Kinda embarrassing, but I need some help

[Aleolus]

Hey all. I hate that I need to ask for this, but I am building a treasure hunt for my players, and the location is pointed to via a riddle that's been passed down in a legend for a few hundred years. However, I am terrible at coming up with riddles, so I need some suggestions. The treasure is hidden at the end of a cave complex that will have a handful of traps and some monsters leading up to it, but the cave can only be accessed by an opening about 40 feet in the air on a cliff face. I know I want to reference the setting sun, as the cliff faces the west, but other than that I don't know.

[Crake]

Using a riddle alone and nothing else begs the question as to why nobody else has ever solved it and found the treasure before. You should include some missing piece of the puzzle that the players alone have through some other means to patch that plothole. That also allows you to justify making the riddle much easier, as riddles on their own aren't great puzzles, they're either instantly solved, or the players will have no clue and it will just be frustrating.

[Aleolus]

Hmm, good idea. I'm not sure how I'll go about them finding that, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to use to point the way, but that is a good start. I suppose the first step would be to decide more about where the cave is, rather than just 'a west-facing cliffside.' Hmmm. A cave within a small inlet of the sea, with a large number of jagged rocks below it, making accessing it dangerous at best, deadly otherwise. The only way to safely access it is to either be able to fly, or to climb down from the top and hope you don't lose your grip (for the record, the pirate who hid his treasure here, Captain Lightheel, had a special pair of boots that would allow him to jump 30-40 feet with each leap, so he could jump from rock to rock and jump into the cave)

[Jack_Simth]

Hmm, good idea. I'm not sure how I'll go about them finding that, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to use to point the way, but that is a good start. I suppose the first step would be to decide more about where the cave is, rather than just 'a west-facing cliffside.' Hmmm. A cave within a small inlet of the sea, with a large number of jagged rocks below it, making accessing it dangerous at best, deadly otherwise. The only way to safely access it is to either be able to fly, or to climb down from the top and hope you don't lose your grip (for the record, the pirate who hid his treasure here, Captain Lightheel, had a special pair of boots that would allow him to jump 30-40 feet with each leap, so he could jump from rock to rock and jump into the cave)
Perhaps an old diary? The passed down riddle is just an old poem that's had a few lines dropped every here and there. The old diary has the original version - with explanation - and a note that it's so his friend down in X will be able to find it after a short walk out of town.

So the original poem might be something like....


Where the world ends in roiling mist
And the sun takes her rest
If you take the leap under the crying tree
And look under her breast
Away from the sea - it's too much for me
You'll find the golden chest.
Line by line:
"Where the world ends in roiling mist" - That's about what you see if you look over a cliff where a river feeds into the sea. The waterfall makes it look very much like the world ends there.
"And the sun takes her rest" - Sunset, west side of the area.
"If you take the leap under the crying tree" - Weeping willow, go down.
"And look under her breast" - Just being poetic, here.
"Away from the sea - it's too much for me" - Look back at the cliff.
"You'll find the golden chest" - that's where it's stored.

Then the "common" version is something like:

Where the world ends in roiling mist
If you take the leap under the crying tree
And look under her breast
You'll find the golden chest.

[Maat Mons]

Since the height of the cave is 40 feet, and 40 is two score (a score is 20), you could have the commonly-available version contain a line that says "to score up," and the original, correct version instead say "two score up." So when the players get to the spot where treasure hunters have been meticulously counting anything and everything, and also scratching lines on anything and everything, they'll be the first ones to thoroughly search the cliffside 40 feet above them.

[RNightstalker]

It takes strength to ask for help. So look yourself in the mirror for that.

As far as the riddles go, watch National Treasure or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...maybe those will get the creative inspiration juices going. KOTOR has some good riddles in it too.

Is the cliff face against the sea or a canyon?

[Aleolus]

Against the sea. With this being a pirate, it only makes sense to have it against the ocean, rather than inland at all. I really like the suggestions so far, guys, thank you. I can even have his diary be on his ship, which ran afoul of a sea hazard, the Devil's Teeth. There is no public record of what happened to Captain Lightheel and his crew, but the fact is that he made the mistake of trying to steal from a dragon's horde without the dragon being dead. The dragon, when he learned of it, chased the ship into the rocks there, and proceeded to pick off and eat the entire crew, starting with the captain. The moral being, don't try to steal from a still-living red dragon

[MR_Anderson]

Hey all. I hate that I need to ask for this, but I am building a treasure hunt for my players, and the location is pointed to via a riddle that's been passed down in a legend for a few hundred years. However, I am terrible at coming up with riddles, so I need some suggestions. The treasure is hidden at the end of a cave complex that will have a handful of traps and some monsters leading up to it, but the cave can only be accessed by an opening about 40 feet in the air on a cliff face. I know I want to reference the setting sun, as the cliff faces the west, but other than that I don't know.


