Bryce Whitacre of Fearlight Games has been a great advocate of Bedlam Hall, and when he runs a game, he means it. He was gracious enough to share with us his recent game exploits with Bedlam Hall and we love it so much, we had to share it with you. Take it away, Bryce…

6 players played all the roles:

The following where their secrets:

• Butler Secrets:
  • You squandered money in your earlier years in a bawdy tavern. You love booze.
  • You are 175 years old. You have no idea how this has happened.
• Chauffeur Secrets:
  • You are the Yorkshire Ripper but you got better….
  • One of your victims didn’t stay dead. You are a little paranoid and afraid.
• Cook Secrets:
  • You were hired on fake recommendations. You have never cooked in your life but you need the job badly.
  • You’ve been working here for a couple of weeks before the others arrive. The “thing” in the cellar, has come to think of it as your mother
• Housekeeper Secrets:
  • A dying old gypsy woman gave you a magic ring. Once a day it can make you look like someone else, at least you think it does.
  • You are a kleptomaniac.
• Maid Secrets:
  • During the war, Lord Blackwood worked in London where he met you. You proceeded to have a torrid love affair with him. Once the war was over he returned to manor. You need a job, you might or might not want Lord Blackwell’s son back, but you mustn’t do anything to jeopardize your station.
  • You once lived with a witch who was outcast in the woods. You learned a lot.
• Valet Secrets: 
  • You never learned how to read. This is going to complicate things at Bedlam Hall, better make some friends quick.
  • When people make you really mad, odd and strange things start to happen.

The game started with all the new staff arriving at the manor opening the creaky gate, making their way through the fog to the house with a giant hound baying in the background. They met the lawyer for the Blackwood family who took them into the portrait hall. There they saw the eyes of the paintings had been torn out.

Someone failed the ignore the strange roll and a I did a flash back to 2 weeks ago…

“The cook is being carried out strapped down to a gurney. The detective looks at lord Blackwell, “did she have any insanity in her family?” he asks. “Well her Aunt thought she was the 6th Earl of Siddcup” the detective looks up, “I’m going to go ahead and checkmark “yes”.”

Then the Manor lord addressed them all, told them to get on with their work and to never bring silver up the stairwell. “The stairwell hates sliver”. Everyone thought that was strange.

Then the cook and butler went to the kitchen. Blackwood’s father came into the kitchen with blood running down his arm, turns out he spent all night hunting and was bit by something in the bushes. They cleaned him up and he retired to his room.

Lord Blackwood meanwhile took his valet to the library and explained he was not one of these men that “become complete slaves to their valet”. Then he asked the valet if he could decipher some ancient Sumerian texts…which the valet could not. The valet managed to get him off the topic of reading so instead he asked for lamb for lunch, and a bit of lamb’s blood for his experiments.

Meanwhile the Chauffeur went outside to tune up the Duesenberg. And heard two kids playing around the side of the garage. One chubby little village kid, named Angus Bitterwit was attempting to shoot the skinny sickly little blonde kid with a bow and arrow at point blank range. The Chauffeur yelled at the Bitterwit but he explained that the Blonde Kid, Ebrous Lecurgus, told him to shoot him. Lecurgus then turned to the Chauffeur rather creepily and said “You don’t like us ….do you?” and “Why are you thinking about Yorkshire?” I think the chauffeur was a bit rattled at having a kid be able to read his thoughts. He quickly decided to usher the children into the house and told the butler to “take charge” and after a partial success the butler complied with the intention of having the chauffeur automatically follow his orders at a later date.

Meanwhile the Maid was helping Lady Daffodil with her hair. It seems the lady really likes her beauty products and had them all strung out on the floor. What concerned the maid more was the book on the vanity entitled “Beauty Tips from Elizabeth Bathory”. The maid also noticed that the gardener was doing some landscaping below the window. Apparently Lady Daffodil wanted the shrubbery removed so access to her room could be more easily achieved from the exterior of the manor. Why she needed that being two stories up is unknown.

Meanwhile the House Keeper went to the attic to fetch Lord Blackwell’s daughter for her birthday party. As she moved past the stairwell she didn’t notice but the TV audience at home saw the walls bleeding. She walked into the attic and helped the little girl, Mathlida with her hair and was told by the girl “not to look into the mirror. Mr. Widow doesn’t like that”. Unfortunately the House Keeper simply couldn’t resist and had to look. In the mirror the Housekeeper saw her own face but different, with spider eyes. Not wanting to stay in the attic any longer the housekeeper ushered the little girl out of the attic. After she closed the door the audience at home saw several spider legs come through the mirror.

