Help with a puzzle [Archive] - Wizards Community

Help with a puzzle [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Tilienh
09-21-04, 12:04 PM Hello our DM put the players with this puzzle. We are stuck atm and need some help from fellow players/dm. Here it is.

Link to the Puzzle (http://www.geocities.com/tilienh/puzzle2.htm)

The players in the group belives that the puzzle is a riddle or some sort because it looked familiar the the last puzzle we got. If you have questions post them and i will reply asap. This is the same puzzle as posted in the general boards but with alittle luck trying to figure it out...
Good luck and thank you
The Man from Uncle
09-21-04, 12:20 PM Good puzzle. You say you solved one that was a bit like this before. What was the trick?
eudas
09-21-04, 01:14 PM is it kind of a word-find? because i've found lots of words, but in any collection of letters you're almost bound to.

never, rots, hand, far, rib, to, demand, tour, hit, the, while, wills, far, fare, live, ...

right now i'm pondering if maybe it's a word-find, you get a collection of words, and then have to match them into the right letter-slots at the top to produce a message that is the hint as to what to do.

example: NSTHR
[characters study the word find]
"never slide the hand right!"
So Lidda pushes the hand on the statue and a secret door opens.

or whatnot...

then again, i have a habit of overcomplicating things and completely missing the obvious hint.

eudas
eudas
09-21-04, 04:49 PM so far, i've treated it as a sort of word-find and i've found 17 words:

never
rots
hand
far
you
demand
tour
hit
the
while
vise
live
pod
chart
fare
wills
tax

could be 18 if you count 'nob'.

i could have some "unintended" words selected as well, if it works the way i'm thinking.

i'm not sure about the NWWSTEDWTBOOARIYH at the top yet, but i'll figure that out... it's 17 chars long...

still not sure wha the X's are for, or the '.' characters...

2nd possibility: you take the 17 words out that begin with the 17 letters above, and then the remaining letters cascade down (tetris-style) to form a mesg?

bah.

still at the drawing board...
i'd have to shoot my DM. :)

eudas

p.s.

hrm, a few more words:
mire
nude
den
will (from WILLS)
ever
bid
and (from HAND)

eudas
The Man from Uncle
09-21-04, 04:59 PM I got a sneeking suspicion that there are not 3 words in that grid that start with a 'W' which you'd need to make words in that long old bunch of letters a the top. There might be something to the word find, but my gut says thats not it.
eudas
09-21-04, 05:04 PM I got a sneeking suspicion that there are not 3 words in that grid that start with a 'W' which you'd need to make words in that long old bunch of letters a the top. There might be something to the word find, but my gut says thats not it.

you may be right; so far as i can tell, there is only one W in the entire grid. there are 3 possible words so far:

will
wills
while

not sure if i can find any more from W. I'm not so desperate yet as to count two-letter words such as "We", "of", "an", etc.

eudas
The Man from Uncle
09-21-04, 05:28 PM you're right, i jumped to conclusions. My gut still holds that you might be barking up the wrong tree though.

Having said that if you are right i am sure that a few short little words must crop up (Trying forming a 17 word sentance without at least one small word).
Tilienh
09-21-04, 05:33 PM Sorry i found an error in the puzzle and fixed the error. Here is the new link:
Updated Puzzle (http://www.geocities.com/tilienh/puzzle2.htm)
eudas
09-21-04, 05:54 PM ah, that's frustrating...

well i tried a couple more solutions:
1) crossing out every letter on the chart at the top (NWWSTED...etc) that showed up on the chart, looking for a pictographic representation of something, or a pattern, or a phrase in the remaining letters.
2) doing the inverse, and crossing out every letter that isn't in the initial sequence.
3) counting every 17th letter and using it?
4) counting every 17th letter and crossing it out?
...
i dunno. day's almost over, maybe i'll give it another go tomorrow.
good luck to y'all on it.

eudas
Eladris
09-21-04, 06:16 PM Never Will We Succumb To Evil's Demand
While The Blade Of Our Ancestors Rests In Your Hand.

Now if I only knew what it meant... Nice puzzle.

;)
eudas
09-21-04, 06:45 PM Never Will We Succumb To Evil's Demand
While The Blade Of Our Ancestors Rests In Your Hand.

Now if I only knew what it meant... Nice puzzle.

