Congo

Congo is a chess variant, invented in 1982 by Demian Freeling when he was just 7 years old. All the main pieces are (African) animals, each with different moves. The lion is the 'king', whose capture wins the game. More information on the moves of all the pieces, further rules, and more information is given here and here. The game is clearly and strongly influenced by Xiangqi: consider the river, the palaces and the 'flying general' rule. 

I decided to make my own version, using faux leather for the board, and small plastic animals for pieces (found two bags full of them on Amazon).

I still had quite some faux leather left from making the boards for my Klin Zha and Tablut sets; plenty for a Congo board. First, beige and tan leather squares were cut to size ...

... and then glued to the back of a sheet of black leather.

Board done!

Then the pieces. Congo's main pieces are African animals:

In front of the main pieces in the starting array in Congo is a row of pawns, but I decided to take the 'animal theme' one step further and to have the pawns also represented by animals. Not African, but Australian; plenty more animals in the bags I bought!

So here's the full set-up on the board:

Quite pleased with it!

Nigerian thorn carving set

I regularly post pictures of made or acquired chess sets, often with links to this blog, on my Facebook page. A friend of mine from the kite-flying community must have seen those, because he contacted me to ask if I was interested in a wee chess set, hand-made by someone in Nigeria. He wasn't using it, it was just collecting dust, so ...

Obviously I said "yes"!

The board is made of wood, and the pieces are carved from the thorns of a particular tree:

Thorn carving is a traditional Nigerian art form, and the material the thorns are made of is soft enough to lend itself to being carved. 

Two colours of thorn material, light brown and dark brown are used for the pieces.

I really should mention the name of the guy who made the set (or at least the name that was on the back of the board): Lawrence Ajibula.