Sakko

Traditional symmetrical two-player game known from Sami areas of Norway since at least the nineteenth century, but may be significantly older. It might ulimately share roots with backgammon and/or pachisi. Each player has an even number of pawns (12 and 14 are known), the board has three rows each with one space more than the number of pawns (13 or 15). A larger king piece starts out neutral, but when captured becomes part of the capturing player’s army. It can be captured back and forth, but will never return to being neutral. It uses two or three four-sided dice (cubes with two opposing sides elongated into pyramids so the die can’t rest on them), marked I, II, III and X.