hints!
Raven’s been hiding since Gnome got into the Wizard’s traveling potion and left on a grand adventure without her.
THANK YOU for helping us find and search some of her hiding spots, while another band of adventurer’s traverse the universe to see where her best friend went. We miss them both, and we can’t wait to see them - and YOU - again soon.
While your great big brains, a pencil, each other and the interwebs are all and everything you need to chase and complete the answer for each puzzle that arrives into your e-mail, FUN is our intention, and hints are available for you to use or not!
Three hints will appear below for each puzzle that arrives into your e-mail. If you find you are still terribly stuck, you can email us at gnomeandravenrva@gmail.com!
week one hints
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 1
Each vessel - CYLINDER, PYRAMID,RECTANGULAR PRISM, CUBE, SPHERE, TRIANGULAR PRISM - has a different formula for finding its volume.
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 2
Try writing out the alphabet and starting with the letter O and the number 1, write numbers beneath each one! Each letter will have its own number. This is called a Caesar cipher!
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 3
Your answer is an unusal word! You’re looking for something you’d find inside of a goat!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 1
Some of those words look like they may be misspelled, but they aren’t!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 2
Each line and space on a treble clef in music represents a musical note.
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 3
Musical notes are labeled with letters A-G.
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 1
Every creature has a scientific name that is at least seven words long! For this puzzle, you only need the Genus and Species of each creature. This practice of classifying animals is called taxonomy!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 2
Once you have figured out which animal the genus and species listed are referring to, try thinking about what magical creature might be created by combining their features (i.e. cow + man = minotaur). There are four words total!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 3
Did you notice that certain letters of each answer were bolded? You might need to unscramble them to create three words (Note, the x at the end of the third word has already been given to you!)
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 1
Ancient Alchemists used to write down formulae in picture form! Each branch of the tree represents one of the seven precious metals of alchemy. Each one is written here as a symbol of one of the Roman gods.
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 2
The table you are looking for is the Periodic Table of Elements! Each element on the table has a number and an abbreviation. See if you can find all seven precious metals!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 3
Take a look at the number list on the bottom of the page. Each one might be referencing a letter from the elemental abbreviations you found! Maybe they spell something out! (Note, the O in the second word has already been given to you!)
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 1
Meteorology is the study of weather patterns. Scientists use this to predict the weather forecast, sort of like telling the future!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 2
Each riddle is describing something having to do with weather. You may find it helpful to have an alphabetical list of weather words.
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 3
The order of the answers is very important! Once you have them all written down in order, take a look at the first letter of each one!
week two hints
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 1
The poem is referencing an ancient beast with the head and bust of a woman, the haunches of a lion, and a bird’s wings!
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 2
The riddle you are looking for is the Riddle of the Sphinx. Sophocles wrote about it in his tragic play, Oedipus Rex.
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 3
Think about a creature that walks on four feet when it is young, two feet when it is grown up, and three when it is old! (Note, you’ll need to use it in its possessive form, adding an apostrophe and an S)
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 1
The hieroglyphic alphabet has fewer letters than ours! Rather than looking for a one-for-one translation of each image, try researching a list of Egyptian god and goddess names, translated from their pictograms.
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 2
There are only seven Hieroglyphic numerals! They represent 1, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, and 1,000,000. You can write any number, up to a million, using these characters!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 3
Try using the first numeral as the row and the second numeral as the column. This should lead you to a letter in the grid.
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 1
For input force, you’ll need to multiply Rock weight and D1 together, then divide by D2.
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 2
Each Riddle looks like it’s describing a simple machine!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 3
Did you notice that one letter of each simple machine has a number under it? Write out the alphabet, starting with that letter and number, and see what letter the Input Force answer would be! (Note- If you reach the number 26, go back to 1, and if you hit letter Z, go back to A!)
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 1
This painting is similar to a panel painting in a comic book! It has three images that tell the story of Hunefer going into the Underworld to be judged. Make sure you use the entire image when you are counting!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 2
Remember your order of operations! When doing a math problem, always start with parentheses (From the inside out!), then exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction last. Doing things out of order may lead to the wrong answer!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 3
If A = 1, then each letter will have a value that follows (B = 2, C = 3, Etc.). See what letters the answers to the problems will lead you to! (Note- they might not be in the right order!)
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 1
For this puzzle, you’ll need a map of ancient Egypt!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 2
The Ancient Egyptians had many colorful epithets for different areas of their land! See if you can figure out which ones are being referenced in the poem!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 3
Perhaps the poem is directing you to which letter of each answer you need! (Note - they might be in a different order!)
week three hints
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 1
The first thing you’ll need to do is determine where North is on the star chart. To do this, find the North Star. Once you have it located, the direction it is closest to will be north.
