Religious puzzle for a 4E game?

[Dr. Confoundo]

I'm prepping an adventure for my 4E campaign in which I will need a religion based puzzle which will allow the players access to chambers under an abandoned temple. I've got some basic ideas for how the puzzle will work, but I'm hoping for a little bit of help in designing it. Any comments/assistance would be greatly appreciated.

The temple is dedicated to the main pantheon in my campaign (mainly derived from the Faith of the Seven from George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, along with a healthy dose of Eberron's Sovereign Host). It was ravaged hundreds of years ago during a massive influx of demonic forces, and the final defenders triggered defensive wards that they hoped would seal off the storerooms and tombs under the temple. Unfortunately, these wards trapped some demons inside with the defenders, and the monsters have been trapped there ever since.

What I've been thinking about is a puzzle involving statues of the seven deities of the pantheon that still stand in the main temple chamber, and the different colors and implements that they are normally shown with. Somehow, by manipulating or correcting these statues (in the proper order?), it will drop the wards and give them access.

I'm not sure what step to take next... I don't want to make it a logic puzzle, especially since the religious characters will have all of the following info about the deities automatically. A matching puzzle also seems too easy... if all they need to do is match up a couple of items/colors, I can't imagine the scene lasting very long.

I'm including a brief rundown of the gods involved. Any thoughts on designing a puzzle or skill challenge that my players will enjoy? Make it as hard as possible... if they don't get through now, they can always go research the answers and come back later.

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The Father: god of justice, knowledge, and civilization. Wears a crown of gold; carries a lantern

The Mother: goddess of the family and agriculture. Carries a cup or a candle, wears green.

The Warrior: god of war, valor, and courage. Carries a sword, wears blue.

The Maiden: goddess of love, art, and purity. Wears white, carries a rose.

The Smith: god of strength, craft, and innovation. Carries a hammer, wears red

The Crone: goddess of magic, fate and death. Wears black, carries a spool of thread/shuttle for weaving

The Stranger: god(?) of luck, mystery, and secrets, Carries a hand mirror, dressed in grey.

 

[fba827]

Regardless of the final form of the puzzle, I'd actually suggest that the Stranger's statue be dressed normally and the other 6 are the ones with stuff mixed around.
Why? To add a little confusion to the PCs and players (hey, he's the god of mystery and secrets, why can't he add confusion to the puzzle involved) and it might make the players pause (even just a little) as to what they should be doing. :-D


As for the puzzle, one possibility is ...
Maybe in addition to correcting the items, the PCs must place an item from their own belongings in the other hand of each statue. Let them be inventive and creative but any random item that they can convince you(DM) is in the spirit of the god/goddess.

I.e. for the father after correctly dressing him and putting his lantern in hand, they must ruffle through the packs and place an item in the father's other hand (maybe it's a rope that they tie as a noose, to represent justice served to a criminal) and so on. The same item can't be used twice (i.e. if they give the father the rope, they can't reuse that same rope for another statue until the whole thing is done and the wards are dropped).

Though this idea may get a little tricky if they don't track equuipment well or don't have some equipment that could (with a little stretch) somehow meet the standards



Another idea: maybe they have to complete it multiple times and each time they do something else happens/triggers in the room (i.e. a trap? a spirit? a ward?)

Or: every individual one that they complete will trigger something else to happen in the room (related to that statue). i.e. once they correctly dress the smith, the chamber gets hot, almost like being in a forge; correctly fixing the Mother statue will cause the chamber to bloom with flowers and creeping vines and kudzu.

Or; it has to be done in a certain order (what order, i don't know? but perhaps bottom to top or top to bottom to represent hierarchy; or some order that might make sense in the context of a relavent historical tale about some grand feast of the the gods at the dawn of time, and the order in which they ate their supper or gifted life upon earth or something)

....

i suck at puzzles, sorry i can't think up anything more creative. but maybe one of the above ideas will spark a better idea

 

[Quickleaf]

Those were some good ideas! My first thought was a puzzle of secondary colors (gods, in this case) and who holds what implement when. So maybe there's a mural with religious passages that describe via metaphor which implement goes where, eg. "I am jealous when there's fire, yet sharpest when I am cold." Then at certain points the PCs need to decide what happens when you combine two gods ideaologies, likd what virtue emerges meditating on both Crone and Maiden? The first part of the puzzle would be interpreting the religious passage to find out which gods are sharing/swapping implements in what combo. The second part is thinking creatively about what merging two philosophies would look like. Hope that framework is useful to you.

 

[Rune]

As for the puzzle, one possibility is ...
Maybe in addition to correcting the items, the PCs must place an item from their own belongings in the other hand of each statue. Let them be inventive and creative but any random item that they can convince you(DM) is in the spirit of the god/goddess.

To play off of this idea, each statue could require an offering or sacrifice, ranging from mundane to really nasty.

The Father=scales or a law book

The Mother=a seed or fruit

The Warrior=the blood of a superior foe

The Maiden=an art object or an act of selflessness

The Smith=something made by the PC's own hands

The Crone=a year (or more) from one of the PCs' lives

The Stranger=a secret revealed or a secret kept and brought to fruition

 

[thejc]

I am curious how this played out. When you said this I could not help but think of all the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver games they were chock full of puzzles and such.

I had an additional thought. The Chief statue could be blown apart so the pc's would have to comb through the cloister picking those statue pieces up. The other statues would open certain doors, passage ways, chests ect.

This is a great way to tell backstory and history. I like it a lot!