A motivated Dungeon Master created a particularly ambitious riddle for his friends in Dungeons & Dragons. He made his own secret language complete with hieroglyphs that hid a secret message. The community is tasked with deciphering the message and also discovered the franchise that served as inspiration for the Dungeon Master.
What is this secret language? The DM a-goodvisual-aid shared with the community on Reddit a riddle he created for his friends in Dungeons & Dragons. It is a secret language made up of small semicircles and dots that he “wrote” on a paper.
He explains that this is a dead language in the campaign that was banned by an immortal king. Accordingly, it should be difficult for his group to decipher the message. However, he also mentions that it reveals some significant effects of magical items presented in the story.
He now challenges the community to decipher his message. He promises bonus points to those who find out which novel or which franchise his campaign is based on. And the riddle-loving players of Dungeons & Dragons are not to be underestimated.
Community Deciphers the Message of a Famous God Emperor
What message did the Dungeon Master hide? Despite the confusing hieroglyphs, the Reddit user JoshGordon10 managed to understand the rules of the secret language and decipher the message on the same day. He recognized that the symbols with dots and circles stand for vowels and that if arranged correctly, the remaining letters can be deciphered. With some trial and error, he eventually arrived at the following result:
To Chef Malky, please ensure that this document is published after my death. While I am writing this, my death may not occur for thousands of years.
I have drunk the elixir beyond my limits. I am intoxicated by the elixir and can see the Golden Path. The universe has prepared it for me. I cannot make a mistake. The universe is revealing itself to me. I am intoxicated by the elixir and have seen visions of a being of light. The being led me to swallow the egg of the toad and take my place as ruler for all time. The elixir will seep from my skin and protect me from harm. I will be remembered as a god and as the last tyrant and the last king of Sikara.
The translated deciphered message by JoshGordon10. You can find the direct English translation of the secret language here on Reddit.
The franchise that these contents are based on, unfortunately, was not entirely identified by him; however, there are other users who immediately recognize terms like the “Golden Path”.
Spoiler Alert! If the content of these words sounds familiar, feel free to read on without worry. Others will read spoilers that concern a major sci-fi franchise.
What franchise inspired the Dungeon Master? As other Reddit users note, it is a reference to the eponymous “Golden Path” from the Dune franchise, specifically the fourth novel of Frank Herbert’s story, “God Emperor of Dune”.
The titular God Emperor Leto II Atreides overdoses on a special spice elixir and transforms into a gigantic hybrid of sandworm and human, capable of seeing all kinds of future scenarios. He uses this ability and intentionally becomes the tyrant of the entire universe to save humanity nonetheless. The novel ends with, as in the encrypted message from the Dungeon Master, his instructions being read and executed after his self-planned murder.
Another hint at Dune as an inspiration source is the name “Sikara” (or Sikarra, if the code allowed for double letters), which when read backward reveals the name “Arrakis”, the name of the desert planet from Dune.
Many Dungeon Masters love to confuse their players in Dungeons & Dragons with particularly tricky but sometimes actually quite easy riddles. One DM dedicated a riddle to another DM to ask him out on a date. However, the answer to this question was also encrypted in a riddle that the desperate DM just couldn’t crack: Dungeon Master of Dungeons & Dragons asks his crush out with a riddle, gets one back, and can’t solve it
