# The 2015th question on Puzzling SE

At the time of posting, this was the 2015th question posted on Puzzling Stack Exchange, in the year 2015.

Take the number of multiples of 5 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.
Multiply it by the number of types of creature beyond red twisted ter'angreal doorways.
Subtract the figure you now have from the number of Scheherezade's tale narrated by Poe.
Divide by the number of children fathered by Sidorio.
Add the number of entries in each Classic FM Hall of Fame.
Subtract the product of the number of siblings of Frodo Baggins's mother and the number of legitimate children fathered by Walder Frey.
Add the number of days from now (the date of posting, 3 April) until the Easter Day celebrations in Romania.
Subtract the number of Sitters in the "Hall of the Tower" in Salidar.
Add the number of stars on the banner of Gondor.
Subtract the number of elements named after Ytterby.
Subtract the figure you now have from the user ID of the most prolific question-poster on Puzzling.SE.
Add the number of primes greater than 10 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.

What is the number you now have?

the SciFi & Fantasy crowd (alexwlchan and Michael Edenfield) have got all but one of the numbers they need. You just need to correct their answers in a single place and you'll get the right solution.

Hint:

apparently neither of them has read as far as Immortal War.

• I don't have a number, I have Jesus as a son! – Kalis Apr 3 '15 at 20:48
• @God ROFL. I don't need a number, I'm the Dragon Reborn! – Rand al'Thor Apr 3 '15 at 21:12
• Does the 2015 in the question title count as a multiple of 5 for the first clue? – alexwlchan Apr 4 '15 at 3:20
• Should the title be renamed to "The 2013th puzzle on Puzzling SE"? ;) – pacoverflow Apr 4 '15 at 7:33
• On the website on The Immortals War, there's this thing about Lady Lola Lockwood Sidorio having twins(not Connor and Grace), and she's sort of married to Sidorio? Is that important? – AJL May 21 '15 at 0:27

2015

Thanks to alexwlchan, Michael Edenfield, and leoll2 for their great answers.

The missing piece of info eluded to in rand al'thor's hint is...

that in Vampirates: Immortal War Sidorio has 2 more children, so the answer to Divide by the number of children fathered by Sidorio. is 4 and not 2

Making the final calculation $2383 - ((1002-1\times2)/4 +300-6\times29+9-18+7-4)+2$

• Indeed - well done! I'm surprised this puzzle eluded people for so long... – Rand al'Thor May 21 '15 at 7:12
• @rand al'thor I took just a few seconds to look up based on your hint. I wasn't surprised by the resulting number. When I read the question I though "I bet it's..." Nice question BTW. – Bob May 21 '15 at 7:36

We can't get the first clues out until we have all the numbers.

I’ll present a list of all the numbers that the clue suggests, with the explanation (if necessary) in spoiler blocks. Then we’ll go back and work out the final answer.

Multiply it by the number of types of creature beyond red twisted ter'angreal doorways.

2. There are two such doors; one leads to the land of the Aelfinn, the other to the land of the Eelfinn.

Subtract the figure you now have from the number of Scheherezade's tale narrated by Poe.

1002. Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, a sequel to Arabic collection of stories A Thousand and One Nights.

Divide by the number of children fathered by Sidorio.

2. Grace and Connor.

Add the number of entries in the Classic FM Hall of Fame.

300. I’m assuming you mean currently (a new list is compiled around Easter every year), rather than every entry ever entered, less duplicate entries.

Subtract the product of the number of siblings of Frodo Baggins's mother and the number of legitimate children fathered by Walder Frey.

174. Frodo’s mother, Primula Baggins, was one of seven children, thus 6 siblings. Walker Frey father 29 children.

Add the number of days from now until the Easter Day celebrations in Romania.

3. Today is Good Friday. Romania uses the Orthodox Easter date, which is the Monday rather than the Sunday. 9. Romania apparently celebrates on the Sunday 12th April. I can’t tell the difference between Monday and Sunday, oops.

Subtract the number of Sitters in the "Hall of the Tower" in Salidar.

21. 18. Shamelessly cribbed from Michael Edenfield’s answer.

Add the number of stars on the banner of Gondor.

7.

Subtract the number of elements named after Ytterby.

4. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Erbium and Terbium.

Subtract the figure you now have from the user ID of the most prolific question-poster on Puzzling.SE.

2383. I believe this is @warspyking, with a total of 148 questions (at time of writing).

Now let's do the maths. I can't really put this all in spoiler blocks, so here’s a nice block of blank text to hide the solution from you. If you read on any further, you will be spoiled. Someone edited to put the spoiler blocks.

There’s one multiples of five: entries in the Classic FM Hall of Fame (300), and two prime greater than 10 among these numbers: children of Walker Frey (29) [1], the user ID of the most prolific asker (2383).

So we get:

\begin{align*}1 \times 2 &= 2 \\1002 - 2 &= 1000 \\1000 / 2 &= 500 \\500 + 300 &= 800 \\800 - 174 &= 626 \\626 + 9 &= 635 \\635 - 18 &= 617 \\617 + 7 &= 624 \\624 - 4 &= 620 \\2383 - 620 &= 1763 \\1763 + 2 &= 1765\end{align*} So my final answer is 1765.

