Your favorite Poetic Prophecies/Riddles from DnD

[BRC]

What's a good fantasy story without a foreboding poem or riddle etched outside the door of the ruined temple or whatever? A little bit of forshadowing to creep the players out and make them jump at shadows. A basic Sight-rhyme that neverless adds some good atmosphere to the scene. I know my DM can't be the only one who likes using these, so I want to hear about favorites from your past adventures, or ones you intend to use, or just cool ones you though up that somebody could use.


I just though up one I'm going to use next session, the PC's are going to head into a ruin, inside the ruin there is a Reanimated Fossil Mega raptor (though I'm going to call it a T-Rex because I want to), inside there is part of an epic spell that was once used to destroy a city called Karack, though that was so long ago it has been forgotten, the PC's don't know anything about what's in said ruin. When they approach the doorway, a trio of statues (each statue has two lines) is going to say this (The PC's can understand them because the statues are using a Tongues spell)

Across the Land it once did lumber
Now it sleeps in stony slumber.

It guards to secret of Karack's bane
To prevent it's use again.

So heed this warning that we sing
Lest you wake the tyrant king.

[Prometheus]

I really do have to post my wonderful riddle resources again: Thieves Guild, Exeter Book of Riddles, and The Berkeley Riddle database. Exter is a real anglo-saxon book of riddles, authentic with old english, with the only drawback is the occassional reference to a monotheistic God which means some riddles don't fit in most D&D campaigns.

And now for stories of riddles and puzzles actually used in campaigns. This one was used when I was a character and was rather difficult to solve but was solved eventually with everyone's help, exactly as it should be. I recommend it.

I don't have it right now, but once I wrote a page long traditional rhyming riddle in which a fire spirit speaks about a strange land and the players have to say where. "I tell you of a land I did so scare // it fleed at first upon the ground / and thereafter took to air // and soon it was nowhere found." Later he noted that even as the land was scared, it harmed and defeated him handly. He was referring to a snowy land (a specific one), which melted and evaporate but drained him of his fiery power.

I had players stumble upon a room with a bookshelf empty except for fixed bookends and books scattered all over the floor. The books are empty, but if you put them in the right order on the bookshelf, the titles form sentences which end at every bookend. Title like "Of Ambition", "To Enter the Wild", and "Wolves and other Treacheries". It helped that the sentences were about the very quest they were on.

I had a prophecy which stated "No one of ilithid blood shall ever be seen alive again" which ended up meaning that all the ilithid's were granted natural invisibility, and proceeded to wreck havoc on the world.

[Dr Bwaa]

@Prometheus

Those are great!

I've always wanted to use more of these in my games, but my players have so much of a tendency to ignore any plans I try to make, it gets difficult to insert them mid-session when I have to rewrite half a poem because it's now a vampire wereboar saying it instead of a magic mouth at the front gates of an ancient ruin that said, I do have a big dungeon with quite a bit of this sort of thing planned out and ready, but I can't say anything about it yet because it's coming up soon in our campaign and several of my players read these boards.

[Totally Guy]

I remember one time I asked what the etchings said above a locked stone door and I was able to decipher script.

It said

"Speak melon and enter."

So then we said melon. And it let us in.

[KillianHawkeye]

Across the Land it once did lumber
Now it sleeps in stony slumber.

It guards to secret of Karack's bane
To prevent it's use again.

So heed this warning that we sing
Lest you wake the tyrant king.

If you don't mind a little critique, the 4th line seems a little too short and is messing up the rhythm. I reccomend changing it to:

To prevent it's usage ever again. or
To prevent it's usage once again.

Also, I assume you meant to type "It guards the secret..." in the 3rd line? And maybe consider changing "wake" to "awake"? Maybe not.