... wait, are you saying the answer was actually Bombadil's jacket? :eek:

From my side, I'm happy to let it drop, but I speak only for myself.

hS

I am. :cool:

You know, I am not happy to let it drop quite yet. I wanna make a few things clear to Urwen, who has a thing against me checking the Downs and - how dare I! - not making a post on the thread she most likes at the moment. We've been through this many times before, both on the forums and over private message, and I am sick of this. So let me say this one last time.

If I have nothing to post, I will not post. I have no obligation to make contentless posts just to soothe your boredom.
Nobody has an obligation to post. Post if you want, don't post if you don't, unless you take upon yourself the duty of leading a game, in which case you have to respond within a reasonable timeframe. No one has to participate against their will.
If you wanna play with people, play by the common rules. Otherwise you'll end up playing alone. Both metaphorically and, in this particular case, literally.
As I have offered time and time again, if you need someone to talk to, please talk to me, to any of us. Yet when you're in a bad mood, instead of seeking help, you pick fights and throw tantrums. That ruins the games for everyone, yourself included.

I am so done with this. I give you respect, Urwen, as a person and a member of the forums, as a Tolkien fan with your own passions and opinions. I will continue treating you as such. But I will not respond to any more tantrum posts or PMs. I have a 5 year old at home who throws tantrums with ridiculous demands when he's in a bad mood, but as you're not 5 that excuse doesn't fly on such a frequent basis.




On a different note, here is the new password. I am quite fond of one of the clues, and I wonder if I made it too easy as a result. We'll see.


1. Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!

And a special question just to illustrate the meaning of unfair / impossible-for-the-average-player-to-solve clues. The question does, in fact, have a very simple canonical answer (bonus points and virtual fireworks if one of you actually figures it out ;)).

Ам мешах ьлеш шиах аивихеш таабатах рахал шэах?

#5: Is this NOLIMON, son and heir of Elros Tar-Minyatur, also known as Vardamir 'Jewel of the Starqueen'?

(As a professional amateur translator, you know I'll be taking a stab at the special clue.)

hS

Well, if you want to stare at the home page - not any particular thread, just the home page - all the time, then it must amuse you immensely to stare at the forum categories all day long....

That, and if no one posts, those games die. Do you want those games to die? My bad, of course you do.

Well, I am done with this too. If you're gonna be game stallers, then so will I. I will keep that Telephone game stalled forever just because I don't feel like drawing the picture.

And this is where you'll swarm me because you're bored and want to continue the game. Of course it matters more when you're bored then when I am. Of course it matters more when I am stalling the game then when you are...

When I stall the games, it's unforgivable. When YOU stall them, it's perfectly kosher. >.>

When I ask you to respect me and do what I want and when I beg for hints, it's unforgivable and you won't do it. When you ask me to respect your wants and demand that I give you the answer, it's all perfectlly kosher and how dare I not do as you request?! >.>

That ain't gonna fly anymore. If you want me to treat you nicely, then quit it with the double-standards and hypocritical behavior.

Oh, and also, have fun driving newbies away. They will deem this place inactive because nobody can be bothered to make it active. They would drift away and this place would lose several Rolkien fans, all because no one could be bothered.

Like, if you expect me to keep this thread, the Riddle thread, the Bad Guy Trivia, the Family tree trivia and countless other threads alive by myself while the rest of you twiddle your thumbs, then fine. >.>

The Downs opens first for me when I click internet on my phone. That probably indicates I'm on it when I'm not, but in fact going somewhere else at once via the browser.

Anyway, new password ... wheeeee!!!

1. Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!

So for #2... it's possible I'm being a bit too Urwenish, but is this MAEGLIN? He was (arguably) the fulfillment of Eol's dreams, and Eol dwelt alone. He also attacked his cousin Idril during the Fall of Gondolin, and Idril was a barefoot Seer who (I think?) was seen as slightly crazy.

hS

No to Maeglin. The clue is, to take a page from your book, both more and less literal than Maeglin is in your explanation. I will hold off on more specific hints for this clue at the moment but will give them if needed.

Yeah, with loads more people still to chip in, and this only my first rough attempt, a vague hint is probably the way to go.

Not that it's given me much inspiration, but that's why it's a puzzle!

hS

An elaboration on the vague hint: you are correct that "lonely one" is literal, but so is "eccentric" and "assaulter". The dream and the relationship ("cousins") are not.

6. DIRHAEL, Aragorn's maternal grandfather?

Heal + rid, (confused).

(Which can also produce Edrahil!)

1. Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. DIRHAEL: A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!


Now I'm mad I didn't see the Edrahil anagram, which could have made an awesome clue. :D

Hmmm. A baby ostrich is apparently just a chick.

