Fact is, modern games are based on ancient models. Othello is far simpler than the popular games of ancient times. The Egyptian game Senet which I mentioned earlier dates back to at least the fifteenth century BC. It might have been related to a game discovered at Ur (called the Royal Game of Ur for lack of its proper name), which is the oldest complete board game ever discovered; it is at least 4,600 years old. These were beautifully produced games, as well -- fine wooden boxes with inlays of semiprecious material, and pieces made of carved faience, ivory or bone. The Egyptians made their Senet game portable, too. The Senet box had the game board on the top, and a sliding compartment held the pieces and the casting sticks (since they had no dice).
Anyway, my point was more that elaborate "parlor-style" games would not be out of the question in one of the larger empires, such as Dara Happa or the Holy Country. The EWF would be a great candidate for making such a game as well. The main difference between parlor games and strategic games seems to be the rules. Strategic games seem to have a few hard rules, whereas parlor games have things like special squares or cases where the normal rules cease to apply; hnefatafl would be an example of a strategic game (although variants which included dice-rolling are known), while Senet or Chutes and Ladders are parlor games. Chutes and Ladders is another good candidate for a Lunar board game. It originated in ancient India, where it was used to teach morality to the young. The ladders stood on squares that represented different types of moral virtues or some such, and the snakes represented the opposite. Perhaps a variant called Winds and Ladders, with the ladders representing mysteries that lead to Illumination and winds representing impulses that lead to spiritual decline?
Roland Volz
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