The first board I made from wood (photo near the top of the main page) turned out to have a dark/light square configuration opposite of the one described in the rules and pictured in all the instructive graphics. I noticed this pretty late! My bad. It matters for use of the free engagement, so, in order to move forward with a consistent site while respecting veney players who already made boards based on my mirrored board and photograph, I've settled on the following:

• I replaced the photo of the board & pieces with a flipped and corrected version, via photomanipulation, to be consistent with the rules and not mislead future visitors/players.
• There is now a “Standard” copy and a “Mirror” copy of the playable spreadsheet template. The “Mirror” version is what I had initially shared in contradiction of the written rules. Check your W1 square before using these and make sure that your display's “Dark Mode” / “Light Mode” setting isn't inverting the square tint.
• I'm going to continue playing on my mirrored board, for now.
• Any future veney stuff I share will conform to the board description as written.

This addresses the issue with the least amount of work/change (as opposed to redoing all the instructive graphics and reversing what I already published in writing). My apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this. You are now the owner of a rare first-edition misprint veney board.

It's shorter now! Sort of. This is a version of the rules with extraneous verbiage removed. There were also some minor phrasing edits to the quick piece guide and other areas which hopefully alleviated some common confusions. It remains v2.0 in essence, and is unrelated to plans for future developments / new directions.

This major update fixes a variety of loopholes and omittances, balances middle piece interactions somewhat, and attempts to cultivate livelier swordfighting on the board, moving past the earlier stages of cutthroat sword-and-dagger exclusivity, unused technicals, and wild exploits (not to dissuade anyone from seeking out more). Version 2.0 is called Scribe's Veney—not only to give it a proper name beyond a number, but also to emphasize that it's not the only way. I would still like to make an entirely distinct, distilled version of the game, and I hope that others someday will make their own.

• Added the Donkey piece to the custom rules section, described in full.
• Added the “Hug” mechanic to the custom rules section.
• Added piece set examples to the custom rules section (Archives Assassin, Aristocrat, Ceremonial Guard, and Illusionist).
• Added some notes on the notion of directionality and facing-direction of pieces and play to address a counterproductive implication arising from the old range constraints (See next point).
• Changed the language of range constraints for all armaments to extend into a measure/step “outside” the Self's measure, not “ahead” as previously, which breaks down when the players have moved past one another on the board.
• Changed the Dagger to reduce its capabilities and thus cultivate more maneuvering; the Dagger can no longer leap over any pieces, and it cannot execute a disarm unless you've lost your Sword.
• Changed the Guard's movement pattern by adding one-square diagonal movements to the existing Rook pattern.
• Changed the Jutsu's movement pattern to a two-square (leaping) move in any direction, plus the blink move extended to any measure, not just adjacent measures.
• Changed the rules of Shadow-Stabbing so that it only works when the opponent's Balance is on your side of the board.
• Changed the rules of Presence and Control so that they only work in the measure with your Self.
• Changed the rules of the moves Cavazione and Opposition so that the Sword can use them against the Dagger as well, and Dagger against Dagger.
• Edited Intention to further clarify some points around its reach, timing, use with double-moves, and use as a bluff.
• Edited the description of Flailing mechanics again to hopefully pin down the countours of this appropriately evasive, capricious concept.
• Edited the Guard's Deflection to stipulate that deflecting “backward” (toward your end of the board) only pushes an opponent's blade one square.
• Edited various other minor points for clarity and hashing out edge cases.
• Credits and special thanks as always to Jeff Rickert.

