Forums » Epic Week 2024 » Ancient Symbol (SOLVED)

This topic is for discussing clues and potential answers to the Ancient 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 Ancient Symbol

Hrm. Staple crops grown or developed in the shadow of a mountain? Potatoes were domesticated in the shadow of Machu Picchu, for example.

But I don't know who 'she' might be.

I was thinking maybe the cat from Suzume no Tojimari, who's a placeholder for a portal, basically. And is the key. But uh, I think the cat is a male god... Although Suzume does offer to become the key briefly, and carried around the key for a bit, I don't think that's very cohesive to this riddle. 🤔 It looks like a pillar in the symbol, but I'm not sure why they're using Koi Cat? Makes me automatically think it's Asian mythology or anime related, but I don't know 😌

Oh, apparently In The Shadow of the Mountain is a Hogwarts Legacy questline about a Scottish professor, but she's not familiar to me from any other fandom stuff and I haven't read it in depth yet.

The answers to symbols on this module have all been real-life facts and trivia, not fantasy ones, so I'm not sure that'd apply here?

I've been trying to think of mountain shadows this could apply to. Mount Olympus, Machu Picchu, Vesuvius? Everest's sherpas have been around for an age, but while their staples today are potato and butter, I'm not sure what it was in the past before the Columbian exchange.

A lot of Asian and Native American societies ate lilies as a staple food?
It mentions lily pads, idk if that's a clue or just some regular description. I don't know what kind of pillar that is though. It kinda looks Doric, but I couldn't say if it's Roman, Egyptian, Greek, or what, or if that even matters.
Lily is also a female name. But that could be totally the wrong track so I'm gonna keep looking at pillars and mountains for a bit 👀

Bonus clue made me think of sushi & sashimi, and that in turn reminded me that there's a Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai best known for his "Great Wave off Kanagawa" or "Under the Wave off Kanagawa" piece (that's been referenced tons of times in various designs ever since), which is actually just part of a series of woodblock prints that all feature different views of Mount Fuji. I don't know anything about the rest of the images, though, so I have no idea if it has any relevance to the clues.

Looks like you guys have a bonus clue 🍿

Congrats on solving this symbol! The answer was "Umbricia Fortunata".

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

I wonder if ash lends itself well to the flavour of garum.

Man I even got to the Wikipedia page for Umbricius Scarus. So close.