The Adair Game of Stones

Also called Fal Dachai, the game was actually invented by a Hilael merchant in the eleven hundreds but they used the mysteries around Adair culture to help sell the game better claiming it to be an ancient game that the Adair had kept secret for millenia much like how they still keep the recipe of elixir secret. The name Fal Dachai is the phrase “go home” poorly translated into Adairic. The simplicity of the game caused it to catch on quickly, unfortunately that same simplicity allowed many people to produce their own sets, all information on the original creator has been lost.

The game is played on a seven by seven board and originally used sixteen stones eight red and eight white. Modern boards use a wide variety of pieces but still refer to them as stones.

The two people playing each take one of the colors of stones and set five centered on the second rank, the remaining three stones are held in hand. Turns then alternate starting with the red player. On a player's turn they can perform one of four actions: place, move, take, pass. To place a stone a player takes a stone from their hand and places it into any space on the board. If they have no stones in their hand they can’t place. To move a player takes any stone on the board and moves it to a space on the board that is orthogonally outward from a square that is diagonal to the stones starting position. If a space a player wishes to move a stone to is occupied by another stone they cannot move the stone there. In order to take, a player moves a stone two spaces in a straight line in which the closer space is occupied by their opponent's stone, they then move the opponent's stone to a bank region off one side of the board. If after taking a piece there is another viable take move with the same stone the taking player may continue to take until there are no stones that stone can take. If a stone is in a position where it can take a stone but the second space it moves to is off of the board, the taking stone goes home being set in a home region on the opposite side of the board to the bank. A player can pass if they have stones in the bank instead of performing one of the other actions they take all of their stones in the bank into their hand. The first player to get three stones home wins. Alternatively if a player ever has no stones on the board they lose