589 boards.
You leave home with a plain black-and-white board — the first of your 589 — and the other 588 are the ones worth hunting. Those are graded the way chess players are, from Patzer at the bottom to Grandmaster at the top — and above all six grades sit nine Immortals, which are never for sale at any price.
How many of the 588 collectible boards there are of each grade:
- 131Patzer
- 115Wood-Pusher
- 111Club
- 116Expert
- 81Master
- 25Grandmaster
- 9Immortal
Most of them you buy, from the Boardwright in any town. Some are won from people you meet. And 124 of them come one way only: finish the lesson that reserves it, at a university chair. There is no other way to get them, at any price.
Chessboard 19
Chessboard 128
Chessboard 449 — an Immortal
Boards have no names — a number at the shop, the art on the shelf. You get to know one by playing on it.
The free demo is the first part of the game — two towns, Openfield and Frostford, and the road between them. Everything you catch there carries straight into the full game.