• Added three new custom piece ideas: Relational origin points, modular pieces, and measure-movements.
• Added the aspect “Floating Ruin,” which specifies that the Ruin can be placed from reserve anywhere within its movement range, ignoring the constraint of the piece-placement area.
• Changed the rules of the Lantern's special move Flailing; a flail move by the Lantern can now only leap over pieces in the next measure ahead of where it starts the move.
• Changed the rules of the Guard's special move Deflection to limit and clarify the movement of the deflected piece and emphasize the primarily defensive nature of the move.
• Changed the Balance's aspect of Control to additionally allow that it fends a Jutsu in the measure it enters.
• Changed the rules of Intention; eliminated the target-adjacency requirement on the blade (which was contradicted elsewhere and not very fun) and removed the explicit prohibition on immediately replacing a piece fended by an enacted intention (instead relying on the recently reduced piece placement area to most often prevent such a replacement on the same square).
• Edited the notes on Intention to specify that enacting intention is a move and can potentially be done in concert.
• Edited some language around Glare and the definition of a move to simply say that glare is an exception; made some other minor adjustments in the nebulous discussion of immaterial actions.
• Edited the box titles for both Glare and Intention to recategorize them as “aspects,” which they arguably are, to avoid calling them “special moves,” which includes the problematic word "move."
• Edited the Self's special move Concert to clarify that a pair of moves in concert do not block one other, and that the range constraint of the armament is based on the Self's new position.
• Edited the Sword section to add a note acknowledging that the Self's special Concert can circumvent the rule against a blade leaping over the Self.
• Edited Cavazione, Opposition, and Deflection to add a small note clarifying that these special moves can be the second in a double-move by stepping-stone or a move in concert with the Self.
• Edited the phrasing of the Cloak's Blade Capture move to clarify its basic mechanics w/r/t turns and opportunity to free the blade.
• Edited Blade Capture to stipulate that your own blade pieces cannot leap over your Cloak while it is performing a blade capture due to the presence of the opponent's blade.
• Edited Blade Capture to prohibit any Cloak move which begins and ends with a blade capture (of the same or a different blade).
• Edited the description of Impasse, Non-fencing to include the possibility of accidentally mismatched board states during a correspondence game.
• Edited a note at the end of Dagger Throw to clarify the logic around the untenability of placing the piece from reserve and throwing as a double-move.
• Edited the rules of Flailing to make clear that a flail attack from the Lantern may contribute to disadvantagement for disarm.
• Edited the rules of disadvantage to A) clarify that either blade may perform the disarm when both are used in the attack, and B) fix a reference to disarming a “blade” that should more broadly speak of disarming an “armament.”
• Edited the description of the Ruin/Rien's movement to say that it moves “pathlessly” in order to obviate questions about its leaping or not.
• Edited the Notation section; corrected some typos, added a description of how to notate the free engagement moving into play, added a note about specifying which engagement makes a move when it would otherwise be unclear, and entirely changed the last note suggesting how to separate moves and turns in your extended notation.
• Edited some phrasing of piece-shape descriptions, added illustrations of the cover fencers throughout, and made various other adjustments without relevance to the rules.
• Credits to testing contributors Jeff Rickert and SilverQueenRuby!

• Fixed the Dagger Throw diagram: The previous diagram implied an incorrect method of determining odds for the throw. The corrected diagram shows that the odds are determined by the measure-distance between the two opposing Self pieces.
• Changed the rules of placing pieces from reserve to clarify that range constraints still apply.
• Changed the rules of the Cloak's “blade capture” move to clarify that it consitutes an attack on the blade, and so it may amount to disadvantage for disarmament.
• Edited the “Terminology: Take or Fend?” section to discuss the chess-origin terms see and attack.
• Edited wording in the Dagger Throw section to remove some unnecessary and potentially confusing information: “...because a piece placement constitutes a full turn unless it is followed by Glare or Intention”

• Changed the rules of the free engagement so that it may now be used for en passant, double-moves by stepping stone, and can be leapt over by your blade pieces contingent on square-color-based possession of the piece by either player.
  
  Also made various fixes and clarifications around some references to piece placement and use of the word “place,” including...

• Changed the rules of Dagger Throw to correct and refine the distraction effect of a failed throw consistent with the similar effects of Obscurant Chaos and the rules of piece placement.
• Edited the title of the section “Placing Pieces” to “Placing Pieces from Reserve,” just to be clear.
• Edited the notes on a somewhat unnecessary theoretical game state called “Grappling” in the additional terminology section.
• Edited out a few odd instances of the word “place” and “take” which were understandably casual in usage but nevertheless imprecise.

• First release!
  
  
  Final changes made in the days/weeks before release included...

• Changed the rules of the free engagement: only the player with the pieces which match the free-engagement's square at any given time may move the piece.
• Changed the rules of Fending and Taking, heavily revised most piece-to-piece relationships.
• Changed the piece placement area to open squares adjacent to the Self (was previously all squares within the Self's measure and one measure ahead).
• Removed an edge-reflecting element of the Sword's special move Opposition, for simplicity's sake.
• Added a new piece: the Ruin/Rien.
• Edited the Custom Rules section to elaborate/insist on the idea of any given piece being optional, plus the idea of asymmetrical opposing sets.
• Replaced the deprecated disarmament condition “unsupported” (a blade in a measure without a supporting technical piece) with the new condition “disadvantaged.” Beyond the new condition's more appropriate and intuitive mechanics, note also that the original purpose of this change was simply to mitigate the possibility of one player building a relatively impenetrable wall using their Sword, Dagger, Guard, and Ruin.
• Fixed the logic of the rules around untenable moves and calling them out for penalty.