Shatranj (Arabic: شطرنج; Persian: شترنج; from Middle Persian chatrang چترنگ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins...
Shatranj (Arabic: شطرنج; Persian: شترنج; from Middle Persian chatrang چترنگ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as it was introduced to the western world by contacts in Muslim Al-Andalus (modern Spain) and in Sicily in the 10th century.
The Persian word shatranj ultimately derives from Sanskrit (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग; caturaṅga) (catuḥ: "four"; anga: "arm"), referring to the game of the same name: Chaturanga. In Middle Persian the word appears as chatrang, with the 'u' lost due to syncope and the 'a' lost to apocope, such as in the title of the text Mâdayân î chatrang ("Book of Chess") from the 7th century AD. In Persian folk etymology, a Persian text refers to Shah Ardashir I, who ruled from 224–241, as a master of the game:
Three books written in Pahlavi, Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, Khosrow and ridag, and Wizārišn ī čhatrang ("Treatise on Chess"), also known as the Chatrang Nama ("Book of Chess"), all mention chatrang. In Kār-nāmak it is said that Ardashīr "with the help of the gods became more victorious and experienced than all others in polo, horsemanship, chess, backgammon, and other arts," and in the small treatise on Khosrow and ridag, the latter declares that he is superior to his comrades in chess, backgammon, and hašt pāy. Bozorgmehr, the author of Wizārišn ī čhatrang, describes how the game of chess was sent as a test to Khosrow I (r. 531-79) by the "king of the Hindus Dēvsarm" with the envoy Takhtarītūs and how the test was answered by the vizier Bozorgmehr, who in his turn invented the game Backgammon as a test for the Hindus. These three Middle Persian sources do not give any certain indication of the date when chess was introduced into Persia. The mentions of chess in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan and Khosrow and ridag are simply conventional and may easily represent late Sasanian or even post-Sasanian redactions. According to Touraj Daryaee, Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan is from 6th century. Wizārišn ī čhatrang was written in the 6th century.
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SPACE HULK
Space Hulk is a board game for two players by Games Workshop. It was released in 1989. The game is set in the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000....
Space Hulk is a board game for two players by Games Workshop. It was released in 1989. The game is set in the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000. In the game, a "space hulk" is a mass of ancient, derelict space ships, asteroids, and other assorted space debris. One player takes the role of Space Marine Terminators, superhuman elite soldiers who have been sent to investigate such a space hulk. The other player takes the role of Tyranid Genestealers, an aggressive alien species which have made their home aboard such masses.
In Warhammer 40,000, the term "space hulk" is used to refer to any massive derelict space ship. Due to the shifting, immaterial nature of the Warp, an otherworldly realm through which space ships may travel between the stars far quicker than they would be able to through real space, some space hulks are jumbled and twisted agglomerations of multiple vessels lost to the Warp throughout centuries or millennia. Space hulks may house more than just Genestealers; other threats aboard can include human followers of the dark gods of Chaos, nightmarish Warp Daemons, and Orks who use space hulks as their "standard" method of interstellar travel.
Genestealers were described in an entry of the "Aliens and monsters" section of the first edition of Warhammer 40,000 (the "WH40K - Rogue Trader" manual), but they were very different from their Space Hulk incarnation, which was more influenced by the xenomorphs depicted in the Alien franchise. Since the 1990s, subsequent games like Warhammer 40,000 and Epic have absorbed them as part of the overall Tyranid army where they serve as the shock troops, although their origins are not related to any other Tyranid broods. A force composed purely of Genestealers can still be fielded as a sub-type of the Tyranid army, in what is known as a Genestealer Cult. The Cult is described in the in-game background as an infiltration force that weakens a target planet, infecting the local population and causing civil unrest in advance of the arrival of the main Tyranid hive fleet.
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