paizo.com - Titanic Games / Messageboards / General Discussion / Stonehenge Puzzle Answers (spoilers)


Mike Selinker (Titanic Games Lead Designer), Wed, May 16, 2007, 04:30 PM

As you may have noticed, I wrote five puzzles in the Stonehenge series, and there are five games in the box. Each puzzle matches one of the games in some oblique way. What follows are the answers to all the puzzles. These are all spoilers, so if you want to solve the puzzles, don't click the spoiler buttons. Autumnal Equinox Puzzle Spoiler: This puzzle matches James Ernest's game about the individual rocks of Stonehenge. Certain stones light up when you mouse over them. Those stones can be numbered in a clockwise manner from the top of the structure (e.g., the orange stone is in the 2nd position from the top), and the colors they showed could be placed in rainbow order (ROYGBIV). The numbers could then be converted to letters (A=1, B=2, etc.), to spell OBELISK. Samhain Puzzle Spoiler: This puzzle matches Bruno Faidutti's game about the druids at Stonehenge. This puzzle is a caesar shift, a code named for Julius Caesar, who gave us our early info about druids. Counting clockwise from the top right capstone, the number of the stone tells you how far back in the alphabet to shift the gibberish word, going back to the Z if you reach the A. So if the fifth stone has a druid saying "JRUJWTW'X," you'd rotate the letters back 5 places to get EMPEROR'S. Getting all the answers right spells "Emperor's sword whose name means 'Yellow Death.'" Julius Caesar's sword whose name means Yellow Death is CROCEA MORS. Winter Solstice Puzzle Spoiler: This puzzle matches Richard Borg's game about the Knights of the Round Table. Each clue leads to a 5-letter answer, four letters of which go (in some order) in the numbered outer stones and one in the trilithon identified by the Roman numeral. Each outer stone is filled four times by the same letter. The clue answers are these: 1. PAGAN; 2. ROCKS; 3. ARAWN; 4. PLAIN; 5. CELTS; 6. WOMAN; 7. ELFIN; 8. DEATH; 9. CHANT; 10. DWARF; 11. UNION; 12. DAVID; 13. GROVE; 14. LUNAR; 15. POUND; 16. TRACK; 17. DEVIL; 18. GIANT; 19. THROW; 20. LINES; 21. WELSH; 22. MAGIC; 23. OGHMA; 24. KNIFE; 25. CHAMP; 26. NIGEL; 27. DRUID; 28. FLAME; 29. CLOCK; 30. VENUE. The stones around the outside had these letters: 1. D; 2. N; 3. O; 4. A; 5. F; 6. L; 7. N; 8. O; 9. W; 10. G; 11. A; 12. N; 13. S; 14. K; 15. U; 16. M; 17. A; 18. C; 19. T; 20. I; 21. P; 22. C; 23. E; 24. I; 25. D; 26. L; 27. E; 28. R; 29. H; 30. V. Reading the red blanks spells NOW PLACE ONE IN EACH AND FIND A GROUP ON TRILITHONS WHICH MAKE A MIDDLE CLUE. This is a hint that the letters that go in the central trilithons can be scrambled to make five characters from Arthurian legend: GARETH, GAWAIN, ARTHUR, ELAINE, and MERLIN. The Arthurians are a hint that what goes in the middle stone is the answer to the puzzle. Only one thing goes in a stone in the legends of King Arthur: his mighty sword EXCALIBUR. Imbolc Puzzle Spoiler: This puzzle matches Mike Selinker's game about aliens. Each grouping has several druid figures of specific colors. The number of a particular color of druids leads to a specific space on the Stonehenge board. So, for example, if there are two blue druids, you need the number of the second blue space on the board. These can be converted to letters (A=1, B=2, etc.), and then those letters in each grouping will be scrambled to make the clue ON THE ALIEN SHIP SHE HAD HER CAT JONES. In the ship Nostromo in the movie "Alien," the woman whose cat was named Jones was ELLEN RIPLEY. Vernal Equinox Puzzle Spoiler: This puzzle matches Richard Garfield's magic spell game. Each three-part sacrifice has the same consonants, in order, as a famous magic-using character. Using new vowels (AEIOUY), the answers in clue order are: ELMINSTER (ale-moon-satyr) from the Forgotten Realms; HARRY POTTER (hero-rope-tea tree) from JK Rowling's books; MORGAN LE FAY (emir-iguana-leaf) from the King Arthur legends; PROSPERO (ape-oar-spear) from Shakespeare's The Tempest; GANDALF THE GREY (gondola-faith-augury) from The Lord of the Rings; RINCEWIND (iron-cow-nude) from Terry Pratchett's Discworld; PRUE HALLIWELL (pariah-ally-wall) from Charmed; THULSA DOOM (toe-Helios-dame) from Robert E. Howard's Conan series; MARY POPPINS (moor-pipe-pansy) from P.L. Travers' books; WILLOW ROSENBERG (owl-lawyer-sun barge) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; RITA REPULSA (art-ore-opals) from The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers; SAMANTHA STEPHENS (someone-atheist-peahens) from Bewitched; TIM THE ENCHANTER (Tiamat-hunch-nature) from Monty Python and the Holy Grail; DOCTOR FATE (doe-cat-raft) from the Justice Society of America; ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ (lyric-female-Nubian) from Michael Moorcock's novels. Putting them in order of the blanks lets you spells three new sacrifices: DICE-TOURIST-RING. These can make a final character, DOCTOR STRANGE. Thanks for playing along!