Knight of Murder

Well, last night was the greatly anticipated murder mystery dinner birthday party. What a BLAST! Everyone showed up in the medieval best and were ready to par-TAY! Z's parents had gone to great lengths to make the food and house perfect for the event. They even went so far as to get into costume themselves. Dad wore Mom's pantyhose for the occasion, but not without some grumbling. Can you blame him? He did win best dressed, so I guess there is some pay off.



I only had two photos of myself taken alone both were pretty lame, so here's a better one with me and Christy. I played Lady Gwendolyn. Z was Lord Taylor my husband. Together we run the "manor." Originally, I wanted to be the chambermaid and Z wanted to be the watchman. Those seemed like comfortable roles for us, but in talking with Mom, we decided that we needed to be the Lord and Lady, so we could run the show. It worked out really well, and it was kind of fun to be fancy.

We bought and downloaded this game from a company we found online called Night of Mystery. This murder mystery was unscripted. We were given envelopes at two different times in the evening that gave instructions about what tasks we were to do. I wish we had done those tasks together in view of everyone else, but we didn't, so we were a little bit in the dark at the beginning, but we all caught on after the murder took place.

Christy and Rob were the first to arrive. They played the Sherriff and Sherilyn (his wife). Other guests included Matt and Tonya. Matt was the Lord and Lady's only son Baron Bartholomew. Tonya was his betrothed Lady Diana of Dunnsberry.

My brother Matthew played Wyatt Worker (a serf) and his wife Janelle played Maid Victoria. They came from the Seattle area for the party--so fun to have them!

Doug, a friend of mine from two decades ago now, played Gallant Gary, squire to Sir Cameron. His wife Thais played poor pearl, a peasant woman. Doug and Thais were at Z's and my wedding, but we hadn't seen them in twelve years until recently. We reconnected when they saw that Z was the principal at the school where two of their daughters attend. Great to be back in touch with them!

Trinka, who is our ward YW president (I'm her counsellor), played Maid Marilyn, my lady-in-waiting. Her husband Steve was Sir Cameron, a valiant knight.

We found out just after the first guests arrived that our "king" for the evening had just broken his leg falling out of the royal boat, and he and the "queen" were in the emergency room. This put us in a little bit of a predicament because those are such big roles. The rules of the game said that we could do without one or the other, but we had to have either a king or queen. Leslie was the good sport who agreed to be our queen. And a lovely queen she was too! Her husband Bruce was William the Watchman, who ran the investigation of the murder. He got my vote for best costume--Ork sword and all.

Our jester for the evening was Dave. He entertained on command--juggling, etc. Dave was the obvious choice for jester. His wife Shaila was Charlamagne (the character I originally wanted to be).

You just gotta love a man in tights. I guess it's kind of like going away for the weekend and when you come back, your husband appreciates you and has so much more empathy for your daily plight with the kids. These men who wore tights (I believe there were three of them) I'm sure have a new empathy for us women and the oppression of pantyhose. M looked wonderful as Sir Rufus, who was the winner of the "tournament" that Lord Taylor and Lady Gwendolyn had thrown in celebration of their son's coming wedding. His wife Maid Medusa (she even got "snakes" to wear) was quite the thief and ended the evening with five bags of gold she had taken from other players including the deceased.

I will not give away any secrets here just in case anyone else wants to host this party in the future. Another real gem of a connection that we found was for costumes. Many of us went to Costume Avenue on 1st and Main in Beaverton. They were very reasonable and had anything your little heart could desire. I got my hat there, and Z got his entire costume there (all but the pants).

I would highly recommend doing this kind of party. It was great of everyone to come and join in. We purchased this party for up to 20 people, but you could get them for groups larger or smaller as you wished.