Numeric associations with Lore of the Forgotten Realms / Sword Coast
Would very much appreciate any input regarding your associations of numbers with Lore of Forgotten Realms / Sword Coast
I want to throw a simple numerical puzzle at my players like say a Magic square but with an added layer, instead of directly having numbers ie 1 2 3 4 I'd like to have a cryptic text referring to some lore of sword coast from which they can infer a number... Ie 1 = Unity of Ao 15 = Thrice-Accursed Tiamat
The puzzle is supposed to be an ancient High Netheril portal key which would influence lore time line associations
The Particular numbers I'm looking to associate 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11
Thanks for any replies input thoughts
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I think the Dead Three could be good for, well, three, and something about Shar and Selune could work for two. The Ten Towns in Icewind Dale might work for ten if your players are familiar with them, Tiamat definitely works for five, and you could use one of the Lords of the Nine if there's a number you can't find anything else for. Other than that, I don't know enough about FR to help very much.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
The Seven Sisters. Ed Greenwood wrote a whole book about them on DTRPG. It reads like a cheesy romance novel, but if you can stand the flowery language and the long descriptions of Laeral Silverhand getting a massage from her boyfriend it’s worth picking up for the lore.
ah super thank you @Thauraeln_The_Bold and @PenelopeTheWeaver I got myself some audio books of R. A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt: Neverwinter Saga to listen to which I think helped me DM the Neverwinter setting and possibly improved my descriptions of the blood soaked cut and thrust of frenzied attacks on my players, I'll have a look for Ed Greenwood
The Ten Towns in Icewind Dale and Lords of the Nine, interestingly I'm pretty sure my players have no idea of them but that's also rather the point with the puzzle to introduce snippets of lore and colour the world as it were for them
Thanks again for your input suggestions ideas wishing you happy BeasterBunnies
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Thought I give a update as to what I think I'll go with and why
The Magic square in Question
276 951 438
it all adds to 15 vertically, horizontally and diagonally
Numeric associations in FR/SC lore
*1 - Unity - Ao *2 - Duality - Shar Selûne *3 - Triangle - Trinity - Mystryl - born of Shar and Selune *4 - Square - four para-elemental planes (Smoke, Ice, Ooze, Magma) *5 - Hand - the Mage hand - hand of fate *6 - elemental planes - Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Positive Energy, Negative Energy *7 - Heptagon - elven star *8 - spider - Lolth - Queen of the Demonweb Pits - Queen of Spiders *9 - enneagon - Asmodeus Lord of the Ninth - Hell The Lords of the Nine - the Nine Hells - Lords of Hell *15 - Thrice accused Tiamat
I got a bit stumped on 5 and 7 but as 5 the central field is the one the one I want to have missing having the answer be something appropriate of High Netheril arrogans seemed appropriate. 7 - I really would have liked to go with the 7 sisters daughters of Mystra but this portal would have been made before Karsus's Folly, the fall of Netheril and death of Mystryl and rebirth as Mystra so it doesn't fit the time line. 4 - 6 the para-elemental planes and elemental planes I think may have changed abit but it lets me go into abit about how the Netherese were proponents of the Great Wheel cosmology compared to the more current World Tree Cosmology and World Axis cosmology models.... franky they all make my head hurt and hopefully I don't get it so wrong that it totally ruins reality
Thanks again for you input wishing you all the best
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Update on how it went... So ran the puzzle scene last night thought I'd just give an update on how it went...
think it went quite well only took a little prompting from the NPC to ask for the meaning of a particular hieroglyphic squigle for the players to get into the basics of how to start solving the puzzle...
Typically due to time constraints I didn't go into anywhere near as much detail about FR lore as I thought I might ie Shar, Selûne, Lolth or thankfully the differences between the Great Wheel cosmology and World Tree Cosmology and World Axis cosmology...