;)

ahh. damnable puzzles.

we hates them! baggins!

eudas
Nifftin
09-21-04, 06:51 PM Nice puzzle indeed. What was your technique?
Eladris
09-21-04, 07:12 PM Well, at first I assumed you'd have to remove the letters given above from the puzzle - but there weren't enough Ws.

I saw some of the words in the puzzle, "Never", "Hand" and "Demand" jumped out first.

So, like eudas, I assumed that each of the 17 letters were words to be removed from the puzzle. Word finds were one of my favorite kinds of puzzles when I was a kid so... finding words to match the letters wasn't too hard. Certain parts of the puzzle, especially the 'WW' and the 'OO', were the easiest because there are so few words that make sense together in a sentence with the puzzles limited selection. I actually guessed the words "Blade" and "Ancestors" from their starting letters and found them that way.

Filling in the blanks was easy: Just find the letter you're looking for and search in each of the 3-8 directions around it until you find a word.

The world "Evil's" is still a stretch. I thought it was a name at first until I saw "EVILS" spelled from the bottom line towards the top right of the puzzle.

I'm sure the Xs and .s would have been helpful but I hadn't frustrated the possibiltiy of the word search, yet, so I never thought to figure out their significance.
Tilienh
09-21-04, 07:49 PM Thank you for all your help and inputs for this.
Vanigo
09-21-04, 08:24 PM Hmm. I don't think the puzzle's done yet. There's still the thing about "seventeen removed and the hammer fall." Once you remove the seventeen words, you're left with:
IMN

EH
TP A J
LO F
HSD PB
BT E N
V NM. J
A KD.
FA
And then there's the X.X.X.X.X. at the bottom.

Any ideas where to go from here? I don't think it has anything to do with the word "hammer," since there's no R left.
Tharivol
09-21-04, 09:06 PM Were "blade" and "rests" in the puzzle with the error? I know "succumb" wasn't. Well, I was close, but Eladris beat me to it after you corrected it. :embarrass
Thelandrach
09-22-04, 09:35 AM If you use "rots" instead of "rests," there's still an "r" in the puzzle.
Mern
09-22-04, 10:51 AM I sure hope you post the solution when you know the answer... Because this puzzle has me really bugged. :confused:
Tharivol
09-22-04, 04:20 PM "Rots" comes from "ancestors" backwards. And "rests" makes more sense anyway. When I posted mine I looked for "rests" but it wasn't there so I used "rots" instead. With my version the line addressed an evil person, now it seems to address a leader-type person.
Veraciraptor
09-22-04, 04:28 PM I was looking at this yesterday, and it works much better with the correction!

OK, remove the 17 words of the rhyme from the grid (I came up with the same sentence as Eldaris above) and you have either 32 or 33 letters left over [1], ignoring the X's and .'s. "Hammer fall" could mean the letters fall down, as it were, into a new arrangement. Or it could mean they are simply to be anagrammed, but I think that's less likely with two J's. Or it could mean something else I haven't thought of.

Could be a cryptogram to decipher, for which the pattern of letters is vital. See [1]. Very difficult with so few letters.

And is "CALERIA" part of the puzzle? Where was the puzzle found? Any more context?

[1] ...depending on which of the four IN's you take out. Also two OF's. Poorly formed puzzle.
Tharivol
09-22-04, 05:03 PM When you take out all the words and have the rest of the letters cascade down, I get this:
I
EHAJ
TPODFEMNB
VLSTNM.PN
AHBKD.FAJ
That doesn't make sense to me at all. Am I missing something? And yeah, is "CALERIA" part of the puzzle? Is what we have the answer or is there more to it. This is confusing. :confused:
eudas
09-22-04, 06:47 PM despite my initial brainstorming about it earlier, i'm disinclined to think that tetris-ing the letters downward is actually part of the puzzle. the word-find is fairly obvious (not to mention it works better when you're working on a fixed puzzle!), but...

...unless maybe it's a 2-generation puzzle, where one phrase works on one acronym and then you repeat the process with the remaining letters... recursive puzzles... but what DM would be that sadistic (and hard-working)?

eudas
Eladris
09-22-04, 07:01 PM There is a problem with removing the letters from the puzzle. Both "OF" and "TO" can be legally found twice in the puzzle (each joined to another word by one letter or free).

The "hammer fall" is a pretty way of saying "strike", I think, which indicates the second part of the puzzle involves the Xs and .s.

