Mysterium

In the 1920s, Mr. MacDowell, a gifted astrologer, immediately discovered a supernatural being when he entered his new home in Scotland. He gathered eminent mediums of his time for an extraordinary séance, and they have seven hours to make contact with the spirit and investigate any clues it may provide to unravel an ancient mystery.

The amnesiac spirit cannot speak and communicates with the mediums through visions, which are represented in the game by illustrated cards. The mediums must decipher the images to help the ghost remember how he was murdered: who committed the crime? Where did it take place? Which weapon caused death? The more the mediums cooperate and guess well, the easier it is to catch the right culprit.

In Mysterium, an adaptation of the game system present in Tajemnicze Domostwo, one player assumes the role of spirit while everyone else represents a medium. To solve the crime, the spirit must first recall (with the help of the mediums) all the suspects who were present on the night of the murder. A number of suspect, location and murder cards are placed on the table and the spirit secretly randomly assigns one of these cards to a medium.

Every hour (i.e., game turn), the spirit hands one or more vision cards face-up to each medium, replenishing their hand to seven each time they share vision cards. These vision cards present dream-like images to the mediums, with each medium first having to deduce which suspect matches the vision cards received. Once the spirit hands cards to the last medium, they start a two-minute hourglass. Once a medium has placed their token on a suspect, they may also place clairvoyance tokens on other mediums' guesses to show whether they agree or disagree with those guesses.

After time is up, the spirit reveals to each medium whether the guesses were correct or not. Mediums who guessed correctly proceed to guess the location of the crime (and subsequently the murder weapon), while those who did not keep their vision cards and receive new ones the next hour that match the same suspect. Once a medium has correctly guessed the suspect, location and weapon, they move their token to the epilogue board and receive one clairvoyance point for each hour remaining on the clock. They can still use their remaining clairvoyance tokens to score extra points.

If one or more mediums fail to identify their correct suspect, location and weapon before the end of the seventh hour, the spirit has failed and disappears, leaving the mystery unsolved. However, if they all succeeded, the ghost recovered enough of his memory to identify the culprit.

Mediums then group their suspect, location and weapon cards on the table and place a number with each group. The spirit then chooses a group, places the corresponding offender number covered on the epilogue board, chooses three vision cards - one for the suspect, one for the location and one for the weapon - and shuffles these cards. Players who have gained few clairvoyance points randomly turn over one vision card and then secretly vote which suspect they think is guilty; players with more points then turn over a second vision card and vote; then those with the most points see the final card and vote.

If a majority of the mediums have identified the correct suspect and the ties are broken by the voice of the most clairvoyant medium, then the killer has been identified and the spirit can now rest peacefully. If not, you might want to try again....