THE HUNT BEGINS

Riches and treasures of the highest rarity you want from me?
Three, are the places there will be.
They are impossible to see.

Temple of the Sandy Sea.
Temple of the Deep.
Temple of the Green.
They show no mercy.
Beware. Prepare. Your health will feel the despair.

Seek first the monsters of the seven seas.
There you shall find riddles to cease.
Three, are the places there will be.



Clue 2a:
The temple of the green
Lies in plain sight.
To the northwest it can be seen.
Lilypads cover its river--
It can even be seen with an image from a satellite.

THIS JUST IN - 2 July 2015, 12:00 ET
A secondary source has just given us a tip about a potential person who knows more about the temples! Here is what they said:

I'm very impressed! Epic stuff.

Seems fun, I hope I can participate... I might be busy with other things, for how long will it go on?
I didn't see any time for when it ends..

There is no end time. The "end" is whenever everyone collects all of the treasures, whether that be in a few hours, days, weeks, or otherwise indefinite time.

I believe that everything should be well-hidden enough that the hunt will certainly last more than a few hours, and maybe even a day. I might be underestimating it. My intention is that it will be a longer-lasting hunt. Also, even if the 'locations' are found, perhaps not every chest of goodies will be found, so it may still be in the best interest to seek the treasures, even if someone has claimed to have "found it".

Good to know, thanks for the quick answer!

Remember that the scavenger hunt starts in under one hour, on the Cemetech Minecraft Server at mc.cemetech.net. Teams and individuals are already gearing up and getting ready for what promises to be a fun and rewarding challenge. Join us!

Has anyone found anything yet?
We were able to locate one clue for each temple, but as of yet were not able to locate any of said temples yet.

I know of a few clues in the ocean temples, and I found one old restored Desert Temple that had a handful of semi-valuable items in it, but I don't think it was part of this hunt. So far not much at all.

@Marudok so did you find anything at that ocean monument we were at yesterday? Or is it just a regular ocean monument?

Also, I spotted a possible ocean monument at -310 -1030 but I doubt it will be any good since it's right next to a railway.

We found a clue there for the temple of the sandy sea.
I myself have all three clues now that are hidden at this point, so I'm not looking for any others.

If you want to check some out, I could point you in the right direction.
I'll be on shortly now

I would like to make something very clear as I hear some troubles that I would like to alleviate, as well as give another hint soon:

Out of more or less fairness, my personal belief is that as a 'map maker', anything that is hidden in this style of treasure hunt with riddles that guide you to an answer-- it should not be any more specific/precise of a location that it is hidden, than what the riddle/clue conveys. If there is a single chest hidden at an exact x,y,z coordinate with no way to reach it but digging, and knowing exactly where to dig to, then it wouldn't be fair unless there is sufficient information provided in the hint to motivate doing such a thing. If a clue is only so specific about something, then that something could only be hidden as specific/precise as that hint.

On another note, I couldn't post a hint earlier, but I will instead plan to update this topic with another hint Monday, June 29th @ noon (12:00) eastern time (GMT - 04:00) based on the troubles.
Apologies to anyone looking for something earlier!

Good luck!

Clues?

Hello fellow miners and crafters!

Yesterday I was able to find the first (?) temple of three.
Because there obviously was a lot of work involved in creating it, and the result is astonishing, I felt a need to share this event with you all.
I took some screenshots of all the treasures that I found (There was at least one that I missed, and maybe there will even be some out there!)

If you want to see the thing of beauty that Charles so patiently created, I strongly recommend visiting this place yourself! You might even find some treasures to claim as your own!

Enough talking now, on the the pics!
The clue to the location of the temple:

Time to get excited!

I actually did things in the wrong order, so I'm gonna post all the clues that were inside the temple in the correct order below, and post all the treasures in the order that I found them at the bottom.



New clue all the way up the waterfall:

On the top of the vines was a switch, when activating that, it dropped TNT behind the wall, to create an opening at the bottom of the vines.
This allowed entry into the actual shrine with all the 1337 stuff.

Treasures that were found:


This last chest was empty when I found it:

Throwing this out there, Sandy Temple has been raided.

Screenshots will get posted when we can compile them up together

The temples have finally been found!!

Thank you all for participating in this adventure series treasure hunt! Please do leave feedback on anything you participated in, both the good and bad things about anything-- it will help me to balance and better make the next one (if there is one). Also below this short poll, are spoilers to what all the basic clues mean.

Here are some basic questions I would like to know--
►[1] How difficult were the riddles on a scale from -5 to +5? This could directly relate to consequently how much exploration you had to do as well. -5 being a perfect giveaway with no difficulty interpreting and finding anything, and a +5 being absolute mystery with every single possible line and word, being impossible to understand anything, and hence too much exploration. 0 represents something that may not be understandable at first, but you eventually figured everything out.
►[2] How were the rewards of this hunt on a scale from -5 to +5, representing how fair they were compared to how difficult the temples/treasures were to find or simply how much exploration you did. A -5 represents absolute unfairness and not worth it in any way (too difficult for little reward), 0 is perfect fairness and the reward was perfectly proportional to the time spent, and +5 means that the rewards were far more worth than the time spent finding them (too easy for much reward). If you did not find any treasures related to the hints given, this score does not apply to you.
►[3] How frustrated were you at your most frustrated time during the hunt on a scale from -5 to +5? -5 means that you had far more frustration or trouble than you think the rewards were worth, 0 means the rewards perfectly balanced and properly awarded your frustrations, and +5 means you were far less frustrated than you think the rewards were worth. This does not apply if you did not find treasures.
►[4] How would you rate the quality of the architecture or details of the temples from -5 to +5? -5 is extreme lack of detail quality, and the scenery couldn't be more dull, 0 means that there was average amount of detail and thought put into it compared to what would be a 'standard' treasure hunt, and +5 exceeds all expectations of what the looks of everything would be like compared to average.
►[5] How would you rate this hunt in overall quality on a scale from -5 to +5? -5 is a far below average treasure hunt quality, 0 is about average quality compared to other hunts, and +5 is extraordinary quality compared to other hunts.
►[6] How would you rate the excitement the excitement the "teaser video" generated for you, compared to how good the hunt actually was on a scale from -5 to +5? -5 means the video got you far more excited than the hunt actually brought to you, 0 is a perfect match of excitement level, and +5 means the treasure hunt was far more exciting than the teaser video made it look. Only rate this if you actually have seen at least one of the temples that were built.

(Feel free to add more aspects to rate if you can think of any)

Also share any experiences/stories you have if you wish! While I cannot say if all of the treasures have been found-- that's up to you to find out, all of the temples have been found. If you wish to participate in the hunt yourself and have fun solving the riddles, then beyond this point are spoilers that are interpretations of all riddles that were presented.

***SPOILERS***

Starting Riddle, posted on topic day of release:


Interpretation:
There are rare and valuable items hidden in and around the temples.
There will be 3 temples.
You likely cannot find the temples without the following riddles.

Temple of the Sandy Sea --> Lies in the desert.
Temple of the Deep --> Lies in deep water.
Temple of the Green --> Lies in a green biome.
Be cautious, there will be dangers.

The monsters of the seven seas are guardians in [deep] ocean biomes.
Find the place(s) where guardians reside, which are Ocean Monuments only in deep ocean biomes, and you will find more clues.
There are just as many clues are there are temples: 3.

Clue 1a, found at an ocean monument:


Interpretation:
The one who wants to find the Temple of The Green
Needs to find where hostile mobs spawn.
Below a roof of green, healthy leaves (roofed forest).

A very big waterfall
and a river (man-made in this case)
flows through this biome (roofed forest).

You can see it lit up at night.

Clue 2a, given as an edit to the original post on Sunday, 6/28 @ noon ET:


Interpretation:
The Temple of The Green
Can be found by just looking around.
It is in the northwest quadrant of the map.
The river has lilypads on it.
You can see the lilypads on the river from dynmap.

Clue 1b, found at another ocean monument:


Interpretation:
To find the Temple of The Sandy Sea
It likely cannot be found except by accident (a few people know why this is italicized).
Here's how you do it:
First seek the END portal (that is the most likely object if you had to take a guess what 'portal' means).
There are 3 of them. (I was going to count one, two, three, but decided to swap 'one' and 'two' to throw some people off)
Only one of the 3 end portals will be the one you want.
Once you find it, explore it carefully.
When exploring it, you will know what to do from there. ("d e s t i n y" was another thing intended to throw people off, thinking it might stand for something. Notice there is actually enough info in the riddle to figure everything out if you had just figured out that portal = end portal. That is why I added the confusions to the riddle so that it might throw off people enough so that they wouldn't get it in the first minute.)

^ How does this make you feel knowing it was just simply asking you to seek the end portal? The key was to simply find the portal by using eyes of ender. There was a ladder that goes down from the surface, directly on top of a platform where the end portal is. If you navigate from spawn and follow the eye of ender to the desert end portal, the ladder is setup such that you likely won't miss it.

Clue 1c, found in another ocean monument:


Interpretation:
To find the Temple of the Deep,
It rests at the bottom of THE DEEPEST SEA. (note: ocean is a type of sea, but may or may not be the correct sea)
It could be at the bottom of an ocean (question format, the "maybe" doubts it.)

It might be near a river. (note: there is no question raised. while there is no way of telling either of the questionable things in this riddle, the question ended up being false, and the non-question ended up being true.)
The land surrounding the location of the temple is colored in shades of white, gray, green, and brown. (This could be snow for white, stones/gravel for gray, grass for green, and dirt for brown. Hardened clays are also an option too.)
This temple is VERY deep down underwater.
Deeper than you would expect. Your expectation = Deep Ocean. (but the doubt raised earlier about an ocean biome being the "sea", makes it a sea that is deeper than the "deep ocean" biome.)

^ Does there exist such a natural sea? Is that not fair since it isn't natural? Actually, it is natural. This shocked even me, and not even the wiki speaks of it. The only way to know is if you had adventured enough on this map, or any other amplified map for that matter. It turns out, on naturally generated, standard amplified terrain, Savanna M biomes can contain lakes which run deeper than the deepest of ANY deep ocean. Most of the deeper of deep oceans bottom out typically in the low 30s (around y=32). The deepest ones can go to the high 20s. The lakes in some Savanna M biomes actually can go as deep as bedrock. Yes, you saw that correctly. As deep as bedrock. The deeper of the "deep lakes" as I would like to call it, runs into the teens, elevation-wise. This particular lake I made the Temple of The Deep in, bottomed out at y=11 in the lowest apparent point, which I accidentally discovered when I had found someone's mining operations in the Savanna biome, and I had dug a little more and ran into water by accident. I checked outside, and I could see nothing but water all the way to a barely visible surface. When I later came up with the idea of making this treasure hunt, I has envisioned it from the very beginning: I would make a temple down at the bottom of the "deepest of all seas", and no one would know that I was referring to this "deep lake". I had expected from the very beginning that people would search the deep oceans and be discouraged, so I had determined it was perfect. As I built the temple, I dug into more water by accident and further discovered a thin ravine-like area which went all the way down to bedrock, y=1, filled with water. This was actually connected directly to the deep lake I originally thought went to y=11. This is TRULY, the deepest of all seas.

Clue 2c, extra expedition to find another clue for the Temple of The Deep, added to this topic main post on 7/2 @ noon, ET:


Interpretation:
There are many towns, but one of them has only a few 'people' in it. --> it's a small town compared to many.
This town sits on top of a green hill.
If you bring the people in this town some gems (precious rocks --> emeralds)
The people will trade with you (thus making this a village of villagers).

There is a rumor that says
One of the villagers is smart.
If you find that villager, you will receive another clue.

^ If you find this village, there are no villagers, but there is one house which contains another clue that isn't the same clue as what this riddle implies. Instead, you will find 3 zombies in the house (named), implying that there was a raid on the village. Go inside, and there are signs that you can tell are from "the smart villager" that had the clue to the Temple of The Deep. Instead, it says that he hid the clue around the area, so you needed to find it. (this was his final parting message before the zombie attack) If you go down the well to the bottom, you find a secret enchanting room with the intended clue:

Clue 3c, the follow-up clue for the Temple of The Deep:


Interpretation:
You have searched the oceans
but you will not find the Temple of The Deep there. (this confirms the doubt about it being in the ocean)
Yes, it will be near a river (confirming that it actually is)

To the west of the temple's location, the temperature would bother you if you could feel it --> it could be hot or cold, but remember that one of the colors was white, which means likely snow --> extreme hills.
To the east of the temple's location, you could find a green landscape for animals.
But at the place in between what is to the west and east, is the Temple of The Deep.

Dive down to the bottom of the sea that lies between to what is described to the west and east (as well as keeping in mind what colors the land are).
Down at the bottom of the sea is the Temple of the Deep, and it is of course... deeper than you thought it would be.

END OF SPOILERS

Riddles within temples will be revealed at a later date, to be announced. Because I will not say if all treasures have been found, whether if they have or haven't, I cannot reveal how to solve anything in the temples publicly, in the event that no one has solved something potentially hidden. This encourages you to go to these temples which are now no longer "hidden", and explore them.

Don't forget to leave your thoughts, good and bad about anything related to this adventure series!! It will help me understand and learn how to continue for the better!

Thank you for playing, and THANK COMIC for helping me in making some things happen that could not have been done otherwise, and helping me to finish last details on the night before the opening of this hunt!

Did any of the temples prohibit health regen? None of the things I tried stopped it, I assume it was a global setting that I couldn't overwrite locally. I only tried in one test area, not every temple.

Thank you for making this extremely thorough adventure series!

I'd say something like 4.2 or 4.3. The biggest problem for me was that a single set of clues led to each temple, instead of a set of clues gradually increasing in difficulty. That meant that the clues in general were stunningly broad, instead of (perhaps) being a set of equally-broad clues that could be combined into a more specific clue. Hopefully that makes sense. Perhaps something like a multi-step hunt to small intermediate rooms that each give broad hints that gradually clarify the location of the temples.
I'd say something like -1, given the amount of time it took to find everything. The unique spawn eggs and mob heads were particularly awesome. On the minus side, I lost a lot of good stuff on the hunt, but that's my own fault.
Absolutely a -4.5 or so. The biggest problem was that the hints were so broad that we spent days searching with absolutely no indication that we were on the right track. Incremental hints, or even sets of hints in the places that seemed correct but were in fact wrong, would have made it a lot less frustrating, even if the temples were equally (or more!) hard to find.
4.8, of course. Only the Temple of the Deep felt anything short of epic; the Temple of the Green and the Temple of the Sandy Sea were both ridiculously detailed. The Temple of the Deep was also awesome, but you set the bar high with the other two.
4.5, with points for detail, quality, dedication in building these in Survival mode, and the huge donations of your own spoils. Points off for frustration.
I'd go with 0.

You succeeded. I thought it was an acronym.

I saw that one of the temples had stronghold-like architecture in the video, and searched for two of the strongholds. If I had bothered to find the third, I would have succeeded in finding the Temple.

Oh wow, I didn't bother noticing that those zombies were named; I just killed them without another thought. I had been searching in wells the whole time, so the well was actually the very first place I looked when I got to the village.

Thanks, comic! Thanks, CJ!