Eight! Sorry for the omission.

Interesting puzzle. To prevent flooding the IC with questions, I'll ask them here.

Are the 'wrong' reflections the same in every mirror, or do they change between mirrors as well?

What are the different reflections?

What are the statues other than the knight, ogre and elf holding in their hands? And do they hold this item in their hand only in the reflection?

To answer your questions:

No, none of the reflections repeat in differences.

The reflections that do not match simply have the statues in slightly different positions and attire.

The demon holds a scimitar, the angel holds a glaive, the mage holds a staff, the priest has a holy symbol, and the woodland figure has a longsword. The items remain in the reflections

Nice work, team. I had the mirrors guessed (if indeed we are right), but for the life of me I couldn't figure out the rose answer.

I only realized because Griswold mentioned that this competition was about meeting a Rose. I had forgotten that small detail.

I'm going to update in 24hrs. Please have a plan in place by then.

I suggest we put the rose medallion in the knight's hands and see what happens. If nothing much, then touch the mirrors in order; if still nothing, then rearrange them.

Brimir is clearly inclined to start with the direct physical solution of rearranging the mirrors, however.

Personally, I have no idea. I'm basically an idiot when it comes to puzzles irl and never get the answers right (if you care, the spoiler section below has some of my random thoughts on the puzzle that probably miss the mark by a mile).  So, yeah, happy to go with whatever you guys want to do.

Only thing I will say is that I do feel like we are supposed to do something with all the items.  Seems too convenient that there are 8 mirrors, 8 statues and 8 medallions.  I've been trying my to come up with connections between all the things, but found nothing so far.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

I've had a brief look at the Greek, Norse and Egyptian Gods to see if there was any correlation between the symbols on the medallions and the statues, but nothing jumped out at me.  I have also reviewed the information we have about Arathia and a couple of things came up:

Of the orders of knights in Krieghold, there are 7 most well known:
Rose, Spring, Quill, Dragon, Golden Thread, Ashen Order, Coin

I think at some point, the Emperor may also have been mentioned as being considered a knight, bringing the total to 8.  Though that may have just been musings between me and our awesome GM.


There are also 8 'common' races to Arathia:
Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halflings, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Half-Dwarf, Ogres

If we're talking about the kingdom, it maybe that each is represented, but I do not know how they correlate if that is the case.


Otherwise, if we just go with the statues and medallions, the pairings might be something like:
Knight > Rose
Mage > Book / Jester
Woodland figure > Unicorn
Ogre > Ship (?)
Elf > Unicorn/Eye
Priest > Quill
Demon > Jester
Angel > Scales/Eye

/shrug

There could be 8 directions on a compass: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW

Could the order that the GM told us the information be important?
Words on the mirrors: (1) inspire, (2) the, (3) by, (4) lead, (5) kingdom, (6) example, (7) to, (8) entire
If I got it right, rearrange to: (4) lead (3) by (6) example (7) to (1) inspire (2) the (8) entire (5) Kingdom

Statues: (1) a knight in plate, (2) a mage in robes, (3) a figure in woodland garb, (4) an ogre with a maul, (5) an elf with a bow, (6) a priest with extended, (7) a demon, and (8) an angel
Using the rearranged order of the mirror words, could become:  Ogre, Woodland Figure, Priest, Demon, Knight, Mage, Angel, Elf

For the medallions we get:
Rose, quill, eye, book, jester, scales, unicorn, ship

There's probably a million other things that I could have tried that I haven't even thought of as well.  Its really annoying because I feel like the answer is staring me in the face and should be very simple, but I'm just incapable of tying everything together.

---

Oh - I will add that one of the original tenants that I wrote for the Roses was that they INSPIRE others.  Meaning that if I had to choose, that's the mirror I would place the knight and the rose in front of.  However, the tenants didn't make it to the Knowledge section of Arathia, so that might not even be a thing anymore.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:53, Sun 14 May 2017.

