I'm in need of some help. I love being able to give my players cool props and items at the table to help bring things to life (physical letters, puzzle boxes, special items etc).
Recently my players have been trying to hunt down some hags and they have located the priest who was on the hunt before them. He has learned how to see the hag's true form but in doing so, has been driven mad and insane. The party has decided to leave parchment and ink in the cell the priest has been detained in and if that's not an opportunity to create something awesome.
I think it would be good to be able to give a puzzle of some description which will lead to the location of the hag but I'm not sure how to translate that idea into something physical.
The question is, what?
Any thoughts, ideas, and inspiration would be greatly appreciated.
The scrawling of the mad priest are a map. Draw a map, cut it into 15 pieces and "hide" them around the cell, one successful investigation check finds one piece of the map as does one successful persuasion/deception/intimidation skill check on the mad priest.
When arranged the map forms a 4x4 square with one piece missing, the missing piece can be located somewhere interesting, maybe the priest scrawled it on a piece of paper and made it into a "bird" (paper airplane) and threw it out the window or scrawled it on his stomach or on scrawled it in bodily fluids under his bed or maybe it was drawn on his bed sheet and his prison warders have just taken it to the laundry or he may refuse to draw the last piece and they need to use charm/dominate person or Detect Thoughts to get the last piece.
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YouTube has some tutorials on how to make invisible ink. you could have a paper that seems crazy but has a secret message written on it that you need to hold into a fire(lemon juice) or cast a detect magic(black-light and diluted highlighter) to read.
I think it would be good to be able to give a puzzle of some description which will lead to the location of the hag
Easiest to make a substitution cipher. Just type out the description of how to get to the hag's location, then change the font to something unreadable: like Draconic, Fiendish, Elvish, wingdings, etc. (these can be downloaded easily for use in MSWord or a similar word processor)
The players can then just manually decipher it by writing down letters below likely common words (like "the", "a", "I" etc.) and continuing from there. Make sure to double-space and use large fonts to give them room to do this. If they don't know this trick, you can later provide hints to start them off... maybe the crazy person points to a single word and says the translation.
Rather than pieces of a single map give them 3 maps of different places and scales accompanied by cryptic or random phrases.
One of the maps could be of the region but with obvious errors like a town in the wrong place. An associated phrase "The town of Westmarch is not what it seems, Barron Del Tor holds court here"
Another map depicts a smaller region and has a detailed and distinctive castle next to a river. A history check identifies it as the now ruined castle a few days away and was the home of the Del Tor family. Another note says "The Red fish spawn here"
The third map shows a house, barn, fields, well and the sacred grove. The last note states "I returned home last month but lost my way fetching water"
If you place the second map over the first with the castle over the (incorrectly located) town of Westmarch the top of the river ends in a area of forest. If they figure this out then it's an easy check to notice the forest and sacred grove are the same shape. If not they discover the river next to the ruins starts at a spring in the woods, but not the same forest as the first map. Matching the two woods to each other then drawing a line between the house and well points to the town of Great Hold on the first map. On the second + third map the line between house and well crosses a symbol for temple (or some type of business), the line between house and grove does not correspond to anything. Other symbols on the second map (smithy, market, barracks, bank) overlay towns or places on the first map.
Matching only first and third map will give them the city (or other general location) but not where.
Matching first and second has several possible combinations of city/ specific structure.
Matching second and third tells them it's a church etc but not the city.
Or a Rubik’s Cube with the map on the surface instead of the colored squares.
Hmmm, I think you’d have to leave an outline of the square colors though....otherwise it’d be like doing any small square puzzle where all the pieces are exactly identical in shape, but way harder to move around.
Hey guys,
I'm in need of some help. I love being able to give my players cool props and items at the table to help bring things to life (physical letters, puzzle boxes, special items etc).
Recently my players have been trying to hunt down some hags and they have located the priest who was on the hunt before them. He has learned how to see the hag's true form but in doing so, has been driven mad and insane. The party has decided to leave parchment and ink in the cell the priest has been detained in and if that's not an opportunity to create something awesome.
I think it would be good to be able to give a puzzle of some description which will lead to the location of the hag but I'm not sure how to translate that idea into something physical.
The question is, what?
Any thoughts, ideas, and inspiration would be greatly appreciated.
Initial idea on reading your post...
The scrawling of the mad priest are a map. Draw a map, cut it into 15 pieces and "hide" them around the cell, one successful investigation check finds one piece of the map as does one successful persuasion/deception/intimidation skill check on the mad priest.
When arranged the map forms a 4x4 square with one piece missing, the missing piece can be located somewhere interesting, maybe the priest scrawled it on a piece of paper and made it into a "bird" (paper airplane) and threw it out the window or scrawled it on his stomach or on scrawled it in bodily fluids under his bed or maybe it was drawn on his bed sheet and his prison warders have just taken it to the laundry or he may refuse to draw the last piece and they need to use charm/dominate person or Detect Thoughts to get the last piece.
YouTube has some tutorials on how to make invisible ink. you could have a paper that seems crazy but has a secret message written on it that you need to hold into a fire(lemon juice) or cast a detect magic(black-light and diluted highlighter) to read.
Easiest to make a substitution cipher. Just type out the description of how to get to the hag's location, then change the font to something unreadable: like Draconic, Fiendish, Elvish, wingdings, etc. (these can be downloaded easily for use in MSWord or a similar word processor)
The players can then just manually decipher it by writing down letters below likely common words (like "the", "a", "I" etc.) and continuing from there. Make sure to double-space and use large fonts to give them room to do this. If they don't know this trick, you can later provide hints to start them off... maybe the crazy person points to a single word and says the translation.
probably a bit late but -
Rather than pieces of a single map give them 3 maps of different places and scales accompanied by cryptic or random phrases.
One of the maps could be of the region but with obvious errors like a town in the wrong place. An associated phrase "The town of Westmarch is not what it seems, Barron Del Tor holds court here"
Another map depicts a smaller region and has a detailed and distinctive castle next to a river. A history check identifies it as the now ruined castle a few days away and was the home of the Del Tor family. Another note says "The Red fish spawn here"
The third map shows a house, barn, fields, well and the sacred grove. The last note states "I returned home last month but lost my way fetching water"
If you place the second map over the first with the castle over the (incorrectly located) town of Westmarch the top of the river ends in a area of forest. If they figure this out then it's an easy check to notice the forest and sacred grove are the same shape. If not they discover the river next to the ruins starts at a spring in the woods, but not the same forest as the first map. Matching the two woods to each other then drawing a line between the house and well points to the town of Great Hold on the first map. On the second + third map the line between house and well crosses a symbol for temple (or some type of business), the line between house and grove does not correspond to anything. Other symbols on the second map (smithy, market, barracks, bank) overlay towns or places on the first map.
Matching only first and third map will give them the city (or other general location) but not where.
Matching first and second has several possible combinations of city/ specific structure.
Matching second and third tells them it's a church etc but not the city.
A Chinese puzzle box with the map inside.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Or a Rubik’s Cube with the map on the surface instead of the colored squares.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I think there’s several free supplements out there if you just search d&d puzzles.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Hmmm, I think you’d have to leave an outline of the square colors though....otherwise it’d be like doing any small square puzzle where all the pieces are exactly identical in shape, but way harder to move around.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks