A Riddle-Smith's Delight | Free D&D Puzzle
Sometimes the best D&D puzzles are the ones that sound much harder than they actually are. A Riddle-Smith’s Delight is an easy riddle puzzle that challenges players to listen carefully, separate relevant details from distractions, and figure out how many people are really in the garden. It works especially well as a lock for a secret room, treasure chamber, or dungeon passage, and can easily be made more dangerous by having the sphinx punish incorrect answers.
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A Riddle-Smith's Delight
Difficulty: Easy
The room features a hollow statue in the form of a sphinx that delivers a riddle to the characters who must answer it correctly to solve the puzzle.
When the characters enter, read the following:
The only visible object in this unlit room is a button on a marble pedestal. You can barely read the sentence carved into the marble which says, “Test your mind to see the unseen.”
For characters with darkvision, add the following information:
In addition to the marble pedestal and writing, you see a stone figure on the other end of the room. Beside it are a pair of bronze braziers. Also, to your eyes, the sentence carved into the marble reads, “Test your mind to see the unseen. Once the riddle is spoken and your decision made, speak thine answer.”
Once the button is pressed, the braziers magically light, illuminating the room. Then read the following:
The room lights up, revealing the full form of the stone statue—a sphinx—on the back end of the room. The statue’s mouth moves as it speaks, and its voice is gravely and rough. “To proceed, the riddle you must answer aloud. It will be stated but once.” There is a brief pause before the statue continues with the riddle. “One ruler saw six servants while going towards the garden. Every servant saw two knights guarding the garden. Every knight held a chest full of gold, brimming with gems and coins. How many people were in the garden?” The statue then stops moving altogether, becoming inanimate once more.
Puzzle Features
The puzzle primarily works with a button and auditory stimuli. A magical ward is within the hollowed-out sphinx, accepting the answer to the riddle when spoken. The statue protects the ward within it against damage, and the puzzle is only solved when the riddle is answered correctly.
Solutions
The puzzle tricks the listener into guessing the answer incorrectly. The ruler saw six servants while on the way to the garden. The servants were present on the way to the garden, but not actually in the garden. There are only two knights in the garden, guarding it, and thus each servant saw two knights.
This means there are actually only three people in the garden, the ruler and the two knights.
Hint Checks
If the players are having difficulty solving the puzzle, their characters can make checks to receive hints:
Intelligence (Investigation) DC 10. The character realizes that the riddle mentions the servants but not where they are and that each servant saw the same number of knights in the garden.
Intelligence (Investigation) DC 15. The character receives another reading of the riddle as they muse over the details.
Customizing the Puzzle
The riddle causes confusion around the number of people in the garden, the number of people heading to the garden, and those that are not in the garden by using clever wordplay. You can make it more vague or add additional loops into the riddle, such as more people seeing the knights or more knights being seen entering or leaving the garden.
By altering the kind of creatures mentioned in the riddle, you can place the riddle into different settings. For example, you can replace the human royalty with an orc war chief and turn it into a riddle regarding a battle and the number of combatants in it.
Raising the Difficulty
You can make the riddle deadlier by having the statue react for every false answer, casting a spell at the party in response.
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