A murder mystery where the house is full of suspects
The will has been read, the doors are shut until it is settled, and one of the seven people in the house with you has already decided how the estate is going to be divided.
No account, no card, nothing to install. The world's lore is already built, so it starts in seconds.
Everyone has to keep their own story straight
Each heir is a character with their own history and their own reasons, held as facts rather than improvised per scene — so an alibi you broke on turn four is still broken on turn twenty, and the person who gave it knows that you know.
The world
The Ashford fortune will go to a single heir—if they survive the weekend. As the storm cuts off Ravenscar Manor, the heirs begin to die one by one, in the order named in the will.
Ravenscar Manor is a sprawling gothic estate on a storm-lashed coast, full of secret passages, old portraits, and older grudges. The Ashford family has buried more than its dead here, and one weekend will dig all of it back up.
Who is in it
- The Ashford Heirs
- seven relatives, each with a motive and a secret.
- The Manor Staff
- loyal servants who know where every body—and skeleton—is kept.
- Ashford & Crewe
- the family solicitors guarding the terms of the deadly will.
Where you go
- The Great Library
- where the will is read and the first body is found.
- The East Wing
- shuttered for decades after a scandal no one will name.
- The Sea Cellar
- a tidal cave beneath the manor with only one way out.
What already happened
- The Reading of the Will
- the moment the heirs learn the inheritance is a death sentence.
- The Old Drowning
- an Ashford death twenty years ago, ruled an accident.
Who you can play
-
Eleanor Ashford Estranged heir
A sharp, guarded outsider determined to outlive a will designed to kill her.
At the start: a suspect to everyone and a target to someone.
-
Mr. Holloway The butler
An impeccable butler whose calm conceals an encyclopedic, dangerous knowledge.
At the start: the one person who knows the manor better than the killer.
Or write your own character — the setup form takes a name, a background and what you are good at, and the game master works from that instead.
How a turn works
- You say what your character does, in your own words.
- What you attempted is weighed against your character sheet and the state of the scene — and the outcome is settled before the scene is written, so the part telling the story does not get to decide that you succeeded.
- The game master narrates what happened, grounded in the world's own characters, factions and places, and remembers it for the rest of the run.
Start playing The Veiled Manor →