Human chess

A costumed human chess game has been staged every two years on the second week in September in the Italian city of Marostica, in Province of Vicenza, since 1923.

In xiangqi, human chess is a tradition in Vietnam, where it is called cờ người, and is a feature at many Vietnamese village and temple festivals.

Burroughs pulp novel The Chessmen of Mars depicts an ordeal called Jetan, which is a Martian variant of chess in which the pieces are all human captives, and captures in the game are replaced by fights to the death between them.

The book and movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone features a game of Wizard's chess with magically animated human-sized pieces.

An episode of the TV series Hunters featured a game of human chess, staged as having been played at a concentration camp during WWII.