second
row. (see Illustration 1.)

Flip a coin to see who goes first. The second player gets a marker that can be used to grant a second
move. This marker is called 'The favor of the gods', and signifies that the gods themselves took part in
this battle. When used, the favor is passed to the other player. The favor can also be stolen by moving
your king into the opponent's back row. The favor can only switch hands once per player turn, i.e. you
cannot use the favor, and in your second move steal it back.
Playing the game

Moving
You can move once in your turn. You can move a single piece, but also any symmetrical formation of
pieces. These can move up to 3 steps, forward, backwards, left, or right. (See Illustration 2.)

Single pieces can move one step diagonally. ​Note that diagonal moves can only be done by single
pieces and only one step.

You must move every time it is your turn. You cannot move through other pieces. The entire move must
be done in the same direction.

Fighting
You knock out the enemy pieces by moving so that the
enemy piece has contact with your pieces to two of its
sides. You can only knock out pieces by moving one of your
own adjacent to the one you wish to knock out. I.e. the
opponent can in his turn move a piece into a position where
it has enemies to two sides, without being knocked out.

You can knock out more than one piece with one move. Any
enemy piece adjacent to the one/ones you moved is
knocked out, provided they now have enemies to two or
more sides. (See Illustration 3.)

Draw
If you end up with only two pieces each (the king and one
warrior), declare a draw and play again.

You win by knocking out the enemy king, or all of his pawns.

Copyright © 2018 by Henrik Pettersson and Daniel Termin. All rights reserved. Published under Open Game License.
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html​ with the intent of allowing distribution of the Brávellir rules and related products,
including boards and pieces created for the purpose of distribution and sales, provided credits and OGL information is included.