Challenges

Where normal MUDs have quests, we pose challenges which you can solve to earn experience, game bucks, or bitchin equipment.

Sometimes these are one-time-only puzzles, where the reward goes to the first player or team to find the answer or achieve the objective. Other times these are ongoing, rewarding anyone who solves a well-known yet difficult problem.

This list changes regularly, as challenges are solved and new ones added. Check from time to time to see what's new.

Open Challenges

• Date Posted: 2009.06.23. Submitted by: Anderr. Type: One winner only. Reward: 1000 Dinars. Challenge: The Central Computer is not very talkative. Only on rare occasions does it address a normal citizen. There is, however, one surefire way to have it address you directly, at least for a single phrase. Explain how to get the Central Computer to say something to you. Hint: the Central Computer seems to really hate when people try to outsmart it. Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a Forum message with your answer!

• Date Posted: 2009.06.14. Submitted by: Anderr. Type: One winner only. Reward: 1000 Dinars. Challenge: There are several locations in the City were one can regularly find exactly five silver coins lying around. Name six of them. NOTE that coins found in guild halls or graveyards don't count. Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a Forum message with your answer!

• Date Posted: 2003.09.08 Type: One winner only. Reward: 10,000 exp and 10,000 Dinars. Challenge: How many experience points can be gained on Sanctuary Island and its bridges? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer!

• Date Posted: 2003.08.17 Type: One time only. A team will be required. Reward: 250,000 Dinars split by the surviving team members, plus 100 practices and one Diamond Helmet for each surviving team member. Challenge: The Rat King wears a special t-shirt. Mark wants it. Get it for him. Requirements: This is extremely difficult, requiring a team of high-level adventurers with excellent skills in violence and other Role-based knowledge. Get the shirt, send Mark a Forum message saying you've got it, and Mark'll arrange a time to pick it up.

Solved Challenges

• Date Posted: 9/8/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 1000 Dinars. Challenge: What's inside Blackbeard's grave? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a Forum message with your answer! Solved by: Tengen On: 6/21/05 Solution: "The contents of Blackbeard's grave are one mummy and one wooden coffin. The coffin contains a piece of rotting meat, 200 silver coins, a cutlass, and a swash buckle."

• Date Posted: 9/8/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 500 exp. Challenge: Two mob members are buried in neighboring crypts. Who were they? Who killed them? Who are buried in the next room? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Anderr On: 2/12/05 Solution: "Silverstro and Lorenzo of the mob are buried in the same crypt, slain by Justin's Avatar and the universal Toot shop receptionist, respectively. In the next room ahead lie VahnMerquise and Herme. In the next room created lie Jaelyn and Jet. In the next room toward the exit lie Kelvin and Niko."

• Date Posted: 7/30/04. Submitted by: Poobah. Type: One winner only. Reward: 250 Dinars. Challenge: What's the circulation of the TriadCity Adventurer? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Pasquale On: 12/6/04 Solution: "26,000, according to the block-stencil gang."

• Date Posted: 10/25/03. Submitted by: Amaryllis. Type: One winner only. Reward: 500 Dinars. Challenge: What connection do Leon Trotsky, T.S. Eliot, and Oscar Wilde have to Sanctuary Island? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Anderr On: 9/1/04 Solution: "The three of them are quoted in the graffiti on the bridges."

• Date Posted: 8/3/04. Submitted by: Poobah. Type: One winner only. Reward: 250 Dinars. Challenge: How many employees does the TriadCity Adventurer have? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Vohno On: 8/19/04 Solution: "The trophy in the Adventurer office says welcome TelGar from 467 employees."

• Date Posted: 7/1/04. Submitted by: Mark. Type: One winner only. Reward: 500 Dinars. Challenge: Who ported Zork from MDL to C, and what connection does this have to TriadCity? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Church On: 8/17/04 Solution: "Gary Smith. Gary not only runs the TriadCity character TelGar, but also worked with Mark to start SmartMonsters in 1999." And he ported / wrote Zork, back in the dark ages. (Wasn't so long ago!)

• Date Posted: 8/23/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 10,000 Dinars. Challenge: Inside the Park NW there's a pleasant home called "The Gardener's Cottage". Who's "The Gardener", and where can s/he be found? (It's not one of the gardeners running around pruning things with shears.) Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Tamora On: 8/26/03 Solution: "My guess is that the Gardener is the Judeo-Christian God -- based on the fact that it's a garden, his apple tree has a snake in it, he's regarded as a deity, he has a clay globe (that's supposed to be 'real')." Re his location, "I'd argue that God is everywhere in TC, even if there is a physical manifestation of his body, just because of His defined nature. Marvin concurs." And for extra credit, Tamora correctly pointed out the intermingling in the Park NW of the Old Testament story of Eden with the Enlightenment mythology of Tahiti as Eden (or as Paradise): Evie wears Tahitian clothing, etc.

• Date Posted: 8/23/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 5,000 Dinars. Challenge: Describe two references to the work of T.S. Eliot which appear in TriadCity. Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Klaatu On: 8/25/03 Solution: "T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land features at least two characters found in Triad: Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, found in Black Plaza, and Tiresias, wandering blind seer."

• Date Posted: 8/21/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 10,000 Dinars. Challenge: The Tree of Life is a physical (geographical) representation of one of the central constructs of the western mystical tradition. What does it represent? Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Tamora On: 8/23/03 Solution: "The direct relation to western mysticism is the Qaballah, which is represented as just that: a tree, composed of interconnected rooms, leading upward to the crown. It is also represented by a table of Hebrew letters and their correlating Tarot symbols, also part of the TC tree."

• Date Posted: 8/17/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 10,000 Dinars. Challenge: Name three characters from James Joyce's Ulysses who can be found in TriadCity, and explain where they can each be found. Also, name the chapter where they're found in Ulysses. Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Tamora On: 8/23/03 Solution: "Three of the characters are: The Chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, (grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters), Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley, and Lady Sylvester Elmshade. They also happen to be the first three characters, in order, of the wedding party described in chapter 12, and also in the Royal Gardens in TriadCity's NW."

• Date Posted: 8/17/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 100 practices. Challenge: What is the King's wife's name? (It's not "Priscilla"!) Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Tamora On: 8/23/03 Solution: "Ma Ubu."

• Date Posted: 8/21/03. Type: One winner only. Reward: 25 Practices. Challenge: Name two characters from Dickens who appear in TriadCity, and also the name of the Dickens novel in which they appear together. Requirements: First character who answers correctly wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Mirabella On: 8/22/03 Solution: "Jack Dawkins (The Artful Dodger) and Charlie Bates. The Dickens novel is Oliver Twist."

• Date Posted: 10/7/01. Type: One winner only. Reward: 100 practices. Challenge: "Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so solvent and corrosive that out of all substances it has been chosen for washings and scourings." Requirements: First character who figures out what this has to do with TriadCity, and who finds the correct location within the game world which this refers to, wins the spiff. Send Poobah a MUDMail with your answer! Solved by: Amaryllis On: 8/20/03 Solution: "Location is Pancreatic League Bar. Bartender is Alfred. The description of him fits perfectly with Alfred Jarry, the person who said (RL) 'Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water'. How appropriate that someone addicted to Absinthe would be a bartender in TriadCity! Jarry was less than 5 feet tall; so is Alfred the bartender. Jarry and Alfred both dressed in black cycling clothing."