Hmm, good idea. I'm not sure how I'll go about them finding that, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to use to point the way, but that is a good start. I suppose the first step would be to decide more about where the cave is, rather than just 'a west-facing cliffside.' Hmmm. A cave within a small inlet of the sea, with a large number of jagged rocks below it, making accessing it dangerous at best, deadly otherwise. The only way to safely access it is to either be able to fly, or to climb down from the top and hope you don't lose your grip (for the record, the pirate who hid his treasure here, Captain Lightheel, had a special pair of boots that would allow him to jump 30-40 feet with each leap, so he could jump from rock to rock and jump into the cave)

I would make more than one riddle, probably 3 or 4, and make the riddles provide the whole picture of the location.

1st Riddle could name the location by town or area and the travel from the closest town to a rough area.
2nd Riddle could explain from a particular landmark that isn’t unique, but without the first you don’t know which sets of mountains or wells make the second leg to the top of the cliff
3rd Riddle could explain in the rock face entrance and the traps to be ready for, or how to navigate the maze.
4th Riddle could explain the final trap or curse.

I’m thinking of this like a set of 4 love poems...
1st his travel to a city where the man meets the love interest of his life
2nd is attributes of the woman’s beauty, with maybe the breasts describing mountains, lakes describing eyes, something
3rd becomes the explanation of the challenges of snares and pitfalls of the relationship.
4th could be short and sweet how he learned how to leave his heart with the treasure of his life, as what was once his, but now has become his wife’s, so that he doesn’t wreck everything and need to flee to the sea.

Like any good pirate knows, no single key will get you a treasure.

A Bard could get you the Legendary part to put together the old Pirate also went by the pen name of who ever, and you come across the books piece by piece.
You could allow Cartographer and/or Knowledge Geography roll for the first two parts.
Decipher Script or Dungeoneering Could Solve the 3rd part.
The 4th and final writing could be player only or sense motive check.

Throwing some ways to make it simple but still difficult.

[Roninblack]

Where the land is locked it takes a drink
But be-ware and mind the teeth
Behind the jaws is where the throat meets
The entrance is there if you have light feet

When the dawn breaks its dark as night
But Near the dark night
Lightheels rest is sunlit bright

[Roninblack]

Where the land is locked it takes a drink
But be-ware and mind the teeth
Behind the jaws is where the throat meets
The entrance is there if you have light feet

When the dawn breaks its dark as night
But Near the dark night
Lightheels rest is sunlit bright

[Aleolus]

Ooooh, I like that one, Ronin. I think I will use that, and then have a part be absent as per Crake's suggestion. How about


Where the land is locked it takes a drink
The entrance is there if you have light feet

When the dawn breaks its dark as night
But Near the dark night
Lightheels rest is sunlit bright

Then have the rest of it in the journal on his old ship. As for getting pointed to the ship, Lightheels has a descendant in the city they will be in when they find this (not the one who puts them up to find the treasure), but none of his family have dared to visit it due to a belief that the ship was cursed, and that's why it ran into the rocks the way it did. In actuality it was driven there by the angry red after it found the ones who stole from it's horde.

[Aleolus]

OK, I have the setting pretty much taken care of, now my question is a simpler one. How should I generate what is in the treasure horde? I already have three items determined, because they are the three things that the person giving the quest is asking for out of everything (the party can do what they like with everything else). A ruby the size of a fist and shaped like an egg, a scepter with a black moonstone set on the top, and a golden chalice with brilliant sapphires set in the sides.

[Morty_Jhones]

you kidding? this is a red dragons hord!

ok 1st decid what DC the chalenge is. also is this a mega loot, ie well done you did it now on to the next game roll chars everone (then it could be wealth beyond counting)
but i suspect not....
other wise it should realisticaly be a level apropreate loot + the golden chest.

the value should be 4x apropreate to level of jems

the problem comes from MOVING this chest and claiming it value. one of the main resions the chest is still here is becuss its masive weight prvented it from being washed away.

this valuble chest is at least 1000lb in mass, I would do it 100 times its value if the party is lower level (say 5 or less)

if they can chop it up and get this back to town then they can get a level aproprate in cash of gold and lead by selling it to the local jewlers or mabie more if they can mange to safely haul the dam thing all the way back to the family in one piece for a 10% bonuse.

