Good job! It looks like there are 4 triangles in the whole thing separating it so maybe we Get the dots and overlay them onto the Triangles. @Endri Can you cut out the dots so they are only showing in a separate picture?
1 Like
Nicely done @Baer! Welcome to the fold!
I tried to separate the dots, as well as put Baer’s image over it:
1 Like
What if you flip the dots upside down?
1 Like
Wait… What I’m seeing is the four animals connect to other animals like Spider to Squirrel and Narwhal Dolphin to Octopus and Pigeon
2 Likes
I’m at a loss. The words in the assessment questions are still needling at me. It feels like we’re supposed to find the next adjective in the sequence, but only have animals to choose from. That doesn’t make any sense, but the words have to mean something, right?
Does anyone know how the Guilds are laid out over the compass? The image from @Crytter that @Revenir reposted shows the dots in certain quadrants of the compass. They may be indicating specific Guilds. Not quite sure what that gets us though. I know there’s been discussion on another thread about Guild Familiars, but I don’t think there’s anything official so I’m not sure how that would play here. Plus there are six guilds and only four dots/answers. Still, we needed someone from all six guilds to perform that spell and the presence of the guild compass in the cag files makes me think there’s a guild element to this.
Going back to the words though, each dot appeared after figuring out the book the red words were referring to, yes? Do the red words have anything to do with the words in the questions? The four words were STUDY, FREINDSHIP (misspelled), COURAGE, and WILD. Four words, four dots, four questions. I think @Robert is right that there’s a connection there. I have no idea what it is, but I think there is one.
7 Likes
I’ll be honest. I’ve spent so much time staring at these dots that I put them on the same shelf as the Map of Fairyland. I titled that shelf ‘The shelf I put things that I stared at for so long I never, ever want to look at again in my life’. (I need a catchier title… )
But i guess we have to look at them so let’s dig up what I’ve noted and see if it helps anyone.
There are 4 dots. For convience sake I’ve named them NW, W, SW, and SE for their cardinal directions assuming north is straight up.
These dots can be looked at in a few ways.
- By order of appearance.
-The first dot was SE, and it appeared along side of the STUDY in Scarlet Story.
-
The second and third dots appeared at the same time, W and SW appeared at the same time as WILD and COURAGE. It seems to be impossible to provide an order based on these based purely on when they showed up.
-
The last dot, NW appeared with the word FREINDSHIP (sic).
Thoughts. It’s possible each dot represents one of the 4 words. Some of those words may, or may not, be similar to things one may, or may not, seen in the assessment as characteristics. That would give us an animal, a word, a direction and…somehow those three add up to another animal.
I get how an animal + direction leads to another animal…but what’s the word for?
- Arranged by distances from center.
Interestingly enough these dots are not on concentric cirlces.
- W and SW are closed to the center. Interestingly enough these are the same 2 that appeared the same day.
-SE is next outermost.
-NW is the farthest out.
2a) Perhaps the order should be reversed from outter to inner. Got me.
- I had a third way these could be grouped but I’ve forgotten it in my rage at these dots. Look at them. Just sitting there smirking at us…
3 Likes
@Mike - Re: the guild animals… I know we don’t have official guild animals, but didn’t fragments three and four have some mascots? I remember a few, anyways.
Lion - Thornmouth
Mouse - Flinterforge
Frog - Balimora
Owl - Gossmere
I don’t remember Ebenguard and Weatherwatch… But a quick forum search lead me to some people positing Ebenguard as hippocampus (Seahorse) and Weatherwatch as capricorn (Goat)?
I have no idea if this’ll help at all, but if the guilds are involved…those six animals might be relevant?
Edit: Only the mouse and goat are on the pieces, so maybe not. Or maybe the animals are different…?
3 Likes
@Robert you make a good point. The dots aren’t exactly arranged in a helpful way. But now I’m thinking that maybe they’re not supposed to be. The NW dot showed up with FREINDSHIP. What Guild is in the NW section of the compass? Are they known for being friendly as well as being bad spellers? Is the Guild in the SE known for being studious? My wiki-fu is weak and I couldn’t find it, but I remember somebody posting all the Guild graphics from the end of the Guide to Magiq. Each graphic lists the traits associated with that Guild. And all the words in the assessment look like Guild qualities and not just random.
If that’s the case and the dots/words were meant to be examples, then the words in the assessment point to specific Guilds. We know we have a list of traits for each Guild, but no animals, really, other than the ones @Revenir found. Still not sure how this would help us though.
I’ll keep looking for that post with the Guild Graphics.
EDIT: Okay, I found it here:
http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/magic-affinities/263?u=mike
EDIT 2: Okay, I’m an idiot. Each Guild’s Magical Affinities are listed, not traits associated with the Guild. Some traits are discussed in the description, but I was confused and thought there was a list.
5 Likes
I was reading what Mike said about needing to find the next adjective in the sequence! What if the words we seek are anagrams?
It’s 7am here so I might be wrong ahah
3 Likes
I thougth about the dots over the Pyramid-Pattern again… the problem ist: even if we are supposed to put the dots over the pattern, we dont know, in which orientation or how big… I tried one scale and rotated the dots in 4 directions (1 color = 1 rotation) - there are so many possibilities here…I´m lost again…oO
2 Likes
Since the Book gave us a manipulatable 3D pyramid I’m worried that the unfolded pattern here might not work to solve this assessment.
3 Likes
Sorry for not being much of a help lately - I’ve been swamped. So if we aren’t unfolding the pyramid, can we assume that all of the pieces on the interior of the pyramid can be ignored as well? Not that I have any idea how the dots would point to something inside, but if we can get rid of the interior pieces/all the ones we can’t see from the outside, it’ll be easier to narrow our options down.
6 Likes
I’m going on the assumption as well that interior faces of pieces are safe to be ignored.
6 Likes
Since the name of the pyramid is “the Translation” do you think we probably have to translate the name of the animals or something like that?
1 Like
I think @Mike is onto something with the directions of the guilds and their connection to the dots we found in The Monarch Papers volume that Lauren had. Creating “the Six Corners” as Martin called them. Friendship would be Gossmere, yes? So let’s say Gossmere is the NW direction of the compass symbol that appeared in the journal. And Study would conceivably be Thornmouth, yes? Which was the SE direction. Courage could be Weatherwatch and Wild could be Balimora, though since those dots appeared at the same time we’d need to figure out which is W and which is SW. The Book, like last time, wants us to connect things, learn things, so if there’s a way to figure out where the guilds lie on the compass, we should’ve seen it already. I just can’t think of it.
2 Likes
Alright, I’ll ask the “dumb” question this time. Where are people coming to the conclusion that ‘Friendship = Gossmere’?
I’ll be 100% honest, I’ve not ever really paid attention to any guilds other than my own. I’ve never even read half of their descriptions until today. The logical conclusion to where this discussion is going is we’re supposed to take all these adjectives, and figure out which guild they represent, then move in whatever direction they correspond to? That’s an awful lot of subjective decisions to make.
Personally I think Balimorans are friendly, and hard-working, etc, etc etc. But I’m biased. 
5 Likes
Gossmere - “Welcoming all who are in need. Respect life, and you are always welcome.” (Also the trait “Trusted Confidant”)
Thornmouth - “You will study great magic and learn more than a common mind could ever hope to hold.”
Balimora - “You have always been drawn to the wild, the untamed.”
Weatherwatch - “Your sharp tongue might land you in a scrape, but you’ll never fear plunging back into the fray. After all, there’s an opportunity to be had, and who knows if it’ll come around again?”
Balimorans can certainly be friendly, hardworking, etc etc, it’s just that the guild is more defined by its embracing of chaos above anything else. To use an allusion to Harry Potter - a Gryffindor could still be studious like a Ravenclaw (see: Hermoine), it’s just that the house is defined more by bravery than intellect. I don’t think anyone should feel bad if a certain trait is a defining aspect of a guild, certainly others can still have those traits.
4 Likes
I think I’ve found my problem. I’ve read the first 4 Harry Potter books and I couldn’t tell you what Ravenclaw’s defining features were. Descriptions of groups like that just bounce off me, because they are subjective and generalizations at best, stereotypes at worst.
We can leave my shortcomings to the side for the time being. That shouldn’t stop the Mountaineers from moving forward. Let’s test the theory we have and cross upcoming bridges when we get to them.
I’ve gone through the Magic Guide and many of our old blog posts. I don’t see any in game description tying these guilds to a direction. Don’t see them in the triptychs or any description in Deidre’s journal. Anyone have thoughts of where else to check?
4 Likes
I have rechecked all of Cag’s files and e-mails, Cole’s blog (another dream perhaps?), even all of King Rabbit’s stuff (I felt icky doing that and I don’t want to do that ever again). Nothing about where the guilds lie on the compass
4 Likes
Determining which cardinal direction each Guild lies is going to be tough, but I think there has to be a way we can do it. We already know two for sure: Gossmere (Friendship) in the NW and Thornmouth (Study) in the SE.
As for Courage and Wild, I believe Wild refers to Balimora and Courage to Weather watch. If this is true, then those two guilds occupy the W and SW spots on the compass because of where the dots appeared. So, if this is how we’re supposed to solve this, then we need to:
- Determine location of each Guild on the Guild Compass
- Pair adjectives from assessment questions to their appropriate Guild
- Use those “directions” to move our way along the tetrahedron to find the answer animal
So, basically, once we have 1 and 2, we will be able to solve 3.
I’m not quite sure how to go about 1 yet (looks like the more logic-oriented among us can find a way), but 2 is something we can do. I know which words I would pair with certain Guilds, but there is a fair amount of ambiguity there. We should probably come up with a consensus of which words belong with which Guild. Of course, does discussing specific words from the assessment violate the Book’s rule? I’m going to say no since there doesn’t seem to be any other way to do this, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks.
5 Likes