Strider's name explains what he mostly seems to do, but I guess it's stretching it too far to call it an occupation ....

[Checks clue again]

Ah, it says job description, not occupation.

I guess STRIDER could describe the job of a Ranger?

But where would he (or the clue) almost keep a juvenile ostrich, I wonder?

My hunch is nowhere, and that I'm wrong. :D

Tell you what, the Special Question gives some fantastic stuff through Google Translate. The most sane translations I can get are Kurdish (didn't even know it used Cyrillic) and Macedonian:

There's enough agreement that мешах means something to do with stirring, mixing, muddling that I'm comfortable with it, but I think the rest is just not-enough-corpus error. If I add in a line break or two, GTranslate completely loses its mind - and identically in both languages:

So, we're looking for a confused Shi'ite with a goat's head who may or may not want to be happy. Oh, yeah, it's on the tip of my tongue--!

(Like I said: professional amateur translator. This one may be beyond me.)

hS

My first thought was Frodo, (surprise surprise!), and Bilbo.

But Frodo got attacked more than Bilbo did, and I don't remember my beloved dreamer dreaming of a troll, a giant spider or Smaug, (although he dreamed of quite a few other things). Or Gollum, who I think tried to attack Bilbo, or at least thought about it.

3. Arwen?

That's a good one! Didn't see that.

A sudden thought on #2: could 'eccentric cousin' be the Moon? 'Eccentric' as a literal term can apply to astronomical objects. I admit I can't see whose cousin it is, though, except in the sense that Tilion is 'cousin' to all the Maiar.

... actually, the use of 'dream' in a Maiarin association suggests OLORIN, though I can't tie him to the assault part.

#4: It sounds like we're looking for a woman whose name is two vowels away from someone killed by Easterners - which to my mind means either during the Nirnaeth and its aftermath, or during the Wainrider-Balchoth wars in Gondor. The latter actually looks less likely, because all the kings of Gondor who died there had stupidly long names, and Tolkien didn't have any women named 'Ramendacol' or such.

hS

1. Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. ARWEN: Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. DIRHAEL: A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!



You know what? This is actually hilariously a great description of the clue's intention. Especially "I am confused, what are you doing here?". :D

This actually gave me an idea for a (legitimate) password.

Indeed!

Barking up the wrong tree here. Try recombining the words in the clue. Your straight clue is off. One of your Easterling guesses is correct.

None of the guesses for #2 are correct. To help you out: the cousin's eccentricity refers to a specific line in the text, and it means exactly what you assume at first (odd). The lonely one never actually dreams of the answer, but they would looove to have met them. Final clue: you all know the answer by a more common name; it is the opposite of obscure, except for the alternative name use.

A no for #1 as well. Try some synonyms.

Maybe ELROND for the password?

And maybe initial letters for the rest, since the Arwen clue had 'take a step back' in it.

...

For Eastern invaders, I first thought maybe a short word for a Germanic people, such as HUNS. But now I think it's an invasion of two or more letter E's.

Is my Strider guess wrong, G55? (For clue 1).

If so, the two possible 'name & job description's that come to mind for #1 are 'Envinyatar' and 'Eluchil', both fairly close to Elrond in the family tree. But since I can't do anything at all with the other half of the clue, I'm not willing to make them actual guesses.

... no, wait. "not quite an ostrich" could mean emu, and ELUCHIL ("Thingol's Heir", definitely a full-time job!) is nearly EMU CHILD. It would mean 'not quite' was doing triple duty, but...

hS

Emu Child! That has made my day!

That should be a 70's rock band.

If emu is correct, 'nearly an ostrich' should be a Hall of Fame clue.

1. ELUCHIL: Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. L A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. ARWEN: Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. O Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. DIRHAEL: A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!


:Merisu:


No to Strider. With regards to Easterlings, Huey had the right guys named in his guess, he just had the wrong straight clue.


Highlighting on your phone is a pain in the tuchas.


By the way, have you figured out the theme?

'Emu child'. Good grief. It was my guess and I still barely believe it.

I usually put the highlight codes in when I make the password - they're invisible so long as you leave them empty. :)

... hmm. Well, we have Elrond's granddad, his daughter, his nephew, and his... distant grand-nephew/daughter's grandfather-in-law. Other than all being within two generations of Himself, there's not a lot that obviously connects them. They all stood in kind of interesting places in various lines of succession, but not in any coherent way.

hS

I'm sorry? :Merisu:

That's clever. Unfortunately the password was typed on my phone to begin with, so it would still have been agony now or agony later.

Many can be said to be Elrond's family, but as you point out some are too distant to really qualify. The theme is related to his family but is broader. That might help look for the remaining clues, maybe?

