Item from The Wandering Inn by pirateaba
How Erin connects with everyone — the game she brought from Earth that changed the Antinium, enchanted a [Strategist], and made a Fraerling fall in love across an ocean.
Chess doesn't exist in the Innworld. Erin brought it. And because she did, the world changed in ways that a simple board game has no business causing. She taught chess to the Antinium Workers, and they developed individuality — the act of making strategic choices, of seeing possibilities, of thinking for themselves triggered something in a species designed not to think at all. She played Olesm Swifttail and made him a better [Strategist]. She played Niers Astorgeon by correspondence, and the greatest military mind in the world became obsessed with the unknown opponent who could match him move for move. The chess set in the Inn is just wood and paint. But it represents something larger: Erin's ability to connect with anyone through competition, teaching, and the shared experience of trying to think better than the person across the board. Chess in the Innworld is Erin's fingerprint — evidence that an Earther passed through and left the world different than she found it. Multiple chess sets exist now, spreading across Izril and beyond, but the original sits in the Inn where everything started.
Also known as: the chess set, chess board, Erin's chess