Dungeon Master Forum

Nice try Rasmus, anyway. Go on! Any other ideas?

Hehe, thanks Jan.. (I was hoping to solve this 8 year long puzzel with a simple question )

I read on this swedish website that one guy named Retelle and was a consultants for the FTL team had been interviewed about this specific riddle.
He said that it originaly was going to be apart of a bigger puzzel, but that it got left left behind in the release.. His final words was "don't worry about it, this scroll can't be decoded.".
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/sv/ ... rikes_Back

Yes, we know all this already, it's in the thread

Ahhh, sorry But I must say that it is a little bit disapointing that it can't be solved somehow.. It would be real nice to discover a secret that leads to something totally new, the csbcode that we have access to is so complex that it wouldn't supprice me if this was the case!

So, who got still hair to tear out since the beginning of this thread?

I was thinking about Retelle told it can't be decoded ... Does that mean it was a context-aware scroll, like the "no creature" scroll and thus it would have been dynamically decoded by the DM engine? And its message would have changed when you were in front of a Demon face warning you about nearby danger (remember the Gor coin reading) but finally they gave up the idea and put the ugly Hint Oracle instead . . . . . . . . . . (I have still hair so I can try!)

My name is Anthony Durrant and I used to be a player of CHAOS STRIKES BACK back when we still had our Atari ST. I actually remember encountering that very scroll and trying to decode it, using a substitution cypher but getting nowhere. The "unique dragon" mentioned above is unique because he is the only monster in any DUNGEON MASTER game that has a name - and that name is (wait for it, wait for it) MONGOR, a combination of two of the spell syllables found in the game. That name may be (or was intended to have been) the scroll's keyword.

In fact, the name MONGOR comes from a combination of the weakest (MON) and strongest (GOR, which is the demonic symbol) syllables, something I have just realized. Could Mongor's name have been intended to be a spell? Or could it be referring to the fact that Mongor has a weakness, that weakness being the fact that he can be killed by being dropped on from above through a trapdoor?

Mon is actually the strongest power symbol (representing mountains), and GOR the strongest form (not alignment) meaning conflict. It's perhaps just a fun thing they realised that an interesting name could also be made from symbols. Who knows!

Anyway, welcome to the forums!

I was looking for a possible title like Dragon.

There is only one G for a possible scroll title like MONGOR OR DRAGON ( 6 letters ) Obviously letters frequency gives credit to a simple anagram. All substitutions failed. I found some possible sentences like A fear wind ... enemy bows... surrender onyx key (and with remaining letters ) a dark anagram request nun !

Based on the frequencies ( Nearu N8 (14.3%) + E7 (12.5%) A6 (10.7%) U4 (7.1%) R4 (7.1%) O3 (5.4%) ) I found things like Near you is waiting an onyx key... gem no arena square unit... unique coin in aquae tank... ?

I will try an attack based on CSB Oracle vocabulary and the lack of H ( J yes J , L, P, V, Z are missing too) and rare single letters like X and short sequences like . (one letter ) .. ( two letters next ) (Notepad++ is a nice tool to dig the oracle for word sequences with regular expressions like " [A-Z]) ([A-Z])([A-Z]) " )

The pattern is ......(title): ..... .... .. ...... ...... . .. ... ..... ....... .........

Based on Map location of the holy scroll and CSB Oracle vocabulary Exit is one of the few possible words ( with 16 matches in oracle database ) ( alt. Next is another one found in oracle ( five matches) and will leads to something like "next to" with one missing t, or onyx ( unlikely too since "key" will not fit the next word place ), perhaps Boxes or Axe but not Vexirkor Vexing since we have a missing V letter in the scroll ) and "I do" for ( alternative to "I am not" also found with oracle database and previously mentionned in previous pages ) we have few letters ( for a brute force attack reduce multiple series of letters to tripple letters not pair only or you can miss few words with three A or U ) for a guess on the 7/9 letters words.

So far I am investigating words with multiple a,e, n ( like "breakaway") and particular forms (like "qu")

(DRAGON/unknow): .....(enemy/mercy/newer/queer) exit is ......(unseen/unknow) ......(runaway) I do for .....(squad/arena/mercy) ......(Unknown/runaway/urgency) breakaway(emergency)

DRAGON sneak exit is around corner... is working too

I am stuck with few remaining letters like q and hundred 5/6 letters words... Mongor is unlikely with 2 O... but who knows ?



