Setting: The Sphinx’s test

A sphinx (or another intelligent creature) blocks the path forward. Knowing that fighting it might prove fatal, the sphinx offers the party a test of wits to proceed.

Moving Checkers

🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️

Separate into

⚪️⚪️⚪️🔴🔴🔴

Only by switching adjacent checkers.

-- Solution
🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️
⚪️🔴🔴⚪️🔴⚪️
⚪️🔴⚪️🔴🔴⚪️
⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴
⚪️⚪️🔴🔴⚪️🔴
⚪️⚪️🔴⚪️🔴🔴
⚪️⚪️⚪️🔴🔴🔴

Triangles in the figure

⬠+⛤ = 35⊿

Marbles In Three Moves

From this arrangement of Marbles

11 ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
7  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
6  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️

set it to

8  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
8  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
8  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️

In three Moves, by taking into a jar as many as it already contains, taking only from one other pile. Solution

11 ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
7  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
6  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
----------------------
4  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
14 ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
6  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
----------------------
4  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
8  ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
12 ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
----------------------
8   ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
8   ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️
8   ⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️

Blood Key (Goore, Body Horror)

The party enters a scanty, dank room covered in ash, broken stones, and large bones. Their torch allows them to see a stone wall aged and desolated by time itself.

This wall has a riddle engraved on it: “The key is found within you, one, other, or within the group, be aware of what you spent, for it might be the very end”.

Under the wall there's a bowl of 5 liters. To fill it up they must spend HP or exsanguinate somebody. 5 litres is one person, so pick the HP of the character that has the most.

Combat is not the only way to drain the party’s resources. With puzzles like this, you can control how wounded the party ends up throughout the adventure.

The Elemental Door

A Door Immune to all damage except one.

A Symbol in the Door gives them a clue:

Symbol	Type
⚗︎	acid
⚒︎	bludgeoning
❄	cold
🔥	fire
✧ ☯︎	force
⚡️	lightning
🜏	necrotic
† 𓌖	piercing
☠	poison
𐦝	psychic
⚚ ☀︎	radiant
⚔︎	slashing
⛈	thunder

Have fun finding out a way to enter, and expend resources to find the correct type.

Truth or Lie

A timeless classic, your party finds itself facing two doors guarded by two guardians. One tells nothing but the truth, the other? Nothing but lies.

Mirror mirror

Another classic, the core concept of this puzzle is that the group finds themselves in a room before a larger mirror. Soon, players with a good perception (or investigation) notice that the room reflected in the mirror are subtly different.

Once the party rearranges the room to match that in the reflection, the puzzle is cleared.

Stone Look

An NPC that needs to be rescued is petrified in a Dungeon with a Medusa head in a hand, facing a Basilisk.

Both are petrified.

If you move the Petrified NPC, the field of vision will be interrupted, and the Basilisk will attack.

The NPC can be saved by

• Holding a Mirror in front of the Basilisk
• Interrupting the field of vision and fighting the Basilisk
• Interrupting the field of vision after holding down the Basilisk
• ?