[Segev]

You should also ask yourself why this riddle exists. Generally, treasures are hidden in such a way that only the person who hid it, or his chosen recipient, can find them. A riddle might be a "test of cleverness" or something, but (as has been alluded to) could also just be a test of whether the answerer can guess the number the riddler was thinking. Or thinks sufficiently like him to come to the same conclusion as the riddler, at least, rather than a different conclusion that answers it just as well but is "wrong" by not being the answer the riddler thought of.

If it's meant to convey a coded message, then that tends to work best if the intended recipient either has an explicit codebook or shares some common but obscure knowledge (and "the color of the eyes of that girl we fought over as our first crush" qualifies, for example; it doesn't need to be academically obscure, and is best if it's obscure because only the intended recipient should know it).

The riddle only making sense if you happen to already know it's on this particular island or near this particular mountain is one way to do it: thousands of places have been tried that maybe matched the riddle, but the PCs have found the right one (or got the map to the right one). But then, why bother with a riddle? "Go to the cave on the western slope. Ten feet up, you can clear out the scree that obscures the cave mouth to get in," would be plenty obscure if nobody knows which "western slope" in all the western slopes with scree on them in the world is the one he's talking about.

So, I'm thinking "coded message for intended recipient" is the best reason for a riddle, but you can come up with others as long as you remember to make sure a riddle is the best (or at least most in-character for the treasure-hider) means for getting his treasure protected from all but the (kinds of) people he wants to have access to it.

If you do go with a coded message, then determine who he MEANT to have it, and what obscure knowledge/information they could have shared that would make it obvious to them. "Beneath a house - now gone - where none but memories ever dwelt lies my second most-valuable treasure," might be a very clear clue to the treasure-hider's best friend, who knows a) that the hider's "most valuable treasure" was a small fired-clay statuette made for him by his dead daughter, and b) that the treehouse they once played in as kids is now gone but was frequently an inside reference between the hider and the best friend who is the intended recipient of this message. So he knows, hearing it, to go to the lost tree house's location and look beneath it. Still might have to dig around, but he has the gist of it and knows WHERE to look.

Everyone else is going to be scouring the world for "now gone" houses and trying to figure out of they're allegorical since "none but memories ever dwelt" in them.

[Aleolus]

you kidding? this is a red dragons hord!

ok 1st decid what DC the chalenge is. also is this a mega loot, ie well done you did it now on to the next game roll chars everone (then it could be wealth beyond counting)
but i suspect not....
other wise it should realisticaly be a level apropreate loot + the golden chest.

the value should be 4x apropreate to level of jems

the problem comes from MOVING this chest and claiming it value. one of the main resions the chest is still here is becuss its masive weight prvented it from being washed away.

this valuble chest is at least 1000lb in mass, I would do it 100 times its value if the party is lower level (say 5 or less)

if they can chop it up and get this back to town then they can get a level aproprate in cash of gold and lead by selling it to the local jewlers or mabie more if they can mange to safely haul the dam thing all the way back to the family in one piece for a 10% bonuse.

To be clear, Captain Lightheels was trying to be clever by only taking a tiny amount of the dragons horde, not realizing that dragons literally know every single piece of their treasure trove and therefore know if even a single coin is missing. The only things he took from it were the three things the person asking them to find the treasure is asking for, the ruby, the scepter, and the chalice.

The cave is above water, so it couldn't get washed away, and I am thinking about applying the principal of a Bag of Holding to it (extradimentional space, probably one or two steps above the biggest bag listed in the DMG, and a flat weight no matter how much is in it).

And as for the intended recipient, I am thinking it was intended to be a way to help his crew remember how to find their horde, when new members came on, or if they had to get to it when the captain was away. Would that work? Part of what has helped it remain hidden is the fact that there is an overhang over it, so it can only be seen from the sea, unless you happen to be able to fly and are at the right elevation.

[Hua]

It could be that the Captain, knowing how dangerous a pirate's life can be, wrote the riddle so his daughter/son/lover could get it if he died.
In that way, you have a valid reason for why it was written.

If it has been a couple hundred years, the diary could have found its way anywhere, including a sage/wizard/cleric's library.
This could also tie into the 'multiple part' aspect. Said person could have lived in the town where the pirates spent the winter. Such places frequently get attacked by annoying heroes, thus the treasure never recovered. Someone's diary would hardly be the type of thing heroes would worry about. It could have been cleaned up by whatever locals came back, or part of the stuff hirelings grabbed once the good loot was gone.

Sadly, any monsters listed better be undead or such. Otherwise how do you explain something like Ogres 'several hundred of years later' still hanging out in a cave?