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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neurotic" data-source="post: 8153653" data-attributes="member: 24380">[spoiler=My thoughts about the story]I had one big problem with the ingredients and that was: I didn't know that shallow woods are sparse woods. I tried to draw the analogy "deep woods" vs "shallow woods" as in those are fringes of the wood <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=":)" />But my first understanding was kelp forest - thus underwater idea was born.For cheating death...obviously you could treat it as surviving something - but I always had a soft spot for Prattchets Death. Why, oh, why didn't I write in all caps with each word a sentence "YOU. WILL. PLAY. WITH. ME." <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" /> For jumping coins I had several ideas: one was "two ingredients with one toss" idea, namely, the guy bets with death for his life on a toss of the coin. The Death calls "Heads" and the coin drops and bounces. And bounces again. And again and jumping coin keeps going never settling, thus keeping the man alive. It would be the despondent marine who realized after centuries that eternal life isn't all that. But he doesn't know how to return (or is unable) to return to the original location.The island nation isn't strictly necessary. The brother could be any loved one. The challenges in coin rooms are intentionally left unspecified - they could be riddles, remains of former adventurers (undead), some kind of monsters (lunar naga comes to mind) - and the level can be anything since you simply need to adapt monster levels.There was a lot dropped from the story - about the goddess of light, darkness, dreams and death, about the islanders themselves, what happened to the rest of the marines group, no mention about decreipit ship waiting at anchor (which would be optional, maybe the crew simply left once it was clear no one is coming back)The riddles take too much to define. The last one with passages is pure logic ones, I'd leave players about 10 minutes real time to come to the solution - it is really not that hard once you stop dividing them in equal groups. <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=":)" />Cold lava was the hardest - is it simply some kind of reverse fiery one (dreamscape can be weird)? Is it basalt/obsidian - cooled lava? But then I remembered reading about volcano on Pluton (or one of the outer moons of the gas giants) - their "lava" is frozen amonia and other cold compounds that "heat up" in the summer to mere -150C thus exploding out of the frozen "ground" - hah! Solved! Cold lava that causes cold and nausea <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" />[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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