Old scroll found in a treasure chest :...DRAGON sneak exit is ...... ...... O we are awoke unfunny marauding

Or it could be something like MONGOR: ..... exit is unique ......(runway?) O we are .....(faced?) .......(menaced?) .........(daybreaks ... ambuscade? ... 33 candidate words found)

I found something weird but promising while stumbling with some mana words and substitutions :
Mongor ..... exit .. ...... ...... . .. ... ..... mananas endurance
remainning letters : aabdeeeefiikknnnoqqrrsuuuwwyyy
Noun: manana Derived forms: mananas = An indefinite time in the future

Thoughts of the Moment: There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

I'm glad to see someone is still searching! Thanks for sharing your progress.

That way madness lies, but good luck nonetheless!

@Gandalf: I think we're 99.9% sure the scroll is unsolveable, based on commentary found in the thread and knowledge gleaned from FTL members over the years. Good luck anyway, you'll need it!

Thanks Gambit37 I read the whole thread before and I know it is just for fun. I 've got even a Rabbit's Foot from my friend Boris the wizard of Baldor anyway I always knew this scroll is not really of any importance ( even if I remember some strange reading about it years ago on an atari bbs... sadly I cant found the source again ).

Sorry for the double post but I found it !

From the Gor coin I search more about Gor universe and found one page - at least - about ''gor language'' talking about the fact that "Gorean is written, as it is said, as the ox plows. The first line is written left to right, the second, right to left, the third, left to right, and so on."

Starting with both the gor reversed letters anatnauqa nracone anfew yed so u minder wobeks ik yeuq munre xinyrG and an eye on the original scroll like a mirror you just need to cut & swap letters in rows to connect key words.

You must reverse and arrange words in a table to found the final message. The obvious gor world connection was certainly not in FTL mind and perhaps they decided to leave it later... in the dark side ...

I leave you for few days so you remind...so u minder... and enjoy founding it by yourself

''Yet it may be roundly asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve'' ( from A Few Words on Secret Writing by Edgar Allan Poe)

Have you really decoded the scoll??? Either you're joking or I'm too dumb to understand your instructions.

Sounds highly unlikely to me. He's just messing with us Sophia's speculations about it are still the most sensible in my view.

From the way Gandalf presents his messages, he seems like one of these... Eccentric types

After so long, I think we'll happily wait another week for you to present us a more detailed solution Gandalf!

Whether you solve it or not, I really like this thread...

Quirk is a possible word like Gor rune (or coins) , Magnifier or even onyx key all things found in the chest.

Basically I started with the reversed message to see things in a different order and found some anagrams and phonetic words.

I was looking for a method to arrange letters.

* Remember the Gor coin ?

* Reversing is the essence of Gor :

Yes I am a bit eccentric ..."out of the center" but I am an open mind

If you have something concrete to share, please do, otherwise please stop partially revealing your random thoughts!

Hey, Dr. Love ..... it is OK. No harm is being done.
Let the man muse and thrash about. One never knows
when what seems like a nonsensical brainstorm might
instill an insight in someone else. That is commonly how
very hard problems are solved. Lots of false starts.

Harm is being done to my frazzled psyche! We've had 8 years of speculation, and now yet more. It's getting annoying. If there's an actual solution, it would be kind to share it, instead of doing a drawn out theatrical tease. I call Gandalf out as a blaggard and a charlatan!

Sorry Gambit, but not sure that I wanted this one solved anyways - it's too much fun! Please continue your thoughts Gandalf, where-ever it leads to...

Eek, he triggered me too again - with no result, what else...
I could throw in some keywords too, like:
"remember use drumstick for reanimation"
or
"use an onyx key on any wand"

Funny:
searching for the keywords "gor" "ocean" and "aquarium" did bring up this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_My ... 0_episodes
and then to this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Creature
with the description:
"The film is notable as being the only sequel to a 3-D film to be also shot in 3-D."
I like that association

Gandalf is right. This scroll is written in gorean (I checked the date of the Chronicles of Gor, and it was existing before Dungeon Master). There are a lots of gorean specific words, for example 'Sar' means 'King' : check the Sar symbol, does it look like a crown on a head? Now, as for the explanation of the scroll itself, it may be ... hum ... a description of ... stuff for kajirae ... (I think the nearby Vexirks wrote that scroll and I believe they are evil minded).