Tenants are in the Player Additions thread.

Oh, I just realized that I didn't explicitly mention the table is octal(8 sided). Sorry!

Ok, here are some thoughts.

Good call on the common races, I had forgotten about that! I noticed too that some medallions reflected the knight orders of Krieghold - though not all of them. Upon reading the background descriptions of those order, I noticed something. The Golden Thread order actually has a ship as symbol, and the custodians of the Coin have no symbol.

The Helmets of the Rose         - rose
The Spring Order                -
The Guardians of the Quill      - quill
The Dragon Legion               - scale
The League of the Golden Thread - ship
The Ashen Order                 -
The Custodians of the Coin      - none

That leaves the following medallions: book, jester, unicorn, eye.
I'm not sure if there's a connection to the knight orders now... If some symbols are not related to the knights, perhaps they are to other factions.

The eye could be related to the Watchers (Eyes of Yggdrasil).
The book is a symbol of mages (Obsidian Tower of the Magi). This could therefore be related to the Ashen order.
The unicorn and jester - no clue.

About the figures, all but the knight have something in hand. Though I'm unsure if it matters.

Knight in plate               -
Mage in robes                 -  staff
Figure in woodland garb       -  longsword
Ogre                          -  maul
Elf                           -  bow
Priest with extended (hands?) -  holy symbol
Demon                         -  scimitar
Angel                         -  glaive

Good catch about the 'inspire' being related to the Rose as well. I wonder if the order of how the figures and medallions were described matters though. I have the feeling those were random.

About the medallions, some make sense, some don't. I personally would've related the unicorn to the angel (they're both celestial beings right?). The following list makes sense to me (missing the eye, scale and ship)

Knight in plate               -               - rose
Mage in robes                 -  staff        - book
Figure in woodland garb       -  longsword    -
Ogre                          -  maul         -
Elf                           -  bow          -
Priest with extended (hands?) -  holy symbol  -
Demon                         -  scimitar     - jester
Angel                         -  glaive       - unicorn


One thing I was thinking of is this: the only figure who's stance doesn't change in the mirror's reflection is the knight. Noting that the Custodians of the Coin order has no symbol, perhaps this figure is already 'complete' and therefore doesn't change its reflection. This makes me wonder whether we can make the other figures' reflection also not change depending on the medallions we put on them. This would leave one medallion as an extra in the end though...

Ooh I didn't think of scales as in dragon scales.  I thought they were measuring scales, like those used to weigh things.  I allocated them either to the angel, in their duty as judges of whether or not someone can enter heaven (or perhaps Valhalla in this context?), or to the dwarves as merchant scales.  Your interpretation could work better.

@GM - could you confirm the type of scales we are looking at?

It would seems strange to only represent some of the knightly orders and not all of them imo.  However, the Eyes of Yggdrasil being the 8th group is very compelling, imo.

The Jester is a trickster.  A Trickster could be another term for a mage, or at least how members of the Ashen order view mages.  Loki is a trickster, but his tricks are magic after all.  So that could be their symbol maybe?  A tenuous link perhaps...

The book could also be for the Guardians of the quill, since it is their sworn duty to protect knowledge.  However, the quill itself seems to fit too well otherwise.
I'd like to think more on this but I have to be somewhere now.  BBL.

The scales are indeed of the reptilian type. Good question to ask. My RL tabletop game took nearly an hour to ask about whether each symbol is what they thought it was. Everybody had also assumed they were judgement scales.

Hmm so there may be other aspects of the items on the table which we have confused?  I'll try rolling investigation to see if I notice anything else then.

Nevermind - I only managed a 9.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:51, Sun 14 May 2017.

