Host kit · 10–16 players · 3 hours

The Pharaoh's Alibi: 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

Four thousand years of silence, broken in a single afternoon. The tomb is opened, the photographer's plates are ruined, and by dinner the expedition's photographer is dead in his tent with a newly excavated amulet in his hand. The desert keeps the local police nine hours away.

Before the night

Print the booklets and an excavation permit card for each guest. The permit numbers matter in Act III, so do not shuffle them.
Set the table low and warm — candles, a hurricane lamp, and a sand-coloured cloth. Serve something spiced and a lot of water.
Make the replica amulets and the excavation diary early. The missing amulet is handled by everyone, so make it sturdy.
Keep the room dim. This kit is at its best when the table cannot quite see each other's faces.

Running order

7:15 pmThe opening

Greet guests at the tent flap, hand out permits, and let them examine the objects from the antechamber laid out on a tray.

7:30 pmAct I — The Opening

Read the welcome as the patron, then take the Act I pages. End on the missing amulet and the foreman's changing account of the seal.

8:00 pmDinner in the mess tent

Serve dinner now. One course, plenty of it, and keep the water coming.

8:20 pmAct II — The Tent

Announce the body, then the sandstorm. Everyone is trapped in the mess tent, which is where the accusations start. Hand out evidence.

9:30 pmAct III — The Curse

Read the excavation diary aloud. What the diary leaves out is what convicts the guilty party.

10:00 pmThe last season

Take accusations, read the solution, and let the guilty guest deliver the confession. Then open a window.

Seating

Seat the patron at one end and the archaeologist at the other, with the foreman between them and the wife nearest the lamp. With more than ten guests, add 'dig staff' who sit in pairs and are allowed to pass notes.

If it goes wrong

If the table cannot place the amulet, have the foreman produce the replica and ask who swapped it.
If the sandstorm falls flat, just dim the lights and say the wind has come up. Everyone will play along.
If the solution comes early, read the diary entry for the day before the opening and let them re-interpret it.

After the night

The amulets are the party favour — let each guest take one. The diary goes back in the box with the loose page tucked inside.

Send this

The tomb is open. Dinner is at eight, in the mess tent.

Mr. Alistair Hobb requests the pleasure of your company at the opening of the tomb of Nebet-Het, in the Valley of the Kings, on Friday evening. The seal will be broken at seven.

Dinner will be served in the mess tent at eight. Guests are asked to bring a hat, a torch and a strong opinion about the dating of the antechamber.

You are invited as a member of the expedition or a guest of its patron. Please come in the character named on your permit — the desert is no place for strangers.

Reply to the expedition office in Cairo by Wednesday. Transport leaves Luxor at four and will not wait.

If you send it digitally

Send it as an expedition permit: a stamped border, the three paragraphs, and the permit number at the top. A sand-coloured ground and a hieroglyph rule at the foot is enough.

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

Prop 01 · 30 minutes

The replica amulets

A set with one missing, which is the theft that starts everything.

What you need

Air-drying clay or salt dough
A paperclip or a nail for the carving
Gold or bronze acrylic paint
A small tray and a numbered tag for each

How to make it

Shape six flat scarab amulets and press a simple pattern into each with the paperclip.
Let them dry fully, then paint them and rub the paint back so they look worn.
Number the tags 1 to 6 and lay them on the tray in order, leaving number 4 empty.
Put the tray where guests can pick them up, and do not mention the gap until Act I ends.

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 — $36

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 Opening

Host: Welcome the expedition as the patron, hand round the amulets, then take the Act I pages. End the act on the empty slot in the tray.

Mr. Alistair Hobb

The patron

I funded this dig to prove my name belongs in a museum, and I intend to be photographed beside the sarcophagus before the week is out. The amulets are catalogued, numbered and insured, and one of them is missing.

Only you know You have already sold four pieces from the antechamber to a dealer in Cairo to cover the expedition's debts, and the amulet is one of them.

Dr. Marion Bell

The archaeologist

I would trade my reputation for one honest photograph, and I have been photographing everything myself since the plates started coming back ruined. The seal was intact at six forty. I wrote it in the diary myself.

Only you know You swapped the amulet for a replica so the collection could be recorded accurately before the patron sold it, and you have been doing it for a month.

Tarek Aziz

The foreman

I know this valley better than the map does, and I know that the tomb was opened before we opened it. The sand inside the doorway was disturbed, and there were two sets of footprints in it, and one of them was made with boots.

Only you know You let the patron into the tomb at six fifteen, before the official opening, because he paid you. You have not said so because it would cost you the season.

Lady Honoria Hobb

The wife

I keep a diary of everything, including tonight, and I have been keeping it for thirty years. My husband's name will be in a museum whether or not he deserves it, because I have been writing his reputation for him since we married.

Only you know You have been writing your husband's published papers for a decade, and the photographer found the drafts in your tent this afternoon.

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 — $36

The welcome

“Welcome to the tomb of Nebet-Het. The seal was broken at twenty to seven and the antechamber has been catalogued. Please do not touch the objects on the tray, do not enter the tomb without the foreman, and do not take photographs — our photographer has enough trouble with his plates as it is.”

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 — $36

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 — $36

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.