Worn runes on ancient ruins, scrawled annotations on old maps, scribbles in the margins of arcane tomes – cryptic text is a central part of the adventuring experience. Basic encryption schemes are an excellent way to embellish your campaign with a consistent textual theme while allowing for the inclusion of messages hidden in plain sight. This post describes a simple connected cipher, named Crypt, perfect for arcane languages and alien text.
A primer on guarded doors, honest and dishonest sentries, and tricky questions.
They're coming out of the ground, they're coming out of the damn ground, game over man, game over man!!!!
A new twist for a classic puzzle. There are 25 statues of horses around a chessboard, and need to be arranged properly to proceed.
A shape assembly puzzle that can be inserted into any cask/door/wall in a dungeon
Phantom Paths is a mirrored motion puzzle that requires collaboration among three players. Ready to be inserted into pretty much any dungeon or setting.
- The sculptures seem alive
- Your right, I think I know what to do with the horse, but I'm not touching the snake!
"Pass me the blue one." said Quinn.
"Are you sure?" asked Elise. "It's just, you were sure about the last two combinations, and that ceiling got closer both times."
"It's a gamble, I agree," replied Quinn, "but whatever's behind this door has got to be worth it."
Elise passed Quinn the blue stone which he placed carefully in the final slot. As the grinding began, Quinn looked to the door while Elise looked up...
Most criminals who are locked up as a punishment or to await trial are just confined in regular cellblocks or jails, but not all of them. Some are so dangerous that ordinary prisons just will not hold them. Others have secrets that cannot be allowed to be spread, or their crimes are so dreadful that they deserve a greater punishment then normal incarceration or even execution. In yet other cases the ruler had a nasty sense of humour...
An open room lay before them, occupied only by a few cobwebs and dust. Upon entering, a phrase is seen on one wall. One of them utters the phrase out of wonder for its meaning, unknowingly activating the room. An eye opens on the wall in front of the poor souls and with a quick flash of light, the last thing heard from the room is heart retching screams... then silence.
The Pendulum Puzzle is a simple ordering challenge backed up by a neat rhyme. Ready to be inserted into pretty much any dungeon or setting.
"We followed the map as best we could, periodically checking our bearings using the chronograph and the sextants that the seer had given us. Eventually we found the deserted location that corresponded to the coordinates on the rapidly disintegrating map. And we began digging...
"We started a trench that went down about fifteen feet into the baking sand and headed due South. After a few hours our spades rang with the sound of steel on stone and as it did so the group gathered round to see what we had hit. Some hand digging revealed a dark black stone that had been carved with a strange texture on it's surface like a series of overlapping layers of petrified tendrils frozen for perhaps a thousand years. It looked and felt utterly alien, and yet our goal lay in the centre of this forbidding artefact.
"Don't just laze about! Help with the seating arrangement! The guests will be here any minute, and the king said everything must be perfect tonight or heads will roll! Now remember, the King must sit at the head of the table with her majesty at his side. Lord and Lady Pemberton must sit next to each other but not next to either the Knight-Commander Gren or his wife.. The Priest Lenard mustn't sit next to any of the attractive Ladies, and the Matriarch will certainly cause a ruckus if not placed in a respectable seat, but don't put her near the wine fountain either. Also, the Ladies...."
Painted walls and a shadowy figure ... how can these insubstantial elements open that all-too-solid door? A locked-room puzzle with multiple solutions!
The tripwire activated a trap of such ferocity that even the bravest man among us quavered.
Tired of kicking down dugeon doors? This one kicks back.
Inside a mad scientists laboratory the PCs find a short creature with smooth, oily and whale like skin. The head is faceless and smooth also. But hundreds of white eyes on the PCs from the fat belly of this creature. The PCs are about to kill it as it speaks to them in a feeble but intelligent voice, asking them to pour the contents of a green vial on it. Will they do so? And if so, what will happen?
4xp
New Submissions
A geometric cut puzzle that can be inserted into any dungeon/door/treasure chest.