Haven't seen anything jump out, though. :twitch:

Yeah, I noticed someone above posted a similar comment: "IN" is also legally found at least 4 times. :weep:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tilienh 09-21-04, 12:04 PM	Hello our DM put the players with this puzzle. We are stuck atm and need some help from fellow players/dm. Here it is. Link to the Puzzle (http://www.geocities.com/tilienh/puzzle2.htm) The players in the group belives that the puzzle is a riddle or some sort because it looked familiar the the last puzzle we got. If you have questions post them and i will reply asap. This is the same puzzle as posted in the general boards but with alittle luck trying to figure it out... Good luck and thank you
The Man from Uncle 09-21-04, 12:20 PM	Good puzzle. You say you solved one that was a bit like this before. What was the trick?
eudas 09-21-04, 01:14 PM	is it kind of a word-find? because i've found lots of words, but in any collection of letters you're almost bound to. never, rots, hand, far, rib, to, demand, tour, hit, the, while, wills, far, fare, live, ... right now i'm pondering if maybe it's a word-find, you get a collection of words, and then have to match them into the right letter-slots at the top to produce a message that is the hint as to what to do. example: NSTHR [characters study the word find] "never slide the hand right!" So Lidda pushes the hand on the statue and a secret door opens. or whatnot... then again, i have a habit of overcomplicating things and completely missing the obvious hint. eudas
eudas 09-21-04, 04:49 PM	so far, i've treated it as a sort of word-find and i've found 17 words: never rots hand far you demand tour hit the while vise live pod chart fare wills tax could be 18 if you count 'nob'. i could have some "unintended" words selected as well, if it works the way i'm thinking. i'm not sure about the NWWSTEDWTBOOARIYH at the top yet, but i'll figure that out... it's 17 chars long... still not sure wha the X's are for, or the '.' characters... 2nd possibility: you take the 17 words out that begin with the 17 letters above, and then the remaining letters cascade down (tetris-style) to form a mesg? bah. still at the drawing board... i'd have to shoot my DM. :) eudas p.s. hrm, a few more words: mire nude den will (from WILLS) ever bid and (from HAND) eudas
The Man from Uncle 09-21-04, 04:59 PM	I got a sneeking suspicion that there are not 3 words in that grid that start with a 'W' which you'd need to make words in that long old bunch of letters a the top. There might be something to the word find, but my gut says thats not it.
eudas 09-21-04, 05:04 PM	I got a sneeking suspicion that there are not 3 words in that grid that start with a 'W' which you'd need to make words in that long old bunch of letters a the top. There might be something to the word find, but my gut says thats not it. you may be right; so far as i can tell, there is only one W in the entire grid. there are 3 possible words so far: will wills while not sure if i can find any more from W. I'm not so desperate yet as to count two-letter words such as "We", "of", "an", etc. eudas
The Man from Uncle 09-21-04, 05:28 PM	you're right, i jumped to conclusions. My gut still holds that you might be barking up the wrong tree though. Having said that if you are right i am sure that a few short little words must crop up (Trying forming a 17 word sentance without at least one small word).
Tilienh 09-21-04, 05:33 PM	Sorry i found an error in the puzzle and fixed the error. Here is the new link: Updated Puzzle (http://www.geocities.com/tilienh/puzzle2.htm)
eudas 09-21-04, 05:54 PM	ah, that's frustrating... well i tried a couple more solutions: 1) crossing out every letter on the chart at the top (NWWSTED...etc) that showed up on the chart, looking for a pictographic representation of something, or a pattern, or a phrase in the remaining letters. 2) doing the inverse, and crossing out every letter that isn't in the initial sequence. 3) counting every 17th letter and using it? 4) counting every 17th letter and crossing it out? ... i dunno. day's almost over, maybe i'll give it another go tomorrow. good luck to y'all on it. eudas
Eladris 09-21-04, 06:16 PM	Never Will We Succumb To Evil's Demand While The Blade Of Our Ancestors Rests In Your Hand. Now if I only knew what it meant... Nice puzzle. ;)
eudas 09-21-04, 06:45 PM	Never Will We Succumb To Evil's Demand While The Blade Of Our Ancestors Rests In Your Hand. Now if I only knew what it meant... Nice puzzle. ;) ahh. damnable puzzles. we hates them! baggins! eudas
