Post by samantha73 on Oct 23, 2023 9:05:18 GMT -5
The theme of the puzzle was the tryst between Venus and Mars, the goddess of love and the god of war. Spock is a Vulcan and was used to bring in the jealousy theme as Vulcan was the husband of Venus in Roman mythology.
There were a lot of moving parts to this puzzle. I'm thrilled to say I think the winning team solved all of the clues in the poem and image. Finding the secret website was not necessary to solve the puzzle although the nanocache bolt contained the password to the URL needed to claim the prize, I would have awarded the prize to a hunter if they solved everything through the poem and images and found the location. But I would have been very surprised if someone won without discovering the website.
Herrick's poem "To Anthea IV" ends the fourth line with a
emoji, which supposedly is the first use of an emoji. You are meant to focus on the emoji.
"void of Fire, lips germane" means you use the unicode U+1F618, remove the F and you have 1618, but that number means nothing until you get to NOLA, so first
Make the connection between love and war. On the image you have "it was already over" so think of the Battle of New Orleans fought at Christmastime at the end of the War of 1812. Here’s a quote about the battle: “News of victory "came upon the country like a clap of thunder in the clear azure vault of the firmament, and traveled with electromagnetic velocity, throughout the confines of the land."
There are three stanzas for several reasons. A lover’s triangle, and also three colors: gold, green and purple. Gold glistens and “sounds bold.” Jealousy is the green-eyed monster, and “cold morning’s light” is a nod to the Byron Preiss Chicago verse. Purple just rhymes with curple.
If you google 1618 when in Google maps over NOLA, a bunch of addresses will come up, but the one that should stand out, if you’ve solved the not-a-book-cipher is 1618 Prytania, which is Prytania Oaks Hotel. A Prytania is a type of moth, and it’s also a song by a band named Mutemath. The cipher requires you to make the connection between the orbs (planets) from the Hamlet reference. Taking the letters from each planet you get letters that anagram to PRYTANIA. This was probably the most difficult of the image ciphers.
The hotel is nearby Coliseum Square Park. The streets nearby are named after Muses. “Reel” refers to the Muse of Theater. Looking on a map, the Coliseum Park name should jump out at you, from there it’s finding the “curple place” which was a bench found by counting from the north tip of the park and finding the 7th light pole.
There was some misdirection to San Francisco besides the “air smells sweet” reference. I once thought a case could be made for pairing verse 7 with NOLA. If you’re standing between the Joan of Arc statue (which was not there until right after The Secret was published) and the steamboat, the air smells sweet because of Cafe du Monde. Twain’s attention might be split between the steamboat and Joan of Arc had he been standing there today. There were also the images Fish, Rose, Indiana, Spock, Crowe, Oak which spell out FRISCO but I don’t think anyone got this.
Google reviews of the park have a bunch of confirmers, like a post from a Paul Allen standing on the X.
The secret website Moontrain.com had a lot of helpful hints and confirmers. Several teams found the hidden URLs without finding the egg and waypoint item. You found the website by using a playfair cipher of the first letters of each line of the poem with the keyword Vulcan.
The stock image of the red and white rose was difficult to find but it was meant to hint at the War of the Roses. Indiana refers to the LOVE artist who has sculptures in many cities. A lot of teams went to the sculpture but again the theme was love and war, not just love, so the Coliseum is where you want to be. Russell Crowe as Robin Hood with the arrow fit the theme, but then it would click at the end when you find the Coliseum Are you not entertained?
I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Thanks to all who participated! This was fun to create.
Stay tuned for the release of my next BOTG hunt “The Franklin Key” coming very soon!
There were a lot of moving parts to this puzzle. I'm thrilled to say I think the winning team solved all of the clues in the poem and image. Finding the secret website was not necessary to solve the puzzle although the nanocache bolt contained the password to the URL needed to claim the prize, I would have awarded the prize to a hunter if they solved everything through the poem and images and found the location. But I would have been very surprised if someone won without discovering the website.
Herrick's poem "To Anthea IV" ends the fourth line with a
emoji, which supposedly is the first use of an emoji. You are meant to focus on the emoji."void of Fire, lips germane" means you use the unicode U+1F618, remove the F and you have 1618, but that number means nothing until you get to NOLA, so first
Make the connection between love and war. On the image you have "it was already over" so think of the Battle of New Orleans fought at Christmastime at the end of the War of 1812. Here’s a quote about the battle: “News of victory "came upon the country like a clap of thunder in the clear azure vault of the firmament, and traveled with electromagnetic velocity, throughout the confines of the land."
There are three stanzas for several reasons. A lover’s triangle, and also three colors: gold, green and purple. Gold glistens and “sounds bold.” Jealousy is the green-eyed monster, and “cold morning’s light” is a nod to the Byron Preiss Chicago verse. Purple just rhymes with curple.
If you google 1618 when in Google maps over NOLA, a bunch of addresses will come up, but the one that should stand out, if you’ve solved the not-a-book-cipher is 1618 Prytania, which is Prytania Oaks Hotel. A Prytania is a type of moth, and it’s also a song by a band named Mutemath. The cipher requires you to make the connection between the orbs (planets) from the Hamlet reference. Taking the letters from each planet you get letters that anagram to PRYTANIA. This was probably the most difficult of the image ciphers.
The hotel is nearby Coliseum Square Park. The streets nearby are named after Muses. “Reel” refers to the Muse of Theater. Looking on a map, the Coliseum Park name should jump out at you, from there it’s finding the “curple place” which was a bench found by counting from the north tip of the park and finding the 7th light pole.
There was some misdirection to San Francisco besides the “air smells sweet” reference. I once thought a case could be made for pairing verse 7 with NOLA. If you’re standing between the Joan of Arc statue (which was not there until right after The Secret was published) and the steamboat, the air smells sweet because of Cafe du Monde. Twain’s attention might be split between the steamboat and Joan of Arc had he been standing there today. There were also the images Fish, Rose, Indiana, Spock, Crowe, Oak which spell out FRISCO but I don’t think anyone got this.
Google reviews of the park have a bunch of confirmers, like a post from a Paul Allen standing on the X.
The secret website Moontrain.com had a lot of helpful hints and confirmers. Several teams found the hidden URLs without finding the egg and waypoint item. You found the website by using a playfair cipher of the first letters of each line of the poem with the keyword Vulcan.
The stock image of the red and white rose was difficult to find but it was meant to hint at the War of the Roses. Indiana refers to the LOVE artist who has sculptures in many cities. A lot of teams went to the sculpture but again the theme was love and war, not just love, so the Coliseum is where you want to be. Russell Crowe as Robin Hood with the arrow fit the theme, but then it would click at the end when you find the Coliseum Are you not entertained?
I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Thanks to all who participated! This was fun to create.
Stay tuned for the release of my next BOTG hunt “The Franklin Key” coming very soon!
and Curple, a shade of purple in the Hex Color Codes... yes Curple is a color! LOL! It was only 2 blocks from my cousin's house! 