To summon the spirits in the séance led by the Webmistress via the Spirit Materializer built by Miss Hermione G. Wells, the party guests needed to identify the ghosts haunting the castle by using anything they could find, including family portraits, two “ancient” illuminated manuscript books, and some other clues…even the Tasty Tombstone cookies! Here are all the ways you could find the true names of each of the seven spirits…
Halloween 2014 – Verdigris Portraits, Family Heirlooms and Other Clues
I didn’t add subtitles to this video, but I have included the entire script below if you’d like to read along:
Hopefully you have already seen how for Halloween 1914, six spirits were already haunting Castle Brittahytta, so the current owner Miss Hermione G. Wells was attempting to hold a special séance with her friends to discover how to send the spirits away to rest in peace. However, since the Webmistress was summoned from the beyond by the ectoplasm-powered Spirit Materializer device, technically there were seven spirits that needed to be identified by their full true names to win the Supreme Spirit Savant award for the Studying Spirits party quiz.
The Tasty Tombstone cookies included all seven names, which was a good start, but it wasn’t obvious which gravestone went with which ghost. Four of the spirits were easy to identify, since their portraits had their names engraved on the frames in English. Between posing and playing her beloved piano, Queen Ergelise every so often went looking for her sister, Princess Sarina, who would rather have been back on her ship commanding her crew in the Verdigris navy. Wise Queen Sova gave advice to people passing by, hushing her pet owls when they hooted, and Queen Merry couldn’t resist her tasty homebrewed mead or wine, either in her portrait or as a spirit haunting a jar sitting above two books she had written as Meresinine Verdigris: “Using Spirits to Elevate the Spirit: Better Poetry Through Mead” and “Merryment in a Bottle: Fermenting Grapes for Fun and Profit.”
Most guests found those four portraits easy to match visually to their respective ghosts, playing the pipe organ, sword fighting in the tower, drowning in the wishing well, and giggling in the jar. However, not only was the Pumpkin Queen teased behind her back by tipsy Queen Merry, but her portrait had no nameplate at all. Luckily not only was there a Tasty Tombstone cookie naming Queen Dynia of Verdigris, but by the living room window there was a table decorated with pumpkins that displayed an ancient illuminated manuscript telling the tale of why Queen Dynia was called The Pumpkin Queen. If the handwritten blackletter script was too difficult to read, there was even an antique magnifying glass handy!
The last two spirits were intentionally much trickier, otherwise everyone would be a winner! The First Queen’s portrait nameplate and her Tasty Tombstone cookie were both engraved in ancient Nordic runes, but Wise Queen Sova’s cookie epitaph was a “Rosetta stone” that translated runes into English. The large illuminated manuscript below the portrait had Old English handlettered script in the caption under the painting that obviously matched the portrait with her holding the same spear and shield, and with reddish-blonde hair under the same pointed crown. Everyone should have seen this book because Miss Wells told them in the Main Event to go read the full Verdreki Oath. The iconic five-pointed crown and specific spear shape were able to be seen even from a far distance, so for those who persevered enough, the Ghostly Guardian reciting the ancient Oath high up in the Main Tower was identified as Brittahilde Verdreki, the First Queen of Verdigris.
But what was the true name of the seventh spirit? Her portrait nameplate only said The Webmistress of the Dark. If you had kept track of all seven Tasty Tombstone cookies, there was only one left you hadn’t already identified, plus the Main Event mentioned Miss Wells had to be at the site of the gravestone of the Webmistress to make the Spirit Materializer function, and you could see the specific gravestone shape behind Miss Wells that could be matched to that Tasty Tombstone cookie shape, so either way you could read the full name on the cookie. However, there was also an even easier major clue at eye level in the diagram that explained how the Spirit Materializer worked, with a sketch of the gravestone’s distinctive shape, and showing the full name “Lady Mnemosyne Brittahilde, Viscountess of Verdigris.”
That’s all the clues! Would you have found all of them? We sure had fun designing the mystery of The Story of Seven Spirits! For more details about Halloween 2014, please see all the other videos and see the Halloween section on www.BrittaBlvd.com. Thank you for watching!
Subscribe RSS