Evidently I hadn't considered this anywhere near in-depth enough. Definitely a good pick-up on the scales; I had assumed balance scales as well. Seems you're actually pretty good with puzzles, Griswold. :)

Looking at the orders (and the Watchers) along with their symbols I'm seeing a distribution something like this:



The three with question marks are particularly speculative. I put the Unicorn with Spring because of the association with woodlands, nature, and purity. The other two were a bit arbitrary. The book to represent the forbidden lore that the Ashen Order hunts down, and the Jester to represent the Knights Errant, similar to the wandering Fool of the Tarot card. I'm not saying it's not a stretch. Alternatively, the Jester could be a 'wild card' to fit the space of an order without a symbol.

If we drop the Watchers out of the equation and stick to the Knightly orders, I would suggest something like this:



The purity connection for Spring and the Unicorn; it's their job to hunt monsters. The Ashen Order are constantly watching everywhere for the incursion of dark magic (the Eye). And the Coin maintain the great knightly census, recording the names of the living and the dead (the Book). Which leaves the Jester as a 'spare' medallion (joker, red-herring, or representing the group themselves).

The table being eight-sided, each figurine has to oppose another. It could be that they are designed to have some kind of association in that regard. Looking at the different orders I thought perhaps there might be oppositions between them (assuming the Rose is unopposed), but the notes on relationships don't support that, as I read them. Several orders dislike the dragons, the remainder largely get along or don't care about one another.

In terms of contrast or opposition, the only direct opposition I see is Demons and Angels. The Priest might oppose the Demon, but then who would be against the Angel? The Mage?

Demon - Angel
Ogre - Elf
Knight - Woodland Garb
Priest - Mage

As for assigning the figurines to particular orders, I'm having trouble with that. The eight-sided table seems to imply that each side gets one statuette and one medallion.

@GM - Are the medallions on chains and of a size suited to put around the necks of the statuettes, or do the statues have settings/slots suitable for placing a medallion into? Does the table have any grooves, slots, or settings? Were the figures evenly distributed about the table when we arrived?

Has anyone actually picked up a statue yet? Kharash was going to but Griswold stopped him.

Kharash has walked around with a statue and medallion before (to check if there was a difference in reflection between each mirror), but hasn't put a medallion on a statue yet.

I also tried to see if the mirrors were movable. Or are they stuck to the wall?

That's an interesting find, Brimir, that the statues are opposites! The opposites you proposed make sense as well.

It is possible that the Knight is 'leading by example' in that its reflection doesn't change; trialling one of the statues on each side of the table might come up with a spot where the reflection is consistent in all mirrors, and we may be able to find the correct locations for each one by trial and error if that's the case.

Picking up a statue reveals a place that looks like it will fit a medallion.

About the Order of the Coin not having a medallion - just a thought but what do coins from Krieghold actually have engraved on them in the first place?

Or - do we use one of our own coins instead?

I like your reasoning for the book to belong to the coin actually, Brimir.  So much so that I'd be inclined to amend your first table to:



I agree with the Unicorn.

The opposites are not something I had considered :)

As for being good at puzzles - I am totally not.  I just keep introducing more and more ideas and can never settle on one as I always end up second guessing myself.

Edit: Okay, I am already second guessing myself now ^^ The book could still relate to the Ashen Order, for the reasons Kharash posted about the book also potentially representing the Mages.  I also didn't give enough credit to the idea that the Jester is a Wild Card.  I don't really play card games, but I vaguely remember games played at school many years ago when the Jester could be used as a stand in for other cards.  After all a 'pack' of cards is only 52, but the 2 jesters technically make 54, I, uh, think :P
This message was last edited by the player at 00:52, Mon 15 May 2017.

You're correct about the jester (or joker) in a deck of cards ;)

It seems we're getting closer to having the medallions paired with each order. But then we need to relate these combinations to the statues as well. Either via medallion-statue or medallion-order combinations. And after that we need to pair the statues+medallions to the words on the mirrors (likely in opposites).

Perhaps there are links between the words on the mirrors and either the statue, medallion, or orders. Though I can't think of any besides the Rose (who still has three viable spots haha).

