Jan 13, 2025
Author's Commentary #308:
Time to talk about Chapter 308: Lover of the Russian queen.
The Ra-ra-Rasputin homages just keep coming, and the party, at least in Rasputin's eyes, is far from over. 5 more players have lost, leaving just the mysterious bald woman to possibly turn things around. Since said woman's name isn't fully revealed, I'll talk more about her in next chapter's commentary. As for the other new characters, let's discuss them.
アグネタ・クロンホルム (Agneta Cronholm) is how Agneta's name would be spelled in katakana.
Her birthday is April 30th, which she shares with Swedish Women's FIDE master, Anna Cramling.
Her favorite piece is the knight.
Agneta is an obvious homage to Swedish Women's FIDE master and content creator, Anna Cramling. I originally had a game where the Cow opening, which Cramling invented, was played against Rasputin and still lost, but I ended up scrapping it simply because I realized it wouldn't work canonically due to the fact Rasputin started each game out in a specific way.
グレイザ・キトリアーノ (Glaiza Quitoriano) is how Glaiza's name would be spelled in katakana.
Her birthday is November 14th. I chose the date at random, so there's no greater significance behind why this date is her birthday.
Her favorite piece is the bishop.
Glaiza is a mercenary hailing from the Philippians. As such, she's more on the wild side, but has a good heart deep down. Though it can be hard to tell especially considering she's constantly hog-tying, gagging, and dangling her teammate on a rope over a lit candle for amusement.
エヴァンゲリア・オイコノモウ (Evangelia Oikonomou) is how Evangelia's name would be spelled in katakana. Ευαγγελία Οικονόμου (Evangelia Oikonomou) is how it would be spelled in Greek.
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
Her birthday is October 27th. I chose the date at random, so there's no greater significance behind why this date is her birthday.
Her favorite piece is the pawn.
Evangelia hails from Greece, though she's frequently at odds with Greece's top female player, mainly due to the fact that said woman treats some of the other team members horribly. If you've seen the artwork of the Greek women's team, you might have an idea on what angle I'm going for with said team, but if not, it'll likely come into play in the main story somewhere down the line.
Shifting back to the games, these games were actually much harder to come up with due to the starting moves. Of the 13 people Rasputin challenged, 8 were playing as Black with the others playing as White. For those 8 playing as Black, each was faced with a different opening, e4, d4, etc. The f4 one was easily the hardest one as finding a fast checkmate was tricky. In fact, the reason the final game, which started out with 1. h4, is getting it's own chapter, is due to the fact that it goes on for a while.
It appears like it will be the last game, but if you pay close attention to Rasputin's dialogue, you'll note he states that there are 2 opponents left. See if you can figure out who that final opponent could be, before it's revealed next chapter.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
