A live Victorian Gothic murder mystery, performed in your home
The
WimhoffJournal
Mystery
A family. A house. A collection that was never meant to be found. A stranger lies dead in the artifact room and the clock has stopped at midnight.
This is not a boxed kit you run yourself. Chris arrives in character as your Game Master, brings the whole performance along, and guides your guests through the night from the first knock to the final accusation. You host. Chris does the rest.
Guests
8–12
Duration
2,3 hours
Per Guest
$30
Where
Your Home
Before you book, hear it
The Journal, first entry
The opening of the family record, read aloud. This is the voice your guests meet at the door.
The evidence board, hour by hour
Round one. The first clues land and the room is still being polite to each other.
Round two. Letters, a cuff link, the museum register, and the first real accusations.
Before the vote. Every thread anyone has argued for, all at once. This is the loudest part of the night.
The reveal. One thread left, and it was on the board the whole time.
I. What hosting actually means for you
Three things. That is the whole list.
If you have ever opened a mystery box and found yourself reading rules aloud while your friends waited, forget that entirely. You are not running anything.
One
Pick a date
Tell me the evening you have in mind. We confirm it and it is yours.
Two
Invite 8–12 people
Add them in the Host Portal and each one gets a private page with their character. You never have to explain a thing twice.
Three
Have food and drinks out
Dinner, appetizers, a table of snacks, BYOB, whatever suits your house. No themed menu required.
No script to memorize. No props to hunt down. No wondering whether you are doing it right. You get to be a guest at your own party.
II. The Story
The Wimhoff Journal Mystery
The Wimhoffs have gathered, as they do, under one roof and one long-standing grievance. There is a journal in the house that records forty years of the family's acquisitions, and there is a room upstairs holding the ones they never declared.
Tonight a stranger nobody will claim is found dead among those artifacts, the clock stopped at midnight and pages torn from the journal. Your guests are the family, the staff, and the invited. One of them did it. All of them are lying about something.
The house, as surveyed, October 1912
The collection
Three of the things they kept.
Catalogue plates from the family's own records come into the house with me. Your guests handle them, argue over them, and by the second round somebody always decides one of them is the reason a man is dead.
III. What comes with me
Everything except the sandwiches.
A live Game Master, in character
The whole night is performed: opening the story, steering the room, keeping quiet guests included and loud ones honest, and landing the ending on time.
Fifteen characters, written and assigned
Every guest gets their role in advance on their own private page: who they are, how to dress, how to play it, lines to have ready, and a secret nobody else sees.
Physical props and staging
The aged family journal, catalogue plates, house plans, hidden clue notes placed through your rooms, and the small dressing that turns your living room into the house.
The night run for you, start to finish
2,3 hours, paced in rounds, with the accusation and the reveal at the end. Your only job during it is to enjoy it.
IV. Cost & group size
$30 per guest
Eight guests minimum, twelve maximum. The story needs eight to work and twelve is the most a room can hold and still hear each other. The host counts as a guest if you are playing, and most do.
Nothing is charged when you enquire. We confirm the date and the count first.
That covers
- A live Game Master for the full 2,3 hours
- A character written and assigned for every guest, delivered to them privately
- All props, clue notes, and the journal, brought and set up in your home
- The Host Portal, guest list, and help files for the week before
- Travel within Louisville and the surrounding area
Not included: food, drinks, and whatever your guests choose to wear.
Add-on, booked alongside the mystery
The Séance & Magic
A performed interlude · about 25 minutes
Midway through the evening the family insists the dead be consulted. The room darkens and close-up magic is worked as spirit work, a table that answers, a slate that writes in a dead man's hand, a sealed envelope that reads itself, a candle that will not stay lit when one particular name is spoken.
Nothing for you to set up or learn, and nothing that breaks the mystery, the séance turns up one clue the room could not have reached any other way.
V. Service area
I come to you.
Louisville and the surrounding area, in your own home: living room, dining room, basement, back porch if the weather behaves. If you're further out than that, write anyway and tell me where; travel beyond the area is usually workable with enough notice.
VI. Book your night
Send the date. I'll write back.
No payment now, no obligation. Tell me roughly when and roughly how many, and I will confirm whether the evening is open.