Black Chess Rook Rotated Ninety Degrees

A notation sign, not a rule for how the rook moves.

Fairy chess covers chess puzzles and variants that change the pieces, rules, board, or goal. A rook is the tower-shaped piece that travels straight along rows or columns; a turned rook shape can mark an unusual mover. The problem's key or an agreed convention gives that piece its exact moves.

In hot-metal printing, a printer could reuse a cast-metal chess type block—a small block carrying a symbol—by turning it before printing, rather than cutting new type for each fairy piece. Chess-problem composer Thomas Rayner Dawson helped popularize fairy chess in the early 20th century.