The Third Annual Masquerade Tribute Hunt officially begins March 20th, but the fun has already started.
What is the Third Annual Masquerade Tribute Hunt? To answer that question, I’ll have to rewind and explain Masquerade. In 1979, Kit Williams published Masquerade, a picture book filled with images and riddles that ultimately led to a jeweled hare buried underground.
Jenny Kile, the author of several books on treasure hunts and the owner of MysteriousWritings.com, a site dedicated to various treasure hunts, started a series of tribute hunts as a charity fundraiser. All prizes are donated by various members of the treasure hunting community, and all proceeds go straight to the designated charity.
This year, the featured charity is St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The main event of the hunt, starting March 20th, is a set of three armchair treasure hunts- treasure hunts solvable from home, but still yielding several hundred dollars of prizes each.
An extremely pleasant bonus this year is the addition of pre-hunt riddles and puzzles. So far there have been three mini-puzzles and three “games,” each yielding remarkably good prizes. Some prizes are given to first solvers while others are given out randomly to those who submit correct answers. It’s a good mix, and it’s nice to have something so accessible as part of the treasure hunt.
For example, one random solver of the below puzzle was randomly selected to win a diamond-shaped crystal paperweight.
As luck would have it, I was that lucky solver! I can’t wait to receive the paperweight in the mail.
By offering multiple tiers of challenge and offering some prizes based on random selection, Jenny and her contributors have made a hunt that anyone can feel good about participating in (if the fact that it’s a charity fundraiser wasn’t enough already). I imagine that once the official hunts release on 3/20, I’ll probably go cross-eyed pretty quickly, but the event thus far has already earned the price of admission.
If you would like to join, it’s not too late! The following page on MysteriousWritings.com provides the links on how to get started. The event has already raised $2000 for St. Jude’s and it continues to grow day by day!
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