The Plebs
Solution
Warning: This solution page has spoilers to
several of puzzles from The Puzzle Plethora
This puzzle is a throwback mash-up puzzle which refers to The Puzzle Plethora, another KTaNE Hunt. This puzzle was made for a challenge issued by CloudGaming827, where he asked puzzlers to create puzzles similar to The Hustlers, but with different hunts.
Each section uses the same mechanics as 6 different Plethora puzzles, all of which are hinted in the flavor text. Applying these mechanics provides bits of information which can then be combined to extract a solution.
NOTE: This solution page will not go into depth about how the original puzzles are solved. The Plebs requires you to know how the originals were solved, so the solution page will too.
Protection Package
The top-left information is Protection Package but with Extended Passwords.
| F | A | B | G | E | C |
| H | N | D | G | E | E |
| I | O | G | I | G | O |
| S | O | M | I | K | R |
| W | S | R | M | K | T |
| Y | T | R | U | R | T |
| FORGET, HAMMER, INDIGO, STRIKE, YOGURT | |||||
W S B G K C
Removing the 5 Extended Password words we can extract 6 leftover letters.
Simon’s Symphony
Indexing into the Simon modules based on the sounds we get 6 directions (U = Up, D = Down, L = Left, R = Right).
| SELECTS |
| SENDS |
| STORES |
| SQUAWKS |
| SOUNDS |
| SCREAMS |
L D R U D R
Coordination [the ponies]
Using the two pieces of info we currently have we can use the Friendship table to get pony names.
| Suri Polomare |
| Shining Armor |
| Diamond Tiara |
| Apple Cinnamon |
| Octavia Melody |
| Double Diamond |
Note Taking [the clues]
Here are the solutions to the clues:
| Not Hearthstone or Pokémon (5 3 9) | MAGIC THE GATHERING [Deck Creating] |
| Tape 1, Track 2 (6 7) | BUTTON RELEASE [Old Fogey] |
| Leaves if any other explorer also leaves (7) | SHELLEY [Raiding Temples] |
| Not anterodiametric (16) | RETROTRANSPHASIC [Symbol Cycle] |
| 3 Ore and 2 ___ for a City (5) | GRAIN [Settlers of KTaNE] |
| Weird Athleticism (10) | CALVINBALL [Object Shows] |
However, we can’t use these to get Brush Strokes colors, so let’s move on.
Rainbow Collection + Qualifications
First we look at the decimal values hidden in the hex codes, and convert them to new hex codes. This gives us three pairs of letters per new hex code. Using Backgrounds we can convert these to numbers.
| Hex code from puzzle | Hex code from RGB | Background’s numbers | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 173FFF; FF171F; FFF170 | A D | A B | A A | 1 2 3 | |||
| 203FFF; F172FF; FFF190 | C B | A C | B E | 1 9 2 | |||
| 174FFF; FF191F; FFF175 | A E | B F | A F | 7 3 4 | |||
| 202FFF; F186FF; FFF188 | C A | B A | B C | 5 7 8 | |||
| 235FFF; FF220F; FFF237 | E B | D C | E D | 1 2 3 | |||
| 204FFF; F252FF; FFF251 | C C | F C | F B | 7 3 2 | |||
Note Taking [extracting info]
We can now use these numbers to index into the answers to the clues. This provides the first three letters of a color, allowing us to finish the Note Taking part.
| Index | Word | Result | Brush Strokes number |
Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 2 3 | MAGIC THE GATHERING | MAG[enta] | 16 |  |
| 1 9 2 | BUTTON RELEASE | BLU[e] | 35 |  |
| 7 3 4 | SHELLEY | YEL[low] | 15 |  |
| 5 7 8 | RETROTRANSPHASIC | ORA[nge] | 34 |  |
| 1 2 3 | GRAIN | GRA[y] | 22 |  |
| 7 3 2 | CALVINBALL | BLA[ck] | 5 |  |
The Brush Strokes symbols obtained provide numbers.
5 11 8 1 3 2
Coordination [extracting a solution]
The numbers we get from Note Taking are an index into the pony names. Extracting the letters gives us an appropriate answer to the question in the flavor text: What else can be mashed?
| Suri Polomare |
| Shining ArmOr |
| Diamond Tiara |
| Apple Cinnamon |
| OcTavia Melody |
| DOuble Diamond |
POTATO