X marks the spot [ended]

bump

1 hour left so a new hint for the ITH part. Q6-Q8 are about a hack&slash, rpg and strategy games(alphabetical order)

a new bump , still not solve.

edit:
oh , I see the solution , thank for solution and puzzle.

Bump for bruteforce

Also you probably should have said about 0.5 ratio

To make the entry level for the main prize a bit less steep the ratio was lowered to 0.3. The puzzle itself is already hard enough

Oh my, after the hard work to solve the questions I have shipwrecked on codes to prizes.... T___T I need to learn some tricks. But I think I got far for my first time. :)
You have made really good puzzle!

Time's up

Solution:
The stolen page showed that the concealment cipher used first letters, but as ITH codes also contain numbers(spoiler & the argument) lines 2,,4 and 7 had to use some kind of conversion. H3 was supposed to help you determine that for numbers the length of the word should be used instead

As for the ITH:
solution

First 5 questions were about pirate games - simply using this phrase gave all the answers on the first page of a google search
Q6 HoMaM series - this could be tricky but it seems most people know the series as only few people got stuck at this question
Q7 Diablo II - this one was probably the hardest but the hints should give it away.
Q8 Gothic II - The longest combination required to lockpick a chest. Rewriting it into RRRLRRRLRLRLRRLLLRRL gave the answer right away, the hints added later should also be of use in this case

For Q6-8 rephrasing the question should also allow to discover the answer using google

I'm really sorry that so many GAs didn't get 5 entries 😞 Thanks a lot for the puzzle 🙂

Since the event is over, some commentary from a last minute solver of this puzzle, and not a player of any of the games in the puzzle:

• I reached the ITH question via brute force, but I only managed to decipher the ITH link after the captain italicize the words Unskilled, To and Preferred.
  The numbers are simply the length of the words, and the number 7 7 5 corresponds to the number of letters in pirates, bottles and ships.
  I bet many people (including myself) simply takes 775 from the hint verbatim as the numeric part of the ITH code.
• Answers to question 1-5 are listed on Wikipedia.
  Question 1, 3, and 4 are searchable with the hints, so with those 3, it's possible to reach the Wikipedia page.
  I'm not sure if anyone managed to answer question 2 with the hints. I brute force it from the list above.
  Question 5 is also done with brute force - which sucks because it's very time confusing. Not sure if there is any similarity between the games that can narrow them down to the answer.
• Question 6 is hard to find - I found Might & Magic X from Google, but the answer is Heroes of Might and Magic. It got a hint with year, but that's when the puzzle has little time left. Since I haven't played the games, I don't know if other games in the series is similar or not.
• Question 7 is also a tough one to crack. I mostly get Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in my search result. I later found one result searching for image of cows in game and got Diablo 2. Didn't saw the late hints since I didn't refresh the puzzle.
• Question 8 is searchable once we convert the code to RL syntax. Use quotes to google the sequence.
• Question 9 depends a lot on what kind of game you play. Couldn't answer it without the hint from fellow pirates in the tavern.

Some of the questions, especially those with Roman numerals, should have alternate answer with Arabic numerals. It was frustrating to get the spelling right.

Rewards sent. Congratulations to all the solvers. This puzzle turned out to be way harder than I planned

Maybe you could change the title so it is obvious that it is over