If someone understands ...

Sorry for delay and for ... the pain

Transposition ciphers change the position of the units that make up a message so that the message contents remain the same, though the order is jumbled so that it appears unintelligible. Generally, transposition ciphers offer little security and can easily be broken by even an amateur crypanalysist (ie: you.)

( From http://library.thinkquest.org/27993/cry ... ans1.shtml )

Transposition ciphers work by rearranging the letters of a plaintext to form a ciphertext; both the length of the text and the frequency distribution of the letters are identical between plaintext and ciphertext. The rail-fence cipher is a well-known transposition cipher; another is the columnar transposition...

( from http://programmingpraxis.com/2009/05/29 ... on-cipher/ )

On a short message we can not exclude some volontary missing letters and/OR possible hidden secondary key on some letters like the missing H . The frequency reveals possible things ( see code below ) and - weird - letters sort order gives nearouyis.... Near you is W ? or Near YOU is W ...

After testing various things I both exclude a simple single substitution - transposition even if I found hundred possible anagrams like DRAGON : MAYBE UNFAIR KNOW SQUARE NEST IN DEN I AM NEAR ONYX KEY... . In fact I accidentaly ( with an automate routine on the sequence aaaaaabcddeeeeeeefgiiikkmmnnnnnnnnoooqqrrrrsstuuuuwwxyyy ) stumble on U SCAN NUMBER OF WORD ANYWAY MAKING A QUERIED ANNEXE KEY NON_SEQUITUR ( From Wikipedia : (Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion can be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion.)

Remember we are on the ROS path : A Funny Requiem Quanta GOR arcane onyx key so u remind we knew a bad sin !

but it is not the secret solution
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grynix ernum quey ki skebow rednim u os dey wefna enocarn aquantana
Removed spaces : 56 chars

a : 6 ... 10.7 % 8.2 expected seems ok ( unlikely possible swap with e )
b : 1 ... 1.8 % 1.5 ok
c : 1 ... 1.8 % 2.8 ok
d : 2 ... 3.6 % 4.3 ok
e : 7 ... 12.5 % 12.7 ok seems ok even if on a short message a swap is still possible T A O
f : 1 ... 1.8 % 2.2 ok
g : 1 ... 1.8 % 2.0 ok
h : 0 ... 0.0 % --> ??? 6.1 missing letter ? or match with y ( see below )
i : 3 ... 5.4 % 7.0 ok
j : 0 ... 0.0 % 0.2 rare not signifiant
k : 2 ... 3.6 % 0.8 possible
l : 0 ... 0.0 % --> 4.0 ??? >--> possible k or w
m : 2 ... 3.6 % 2.4
n : 8 ... 14.3 % 6.7 ++
o : 3 ... 5.4 % 7.5 ok unlikely but a swap is possible
p : 0 ... 0.0 % 1.9 rare and the message is short anyway
q : 2 ... 3.6 % 0.1 + not signifiant ( qu matches ) but possible l
r : 4 ... 7.1 % 6.0 ok
s : 2 ... 3.6 % 6.3 -
t : 1 ... 1.8 % 9.1 -- perhaps U
u : 4 ... 7.1 % 2.8 ++ perhaps T OR N OR ...
v : 0 ... 0.0 % 1.0 - ns
w : 2 ... 3.6 % 2.4 + possible match with l
x : 1 ... 1.8 % 0.2
y : 3 ... 5.4 % 2.0 ++ possible N, S, H, R...
z : 0 ... 0.0 % ns

Ha - this looks more like Gambit was right (and it's still possible that it is something about drumsticks )

btw: I think in those years phonetic writing wasn't invented.

What about this - this anagram is really made out of the letters:

key key
answer question onyx gem
join free wand band
can run aquarium

ok ok - me runs too

Just to let you know Bit I came back here after I try DMT V0.061 It was fun ... I played with my son ...

It was just a example of funny spelling from the U found in the reversed encrypted message and just a childish form far older than Chatspeak and SMS abbreviations or Leetspeak ( from bulletin board systems in the 1980s ).