The children all met in the kitchen, they wanted to go play in the cellar but a flashback to one year ago (again for just audience purposes) showed several kids in the cellar screaming for their lives about some sort of “Monster” being down there. Luckily the butler thought the cellar to dangerous for them. “They could fall in the dark,” you see…

Lady Daffodils’ Sister, Abstinence Lecurgus was hanging out in the garage hoping for a clandestine meeting with the Chauffeur. The chauffeur was trying to put off Ms. Lecurgus’s sexual advances muttering something over and over again about “being better”. Luckily lunchtime saved him. Blackwell’s father wanted lunch in his room so the butler used the dumbwaiter and brought in lunch. Grandpa Blackwell was not too pleased to be touching silver for some strange reason which lead the butler to believe that he was in fact, turning into a stairwell. On the way out the door flew open and hit the butler in his privates causing some trauma. The old man said “Oh yes, the door? It’s fiddly”.

At lunch Abstinence informed the Butler to have the chauffer report to her room after lunch. There was a crafty and evil smile that came across the butler’s face. The cook’s lunch was fantastic and she managed to have all the ingredients for things both for the lunch and for Mr. Blackwood’s blood request.

Then there was a knock at the front door. The Butler and Valet both went to answer. The postman was bringing a package for Lord Blackwood. It was a new black robe with a hood. The valet offered to press it. Unknown to anyone the postman turn, and whitsled and nice little tune and made his way down the path. That’s when a large monstrous bounding hound landed on him and tore his head off. He looked back at the manor (his face like the hound from ghostbusters) and then bounded off leaving the body on the grounds.

Lady Daffodil instructed for the car to be brought around, so the butler relayed the order to the chauffer but not before telling the chauffer to report to Abstinence’s room. The Chauffer pulled around the car and then went up to see her.

After lunch the kids were told by the housekeeper to play in the conservatory.

Meanwhile Workman arrived via the servant’s door off the kitchen with a brand new portrait for then portrait hall. It was some sort of ghastly bird painting… The cook told the workmen to head to the portrait hall.

The chauffer knocked on abstinence’s door and was bid to walk in, only to find her in a nightly. She wanted him badly, and he knew what he had to do. He was no longer “better” and returned to his Yorkshire Ripping days, picking up a large hat pin and saying “Anything you want my dear”

The maid in her normal duties came across two dead workman in the portrait hall, apparently dead from some sort of poisonous bite. Rather than take the trauma from the experience she started weeping uncontrollably, which brought several of the staff into the portrait hall. After a brief conversation it was decided to call the ambulance. The cook picked up the phone but a voice on the line told her to “get out of the house” she just assumed the wires were crossed or that it was a party line.

Meanwhile the Butler went to the find the Chauffeur after Lady Daffodil was ready to leave. Reaching Abstinence room and knocking, not wanting to disturb the lady or any ahem “servant men” than might be in the room he knocked. The chauffeur told him to wait awhile. While most folks would assume this was because of the private nature of their meeting, the fact is the chauffer was trying to figure out what to do with the body…

The butler heard the ambulance and went outside and noticed that some stupid mailman had completely lost his head and died on the grounds. But the ambulance was still far enough down the manor lane, to drag the body to the trunk of the car that had just been pulled around front. He was trying to shut the trunk lid when the medics got out of the truck. It was having a hard time shutting.

Meanwhile as any good house keeper knows, if you don’t hear kids , they are up to no good so she decided to check on the kids in the conservatory. When she entered she saw a monstrous spider with it’s mouth entirely around Angus Bitterwit’s head. The spider looked up rather sheepishly and took hit mouth off the paralyzed child’s head. This was enough to snap the poor lady’s mind but luckily Mathilda explained that it was just because the spider was hungry. So the housekeeper told Mathilda and the spider to follow her to the dining room. The spider then climbed into a chair, as any guest would, Mathilda took a napkin and tied it around the spider like a bib, and the housekeeper served them booth left over cold chicken.

Guest arrived when a large pulsing green energy was coming from the library with the sound of some ancient great one being awakened and that’s where we left the story.

That is amazing, Bryce! Thank you for sharing this with us! Share your stories with us at mail@monkeyfunstudios.com!

(And be sure to pick up a copy of Baker Street from Fearlight Games!)