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This puzzle is based on another one: called A star made of dice from a popular Italian puzzle maker @Alenanno (Who also helped me with this one). However there have been some modifications to make this puzzle more differenter.

Instructions:

  1. A word of 6 letters has been engraved on each die. Definitions at the bottom must be solved to find these words.
  2. Definitions are not given in the standard order (1,2,3,...), so you might have to properly associate each one (along with the solution) to its die. Observational skills are going to be your best weapon.
  3. Letters on the dice are either hidden or shown. Shown letters should be removed from the clue word, therefore the remaining hidden letters will be used to progress in the puzzle.
  4. When all the clue words have been found and placed, the hidden letters will give another question, following the numbers, and resulting in your final solution.
  5. A complete answer would show: (a) all the clue words associated with their die number and definition (or just write them in order like a list), (b) the hidden definition, (c) the final word, and optionally, (d) hidden letters written in a sequence as a recap somewhere in the answer.

    A note on formatting. I'd like to request something for consistency across answers: as shown in the example below, hidden letters should be enclosed in <sub> </sub> to increase readability (bold lettering is hardly visible). In case of multiple eligible letters, you may highlight any, as this is not relevant to finding the solution, i.e. CARPAL could be CARPAL or CARPAL.
    Therefore, an example answer could be:

    Alpine ...

    PAL, IEN, ...


    1. CARPAL - definition here...
    2. HIDDEN - another definition here...
    3. ...

    Again, apart from the single request I've made, any formatting choice is up to you.

  6. You may safely ignore the inscription written around the center when solving the puzzle (while still appreciating the many years of experience of the author).

Puzzle

          The dice star, preparing to destroy the Ivory moon of Gammon II

Definitions

You, turned to meat. — Ones who cut stone. — Those who eat. — A maiden quite fat. — Remove mammalian garden pests. — Formed of natural fiber — Hopefully you, by a ruby kipper. — Foliage under the weather — Moved sneakily. — People Who Found Jenny's number. — A bowdlerized British bird... according to a deal-making snake — First Generation water-related pocket monster — What a puzzle solver does, given incomplete information. — Made up for. — An arcade fighter. — Missing to an abnormal degree, esp. Scandinavian glacial erosion patterns. — Odes of praise. — Protect from harm.


In the interests of helping the visually impaired, the following description is provided: There are 18 dice, numbered, and laid out in a clockwise circle around a central die and inscription crediting @Alenanno. The Dice are labeled as follows, with the first letter being the up-face, and the following two being the other visible faces, read left-to-right.

$1$. LED, $2$. IEE, $3$. TEA, $4$. KEN, $5$. KEN, $6$. LID, $7$. SER, $8$. TUT, $9$. LID, $10$. SAP, $11$. TUT, $12$. LID, $13$. SAP, $14$. PNG, $15$. SER, $16$. SER, $17$. TEA, $18$. LED

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ a 'ruby kipper' is probably a red herring, but I'm not sure what word this leads to $\endgroup$
    – MMAdams
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 15:33
  • $\begingroup$ So I'm still wracking my brain on this... Any possibility of a hint? Or maybe let us know what ones we have that are right? $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23, 2016 at 22:23
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @PartyHatPanda Updated some clues this morning, sorry I was travelling for a few days with limited access. As you may guess, every updated clue had wrong (or no) answers, but not every unupdated clue had correct answers. $\endgroup$
    – Sconibulus
    Commented Oct 25, 2016 at 13:38
  • $\begingroup$ Is 'more differenter' a mistake, intentional or a hint? $\endgroup$
    – boboquack
    Commented Oct 26, 2016 at 7:46
  • $\begingroup$ @boboquack It was intentional as an informal, humorous, idiomatic way of saying "slightly different", It wasn't exactly intended as a hint, but since several of the clues are idiomatic, informal, and/or humorous it could easily be considered one. $\endgroup$
    – Sconibulus
    Commented Oct 26, 2016 at 12:59

7 Answers 7

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The final "question" is:

WITH FRONDS LIKE THESE WHO NEEDS ANEMONES MARLIN IN FINDING NEMO

so I guess unlike the earlier Dice Star puzzle we aren't supposed to answer that question.

I haven't watched the movie in ages but I think Marlin tries to tell this joke multiple times in the movie but fails for one reason or another until near the end. Something like that.

So, the words and "residual" letters in order of use are:

WIT h WILTED Foliage under the weather [used to be: rough-looking foliage]
HFR d HEIFER A maiden quite fat
OND n ATONED Made up for
SLI f SILKEN Formed of natural fiber
KET o TEKKEN An arcade fighter
HES r SHIELD Protect from harm
EWH b HEWERS Ones who cut stone
ONE j TUTONE People who found Jenny's number
EDS i SIDLED Moved sneakily
ANE q PAEANS Odes of praise
MON a MUTTON You, turned to meat
ESM g MISLED Hopefully you, by a ruby kipper
ARL l LAPRAS First Generation water-related pocket monster
INI p PINING Missing to an abnormal degree, esp. Scandinavian glacial erosion patterns
NFI m INFERS What a puzzle solver does with incomplete information
NDI c DINERS Those who eat
NGN k GANNET A bowdlerized British bird... according to a deal-making snake
EMO e DEMOLE Remove mammalian garden pests

For the avoidance of doubt, I didn't find these all alone. I think I was the first to find these:

SILKEN, TUTONE, GANNET, INFERS, PINING

and also independently found these (though others may well have found them too):

DINERS, MISLED, ATONED, PAEANS, SHIELD

and I'm pretty certain I got these from other people either here or in Sphinx's Lair chat (most of them I either wouldn't in a million years have thought of or didn't believe when other people proposed them):

MUTTON (Neon612), HEWERS (dcfyj), HEIFER (Neon612), DEMOLE (Rubio), WILTED (Rubio), SIDLED (MOehm), LAPRAS (ffao), TEKKEN (Sid).

The piecing-together, though, was all me :-).

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Dice Update

LED: Good

IEE: Good

TEA: Missing one

KEN: Good

LID: Good

SER: Good

TUT: Good

SAP: Missing One

PNG: Missing One

PARTIAL ANSWER

Moved sneakily(Correction from @MOehm)

sIDLed-(LID from 3 and 17)

Found Jenny's number.(By Gareth)

TUTone (TUT)

An arcade fighter.

TekKEN (KEN)

First Generation water-related pocket monster

hoRSEa (SER)

Protect from harm

ShIeLD (LID)

Made up for

ATonEd? (Not too sure about this) (TEA)

You, turned to meat (From Neon 612)

mUTTon (TUT)

Formed of natural fibres (From Gareth)

SilKEN (KEN)

Odes of praise(As Found by Michael Seifert)

PAeanS (PAS)

Ones who cut stones(Modified by @Rubio)

tilERS (SER)

Hopefully,you by a ruby kipper (by @PartyHatPanda)

mIsLeD (LED)

Those who eat (Deusovi in the Sphinx Lair and Rubio here)

dinERS

Remove garden pests (by @Rubio)

DEmoLe (Not in OED as Gareth points out) (LED from 1 and 18)

A maiden quite fat. (@Neon612)

HEIfEr (IEE)

Foliage under the weather (@Rubio)

wILteD (LID)

A bowdlerized British bird... according to a deal-making snake (Gareth and Rubio)

gAnnEt (TEA)

What a puzzle solver does, given incomplete information. (Gareth)

infSER (SER)

Missing to an abnormal degree, esp. Scandinavian glacial erosion patterns (From Rubio)

PiniNG (PNG)

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  • $\begingroup$ I think atoned is probably right $\endgroup$
    – MMAdams
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 15:39
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not sure that your answer for Ones who cut stones is correct - it is specific to wood. That being said, I have no clue what else it could be as I have been wracking my head on it since I saw the puzzle. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 16:11
  • $\begingroup$ I doubt sawyer, too; apart from referring to someone who saws timber, the clue seems to require a plural. (Unfortunately, masons doesn't match any dice.) And I think moved sneakily is sidled rather than patter; it fits both the form and the kind of movement better $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 16:29
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm Check the latest edit. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 16:50
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    $\begingroup$ @Sid would it make sense to edit in the rest of the clues, but just leave them blank? It seems like we are all jumping in to your answer as a full submission, and it might be helpful to see what has already been answered and what still needs to be all in one spot. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 17:11
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I currently have a full set of answers to all clues that fit all dice. I have no idea if they are correct - that's all going to depend on if the hidden letters add up to a usable clue.

But here's what I have, in the interest of giving back to the people who contributed so many responses already:

heifer  IEE     A maiden quite fat.             (dubious.)
tekken  KEN     An arcade fighter.
silken  KEN     Formed of natural fiber
demole  LED     Remove mammalian garden pests.
misled  LED,LID Hopefully you, by a ruby kipper.
sidled  LED,LID Moved sneakily.
shield  LED,LID Protect from harm.              (shield, secure)
wilted  LED,LID Foliage under the weather.      (dubious.)
pining  PNG     Missing to an abnormal degree, esp. Scandinavian glacial erosion patterns. (@Gareth)
paeans  SAP     Odes of praise. 
lapras  SAP     First Generation water-related pocket monster   (horsea, seadra, lapras)
tilers  SER     Ones who cut stone.             (hewers, tilers)
diners  SER     Those who eat.
corpse  SER     You, turned to meat.            (mutton, corpse)
atoned  TEA     Made up for. 
gannet  TEA     A bowdlerized British bird... according to a deal-making snake @Gareth
intuit  TUT     What a puzzle solver does, given incomplete information.
tutone  TUT     People Who Found Jenny's number. (why not plural?)

entries that are my independent contributions (some may have been found in Sphinx Lair in parallel):

demole  LED     Remove mammalian garden pests.
wilted  LED,LID Foliage under the weather.      (dubious.)
lapras  SAP     First Generation water-related pocket monster
tilers  SER     Ones who cut stone.
diners  SER     Those who eat.
corpse  SER     You, turned to meat.
intuit  TUT     What a puzzle solver does, given incomplete information.

since some words can be used on more than one die, this writeup doesn't use the HiDDen notation. I have a completely speculative and quite certainly wrong set of word -> die assignments here as well, if that helps anyone:

 1. LED         DEmoLe  demole
 2. IEE         hEIfEr  heifer?
 3. TEA         ATonEd  atoned
 4. KEN         tekKEN  tekken
 5. KEN         silKEN  silken
 6. LID         shIeLD  shield
 7. SER         dinERS  diners
 8. TUT         TUTone  tutone
 9. LID         sIDLed  sidled
10. SAP         PAeanS  paeans
11. TUT         inTUiT  intuit
12. LID         mIsLeD  misled
13. SAP         lAPraS  lapras
14. PNG         PiNinG  pining
15. SER         tilERS  tilers?
16. SER         coRpSE  corpse?
17. TEA         gAnnET  gannet
18. LED         wiLtED  wilted?

these are mostly literal dumps of my notes, so sorry for how they're formatted.

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Partial Answer

You, turned to meat

mUTTon (TUT)

A maiden quite fat

HEIfEr (IEE)

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    $\begingroup$ In regards to Ones who cut stone I'm going to piggy-back from @Moehm above, the way the clue is phrased sounds like it should be plural. Plus, your answer is not specific to stone cutting. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 16:47
  • $\begingroup$ @PartyHatPanda You're probably right. I was going for Stone Cutter but I think its too general. $\endgroup$
    – Neon612
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 16:54
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Partial Answer

Hopefully you, by a ruby kipper

mIsLeD (ILD From 6,9,12)

A bowdlerized bird... according to a deal-making snake

Maybe TUfTed? For Tufted Titmouse? It uses snake skin when making its nest... a weak connection but there isn't any other progress.

Rough looking foliage

ASPera (ASP from 10, 13; or SER from 7, 16, 15), also known as the rough rattlesnakeroot

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    $\begingroup$ Ice Age is very general. It might be ELsTer, one of the glaciations in Northern Europe. $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 17:19
  • $\begingroup$ I was worried about that. But yours works really well! @Sid could probably add it, I think. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 17:22
  • $\begingroup$ The OP probably hints at an old probability puzzle at the Sphinx Lair. But, he might well have been distracting me.. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Commented Oct 20, 2016 at 15:48
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    $\begingroup$ I doubt, I can find one. Could take a wild guess like The monty-Hall's problem. But, I wouldn't count on it.. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Commented Oct 20, 2016 at 15:56
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Sid Working on it. I did manage to find this. Not sure if It will help, though. $\endgroup$
    – Neon612
    Commented Oct 21, 2016 at 15:09
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Partial answer:

"Odes of praise" is possibly:

PAEANS (#10 & #13)

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  • $\begingroup$ Yep, this could be right. Paeans make much more sense than What I had thought initially $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 15:41
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Found Jenny's number

DIaLed from #6, 9 or 12 or DiaLEd from #1 or 18

First Generation Water-related pocket monster

hoRSEa from #7, 15 or 16

What a puzzle solver does

anSwER from #7, 15 or 16

Protect from harm (from @Sid's answer)

shIeLD from #6, 9, or 12

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