[1] I initially assumed the “primes” clue only meant anything in the final calculation. I do know that 29 is prime. :-)

• Nice job! You haven't got all the numbers right though (I won't say yet which ones are wrong). – Rand al'Thor Apr 3 '15 at 21:46
• @randal'thor I am unsurprised. I had to look up almost all of them on Google. – alexwlchan Apr 3 '15 at 21:46
• I tried to make at least some of the answers not easy to get by Googling, so that the puzzle is a bit more challenging. If it was just an exercise in Googling, the VTCs would pile in! As for the slight ambiguity in the Classic FM one: yes, I mean the number on each list (I didn't want to say "currently" since they've only revealed less than 100 of this year's Hall of Fame so far). – Rand al'Thor Apr 3 '15 at 21:52
• I won't post my own answer, since this includes most of what I've gotten (plus some i haven't found yet), but I will say that there's another multiple of 5 - 2015, in the title. – Duncan Apr 3 '15 at 23:40
• Most of my "questions" just plain suck, thanks for reminding me LOL. Hey, at least I somehow contributed to a riddle... – warspyking Apr 13 '15 at 1:48

I think I can guess which number(s) everyone is getting wrong, so I'll take a crack at it:

Take the number of multiples of 5 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.

1 - since we're not including 2015, it's only 300 Classic FM Hall of Fame Songs

Multiply it by the number of types of creature beyond red twisted ter'angreal doorways.

2 - Snakes, Foxes

Subtract the figure you now have from the number of Scheherezade's tale narrated by Poe.

1,002

Divide by the number of children fathered by Sidorio.

2 - Grace, Connor

Add the number of entries in each Classic FM Hall of Fame.

300 (per year)

Subtract the product of the number of siblings of Frodo Baggins's mother and the number of legitimate children fathered by Walder Frey.

174 - 6 x 29. Gorbadoc Brandybuck had 7 children, including Frodo's mother. Walder Frey had 22 sons and 7 daughters that were trueborn.

Add the number of days from now (the date of posting, 3 April) until the Easter Day celebrations in Romania.

9 - The puzzle was posted on April 3. Romania celebrates Orthodox Easter Day on April 12, 2015, and Orthodox Easter Monday on April 13, so April 12 - April 3 - 9 days.

Subtract the number of Sitters in the "Hall of the Tower" in Salidar.

18 -- The Hall of the Tower in Salidar only existed during the Schism, at which point the Salidar Hall had no Red Ajah (and the White Tower Hall had no Blue)

Add the number of stars on the banner of Gondor.

7

Subtract the number of elements named after Ytterby.

4 - yttrium (Y), erbium (Er), terbium (Tb), ytterbium (Yb)

Subtract the figure you now have from the user ID of the most prolific question-poster on Puzzling.SE.

2383 (as of today - @warspyking)

Add the number of primes greater than 10 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.

2 - 29 Frey kids, user id 2383.

So the number is: 1765.

Spoilery math below the line:

$\frac{1002 - (1\times2)}{2} = 500$

$500 + 300 - 174 + 9 - 18 + 7 - 4 = 620$

$2383 - 620 + 2 = 1765$

• You're very close now! Just one number wrong... – Rand al'Thor Apr 9 '15 at 7:39
• Also 2383-620+2 is 1765, not 1767 :-) – Rand al'Thor Apr 9 '15 at 8:22
• yeah, I changed some of those numbers about 1/2 dozen times and got my math mixed up. – KutuluMike Apr 9 '15 at 11:21

Multiply it by the number of types of creature beyond red twisted ter'angreal doorways.

2 doors (Aelfinn and Eelfinn)

Subtract the figure you now have from the number of Scheherezade's tale narrated by Poe.

1002 The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

Divide by the number of children fathered by Sidorio.

2 He's biological father of Grace & Connor

Add the number of entries in the Classic FM Hall of Fame.

300 entries

Subtract the product of the number of siblings of Frodo Baggins's mother and the number of legitimate children fathered by Walder Frey.

6x29

Add the number of days from now until the Easter Day celebrations in Romania.

10 or 9, I don't know what time zone stackexchange is using. Easter is on 13th april, the question was asked on 3rd or 4th.

Subtract the number of Sitters in the "Hall of the Tower" in Salidar.

21 3 Sitters per Ajah (there are 7 Ajah).

Add the number of stars on the banner of Gondor.

7 stars

Subtract the number of elements named after Ytterby.

4 Yttrium, Ytterbium, Erbium and Terbium

Subtract the figure you now have from the user ID of the most prolific question-poster on Puzzling.SE.

2383 (warspyking)

Add the number of primes greater than 10 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.

2

Take the number of multiples of 5 among the numbers featured in this puzzle.

2-1 depending on the easter question

• $2383-(\frac{(1002-1\times2)}{2}+300-6\times29+9-21+7-4)+2=1768$
• $2383-(\frac{(1002-2\times2)}{2}+300-6\times29+10-21+7-4)+2=1768$

I'm lucky, the answers are identical! So the final answer is 1768

• Getting closer! Still 2 figures wrong. I'll clarify the question re Easter. – Rand al'Thor Apr 4 '15 at 20:07