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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nareau" data-source="post: 4043990" data-attributes="member: 969">Wow!  Lots of excellent feedback.  I'll need to tackle this one bit at a time...That's certainly something I'm concerned about.  However, I know Daniel is really good at this kind of thing.  I think that by handing them the pieces (printouts mounted to foam core), they'll have more fun being able to physically interact with them.  And giving them out over several weeks means it's not a game-stopper; rather, they can fiddle with it a bit each week until it's figured out.But it's a point well taken.  I may go ahead and give them a couple of the letters ("Hey, this Nazi had a book in his pack!  It looks like they were trying to translate the same language.  They seem to have figured out a few of the letters...")  Doing so should speed up the character substitution part of things.You're absolutely right.  I wanted to see if the first leaps of logic required was one anybody was likely to make (the letter substitution, and recognition of the Mediterranean.)You're totally right.  The idea I have to explain that problem goes something like this:  In "reality," the tablet is written in ancient Sumerian using the Atlantean alphabet (which is a derivative of Venusian...but that's not relevant to the issue at hand.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />).  The PC can read Sumerian as well as they can English, so I've taken that bit of the translation out of things.Here's how I'll present it to the player:  "Your character can read ancient Sumerian.  This writing looks a lot like an archaic form of cuneiform, and the stone and carving techniques are also very similar to that era and civilization.  However, the alphabet isn't one your character recognizes.  You think if you can untangle the alphabet, the words will likely be Sumerian, and then it's an easy translation to English."I know that's a little hokey.  But this game is supposed to be about mystery and awesomeness, not logic.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  All my players know this, and are prepared to do some belief-suspending.Don't worry--much of this information will be presented in the campaign.  Depending on how totally obscure you guys think it is here, I'll give more or fewer clues about the context of the tablets.Unfortunately, you'd be out there a long time. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Unless the fascists decided to blow you to smithereens.Thanks!  I found a tutorial online for making stone textures in Photoshop.  So I can't really take too much credit.  Although the font is original.  If you're interested, you're welcome to download it here:<a href="http://www.the5thcircle.com/hex/atlantean.ttf" target="_blank">http://www.the5thcircle.com/hex/atlantean.ttf</a>I agree, and I know some players would much rather just roll some dice to figure stuff out.  If the players think this is a dumb puzzle they don't want to deal with, I'll probably let them roll to get loads of hints, and possibly just roll to solve it.  Or I might just ditch the "puzzle" aspect of it altogether, and go ahead and let them kill some Nazis and steal their research.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Hrm.  OK, sounds like the map needs work.  It looks like that simply because the artist didn't have enough room on the tablet to depict the whole world.  I'll see if I can figure out how to indicate "this is the end of the map, not another coast".Wow!  I'm seriously impressed.  That's exactly correct.  Except for the punctuation.  It should be:"One twelfth a day.  One ninth a world, undersea.  The first twelve indivisible.  Here lies the pathway to"I'm likely to change the text before it comes up in the campaign.  If I can fit it all, I'm thinking it will fully read:One twelfth a day from Eden.  One ninth a world from the middle.  Speak the first twelve indivisible to open the undersea gate to Atlantis.OK, now that we've got that part out of the way, here are the "stage two" clues that the PCs will uncover:Eden is commonly believed to have lain between the Tigres and Euphrates rivers.  It's possible the PCs will know the exact location of Eden by the time the get the last piece.The "first twelve indivisible" will refer to a numeric code.The PCs need to retrieve a special submarine from the Italian navy to find it.Thanks for all the great advice!  I'm thinking it's solvable, but may be too convoluted to actually be fun.  If y'all have any ideas on how to make it more interesting/fun, I'd love to hear those too.Nareau</blockquote>

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