I've done that and hate it. :D Though they're still easier to copy and paste when you don't have to change out letters inside them along the way.

So far I've discovered that they all had daughters (not much of a link), and that Dirhael was apparently a seer (but while Arwen might have been, I can't imagine Dior was).

hS

Nolimon was only nominally king and passed it on after a year, I think.

Elrond would have been heir to the High Kingship but was satisfied with Lord.

Arwen was a queen consort, not a ruling queen.

No, I don't know. ;)

No, no, no. You hit upon the point that there is [extended] family there. The theme is more broad than any of the individuals, Elrond included. Not more narrow. ;)


For #4, remember this. Huey identified the correct Easterlings. The straight clue is NOT "her". Take each word separately in the clue and think if they actually refer to what you think they do. Extra hint: this one is not one of Elrond's closer relations.

Actually, to be more cryptically accurate, the clue should include one more thing. Re-worked, it reads:

Take her, and a double vowel switch first, and kill him with eastern invaders

Wainrider-Balchoth wars points to ONDOHER.

HER, double O ... but ND?

Lost, because I thought 'her' was a short name, like Anne, and we were supposed to change the vowels in it. This shifts them to the front, though, (before the 'girl,' I mean).

...

Oh! It's AND A, and we switch the two vowels.

1. ELUCHIL: Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. L A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. ARWEN: Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. ONDOHER: Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. DIRHAEL: A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!

Indeed! HER + AND A, with the As swapped for the O's.


For the last clue, all elements are found in Book 1. This one you would think of as Elrond's family. Pervinca, I think you'll like this one when it comes to you.

Luthien is the only person close enough to Elrond by kin that I can think of, but I can't find any of the elements, even if I add Tinuviel.

As mentioned before, this is a rare name of a common character. The name is mentioned in Book 1, as is the lonely one, and the eccentric cousin, and the assault. The clue is a play on words of sorts.

Perhaps it might be easier to work backwards, knowing that this is a major character who is reasonably close to Elrond.

Sorry, I had forgotten the 'better known by another name' aspect.

Assault points to Celebrian, but she's more than a little close to Elrond, and with no namesakes that I can find.

Maybe one of Elrond's fosterers? Or maybe Elwing had another name. I need to look a few people up.

Do you mean Book 1 as in up to Flight to the Ford, or Book 1 as in FOTR?

Were it not that I can't remember anyone being attacked with a leg of lamb, I would suggest 'Longshanks'.

Okay, can I find a reason? The clue is:

A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.

& G55's additional hints say:

'Eccentric cousin' makes me maybe think of Radagast? But I don't believe Radagast gets assaulted, and the assault is literal. Could there be Hobbits involved in the clue (though not the answer)? Frodo is definitely eccentric (you're not mad if you're rich), and Aragorn kind of assaults him in Bree? This would make the Lonely One another Hobbit who would have loved to meet a Ranger, but isn't strictly a cousin of Frodo. I guess Fatty Bolger would have been very grateful for a rescue when the Nazgul were coming?

Okay, there we go; a justification. LONGSHANKS. :D

hS

(Now kicking myself! Thought I'd been through all his names!) :D

Hobbits probably dream of lamb shanks sometimes - and they would be long ones because that = more dinner.

Aragorn is lonely because he can't marry Arwen until he is king.

L A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.

Maybe 'lonely one' means just take one letter from 'lonely.'

Hang on - does the troll get assaulted by the shank or the shin of the singer's Nuncle Tim's limb in Sam's troll song?

(Can't do the ONG or the dream bit, though).

This is still all feeling very tenuous, but if it's not this I'm going to have to fall back on Lindor - er, Lindir - and the famous Mad Cousin Chocolate Attacks.

hS

Yeah, I thought of him, as he's one of Elrond's household, but I couldn't find the elements. ;)

But then, I don't know the Sindarin for chocolate-smith. :) Presumably a happy place like Rivendell has one, though!

Check this out:

:D

Theme: the Line of Luthien

1. ELUCHIL: Not quite an ostritch kid. Both a name and a job description.
2. LONGSHAKNS: A lonely one's dream, and his eccentric cousin's assaulter.
3. ARWEN: Lady sees herself in the mirror in a new rayment and takes a step back.
4. ONDOHER: Take her, and a double vowel switch, and kill him with eastern invaders.
5. NOLIMON: The First King's heir, and by another name the First Queen's jewel.
6. DIRHAEL: A King's descendant and a King's grandfather. Heal, and rid confusion!

It started out as Elrond's family, but then I was at loss for letters and would jave had to do a lot of back stepping. So it became Elrond's extended family, ie the line of Luthien.


Over to Pervinca!