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 2
Try translating the Latin names of each of the constellations! Some may have more than one name. Check to see which direction is closest to the constellations in the riddles! (Note: You will only need Cardinal and Intercardinal directions)
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 3
Once you know which direction each constellation is taking you, try applying that to the compasses beneath each riddle! It may spell out your next destination!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 1
Longitude and latitude are imaginary lines that go all around the earth! Longitude lines run longways (North to South), and Latitude lines run laterally (East to West). These lines are measured by the number of degrees they are from the center of the earth. Each of these is divided into 60 smaller sections called minutes, and each minute is divided into 60 seconds. Note- For this puzzle, you don’t need to worry about seconds, only degrees and minutes!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 2
Hemisphere is very important when determining your position! On the North/South Axis, numbers get smaller the closer you get to the Equator. On the East/West axis, the same is true of the Prime Meridian. Make sure you are counting in the right direction!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 3
There are only 60 minutes in each degree! If you go past minute 59, then you will be in a new degree!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 1
It looks like everything has been written sdrawkcab! Try writing it out the normal way to make things a bit easier!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 2
Each picture shows a tool that mariners used in the past to help them navigate (And sometimes the present, too!). See if you can learn what each one is called.
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 3
Remember, the crew has been writing everything backwards lately! Your answers might not work if you write them forwards on the lines.
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 1
An Allusion is a reference to something, in this case, poetry! Can you find five allusions to famous poetry about the sea in this prompt?
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 2
There are five lines taken directly from poems about pirates and the sea in this prompt! Can you find them all? (Note- For our purposes, songs and plays written in verse are considered poetry as well!)
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 3
Those letters may be referring to the authors of each poem! Once you have the poem being referenced, try using those numbers as a line, word, letter puzzle!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 1
The main mast and the boom are perpendicular, which means they form a right angle. If you connect the ends of these lines, you can form a right triangle. This connecting line is called the hypotenuse!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 2
The Pythagorean Theorem is a formula used to figure out the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle! The formula is a2+ b2 = c2, where C is the hypotenuse, and A and B are the two other sides of the triangle.
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 3
Try writing out the numbers 1-26. Starting with the letter W under the number 8, write out the rest of the letters under each number to finish the cipher (Note- When you get to the letter Z, go to the letter A next!). Then, see what letters the answer to each problem gives you!
week FOUR hints
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 1
This puzzle is all about color theory! There are three primary colors and three secondary colors, but there might be a few surprises in this puzzle, too! Take a look at a color wheel to help you out.
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 2
Each painting is full of different colors! Check out the details mentioned in the puzzle, and then find them on the color wheel. Make sure you check out whether there is a plus sign, minus sign, or just a single object mentioned!
+ Puzzle 1: Hint 3
Did you notice that certain letters in the prompt were also colored? Perhaps you can spell something with them, if they are put in the right order! Note- You may need to zoom in close, or make sure the brightness is all the way up on your screen!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 1
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were German brothers who wrote down some of the most famous fairy tales from their homeland into a book called Grimm’s Fairy Tales. See if you can find the title of one of their stories in the prompt!
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 2
The story entitled The Golden Bird is not as well known as some of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but it has some great quotes! See if you can find the first words spoken by the king in this story. Note- some translations might word this slightly differently. For our purposes, the first word will be ‘one,’ and there are 44 letters.
+ Puzzle 2: Hint 3
Try writing the quote into the grid. make sure you write every letter with no spaces between words. Then, you’ll need to translate those numerals at the bottom. Perhaps they are coordinates within the grid!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 1
The Dewey Decimal System is a numerical system that catalogues books by subject! They categorize books into ten broad topics, and then they are divided into more specific subjects. For this puzzle, you only need to know the whole number, no decimal points!
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 2
The OCLC is a global library cooperative! Their Classify system allows you to find the most commonly used DDC numbers for books. Note- we have used the most common number for each title.
+ Puzzle 3: Hint 3
Did you notice that some of the letters in the prompt are different colors? Perhaps they are spelling out some words!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 1
Shahrazad is the main character in a book called The Thousand and One Nights!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 2
Binary is a computer code alphabet. Each letter has eight characters comprised of only ones and zeroes! If you see any other numbers in this code, they may be red herrings!
+ Puzzle 4: Hint 3
You are looking for the title character of a story from The Thousand and One Nights! Note- this story was not part of the original book, but it was added later by a different author. Today, it is one of the most famous stories from the book!
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 1
Read the prompt carefully! There may be some clues in the text about how to solve the cipher.
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 2
A Pig Pen Cipher is a famous code based on a crosshatch pattern.
+ Puzzle 5: Hint 3
Once you’ve translated the cipher, add it to yesterday’s puzzle answer. The two of them together will be the final clue to finding the Raven!