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Riddles

vexx32

By vexx32
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vexx32

vexx32

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Before we begin, I'm going to need to lay down some rules. Follow them, please, or this will become extremely confusing really fast.

  1. Do not post a riddle while a previous one has not been solved (or everyone's agreed to give up on it).
  2. The person who posted the correct answer for the riddle gets to post the next riddle. If he/she does not have a riddle to share, the next person can take their place.
  3. If you want to give up, fine, but do not pressure others into giving up.
  4. If a riddle has been solved, and a new one has not been posted for three days, you may step in and provide a new one.
  5. If the person who posted the riddle originally does not confirm or deny potential answers every three days, a new riddle may be posted on the fourth day.
  6. a) Open ended riddles are permissible only if you make it clear that this is what you're posting, and stick to all parts of this rule vicariously.
    B) Open-ended riddles are ones that have a definite set of criteria, but no definite answer defined.
    c) The first person to find something they can get to fit all requirements of an open-ended riddle to the satisfaction of the person who posted the riddle wins.
  7. Unless it is sufficiently 'general knowledge', I advise against making riddles about lesser-known things, for example TV shows' characters and so forth. You can, if you want, but there's a fair chance that nobody will be able to guess it and you'll be wasting your turn on it.

I highly recommend that you be inventive with your riddles. Note that there is no rule against Google searching the answers. That's because I not only want this to be fun, I want you all to see how well you can design your own riddles. The riddles may be of any kind -- mathematical, logical, in verse or prose, etc.

I will begin. Good luck. As you will note, I am fond of riddles in verse.

The pale full moons rest upon the ground,

Fallen from the void above without sound.

One moon upon another as though

One is simply not enough to throw;

Fragile and frail as mere coloured glass,

They sit and wait near burnished brass.

The shattered ones are far away,

Tossed aside and drifting astray

In fields of corruption and fallen stars,

Cast aside like the broken vase.

What are they?

If you're not sure how to go about writing a riddle, you can try my method and see if it helps.

  1. Figure out what the riddle's going to be about.
  2. Write down key aspects of the thing (could be shape, colour (or colour range, if it comes in more than one colour), purpose... basically anything that defines it. Rule #1 is never mention the thing's name directly. I mean, you can, but it's a bit pointless. Also try to avoid cliches unless you have a specific purpose in mind, as their connections are quite easy to see.
  3. Group the aspects that are similar; these will be the verses.
  4. Rewrite the aspects in as brief a form as you can. Remember that all the important information must still be there, but you can hide a few things and dispense with unimportant details based on context. For example, I used shoes to reference horseshoes, as chess has horses (Knights), and psalms as an indirect but quite clear religious connotation which leads to Bishops. It can be quite indirect, but it must still make a good amount of sense when the answer is found. It should (hopefully) not be so obscure that one doesn't think the answer fits at all when they stumble upon it. (Drawing the connection from shoes to Knights was, in my case, a bit of a stretch, but everything else made enough sense that it didn't make it impossible to get. Thankfully.)

If you're making a riddle about a piano -- it's an instrument, it has black and white keys, it has strings, it comes in a variety of shapes, it can be used to compose music, it is played in a variety of settings, etc.
Once you have your brief list of aspects, rewrite them. Be creative. Use synonyms, change bits around (try to preserve grammar and keep everything making sense), rephrase things, put different aspects in different orders to help you rephrase things. I like to use rhymes, because that kind of structure makes you think a bit about the words you can and can't use, and it forces you to rephrase things in a certain way. I find it helpful for obscuring the riddle.
Last, but by no means least, replace direct references with metaphors or indirect references. If I was rewriting the chess riddle, I might mention something about day and night. Or I might mention materials chess sets are frequently made of (or just one, to confuse people a bit; I've seen chess sets made of chocolate and involving alcohol, so I could mention that and neglect to mention that they can be made of things like wood, metal, and plastic as well). It's an awful lot of dancing around what your meaning is, without ever actually directly referencing it.
Lastly, see how it reads. Make sure it flows smoothly. If the flow breaks at certain points, figure out why. Be especially careful to avoid breaking flow where one idea meets another; this can tend to indicate to readers that one idea ends there and the next begins there, in too obvious a manner. You can break flow deliberately, to throw people off the scent, but I prefer to make it flow nicely. It's just personal preference for me.
Additional note: spelling and grammar are important. Use them, and use them well.

Edited by vexx32
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vexx32

vexx32

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Is it a military implement? I see burnished brass and fields of corruption and think this may be a reference to rifle cartridges and world war battlefields.
Nope. No specifically military aspects in here.
What about Space?

No, what about a graveyard?

Eeeeeh... not in the traditional​ sense of graveyard, but I guess you could say it's referring to a very specific kind of graveyard in some sense, at least in the last parts.
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vexx32

vexx32

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Nope.

The pale full moons rest upon the ground,

Fallen from the void above without sound.

One moon upon another as though

One is simply not enough to throw;

Fragile and frail as mere coloured glass,

They sit and wait near burnished brass.

The shattered ones are far away,

Tossed aside and drifting astray

In fields of corruption and fallen stars,

Cast aside like the broken vase.

What are they?

(riddle again so you guys don't need to be flicking pages back and forth)

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