A murder mystery game for 10 players

What a 10-player game feels like

With ten players the party naturally splits into small groups during each act, which is exactly what you want: rumors travel, alliances form, and the big reveal lands harder. Gather everyone together when you read the evidence at the start of each act.

The 10 characters in Death at the Hollowmoor Masquerade

Every year, the perfumer Vesper Hollowmoor throws the most talked-about Halloween masquerade in the county. This year, every guest received a black envelope with a handwritten note: "I know what you did. Come to the masquerade and find out what I intend to do about it." By half past ten, Vesper is dead in the glass conservatory, and every guest had a reason to want the midnight announcement silenced.

• Sloane Hollowmoor, The Heir. Vesper's only living relative and, until recently, the presumed heir to the Hollowmoor fortune and the Nocturne perfume empire. Charming, restless, and famously bad at sitting still.
• Dr. Ellis Marrow, The Physician. Vesper's personal physician and oldest friend. Calm, precise, and never seen without a battered black medical bag.
• Marlowe Quill, The Medium. A celebrated spiritualist who claims to speak with the dead. Vesper hired Marlowe to read tarot at the masquerade, from the candlelit alcove beside the conservatory's ballroom door.
• Remy Graves, The Steward. Has run Hollowmoor Hall for twenty-five years. Knows every creaking floorboard, every hidden door, and exactly how Vesper takes the tea: valerian, no sugar, at ten o'clock sharp.
• Rowan Ashby, The Rival Perfumer. Head of the small Ashby perfume house. For thirty years the Ashbys have claimed that Vesper's legendary scent, Nocturne, was stolen from their family's formula notebook.
• Jules Vance, The Business Partner. Vesper's business partner and the money behind Hollowmoor Perfumes. Loud, generous, and always the last to leave the bar.
• Frankie Delacroix, The Gossip Columnist. Writes the most feared society column in the country. If you have a secret, Frankie wants it.
• Avery Crane, The Horror Novelist. Bestselling author of gothic horror. Avery's debut novel, The Night Garden, was set in a house suspiciously like Hollowmoor Hall.
• Harper Vale, The Apprentice. Vesper's young apprentice perfumer, and the only person Vesper ever allowed into the scent laboratory.
• Sage Whitlock, The Keeper of the Night Garden. Tends Vesper's famous Night Garden, a collection of poisonous plants in the glass conservatory.

Any guest can play any character. You can cast your friends yourself, or leave it to chance so that nobody, not even you, knows who the killer is.

Price

Games for 9 to 12 players need the Party Pass (coming soon), which also includes Last Call at the Blue Lantern, a 1920s speakeasy mystery. With 8 or fewer players the game is free, and extra guests can pair up and share a character.

How to run it

1. Enter your 10 guests' names and send each one their private link, ideally two weeks ahead.
2. On the night, read the opening from your host page.
3. Announce the password for Act One. Everyone unlocks their secrets and starts mingling.
4. Read the evidence for Acts Two and Three and announce each new password.
5. Everyone accuses someone. Then break the seal on the solution and read it aloud.

More guests or fewer? See the game for 6 players, 8 players, 12 players.