Back in the old days when phones had cords, kids would simulate a telephone with two cans connected by a string. I'd be willing to bet a lot of kids today have never even seen a phone with a cord. But they still might play the game of "telephone" in which the players see how a sentence would become transformed by whispering it from person to person around a circle. The results can be surprising and hilarious, and sometimes it's hard to see how the transformation occurred. Transformation is a recurring theme in The Game of Thrones. People are continually being transformed in one way or another, and a good bit of the stories involves their experiences as they attempt to adapt to their new realities.
Some of the transformations are voluntary, as in the case of those people known as wargs. Wargs are people who can see (or even control) what's happening some distance away by transforming themselves and entering the minds of birds, animals, or in very special cases, other people. Wargs are well-known to the semi-nomadic people who live north of the Wall. Known as "Wildlings" by those in the northern kingdoms, they call themselves the Free Folk and they live lives much closer to those of their ancestors than the people just south of the wall. Although they seem to have little in common, the two groups actually share some of the same ancestry and revere the same gods (the "old gods").
In solving this puzzle you'll be performing transformations of one word into another word of the same length. The number of letters for the word is given.
“Items found atop baseball players and bottles” becomes “a shade of off-white.” (4 letters)
“What the Bard was born upon” becomes “before Domino and after Minnesota.” (4 letters)
“Captain Morgan’s beverage” becomes “something that’s better than one.” (3 letters)
“Devices using wind or water to grind grain” becomes “an expression of regret.”(5 letters)
“Style of radio station that does not play any music” becomes “what it takes 8 of to make 1 byte.” (4 letters)
“A farmer’s yield” becomes “things PETA protests wearing in winter.” (4 letters)
“The opposite of subtracts” becomes “a red vegetable that is sometimes pickled.” (4 letters)
“Something that a needle has, although it cannot see” becomes “to choke or cough.” (3 letters)
“Something it’s a waste of time to reinvent” becomes “Barbies or American Girls.” (5 letters)
“The band behind the Dancing Queen” becomes “proof of ownership in real estate.” (4 letters)
This is the eighth in a series of caches inspired by The Game of Thrones. Stay tuned!
For more about this series, please see GC61D6M
Many thanks to TimeSeeker (OH) for the puzzle inspiration and to SilentP42 (NC) for beta-testing.