Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

The Song of the Serpent and the Wanderer

Behold! Hear ye, for a tale of dire proportions unfoldeth. In the hallowed kingdom of Sudokuland, a demon, Nordy its name, hath unleashed a monstrous serpent, its vastness eclipsing the very sun. From the majestic watchtowers of the realm, dire reports arrive, recounting how the odd serpent slithereth through each of the villages, sowing dread and laying waste to all who cross its path.

Locked within their abodes, the hapless denizens beseech the gods for a saviour to come and deliver them from this perilous plight. Yet, alas, time ticks away, their provisions dwindle, and the hopes of the realm fade with each passing morn. Day after day, explorers have set forth from the kingdom and traversed the lands in search of a remedy, to no avail. And lo! Today, a glimmer of hope emerges, as the great sorcerer Simon uncovereth an ancient scroll containing a powerful incantation, a luminous spell that shall safeguard the kingdom and banish the serpentine fiend, casting it back into the wicked abyss from whence it was summoned.

Now, wanderer, dost thou possess the valour to journey through all the villages, separating them as the spell commandeth, returning to the palace of the king and thus redeeming Sudokuland? Know this, adventurer: in thy hands the destiny of a realm lieth.

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The Spell

With mystic art and power combined,
Unleash the spell that fate hath assigned.
To quell the serpent's fearsome might,
Reshape the villages, bring forth the light.

By decree of magic's ancient lore,
Each village's boundaries shalt be restored.
Divide the odd serpent as 'tis written
Only this way will it be smitten.

Nine regions, to each other bound
Are this serpent's hunting ground.
Redraw their borders, let it be known,
Each village plays a part, its own.

Let no hamlet claim too much,
Nor any shall be left untouched.
Balance will reign when numbers align
From the king’s palace the spell will shine.

From tail to fang, from scale to eye,
In equal measure, let each part lie.
When balance meets the serpent's frame,
From the land it shall vanish, and so its name.

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Rules:

The Sudokuland: Divide the grid into regions, each consisting of nine orthogonally connected cells. Each row, column and region must contain the digits 1 to 9 once each.

The King’s Palace: The shown region is the king’s palace. It is one of the regions in which the grid has to be divided, and so it contains the digits 1 to 9 once each.

The Serpent: Some cells must be shaded to form a single snake that is one cell wide that does not branch and cannot touch itself, not even diagonally. The snake must contain only odd digits.

The Watchtowers: The digit in a watchtower (the squared cells) says how many snake cells are a knight’s move away from that cell. Those snake cells sum to the number placed in the top-left corner of the watchtower. There is a watchtower in every region of the grid, and the snake cannot pass through any watchtower.

The Spell: Each region of the grid must contain exactly the same number of snake cells.

NOTE: The snake may or may not form a loop with itself - you will have to find that out while solving.

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This is an example of how the watchtowers work:

The watchtower in the peach region sees 3 snake cells with a knight’s move, so its digit is a 3, and those snake cells sum to 7 (1+5+1).

The watchtower in the yellow region sees 2 snake cells with a knight’s move, so its digit is a 2, and those snake cells sum to 14 (9+5).

NOTE: the snake cells seen by the watchtowers can be in any region: for example in the peach watchtower the snake cells are in three different regions, while in the yellow watchtower the snake cells are both in the same region.

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The Song of the Serpent and the Wanderer is also available online on CTC-App.





This puzzle is a well deserved tribute to Nordy: after the Nordy's Edition of my Sudok-a-thon I wanted to create a puzzle that somewhat mixes their style with mine. So I decided to put in this one a lot of things that in my opinion are "Nordy-sh" in sense of setting style and their favourite combination of rules.

I hope that you will like it, Nordy, thank you for the astonishing puzzles you have made.

And thank you to dumediat and yttrio for testing and feedback!


Have you all fun solving and please leave a comment after your solve!