So, during the last game session, my players got to face down the old standby of all DM’s. No, not orcs with grenade launchers. Riddles. So, for the pleasure of my audience, I thought I would post those riddles here. And so, here we go.
1. What king can you make if you combine the head of a lamb, the middle of a pig, the hind of a
buffalo, and the tail of a dragon?2. At night they come without being fetched. By day they are lost without being stolen.
3. A woman has seven children, and half of them are boys. How is this possible?
4. I weaken great men for hours each day.
I show them strange visions while held in my sway.
I take them each night, although the day takes them back.
None suffer to have me, but do from my lack.5. A man walks over, a man walks under
in times of war he tears asunder.6. A beating drum useless bereft
of a twisting river mired in flesh.
The two note song its beating sounds,
leads an endless dance around and around.7. I have six sisters, don’t doubt that I do.
The oldest named so for all the books she perused.
The next in line was given the name of a fruit.
The third is easily frightened, a cowardly lass.
After her, the next loves to lay about in the grass.
The fifth suffers sadness that never shall pass.
The only sister younger than me,
Is frequently found with royal company.
Sometimes we all meet, after it’s rained.
So tell me my friend, can you guess my name?8. Three of one and one of another,
four from a sister and one from a mother.
Take away two when you visit the Hells,
and tell me out loud what your plundering spells.
Now, I feel it important to point out the context here. While breaking into a museum, the PC’s stumbled across a cunning trap. The box which held the keys to the exhibits (and thus the loot) was guarded by a summoned demon. (Technically, it was a yugoloth, but hellspawn don’t deserve political correctness.) The trigger that summoned the demon also summoned a Prismatic Sphere around the box. As a failsafe, the demon was under instructions to test the intelligence of anyone trying to get the keys (the rationale being that a museum curator would be able to answer the demon’s riddles, while thieves would not). Each correct question removed a layer of the sphere, and the final question would compel the demon to banish itself. However, whomever placed the trap did not think to give the demon a specific set of riddles. Hence the last one, which is a bit of a cheat. (Since answering it fulfilled the demon’s instructions, as well as giving it a new instruction that it would be only too willing to carry out.)
Oh, and for those of you who need them, here are the answers: (highlight to read)
1. A lion. (The king of the jungle.)
2. Stars. (Dreams would also have been acceptable.)
3. All of them are boys.
4. Sleep.
5. A bridge.
6. A heart.
7. Indigo. (The sisters in the riddle refer to the colors of the rainbow.)
8. Eat me.
I kind of thought that the seventh riddle might be a little bit obvious given the Prismatic Sphere, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The first five riddles are not mine, so I can’t take credit for them. The last three, however, I made up myself. I like writing riddles, and if I am guilty of anything as a GM, it is shoehorning them into my game.
1,2,4 – Pretty simple, but I like them. I thought of both for 2 as well but stars was my immediate answer.
3 – I found All of them based on previous experience with logic puzzles, but I find one could say one is a hermaphrodite.
5 – I didn’t like very much as one, but that is just personal taste.
6 – Threw me for a bit. Pretty good
7 – I started with deadly sins and virtues and didn’t get it for a while because my head wasn’t in it as far as dnd goes. I like it though very good. I got it once i read the part about summoning a prismatic sphere. probably use this one myself but for a rainbow or some other color coded thing.
8 – I am having a hard time with this one. If you will forgive me not see the obvious please explain it to me.
On a side note, Riddles are fun, but I tend to be really good at them. that is if you overlook number 8 lol, I got all these with in 5 minutes with 6 and 7 giving me some pause. My players aren’t usually good at doing riddles.
In dnd there is an INT score and so I tended to give my players a chance to solve the riddle unassisted, but then I had DCs set up to let them make Intelligence checks for hints. If you had an 18 in INT you could get up to 4 hints for your character because you had a high INT.
This allowed them to eventually get all riddles if they had high INT characters. if they were all playing low or average INT characters and couldn’t get it solved then they had to give up.
For the eighth riddle, it’s one of those spelling riddles. “Three of one” is E, “one of another” is A. (Since the third letter of the word one is E, and the first letter of the word another is A)
Once you spell it all out, you get “Eat Me.” At which point the demon responds, “With pleasure,” steps out of the circle, and starts going to work.
I read about a similar one (where the answer was ‘kill me’) and thought the idea of a cheater riddle, where the answer gave the riddler permission to kill the PC’s was just so cruel I couldn’t pass it up.
And although I didn’t use it, here’s a good one: When does half of eleven equal six?
Now i knew it was a spelling riddle but i was not getting it fully. the sister through me for some reason. i will blame it on the wii being played at the time. however i went on a divergent path and thought of the layers of hell.
anyway i knew it was something simple that i just wasnt getting.
6 is half of eleven like so XI cut in half is VI works with a lot of roman numerals and a good simple riddle that can really throw someone. like the spelling riddles.
Funny, I thought 5 was really good, but if Phil hadn’t gotten it, I wouldn’t have. And with 6, maybe it’s something that it’s better when it’s said aloud–Phil and I got that one pretty quickly because of the imagery when Jim read it to us.
I’ll never forget Sunshine saying “Eat me? What kind of answer is that?” Gah, thanks Sunshine for getting that started–although I guess someone was gonna have to say it.
[…] box is protected by a prismatic sphere. We proceed with the riddles, which I won’t go into, but Jim has them here if you’re interested. (And you totally should be—Jim had some good ones ready for us.) I personally don’t care […]