UNFAIR WORM NEST IN DRAGON DEN ONYX KEY ... or [KEYWORD KEY_WORD] EXAMINING UNIQUE FREQUENCY ...etc works too.

So far we know :

- There is some working solutions in native english language like ONYX KEY EERIE ME WAG UNFUNNY CABINETWORK SQUADRON SQUANDERMANIA but we want the real one based on method.
- Some common letters are apparently missing like H or L
- The message was not encrypted with a simple letter substitution (cf.frequency )
- A simple transposition is not enough to decipher the message ( cf. part4 ) ( cf. Lectures at least Lecture 3 ; "Cryptanalysis of the Classical Ciphers" etc )
- We can not exclude a zig-zag or diagonal route or some avanced reverse route ....( cf. Secret link given above for a sample)
- Possible secondary substitution/transposition to swap some letters to hide some sequences.
- Word Breaks is unusual in such cipher text ( it should be something like five letters blocks gryni xernu mquey kiske bowre dnimu osdey wefna enoca rnaqu antan a) and suggest a possible attack on the code and title : Ciphertext messages should never be written in word format. ... It is perhaps Fairplay or just a fool path... Last words " Bad Spelling is Good: Variation of a word's spelling such as American/British forms and even homonyms or misspellings can be used to reduce repetition. Remember the key is to introduce randomness".

MORE about frequencies :

ETAOIN SHRDLU is a mnemonic for remembering the order of frequency of letters in English. That is E, T and A are the most common! The vowels AEIOU are found in 38.5% of the text.

The most common digraphs are: TH IN ER RE AN HE AR EN TI TE AT ON HA OU IT ES ST OR

The most common trigraphs are: THE ING AND ION ENT FOR TIO ERE HER ATE VER TER THA

The 100 most common English words are:

THE FOR HAVE THIS BEEN WHEN ITS GREAT CAN COULD
OF AS YOU MY HIM WHAT OUT NOW MADE VERY
AND WITH WHICH THEY ONE YOUR INTO SUCH WELL MUCH
TO WAS ARE ALL SO MORE OUR SHOULD OLD OWN
A HIS ON THEIR IF WOULD THESE OTHER MUST MOST
IN HE OR AN WILL THEM MAN ONLY US MIGHT
THAT BE HER SHE THERE SOME UP ANY SAID FIRST
IS NOT HAD HAS WHO THAN DO THEN TIME AFTER
I BY AT WERE NO MAY LIKE ABOUT EVEN YET
IT BUT FROM ME WE UPON SHALL THOSE NEW TWO

The preceding statistics are from Cryptanalysis by Helen Fouché Gaines.

( from last link )

From my previous post about frequency AEIOU are nice with 41.1 % of the text and some letters are suspicious but the message is short enough to void stats. Even if it looks unlikely at first sight some digraphs like ER, AN, AR, EN, ES could be hidden with a secondary substitution on few "key" letters like the strange digraph EY if Y = N etc ...( and even A = E with some smart swap on candidate letters ) OR perhaps NA another digraph found twice ... is simply the reversed form of AN ... or EN ? But WE becomes EW if we reverse the message !

How do you explain the presence of both ordered and reversed letters sequences in the message ?

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad !
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
--All in the Wrong.

Our minds are suited for recognizing patterns and making sense of them. Humans love to find meaning and patterns.
Even where there are none.

http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/torah.html

Sorry for the double post but I found it !

Oh, that was a misunderstanding by me - I thought the quote meant 'I found the solution' and you started to reveal it torturing slooooowly with some hints to give us a chance too. But it was (just) 'found the notice".
Well, then I better continue with the work for Sphenx. That's puzzle enough.

I had thought that perhaps different keyboard layouts could be a possibility, use of the language bar might help.. or as someone mentioned translators. i ran it through a russian cypher and got "os dey wefna = in the wasps" but the remaining lines were garbage. I then ran it through the chinese one and got a lot more words but the sentence wasn't making much sense and some words garbage. I doubt if it would be a case of one part chinese, then russian, then greek, etc..

the one thing that is certain, is it seems very intentional in it's break up of text.. and i think even the creators are probably lost as to where it was going exactly, or we'd know by now