Also, you mentioned the relationships between orders Brimir, which could make this a small game of 'who sits next to who'. Or whatever such games are called. I'll check of there's a correlation later.

GM, just some more questions about the scene. Are the mirrors movable? Are the slots for the medallions in the table or in the statues? Is the table movable or turnable?

The table is bolted down, as are the mirrors. The slots are located on the bottom of the statues. You can see faint outlines on the table where the statues have been sitting.

I don't think the words on the mirror can be paired up to the statues.  I don't believe the words like 'by' and 'to' are really indicative enough of anything.  I'm not even certain the words are a major part of the puzzle, since the riddle on the table is not either as far as I can tell.  It seems just there to give a hint to us.

The relationships might work, I guess.  With the eye being opposite the Rose since the Rose has no enemies amongst the knightly orders and the eye is kinda the odd one out.  But I still don't see how you would determine where to go from there.  Even if you come up with opposition orders, how do you decide who goes where?

Thank you for the extra detail, GM :)

Hmm...if there are marks where the statues have been sitting doesn't that mean they have been here for a long time?  That seems odd if people have been picking them up and putting them down.  Especially if they have been moving them to different spots on the table.  May be we don't need to move them at all?  I would assume that it at least means we place them on the table rather than anywhere else in the room.

Its also possible that this set up has come from somewhere else.  Like it wasn't made just for the test but is/was part of some display brought from another location.  Though, if that's the case, simply rolling history to remember the answer would be a cheap way to get the solution, so I'm not going there :P

@GM - which mirror is the knight currently facing?

Thanks!

Just playing around here. Just for this, I chose to put book with Ashen Order and jester with Custodians of the Coin.

I tried making a 'who wants to sit next to who' distribution. There are quite some possibilities, especially since both the Rose and Watchers are wild cards here. However, I did have some things to start with: we can connect the Knight to the Rose, the Angel to the Unicorn, the Book to the Mage, and the Jester to the Demon. We know the (expected) opposites of these, so we can fill in a bit more. By playing around I made this table:


I focused mainly on making sure no one is sitting next to someone they dislike. I filled in the remaining statues kinda random.
Interestingly, this puts the priest under the Watchers. Which would fit, since the Eyes of Yggdrasil are related to a deity. On the other hand this puts the woodland figure in combination with the ship medallion, which would fit less well.

If I then apply that sequence of statues to the list we already had and include the words on the mirror we get something like this (for simplicity took the knight as starting point):



Meh, it's just a guess.. we can also find out by trial and error. Though there may be risks involved.

Words aside, for the statues maybe we don't consider what they are as much as what they represent?

Knight holding nothing - Surely the Rose as they are seen as the 'Epitome' of knighthood - the ideal knight.  They therefore have no need to change?  Aka remaining the same in the mirror?

Elf with bow - Not sure.  Perhaps a vigilant sentinel?  the Watcher?

Ogre with maul - Something single-minded and unstoppable?  Dragon?

Angel with Glaive - A fighting saviour? Spring?

Demon with Scimitar - Something sinister and feared?  Ashen?
                    - Or simply something strange?  Golden Thread?

Mage with Staff - A learned man?  Quill?
                  If taken at face value - Ashen?

Priest with Holy Symbol - One dedicated to their beliefs? Quill?
                        - An Inquisitor Maybe?  Ashen?

Woodland figure with Longsword - A tracker maybe?  Coin?

Again, the Ashen Order, if we're thinking along the right lines, is causing me issues.  This time the Golden Thread too.  My thoughts with the Demon linked to the Golden Thread is that the Order is the only without a focus on protecting some part of Krieghold.  They are all about adventure and, in fact, actively encourage people to place themselves in danger.  Of lesser importance is that, for a real life comparison, scimitars are a foreign weapon for a knight, which might mean the demon comes from foreign lands?

If we assume the Ashen Order's Medallion is the Book, then I guess I get: