For 36 years, the commemorative mug has been a cherished token of the Ohio Renaissance Festival, a piece of the realm you can take home. This year, for our 36th mug and the current illustrator’s 6th design, we asked a question: What if your mug could do more than hold a brew? What if it could hold a secret?
Merlin Sets His Challenge
This wasn’t just about creating a new design; it was about weaving an experience. We wanted to give our clever patrons a quest, a puzzle that would make them feel like true apprentices of arcane wisdom. The goal was simple: to add a new layer of magic to a beloved tradition, maybe even start a love of collecting with guests who have just joined the Ren Faire community.
This year’s mug was something special. Thrown by hand in the USA by Grey Fox Pottery, its striking orange glaze made it a rare addition to the ORF mug collection the moment it appeared on the shelves of the Treasures of the Realm gift shop and our main pubs. But the real magic was in the stamp.
The Key Revealed
For those who might still be pondering, the secret was a classic Caesar cipher. The key? Look to the stars!
The mug is emblazed with 5 planets and 5 coded words.
A Brief History of Secrets: What is a Caesar Cipher?
You might wonder, what is a Caesar cipher? The Caesar cipher is one of the oldest and most famous encryption techniques in the world, and its history is fit for a king—a Roman Emperor, to be precise.
Legend attributes it to Julius Caesar himself, who used it to protect his military and political messages. How did it work? Just like on our mug! Each letter in the original message is shifted a fixed number of places down or up the alphabet. If your shift was 3, ‘A’ would become ‘D’, ‘B’ would become ‘E’, and so on.
While it’s simple by modern standards, this cipher was effectively unbreakable without the key in its time.
The Caesar cipher’s life extended far beyond the Roman Forum, popping up in the most charming and unexpected places throughout history.
In the 19th century, for instance, the personal ads of newspapers like The Times of London were not just for finding a room or selling furniture. They became a clandestine messaging board for lovers, who would exchange intimate notes encrypted with this very same simple cipher, hiding their sweet nothings in plain sight.
Its use persisted even into the 20th century. During World War I, the Russian army, finding more complex codes too difficult for their ranks to use efficiently, fell back on the old, reliable Caesar cipher. This proved to be a fateful decision, as German and Austrian code-breakers, facing a cipher that would have been familiar to Julius Caesar, had little trouble decrypting their battlefield messages.
Incredibly, the cipher has even appeared in modern headlines. In 2006, Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano was captured partly because police deciphered his clumsy numerical variation of the Caesar cipher.
It’s a method that has protected the secrets of emperors, knights, lovers, armies, and alchemists for millennia.
By using it for Merlin’s Challenge, we connected you to a timeless tradition of secret-keeping, perfectly blending historical intrigue with the magical theme of the festival.
Solving the Cipher
The number of spots each planet is from the sun gives you the shift keys needed to decode the mysterious message.
We loved seeing families and friends huddle together, mugs in hand, turning the festival grounds into a living library of problem-solvers.
The Realm Answered the Call—and How!
We were thrilled to see 1,032 eligible entries cross our digital scrolls! The buzz on the grounds and across social media was incredible. Guests were rightfully proud of their puzzle-solving skills, and we even heard the delightful complaint that it was “too hard”—though the challenger admitted, “The only riddles I ever worked with were on the back of cereal boxes!” To us, that just confirmed we’d created a truly engaging challenge.
On November 3rd, we randomly drew two lucky winners from the pool of master decoders to award the grand prizes.
Thank you
To everyone who picked up a mug, stared at the planets, and cracked the code—thank you. You are the reason this experiment was a resounding success. You proved that the collectible mug isn’t just a souvenir; it’s a key to a deeper adventure.