The only real surprise for me was my players figured out it was 5 that was missing before realizing that all the rows columns diagonals added to 15 purely because 5 was the only missing number from 1 to 9 :)
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Numeric associations with Lore of the Forgotten Realms / Sword Coast
Would very much appreciate any input regarding your associations of numbers with Lore of Forgotten Realms / Sword Coast
I want to throw a simple numerical puzzle at my players like say a Magic square but with an added layer, instead of directly having numbers ie 1 2 3 4 I'd like to have a cryptic text referring to some lore of sword coast from which they can infer a number...
Ie
1 = Unity of Ao
15 = Thrice-Accursed Tiamat
The puzzle is supposed to be an ancient High Netheril portal key which would influence lore time line associations
The Particular numbers I'm looking to associate 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11
Thanks for any replies input thoughts
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I think the Dead Three could be good for, well, three, and something about Shar and Selune could work for two. The Ten Towns in Icewind Dale might work for ten if your players are familiar with them, Tiamat definitely works for five, and you could use one of the Lords of the Nine if there's a number you can't find anything else for. Other than that, I don't know enough about FR to help very much.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
The Seven Sisters. Ed Greenwood wrote a whole book about them on DTRPG. It reads like a cheesy romance novel, but if you can stand the flowery language and the long descriptions of Laeral Silverhand getting a massage from her boyfriend it’s worth picking up for the lore.
ah super thank you @Thauraeln_The_Bold and @PenelopeTheWeaver
I got myself some audio books of R. A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt: Neverwinter Saga to listen to which I think helped me DM the Neverwinter setting and possibly improved my descriptions of the blood soaked cut and thrust of frenzied attacks on my players, I'll have a look for Ed Greenwood
The Ten Towns in Icewind Dale and Lords of the Nine, interestingly I'm pretty sure my players have no idea of them but that's also rather the point with the puzzle to introduce snippets of lore and colour the world as it were for them
Thanks again for your input suggestions ideas wishing you happy BeasterBunnies
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Happy Beaster! 😊
Thought I give a update as to what I think I'll go with and why
The Magic square in Question
276
951
438
it all adds to 15 vertically, horizontally and diagonally
Numeric associations in FR/SC lore
*1 - Unity - Ao
*2 - Duality - Shar Selûne
*3 - Triangle - Trinity - Mystryl - born of Shar and Selune
*4 - Square - four para-elemental planes (Smoke, Ice, Ooze, Magma)
*5 - Hand - the Mage hand - hand of fate
*6 - elemental planes - Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Positive Energy, Negative Energy
*7 - Heptagon - elven star
*8 - spider - Lolth - Queen of the Demonweb Pits - Queen of Spiders
*9 - enneagon - Asmodeus Lord of the Ninth - Hell The Lords of the Nine - the Nine Hells - Lords of Hell
*15 - Thrice accused Tiamat
I got a bit stumped on 5 and 7 but as 5 the central field is the one the one I want to have missing having the answer be something appropriate of High Netheril arrogans seemed appropriate.
7 - I really would have liked to go with the 7 sisters daughters of Mystra but this portal would have been made before Karsus's Folly, the fall of Netheril and death of Mystryl and rebirth as Mystra so it doesn't fit the time line.
4 - 6 the para-elemental planes and elemental planes I think may have changed abit but it lets me go into abit about how the Netherese were proponents of the Great Wheel cosmology compared to the more current World Tree Cosmology and World Axis cosmology models.... franky they all make my head hurt and hopefully I don't get it so wrong that it totally ruins reality
Thanks again for you input wishing you all the best
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Update on how it went...
So ran the puzzle scene last night thought I'd just give an update on how it went...
think it went quite well only took a little prompting from the NPC to ask for the meaning of a particular hieroglyphic squigle for the players to get into the basics of how to start solving the puzzle...
Typically due to time constraints I didn't go into anywhere near as much detail about FR lore as I thought I might ie Shar, Selûne, Lolth or thankfully the differences between the Great Wheel cosmology and World Tree Cosmology and World Axis cosmology...
The only real surprise for me was my players figured out it was 5 that was missing before realizing that all the rows columns diagonals added to 15 purely because 5 was the only missing number from 1 to 9 :)
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again