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That's OK; sometimes I even confuse myself.

"Swap Castling": The King and Rook trade places.

I meant what you are unsure on the "intervining pieces" part?

You, HG, have found a case where fast castling is ok because you granted some special blocking power of some pieces towards the otherwise unblockable pieces. That works in those games. But what about 12x12 or 14x14 games that don't have leaping generals? Fast castling is a way to cheap move. I think the player should need to put some work into castling because the gain (king safety) is pretty high.

In variants where the King starts behind multiple rows of pieces, King safety becomes an issue only very late in the game. Unless there are a few jumping pieces and pieces that can block those, which battle on another 'level', where the board is only sparsely populated, and the King is smothered by the normal pieces.

I don't think it would ever be much of a challenge to castle, no matter how many moves it takes to make that possible. The point is that the opponent would have to do it too. E.g. in the case of Shogi, where there is no special castling move, players typically just walk the King to a corner, and surround it with defending pieces, before they even start thinking about attacking. So the major effect of slowing the King's progress towards a safe fortress in the corner is to extend the game with a relatively uninteresting 'prelude'. Depending on your taste you might want to eliminate that, or elevate it to an important strategic decision. I don't see any market for an intermediate case, where you make it just a bit boring and not very important.

@HG, I will still keep it in the back of my mind. It could prove handy someday.

Oh! By "intervening pieces," I mean pieces between the King and the Rook.

Ok, so what are you unsure about the intervining pieces?

What I was unsure of is whether I was remembering the (house) rule correctly, that there could be pieces in the way for this kind of Castling.

Ok, Bob!

Aurelian wrote a while back, in regard to my fast castling idea:

"...I think the player should need to put some work into castling because the gain (king safety) is pretty high. That even if regularly fast castling very soon into the game might not be a good idea because "it shows the hand" of that player."

The first sentence reflects my most serious concern about fast castling; on the other hand, it may help reduce the edge/initiative the first moving player (White) has in many if not all CVs - including chess itself, maybe, if fast castling were a rule to be used. Indeed, one chess grandmaster once commented that he knew he could get castled and developed with White in most games, but with Black it wasn't as sure.