Talk:Merit's Encoded Message/Archive1

Could we switch and use all caps for the guessed words and lowercase "word" for the unguessed ones? Also, do we make a guess first, or roll cryptography first? --Kasumi 20:44, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

There are some capitalized letters, so you might not want that, but if people would prefer that, we can switch. If you roll first, that tells you how many successes you have to use, so I recommend doing it in that order. I... um, I can't figure out why you would guess without rolling, we wouldn't fill in anything if you didn't have any successes... --Boojum 17:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, if you think it's helpful, you can make one guess at a time, up to your number of successes, rather than guessing a bunch of things at once. --Boojum 23:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

First quoted section

And the WORD of the WORD WORD in the  WORD  of the WORD, and WORD WORD WORD WORD the WORD, WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD.
And the WORD of the WORD WORD in the  WORD  of the WORD, and WORD WORD WORD WORD the WORD, WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD.
And the WORD of the WORD WORD in the spirit of the WORD, and WORD WORD WORD WORD the WORD, WORD WORD WORD WORD

This bit at the end of the first quoted section looks to me like some sort of ritual incant, what with the parallel structure and whatnot. If one were invoking some sort of triune assemblage of which 'spirit' was the third part, would the first two parts be 'body' and 'mind'? Xian 21:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey Cai Wen

Stop guessing "Spider" and try a word you haven't guessed before, like "he", "she", or "it". Xian 20:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Ideas people might try.

I'm not good at decoding, but the "___ of the Dragon" makes me think of some possibilities:

Once, the heart of the empire was "the Dragon's Throne." Throne seems likely - the WORD of the WORD of the Dragon could be talking about some order stationed in the Dragon's Throne.

We should check the word "name", in case it's talking about the renaming. Shen's Gate is close enough to the wall that whoever wrote it could have been over the wall at some point and noticed the change.

egg, spirit, breath, claw, guardian, guardians.

And I'd be curious if the word "wall" was in there somewhere.

--Ringrose 17:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Five letter element from old French

The 5 letter element from old French almost has to be "metal", and I would never have guessed that.

Huh. It's not "the metal of the Yin", which is weird, because "earth" is the only other element with 5 letters and it's not from Old French. Unless "element" is an anachronism, and we're looking for something like gold, silver, or boron. Or someone is using a synonym for one of the in-fiction elements, like "plant," but not plant because it's from Old English. Or "element" is meant in another sense entirely, like "piece of the whole." Haydn 17:28, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

What about "Terre", a French word for Earth? --Ringrose 18:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Water is also a five letter in-system element, which I guess we might try even though I believe it is germanic. Also I don't think we've tried earth there, though the earth of the yin being buried beneath the earth sounds weird. Of periodic table elements, only boron, argon, xenon and radon are five letters, I think. Elizabeth 18:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyone mind if I move this section to the Talk: page? This seems more like discussion and less like mechanic. Xian 23:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Unless of course it's Beryl --Xiao-Fa 01:29, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "beryl" really fits (it says "five-letter-element", but the element is beryllium), although I'll try it anyway because I respect and fear the Eon-Laura wordgame mindlink. Hey Laura, could we get the four hints broken out, so we can see what each individual hint was? The parentheses around "NOUN" confuse me. Xian 06:27, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

1. Noun
2. Element (but it's still a noun, not something like "Pb")
3. From Old French
4. Five letters

Going from one hint to two hints on a word also went from "Pronoun" to "Interdeterminate pluralish pronoun", but "elemental noun" seemed too much like a part of speech I didn't know what it was. --Boojum 14:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, my next best idea is to try "beryl", even though it's not an element, and then five-letter synonyms for elements, e.g., "fluid", "humus", "loess", "talus". Except not "loess" because it's Germanic in origin, and probably none of the others because they're all kind of weird. Xian 15:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)