Nifftin 09-21-04, 06:51 PM	Nice puzzle indeed. What was your technique?
Eladris 09-21-04, 07:12 PM	Well, at first I assumed you'd have to remove the letters given above from the puzzle - but there weren't enough Ws. I saw some of the words in the puzzle, "Never", "Hand" and "Demand" jumped out first. So, like eudas, I assumed that each of the 17 letters were words to be removed from the puzzle. Word finds were one of my favorite kinds of puzzles when I was a kid so... finding words to match the letters wasn't too hard. Certain parts of the puzzle, especially the 'WW' and the 'OO', were the easiest because there are so few words that make sense together in a sentence with the puzzles limited selection. I actually guessed the words "Blade" and "Ancestors" from their starting letters and found them that way. Filling in the blanks was easy: Just find the letter you're looking for and search in each of the 3-8 directions around it until you find a word. The world "Evil's" is still a stretch. I thought it was a name at first until I saw "EVILS" spelled from the bottom line towards the top right of the puzzle. I'm sure the Xs and .s would have been helpful but I hadn't frustrated the possibiltiy of the word search, yet, so I never thought to figure out their significance.
Tilienh 09-21-04, 07:49 PM	Thank you for all your help and inputs for this.
Vanigo 09-21-04, 08:24 PM	Hmm. I don't think the puzzle's done yet. There's still the thing about "seventeen removed and the hammer fall." Once you remove the seventeen words, you're left with: IMN EH TP A J LO F HSD PB BT E N V NM. J A KD. FA And then there's the X.X.X.X.X. at the bottom. Any ideas where to go from here? I don't think it has anything to do with the word "hammer," since there's no R left.
Tharivol 09-21-04, 09:06 PM	Were "blade" and "rests" in the puzzle with the error? I know "succumb" wasn't. Well, I was close, but Eladris beat me to it after you corrected it. :embarrass
Thelandrach 09-22-04, 09:35 AM	If you use "rots" instead of "rests," there's still an "r" in the puzzle.
Mern 09-22-04, 10:51 AM	I sure hope you post the solution when you know the answer... Because this puzzle has me really bugged. :confused:
Tharivol 09-22-04, 04:20 PM	"Rots" comes from "ancestors" backwards. And "rests" makes more sense anyway. When I posted mine I looked for "rests" but it wasn't there so I used "rots" instead. With my version the line addressed an evil person, now it seems to address a leader-type person.
Veraciraptor 09-22-04, 04:28 PM	I was looking at this yesterday, and it works much better with the correction! OK, remove the 17 words of the rhyme from the grid (I came up with the same sentence as Eldaris above) and you have either 32 or 33 letters left over [1], ignoring the X's and .'s. "Hammer fall" could mean the letters fall down, as it were, into a new arrangement. Or it could mean they are simply to be anagrammed, but I think that's less likely with two J's. Or it could mean something else I haven't thought of. Could be a cryptogram to decipher, for which the pattern of letters is vital. See [1]. Very difficult with so few letters. And is "CALERIA" part of the puzzle? Where was the puzzle found? Any more context? [1] ...depending on which of the four IN's you take out. Also two OF's. Poorly formed puzzle.
Tharivol 09-22-04, 05:03 PM	When you take out all the words and have the rest of the letters cascade down, I get this: I EHAJ TPODFEMNB VLSTNM.PN AHBKD.FAJ That doesn't make sense to me at all. Am I missing something? And yeah, is "CALERIA" part of the puzzle? Is what we have the answer or is there more to it. This is confusing. :confused:
eudas 09-22-04, 06:47 PM	despite my initial brainstorming about it earlier, i'm disinclined to think that tetris-ing the letters downward is actually part of the puzzle. the word-find is fairly obvious (not to mention it works better when you're working on a fixed puzzle!), but... ...unless maybe it's a 2-generation puzzle, where one phrase works on one acronym and then you repeat the process with the remaining letters... recursive puzzles... but what DM would be that sadistic (and hard-working)? eudas
Eladris 09-22-04, 07:01 PM	There is a problem with removing the letters from the puzzle. Both "OF" and "TO" can be legally found twice in the puzzle (each joined to another word by one letter or free). The "hammer fall" is a pretty way of saying "strike", I think, which indicates the second part of the puzzle involves the Xs and .s. Haven't seen anything jump out, though. :twitch: Yeah, I noticed someone above posted a similar comment: "IN" is also legally found at least 4 times. :weep: