9 Mirror Puzzles for Your D&D Dungeon
Oy Dungeon Master! Are your players getting too comfy with monsters and normal puzzles? Time to throw them into an infinite hall of mirror puzzles where their little minds will implode within the trippy illusions. Let’s begin!!!
Dungeon 1. The Treasure Room
There are three mirror puzzles in this dungeon.
Puzzle 1. Invisible Obstacles
You enter a chamber with a treasure chest on a raised platform. The air is warm in here. On the wall is a mirror that is emitting an orange glow. Looking into this mirror you see that the floor is lava!
Solution: Use the reflection to carefully navigate the path of stepping stones (in reverse!) or you’ll fall into the invisible lava and suffer fire damage.
Puzzle 2. The ɘƨɿɘvɘЯ Lock
You finally get to the treasure chest and what do you know, it’s locked! You’ll need a 15 letter code! In the mirror you see these letters are entered into the lock in:
YTЯIᗡTИU⅃ᗺᗡƎTAᗡ
Solution: Entering those words into the lock isn’t enough, you’ll need to reverse the order and their meaning to find the code: YOUNGSHARPCLEAN
Notes for the DM:
Prepare before the game by writing the letters on a piece of paper to show your players.
Puzzle 3. The Empty Chest
You lift the lid of the treasure chest only to find… nothing? In the reflection the chest is full of treasure! Moving the mirror seems to jingle the treasure around.
Solution 1. Tip the mirror upside down and the treasure will fall through. Careful though, the lava might pour through too!
Solution 2. Break the mirror open and you can reach the treasure!
Puzzle Variation Idea
What if the treasure is too large to fit through the small mirror? Players could use armor or a shield as a reflective surface and reach through.
Dungeon #2. Doppelgängers
In this puzzle, your party meets their match.
As you turn the corner, you are met by mirror images of yourselves. These doppelgängers block your path to the exit - matching your movements, actions and words. How will you pass these doppelgängers?
Solution: Simply rotate around the doppelgängers.
Puzzle Variation:
The doppelgängers are formed of a strange magical material. When I ran this puzzle, they were made of thousands of insects like earwigs, roaches and mosquitoes - your game can use tar, magma, mud, ice, concrete or any material that matches your world.
The solution to this puzzle will change based on what material you choose.
Solutions:
Eat poison: In my game, players smoked pipeweed until their insect counterparts passed out.
Environmental: If your doppelgängers are made from ice, your players could start a fire.
This puzzle is very flexible so if your party comes up with another solution, go with it!
Dungeon #3. Reflecting Pools
In this water puzzle, players must spot the difference between the reflections and real life to find the pool that leads to the exit.
You enter a large, tranquil chamber bathed in blue light.
Set into the floor are eight pools of water. On the surface of each pool you see a reflection of the room above. High above you is a vaulted ceiling with a beautiful painted mural.
There appears to be no way out from this room. However, looking deep into the water, you see a door at the bottom of each pool.
Mural:
Looking up, you see a beautiful mural painted on the vaulted ceiling above. In the mural, an angel is surrounded by eight doors. She holds a scroll in her right hand on which you can read the words:
“Look at me and I look at you. I never speak a word but I always tell the truth.”
The answer is “mirror” or “reflection”
Solution:
Players must look into the eight pools to find the accurate reflection. This pool leads down to the exit, all other pools are traps!
The eight pools are based on the 8 schools of magic. The spell “Detect Magic” may help solve the puzzle.
Divination Pool - In this reflection the angel is weeping. Touch this water and the most tragic moment of your life! This causes severe psychic damage.
Conjuration Pool - In this reflection the snakes in the mural slowly begin to move. Look into this pool for too long and the snakes will swim out from the reflection and attack! Enter this water and be surrounded by snakes!
Enchantment - Looking into this pool, everything looks accurate but it hypnotically swirls. You’ll need to break the enchantment or fall in and drown!
Illusion Pool - In this reflection you see yourself with everything you ever wanted. Riches, love, anything! But it’s not real, there is no pool here, just a floor.
Abjuration Pool - This reflection is perfectly accurate. Enter this pool and you may exit.
Transmutation Pool - This pool gives the room a greenish hue. Touch the water and it will transform into acid, lava, blood, poison, ice and cause damage.
Necromancy Pool - In this reflection the angel has grown old and died. As you look at her body it slowly looks at you. She flies toward you and out of the water, crawls the body of someone you killed. (Insert a guard or some villain your players killed who they now must fight again.)
Evocation Pool - In this pool, you see an accurate reflection but the water feels warm. It gets hot. Touch it and it begins to boil.
Inspiration for more Mirror Puzzles
The Gollum game has a clever puzzle where you blow out candles to make the real world match the reflection of a mirror.
The Hogwarts game 🏳️⚧️ has a puzzle where mirrors are windows to the location of keys. Describe the view through a mirror as a clue to the next key!
The Control game has an evil doppelganger boss in the mirror who uses your own moves against you.
This printable mirror game can be easily recreated as a locked door puzzle.
How to make your own mirror puzzles
I find the trick to making a puzzle is identifying a unique property of the world and exploring it. For example, mirrors present an opposite version of us so I made a doppelgänger puzzle to play with that idea.
Here are 12 elements of mirrors you might have luck integrating into your own D&D puzzles:
Lara Croft solving a reflection puzzle.
Mirrors can give a sense of body horror.
Reflecting Light: Mirrors can cast light into dark hallways and illuminate whole chambers! Perhaps make a puzzle based on rotating mirrors to the right angle.
Interrogation Mirror: You could make a creepy encounter where players realize they’re being watched through a mirror. Maybe they see the flicker of light as a cigarette is lit behind the mirror!
Reversed Text: Players encounter a puzzle where they need to decipher reversed text or a riddle written backward in a mirror and then find the solution in the room.
Illusory Pathways: Mirrors can create optical illusions. A puzzle could involve players navigating a hall of mirrors where reflections can lead to dead ends or traps. In this maze map you might have to escape a Minotaur who is incredibly vain.
Reflect on Yourself: Mirrors can suggest the presence of doppelgangers or duplicates. Players need to distinguish between real and mirrored versions of themselves or others to solve a puzzle.
Reflection Manipulation: Players might have to manipulate the reflections of objects, symbols, or themselves to reveal hidden clues or paths forward.
Scary Reflection: Imagine you’re looking in the mirror and it moves slightly different from you. CREEPY!
Reflection-Based Locks: A puzzle could involve aligning specific objects or symbols in the mirror's reflection to unlock a door or treasure chest.
Time Reversal: Mirrors could possess magical properties that allow players to view past events or glimpse into the future, providing clues to solve puzzles or make decisions.
Distorted Reality: Mirrors can distort reality like a fun-house. A puzzle might require players to use the distorted reflections to reveal hidden elements or navigate a distorted room.
Illusory Objects: Mirrors might create illusions of objects that players need to interact with or manipulate to progress
Medusa: You can only look at her through a reflection or you’ll turn to stone. Show her the mirror and she turns to stone!
If you make a puzzle leave a comment below! I’d love to hear your idea and how it went during game play.
