Why do we even have that lever?

Its made for a seven fingered alien. Number 7 uses the scroll wheel. The right click is built into their species´ keyboards.

Why is this room only passable if you walk on the cieling?

 

It was designed by an architect from a race who evolved from an arcane accident involving spiders and serious misuse of the "enlarge creature" and "increase intelligence/wisdom" spells. They view ceilings as a more civilized location to do things on, with the floor being for things like food prep or waste disposal or security systems, so that these things don't take up actual living space.

Why does the manor have an aquarium that houses what are most certainly malevolent creatures that eat people?

(Edit to add my question, because I forgot to put it in the first time.)

 

Sea-monster flesh is a delicacy, and it spoils quickly. The manor's owner liked to impress their guests with only the finest in fresh seafood (despite the landlocked location) as a display of wealth.

Why does where the door to this room leads shift according to the balance of an oversized pair of scales?

 

severe limitation of space. it's easier to have a bunch of small, unconnected rooms with a simple weight-based system for traveling between them, than to have a bunch of interconnected rooms, or worse, huge, space occupying hallways to connect them.

why is there a sphinx guarding this tomb? what about this needs a riddle?

 

Well, the "tomb" was originally built as part of a tourist attraction, to try and get more people to come into town. The sphinx moved in a few years later, she seemed so pleased at having a "proper" place to stay that nobody had the heart to tell her it wasn't a real tomb. It's not like she can fit through the door to find out anyways. She likes mint tea, if you wanted to talk.

Why does every single tile on the floor in this hallway squeak in a different tone?

 

Ah, a security question. So authentication can get complicated, yeah? It's often broken down into three categories of factors: something you have, something you are, or something you know. An example of something you have would be a key. Something you are starts to get into biometrics. Something you know would be a password for example.

And look, we're dealing with mystical security technology that's really pretty old. It's not gonna be perfect but it could be worse. Keys can be stolen, yes, but the worse problem is that they can be lost. Biometrics.... well, do you really want a mystical entity taking biometric measurements? Because the architects of this tomb were not keen. So it's gonna have to be the third option, something you know. Because yes, it could be a problem if someone unauthorized gets access to the tomb, but it's a much, much worse problem if people who should be authorized lose access. Locks can be changed, but only if you can still get inside to do that.

Yeah, it's not guaranteed to keep everyone out, but it's not supposed to be. This is just the very first security layer. You'll discover the others soon enough.

Why is it a riddle? Well, don't you use password hints, especially when you really need to avoid accidentally locking yourself out?

Why are there so many calipers in this city? They're in barrels. They're in the garbage. They're in with people's extra storage. Who needs this many calipers?
(feel free to ignore this as I was a minute too slow posting!)

 

It's a dance hall! You can't dance without music, but no one wanted to be left out of the dancing to be the musicians, so the residents choreographed their dances to perfectly synchronize with the floor squeaks.

This turned out to make keeping the tempo particularly difficult, which is why there are those big axes swinging from the ceiling. They needed a large, clearly visible metronome so everyone could keep track, and the axes were just conveniently lying around.

Why is there a perfectly preserved master bedroom in the middle of this otherwise dilapidated ruin?

 

500 years ago, the last request of the castle's owner to the local fey she had a deal with was to have the brownies keep the room exactly how she left it. They have followed through dutifully, even though her two-week trip to another country to avoid a political kerfuffle turned out not to be enough to avoid it. A little thing like death makes no difference in a deal with the fey.

Why are sections of this factory (which are clearly designed to be walked through) only accessible by shutting down the conveyor belts and running backwards up them?

 

Ah, that's a bit of a sad story, actually. You see, one of the guys who ran a fairly big caliper-manufacturing company heard about how some companies did free give-aways of samples, and how one company in particular just mailed samples of their product to everyone in the country. So he decided that this was clearly an excellent idea and put it into practice immediately, before anyone could point out that there was a pretty significant difference between sending free cds to everyone when they'd still need to sign up for anything longer than a trial of the service, and sending actual product out.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the demand for calipers was pretty minimal to begin with and this absolutely flooded the market. The industry isn't expected to recover for decades, and people are trying to figure out ways to use the things because it would cost more than the metal's worth to round up all the extras and smelt them down.

It's a safety feature. Those sections are only supposed to be accessed during maintenance periods, and having the conveyor belts running during maintenance would be counterproductive (not to mention violate a dozen health and safety regulations).

Why does the mural on the dining room wall of this castle keep moving? More to the point, why do the figures in it keep acting out decidedly gruesome death scenes?

 

@turtleDove That caliper story is so beautiful. I'll be sad whenever I play Oblivion in the future and I will thank you for it.

 

@Verily You're welcome! My mind immediately went to "like with AOL cds?" when you described calipers everywhere. So I ran with it.

 

The moving paintings were an entertainment system! Very advanced for their time, and kind of prone to bugs. This one is stuck on a loop of a horror movie that has been getting slowly shorter over the last however long.

Why does this room slowly kill you unless youre wearing a certain ring?"

 

It's a ring of fire protection, and why are you in the furnace room for the heating system while it's running in the first place if you don't have any fire protection?

Why is the bridge covered in spikes?

 

Short answer: longstanding feud between the carters' guild and the pavers' guild.

Longer answer: so, who causes the most wear on the roads? Carters! Who is the most upset when the roads are bad? Carters!

The pavers attempted to create designated commercial thoroughfares to limit the damage. The carters kept trying new routes to avoid traffic. And so it went.

This bridge was a particularly contentious spot, since it is the most direct way to get between two major markets. However, it also has a truly terrible road bed, meaning that any attempts to pave it wear down twice as fast as normal. Signs were posted reading "No commercial traffic." Carters tried to insist they were just bringing these five tons of potatoes to their aging grandmothers.

The spikes were finally placed to prevent livestock and heavy loads from crossing the bridge. They're not meant to interfere with foot traffic.

Why do all of these staircases abruptly end in midair?

 

They're stone. The building they connected to was wood. Termites ate it.

Why does the bridge to town only appear after you complete this annoying ice skating puzzle on a rink surrounded by sheer drops?

 

Skate? Good heavens, that’s horrifying! You’re supposed to use the levers in the little hut to shift the weights that raise the bridge, not throw yourself around hoping shift things through a layer of ice with your body weight. Or whatever it was you were proposing. It’s easy, they’re in order from left to right.

What do you mean there is no hut? It’s right there, you can’t miss it. Unless... Well, I suppose the ground was never the most stable right there by the cliff, what with all the freezing and thawing. That does terrible things to structural stability, you know. Maybe we should get someone out there to have a look.

How come no one can see me when I crouch even though I’m obviously right there?

 

The town is full of creatures with terrible vision. Basically, until they put on a pair of glassed that give them headaches if they wear them too long, all they can see are dim shapes. A human standing upright is a pretty distinctive shape that just about any creature will recognize. Crouched down humans could be anything. A tumbleweed, a rock, a dog, an ottoman, tons of things are that shape. If all humans had the same smell like every sensible race out there it wouldnt be a problem, but a human can smell like anything if they spend long enough rolling around in it.

Why is there a huge, padlocked, well guarded, impossible to open door to the treasure room to keep everyone out, but a second unguarded opening large enough for someone to crawl through?

 

The building was originally designed for giants and titans. The unguarded opening is about the size of a mousehole to them, so they didn't consider it a plausible security risk.

Why do all the looms in this guild hum?

 

It's a kind of alarm system to let the weavers know the loom is in need of maintenance. They didn't want something huge and blaring, because people have to work here and it takes a while to get a specialized repairman in to work on them, so a gentle hum that can fade into background noise was chosen. The workers are on strike and broke the looms when they left. Not a lot, because they do want their jobs back eventually, but enough to let the heads of the guild know they're pissed via constant discordant humming.

Why is there an underground zoo filled only with the most deadly animals known to man?

 

Underground cities are common-lots of real estate underground, and it's nice and temperature-controlled, and what with the discovery of levitation and forcefield magics in addition to basic stuff like cold, fire, or light magic, hollowing out underground areas to build in got a lot easier.

Zoos are a big thing in this culture, and this one's themed around dangerous animals.


Why is the key to this city's (currently-closed) gates require carrying a crystal sphere the size of your torso through a gauntlet of spikes and projectile-shooters to a huge statue thing in the middle of constantly-shifting apparently-hallucinogenic woods?