Host kit · 8–12 players · 2.5 hours

Ashes at Bellwether Hall: the whole evening.

A free sample: the host guide, the invitation to send, the first prop, and the opening act of the player scripts. Everything else — the other acts, the words you say aloud and the sealed solution — unlocks with the paid kit below.

Back to the kit

Lord Bellwether has been dead a week and the family has gathered to hear the will. The solicitor arrives with the wrong papers, the west wing fills with smoke, and by pudding there is a second body in a study locked from the inside. This is the gentlest kit in the library: two and a half hours, one long table, no dinner service to speak of.

Before the night

Light the room with lamps rather than overheads, and put a fire on a screen if you have one — the whole evening should feel like a house that has been closed up.
Print the booklets and seal the study clue in an envelope labelled 'not before Act II'.
Make the mourning card and the doctor's bag early; the burnt glove is the only prop that needs real care, so do it in a sink with the tap running.
Have a pot of something hot and a plate of small cakes ready for Act III. This kit has no dinner break, and a table with nothing to reach for gets restless.

Running order

6:50 pmThe drawing room

Greet guests in the hall and take their coats. Hand each one a mourning card and their booklet, and let them admire the house before the reading begins.

7:00 pmAct I — The Reading

Read the welcome from the solicitor's chair, then let each guest read their Act I page. End on the housekeeper's line about the second will.

7:35 pmAct II — The Fire

Dim the lights, make a smell of smoke if you can, and move the whole table to the 'west wing' — the far end of the room is enough. Announce the body and hand out evidence.

8:05 pmTea and the ledger

Serve the hot drinks now. This is where quiet tables need a pause and loud tables need a plate passed round.

8:20 pmAct III — The Estate

Bring everyone back to the long table, run accusations, then read the true will and the solution.

8:50 pmThe last of the fire

Hand the guilty guest the confession card and let the table argue it out. Nobody will want to leave before they have.

Seating

Put the widow at the head of the table, the solicitor at the other end with the papers in front of him, and the governess and the physician on opposite sides so their ten-year-old disagreement has room to surface. With more than six guests, split the extra players into 'household' and 'village' sides.

If it goes wrong

If the table is shy, have the solicitor read a clause aloud and ask each guest directly whether they are named in it.
If somebody announces the murderer in Act I, thank them gravely and say the will cannot be read until the fire is dealt with.
If the smoke alarm is real, stop the game. Nothing in this kit is worth a fire engine.

After the night

The mourning card doubles as the party favour — let guests keep it. Return the rest to the box; the sealed will is reusable with a fresh seal.

Send this

The will of Lord Bellwether will be read at Bellwether Hall on Friday at seven.

The executors request your presence at the reading of the will of the late Lord Bellwether, of Bellwether Hall in the county of Yorkshire. Carriages at six thirty; the drive is longer than the map suggests.

The house is in mourning and the west wing is closed. Guests are asked not to wander beyond the drawing room, the dining room and their own chambers.

You are invited as a member of the household or a guest of it. Please come in the character named on your card, and please come with something to confess.

Reply to the estate office by Wednesday. The household is large but the table is not.

If you send it digitally

Send it as a black-edged card with the family crest at the top, in a plain serif face. If you print at home, a thin black border around the page is enough to set the tone.

Three physical props carry this story. Each one is buildable in under half an hour with things you probably already have.

Prop 01 · 15 minutes

The black-edged mourning card

The invitation, the programme and the clue: a message pressed into the back in pencil.

What you need

Heavy cream card, cut to postcard size
A black fineliner
A hard pencil
A blunt knife or an empty ballpoint for impressing

How to make it

Draw a 5mm black border around the card and write 'IN MEMORIAM — ALGERNON, LORD BELLWETHER' at the top.
On the back, write the hidden line in pencil: 'The second will is in the study, and the study key is not on the ring.'
Write it hard, then rub most of it away with your thumb so it reads as an old impression rather than fresh writing.
Give one card to each guest, and make sure the physician's copy is the one with the clearest impression.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 props

The remaining build sheets: materials lists, cutting guides and the folds that make them convincing by candlelight.

Unlock the full kit — $30

Print one booklet per guest from these pages. Each act has a line to read aloud and a secret for that character alone — the lines are what the table hears, the secrets are why they lie.

Act I · 7:00 pm

The Reading

Host: Sit at the head of the table as the solicitor, tap the papers straight, and read the welcome. Then take each guest's first page in turn, oldest seat first.

Lady Constance Bellwether

The widow

My husband has been dead for seven days and I have not wept once, which I am told is unnatural. I am told a great many things in this house. Shall we read the will?

Only you know You have already read the will. You found it in the study last week, and you know it leaves the hall to a cousin nobody has met.

Mr. Abel Pike

The solicitor

I have the will here, and I have the other will here, and I had intended to bring only one of them. The firm has been the Bellwether firm for four generations; we do not usually mislay documents.

Only you know You brought the wrong papers on purpose. The true will is still in your case, and you have been waiting for the household to incriminate itself before producing it.

Miss Ada Thorne

The governess

I taught the heir everything he knows except how to behave, and I have been in this house eleven years without once being asked to sit at this table. I shall sit at it now.

Only you know You were in the study the night Lord Bellwether died, burning a letter he had written to the school about your dismissal.

Dr. Hollis Reed

The physician

I signed the death certificate at eleven that night and I will sign whatever else is required, but I would like it noted that I was called only after the fact.

Only you know You have been supplying Lord Bellwether with a sleeping draught for a year, and the dose in the bottle in your bag is not the dose on the label.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 acts

Every remaining character script, the line they read and the secret they are protecting, laid out to print and fold into booklets.

Unlock the full kit — $30

The welcome

“The family is gathered, the house is in mourning, and the will of Algernon, Lord Bellwether, will now be read. I remind the household that the west wing is closed and that the servants' ledger is a legal document. If anyone has a claim on the estate, this is the hour to make it.”

Sealed in the paid kit

The dinner toast and the accusation

The two speeches that open the second half and close the night, with the cue for when to stand up and how to hand over the confession.

Unlock the full kit — $30

Host’s eyes only

The culprit, the method, and how the clues fit

The solution never appears on this page. It arrives with the paid kit, sealed, to be read aloud only after every guest has accused.

Unlock the full kit — $30

Unlock

Everything, printed.

What you have just read is the sample. One payment unlocks the whole kit on this page — every act, the props, the speeches and the solution — ready to print the moment the card clears.

3 acts of player scripts, one booklet per guest
3 prop build sheets
The dinner toast, the accusation and the cue list
The sealed solution, for the host only

One payment, one kit, yours to print again for the next party. Bought it already? Open the printable kit.