Host kit · 12–20 players · 3.5 hours

The Diamond Ball: 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

The Marchand diamonds are on display for one night only, ahead of a wedding half the city has been invited to disapprove of. In the middle of the second dance the lights fail, the safe opens, and a guest is found dead holding the empty case. Twenty guests dress beautifully for a secret they would rather keep.

Before the night

Print a booklet per guest and put a name card at every place setting — this kit seats people by table, and the seating is part of the plot.
Set the table in two halves if you can. The 'ballroom' and the 'terrace' make the accusation round feel like a real party rather than a meeting.
Build the velvet display case and the seating chart in advance. The glove inside the safe takes ten minutes and should be made the same evening so it is still soft.
Arrange the lights so you can actually black them out for ninety seconds. A single switch is better than a lot of candles.

Running order

7:15 pmThe receiving line

Announce guests by name at the door, hand out name cards, and let them find their tables. Take coats and keep them in one place — a coat is a clue later.

7:30 pmAct I — The Receiving Line

Read the welcome, make the toast as the hostess, then let each guest read their page. End on the private threat at the toast.

8:00 pmDinner and the first dance

Serve dinner now. Let the table talk; this kit has the largest cast and the dinner is where alliances actually form.

8:15 pmAct II — The Blackout

Cut the lights for ninety seconds. When they come back, the safe is open, the case is empty, and there is a body. Hand out evidence.

9:30 pmAct III — The Last Dance

Each table presents a theory. Then read the solution and let the killer confess before the final toast.

10:00 pmThe last waltz

One more dance, one more drink, and the case goes back in the box — it is the prop guests will ask to keep.

Seating

Split the table into two 'households': the bride's side and the groom's. Put the countess at the head of the bride's side, the inspector on the groom's side where he can watch, and the jeweller between them. Every table should hold one person who knows something the other table does not.

If it goes wrong

If the blackout doesn't land, say the fuse has gone and the safe was opened while everyone was at the window. Same plot, less theatre.
With twenty players, let shy guests accuse as a table rather than individually. It keeps the pace up.
If someone identifies the paste stones early, congratulate them and say the assessor died before he could say it out loud.

After the night

The display case and the seating chart are the two props that survive the evening best. Keep the case; it makes a good box for the kit itself.

Send this

The Marchand diamonds will be worn once more. The Ball begins at seven thirty.

The Countess Marguerite van Dorn requests the pleasure of your company at the Diamond Ball, on the eve of the Sinclair–van Dorn wedding, at Marchand House, London.

The diamonds will be displayed at midnight and guarded until dawn. Guests are asked to dress for the occasion and to bring nothing that they would not wish to explain.

You are invited as a member of the wedding party or a guest of the house. Come in the character named on your card — the bride has enough real relatives.

Reply to the Marchand House secretary by Monday. Black tie. No photographs before midnight.

If you send it digitally

Send it as a black and gold card with the monogram at the top. The three paragraphs, the date, and one line in small caps: 'THE SAFE WILL BE OPENED AT MIDNIGHT.'

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

Prop 01 · 25 minutes

The velvet display case

The empty case in the dead man's hands, lined for stones that no longer fit.

What you need

A small jewellery box or a shallow tin
Dark velvet or felt
Glue
Cotton wool

How to make it

Line the box with velvet, gluing it flat and pressing it smooth with a cloth.
Cut three small depressions in a strip of card and cover them with velvet to make the stone beds.
Make the beds a size too large for any stone in the house, so the case looks wrong to anyone who looks closely.
Leave it open on the safe table from the start of the evening, then empty it during the blackout.

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 — $42

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 · 7:30 pm

The Receiving Line

Host: Announce each guest into the ballroom by name, then read the hostess's welcome and make the toast. Take the Act I pages around the table, bride's side first.

Countess Marguerite van Dorn

The hostess

I am hosting a ball, selling a house and marrying off a niece in the same week, and I intend to enjoy exactly one of those things. The diamonds will be displayed at midnight and the safe will not be opened before then.

Only you know You are selling the house because the diamonds are already gone — replaced six months ago — and the ball is the only way to keep the insurance from asking questions.

Rafe Sinclair

The fiancé

I am engaged to a woman who can fix my debts and I have been assured the diamonds will stay in the family. I would like that assurance repeated in front of witnesses, if it is all the same.

Only you know You owe money to a lender who has been invited to the ball. You have already asked the jeweller to value the stones privately, and she told you they were paste.

Mme. Estelle Roux

The jeweller

I insured these diamonds twice and lost them once, and I will not be doing either again. The setting has been rebuilt since the last valuation, and I would like that noted.

Only you know You replaced the stones with paste eighteen months ago and insured the originals. The assessor found out this afternoon and asked to meet you at the ball.

Inspector Ivor Crane

The guest

I am off duty, uninvited, and exceptionally well informed, which is the only way to attend a ball in this city. I would advise nobody to open that safe before midnight.

Only you know You are here on a tip about an insurance fraud, not a murder, and you have been watching the jeweller all evening.

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 — $42

The welcome

“Good evening, and welcome to Marchand House. The diamonds will be displayed at midnight, the safe will remain closed until then, and the band has been instructed to play until somebody stops them. Please find your tables — the seating has been arranged with great care, and not by me.”

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 — $42

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 — $42

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.