Author Topic: Seeking Answers to Dwarven Logic & Math Riddles  (Read 1550 times)

Offline Endarire

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Seeking Answers to Dwarven Logic & Math Riddles
« on: February 05, 2018, 01:33:41 AM »
Intro
Greetings, all!

Next Sunday, we share our answers to these riddles.  Correct answers mean progress.  Wrong answers mean bad stuff.  We may be able to use skill checks in place of 'real answers,' but having these right answers (with an explanation for each) would help greatly.

Riddle 1: Drunk Dwarf Drinking Contest
The drinking contest:

Clan Hammerfall is known for its exquisite drinking contest. The "Prince of Ale" Title is amongst the worthiest of all to be carried under the mountain.  In order to become the Prince of Ale, one must outlast the competition, the last man standing or the one with the most consumed ale after a whole night wins.

Unfortunately, last year's event ended in a bit of a black-out. Most of the competitors were lying on the floor, but a handful remained still standing. One is unsure about, who was the true Prince of Ale. The official notes of this evening show:

    Marrian Hammerfall beat Tom Stonehand and Jarlaqusel Rench.
    Krensh Bigfingers lost to Graham Goodfellow and Marrian Hammerfall.
    Peltasar Piper beat Jarlaqusel Rench, Tom Stonehand and Alan Ardman.
    Zach Oremaster beat Frodo Lightmantle.
    Graham Goodfellow beat Tom Stonehand
    Graham Goodfellow lost to Frodo Lightmantle and Peltasar Piper.
    Tom Stonehand beat Brian Brick.
    Brian Brick beat Krensh Bigfingers.
    Alan Ardman beat Zach Oremaster, Krensh Bigfingers and Graham Goodfellow.
    Marrian Hammerfall lost to Alan Ardman and Zach Oremaster
    Frodo Lightmantle beat Tom Stonehand, Marrian Hammerfall and Brian Brick.
    Tom Stonehand lost to Jarlaqusel Rench and Alan Ardman.
    Jarlaqusel Rench beat Graham Goodfellow and Brian Brick.

In which order did the dwarfs finish and who won the title of the 'Prince of Ale?'

Riddle 2: Dwarf Traders
NOTE: The tags of (dwarf 1), (dwarf 2), and (dwarf 3) are used to help people understand which dwarf said what.

Three dwarfs used the great halls to trade their goods. Hammer (dwarf 1) says to Jarlqusel (dwarf 2): "I'll hand you 6 iron ore for one of your gold ores.  Afterwards you will have twice as many pieces of ore here compared to me."

"Screw ya business," said Dandalow (dwarf 3) to Hammer (dwarf 1), "Me offerz ya not less than 14 of me finest tin ore for a gold ore, and then you will have three times as much ore compared to me."

"Well, I want to make you a better offer friend," said Jarlqusel (dwarf 2) to Dandalow (dwarf 3); "I will give you 4 silver ore for one gold ore, hence you'll have 6 times as many pieces of ore as I've got here."

The real question everyone was asking was. How many pieces of ore were altogether at that market?

Riddle 3: Refunds
Yarr!  Three of the finest travelers came to our Inn in Hammerfall. They shouldn't be waiting.

As usual they needed to pay a fine rent of 30gp for the night - altogether.

Farlin Bonefindler, the drunken thickhead forgot about that the king under the mountain told him to lower the prices during the Moonfest, so more customers were coming. He should have only charged them 25gp.

Ashamed of his mistake, Farlin goes to his wife Shantal, the maide of the Inn and tells her to please give back 5gp to these three travelers. On her way to the strangers, she reasons that 5gp can never be split evenly amongst them, so she decides to pocket 2gp herself, as a good dwarf would do, and gives back 1gp to each traveler.

Well now, there seems to be a problem:

Now each traveller paid 10gp and received a refund of 1gp.

That means they each paid 9gp - a total of 27gp. Shantal has only 2 gp, the remaining gp seems to be lost. What happened?

Personal Guess: The innkeeper collected it but never refunded it.  (I don't claim this is accurate.)

Riddle 4: Order of Eating Operations
Two ogres captured a bunch of dwarfs during their sleep. Of course our brothers could have bested free from their entanglement, but they wanted to know firstly what the Ogres would be up to.

So they heard their discussion and tried to make sense of the words. After they figured out the cruel intentions of the Ogres, who planned to eat them, of course they were forced to lay these beasts to rest. But the story of the Ogre dialog continues until today:

    Armin, the dwarf shouldn't be eaten first or last. He tastes rather bitter they said.

    The selected dwarf to be eaten raw needs to be eaten after Iridor, however before Armin - the robust-.

    Cucumber needs to be used with the dwarf, who is to be eaten in 4th place. It is strictly forbidden to use it with the grilled dwarf however.

    Ormus - the wise dwarf - is to be grilled or steamed, because of his massive beard. The ogres refused to use ginger however.

    Iridor needs to be eaten two places ahead of the dwarf, who is to be cooked with fine garlic.

    Etna - the huge - is not to be eaten fried or raw, she appears to be poisonous and might splatter when being fried - and because she is acidic, she is not to be eaten in 4th place.

    Melon aroma, the delicious sweeterner, is to be eaten directly prior to the coriander.

    The dwarf, who is eaten in third position needs to be baked, the fine taste of it will make the following dwarfs go down easier, but as every good Ogre knows, baking shouldn't happen with coriander or ginger.

    And what happens with Sharnor, their leader?

State each of the five dwarfs, their cooking method, and the used herbs.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Seeking Answers to Dwarven Logic & Math Riddles
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2018, 01:50:57 AM »
Riddle 1: Competitors are knocked out in sequence. Reword the given information into A>B relationships, then you can trivially use the transitive properties of inequalities (ie: if A beat B, then A beat everyone B beat, too) to determine the order.
(click to show/hide)

Riddle 2: Simple algebra.
(click to show/hide)

Riddle 3: It's a trick question.
(click to show/hide)

Riddle 4: Somewhat more complex series of interactions. Since there are only 5 spaces for each dwarf, herb, or cooking method, and each space can only have one item from each category, going through the clues one at a time quickly narrows down the possibilities.
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 07, 2018, 01:56:23 AM by Garryl »

Offline Endarire

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Re: Seeking Answers to Dwarven Logic & Math Riddles
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2018, 07:01:32 PM »
Thankee, Sir Garryl, for your assistance with this!

I liked your response that since the dwarves broke free and slew the ogres, none of that cooking mattered anyway.  (|=^)