Forums » Epic Week 2024 » Prophetic Symbol (SOLVED)

This topic is for discussing clues and potential answers to the Prophetic Symbol in Epic Week 2024. Please stay on topic. Remember, these riddles are designed to be challenging and require a group of people brainstorming together; don't feel intimidated if you don't know the answer right away. Every little idea can help. Research is not cheating; it is expected!

Click here to visit the location of the Prophetic Symbol

Ash can infuse with ink but how that can line up with flowers (judging by the symbol) not a clue I'm afraid

Hmm, the precognitive abilities of Spice, afaik, could have something to do with sacrifices, but the tattoo stuff in Dune is related to something else. Idk why I thought Dune, it's been like 10 years since I saw the movie. Just the stuff with spice being forbidden and rare, I guess.
There are also sacrifices in the Wizard of Earthsea series, and the sacrifice is called The Eaten One, but nothing to do with tattoos and seems off the mark anyway. I wonder if this is sci-fi, fantasy, or historically/modern-time relevant? 🤔

Well if it's bee related, royal jelly is known for being the food of the queen - although it's also fed to larvae early on - and it's also used in some tattoo care. As well as this, bees follow the Queen's directions, and in a way I guess she's sacrificed? She's no longer a worker and she has a lot of babies and works differently. But uh it's improbable that it's actually about bees, I guess. Haha. It might be more complicated than that if it is about bees, but it was a thought lol

I don't think this has anything to do with bees. It might! But I haven't found anything that correlates to bees and all the items listed, so let's review the clues.

The theme is Prophecy and it's an Item of some sort - possibly a type of plant (maybe where the bee motif comes from?) since it has a flower as the symbol too. Problem is I'm not sure what type of flower we got going here.

It's something precious and forbidden so it's not common.

It's something that can be infused in a tattoo ink - so maybe a type of pigment? Though Ash can still correlate to it?

The third clue is what really throws me off. It's something eaten that reveals someone to be sacrificed.

Now it could also be a type of paper or bone? Rune stones are sometimes used in prophecy but you don't eat those so I've been a bit of a loss beyond that

The wording of the third clue has me pausing a little bit. "To find the one whose name will be sacrificed" seems like it's talking more about sacrificing the name itself, rather than the person. Does the person cease to use their old name? Does the name get forgotten entirely? Do they take on some kind of legendary title? Hrrrm.

Along these lines - does the person whose name is sacrificed perhaps become an oracle of some sort, hence the 'prophetic'?

We've got a new clue to work with, here!

The last book I read was wlw, but it was between an orc and a dwarf, so I don't think that's what we're looking for. (The worst part is this all sounds so familiar, somehow, but I just can't dig it up from my memory.)

Looking at the clues, I was thinking of The Name-Bearer, but it is yet waiting for its turn on my to-read-list...

From the series "The Flowers of Prophecy"... That sounds exactly like what we're looking for!

I think I heard about this one from a book reviewer I follow, but I couldn't for the life of me remember. Let's see if we can track down some details!

Hrm hrm hrrrrm, okay. It looks like someone has a special tattoo that'll glow when exposed to a prophecised prince that's been infused with pollen from the Flowers of Prophecy. As for the thing eaten... it's mentioned that bees feast on this pollen, in order to go find the Name-Bearer, who has their name stripped from them and forgotten when they're very young. Sounds promising.

Congrats on solving this symbol! The answer was "pollen".

For those of you wondering how this answer could be arrived at, here's a quick explanation.

In the novel The Name Bearer, in the fictional country of Andala, it is tradition that the children of nobility receive their names from The Flowers of Prophecy. The Flowers are a strange plant/magical being hybrid that can see the future and communicate telepathically. For humans, the Flowers can only be communicated with by a specially trained person known as "The Name Bearer" who has given up their own name since childhood, and is kept at the palace for the purpose of asking the Flowers for names and guidance.

Whenever the kingdom needs a new name bearer, the palace bees, which live off of the pollen from the Flowers of Prophecy, are released to roam the countryside until they find a child under 3 that the flowers wish to claim. It's said that this consumption of the magic pollen is why the bees can always find the correct child in every generation.

During the tale, a wizard defies tradition in order to harvest some of the pollen from the Flowers of Prophecy, and uses that pollen to infuse tattoo ink and create a magic tattoo that glows in the presence of certain hidden macguffins.

Wow bbiiiiggg thank you Dragonfire
I just saw the monsters all defeated and just typed in "pollen" because you mentioned it!

I'm so proud of you two ;.;

Hahah, another down! Good work!