Murder at the Wintergarden Hotel: A WAYPOINT Solo Adventure

The Midwinter Ball is the finest night of the Wintergarden’s year. This year a duke dies in the Glasshouse before the midnight toast.

At a quarter past twelve the mountain comes down across the only road. Nobody is getting up, and nobody is getting down. Not till the thaw.

You are the head concierge. You have stood behind this desk for thirty years without once being seen to hurry.

Question your guests and your own staff. Search the kitchens, the cellar, and the Glasshouse. Corroborate the clues. Keep the breakfasts coming and the gossip below stairs in hand. On the last morning, decide what to say before the assembled house.

No game master. No party. One player, two six-sided dice, and a mystery unfolding across four days in the life of the hotel. Play across as many sittings as you need.

New to WAYPOINT? Enhanced Digital includes the required Core Rulebook PDF, all three mystery books in PDF and EPUB, and the play aids. Begin with the ready-to-play Concierge and the practice Bell. If you already own the Core Rulebook, the $5 digital tier contains the complete mystery and its play aids.

Try it before you back. Download the free Backer Sampler: 35 real pages, with the opening of the mystery ready to play.

The Story

The Wintergarden is the grandest hotel in the mountain pass above Frostholm, the last comfort before the road drops to the lowlands. Every room is full. Thirty-one sleighs are expected. The chandelier holds four hundred candles. A duke, a duchess, a Compact envoy, a soprano, a card player of uncertain profession, and a Lyceum botanist are all under one roof, and most of them would rather not be.

At midnight the glasses rise, and the Duke of Brenn does not come. You find him in the Glasshouse, beneath the frostlily that opens one night a year. Ten minutes later a porter stumbles in out of the snow with news that the pass is gone.

So you do what a concierge does. You keep the house running. Every chance to investigate competes with the Chef’s ultimatum, a burst pipe, or the champagne running low. A public slip gets talked about in the servants' hall. Host well, and the house settles; frighten it, and questioning becomes harder.

On the fourth morning the road is clearing. Guests and staff gather in the Blue Drawing Room to hear what you have to say.

What Makes This Adventure Different

A mystery you reason through. Every clue identifies its source. Two different sources make a clue Proven; hearing the same witness twice does not. Two clues also need a particular source, explained during play. Record your own theory before the reveal.

A house that needs you. Time spent helping staff or calming guests is time you cannot spend elsewhere. Your relationships and the hotel’s Mood shape how the investigation unfolds.

A clock you can understand. THE THAW advances with the eight Watches of the story. Misses do not add direct ticks, though some results spend an extra Bell or end a Watch early, leaving fewer opportunities.

Setbacks with a way forward. A failed roll changes your position. Recovery may cost time or composure, but the book gives you a route onward.

One fixed case, different consequences. Nine endings across five families respond to your evidence and choices. Replaying explores other approaches and relationships; it does not generate a new culprit.

What Is WAYPOINT?

WAYPOINT is a solo tabletop roleplaying game. The book presents situations, choices, tests, and consequences, then directs you to the next section. You keep the character sheet and decide what your concierge does.

When a test is called for, roll 2d6, add the named Attribute, add 1 if the relevant Skill applies, and apply the printed difficulty and any current penalties. A total of 10 or more is a Strong Hit; 7–9 is a Weak Hit, usually success with a cost; 6 or less is a Miss. Follow the printed result.

Four tracks record HARM, STRESS, SUPPLY, and MOMENTUM. Tags record what later scenes need to remember. Use the ready-to-play Concierge, or bring a Blade, Shadow, Warden, Drifter, Envoy, or Scholar. The Reference Pack explains how their Edges work in this adventure.

What You Need

• The WAYPOINT Core Rulebook. Its PDF is included in Enhanced Digital and every physical tier.
• The Player Edition, Reference Pack, and Case Record.
• A WAYPOINT character, created or ready to play.
• Two six-sided dice and a pencil and eraser.

No miniatures, game master, group, or online account is required to play. Keep the Spoiler Pack closed until the book tells you your ending and epilogues are complete.

Content and Safety

The tone is witty, elegant, and warm, with midwinter glamour, secrets below stairs, and one real heartbreak. Themes include a death investigated in detail, poisoning, blood and a head wound, grief, parental abandonment, class tension, alcohol, and an avalanche. The death itself occurs off the page. Pause, soften detail, or stop whenever needed.

How It Plays

The story passes through eight Watches, from the ball to the morning the road clears. The ball has its own four Turns. During the investigating Watches, a limited number of Bells is your time budget; the final dawn is for the reveal.

1. Choose where to investigate. A zone visit begins with one Bell. Roll its encounter, then choose an action such as searching or questioning someone.
2. Follow the result. Resolve the printed test or choice, record any clue and its source, and follow the return instruction when the Bell is complete. Reading several linked sections does not spend several Bells. Pay an extra cost only when the text explicitly names it.
3. Decide what deserves your next Bell. Another independent source can corroborate a clue. An errand for the house or time to recover may matter just as much. The Watch closes when its Bells are spent.

For your first game, choose Standard difficulty and the ready-to-play Concierge. The practice Bell lets you try the procedure without revealing the case. The Case Record saves your exact place between sessions.

Read the Opening: Free Sampler

Download the Backer Sampler (PDF)

The sampler is 35 real pages from the Folio edition, shown as they appear in the digital books:

• The title pages, the map of the Wintergarden, and Before You Begin.
• Chapter 1, from its painted opening spread through Sections 1 to 9. These sections are complete and playable: every choice stays inside the sampler until Section 9 sends you on to Section 10.
• The Midwinter Ball, one of the eight two-page illustrations.
• The Sealed Endings divider, seen only from the outside.
• The tracker and the ready-to-play Concierge from the Reference Pack, and the first page of the Case Record.
• Every reward tier, with prices and shipping.

Play the opening with a WAYPOINT character and two dice, or read it as a story. Nothing in the sampler comes from past the opening of the mystery, and no ending is shown. The pages come from the current layout and may still change before print.

The Campaign Book Family

Murder at the Wintergarden Hotel

The complete mystery has 292 numbered sections across four chapters: The Ball, Snowbound, The Long Day, and The Thaw.

Player Edition: 324 print pages, or 326 in the digital PDF. Follow the directed sections through the story, with the endings behind their own divider. Eight two-page paintings, character portraits, and pencil drawings accompany the adventure.

Reference Pack: 31 pages in the digital PDF, with a planned 32-page print extent. Rules at a glance, the Wintergarden tracker, a ready-to-play Concierge, archetype guidance, Edge rulings, public suspect cards, and the hotel plan.

Spoiler Pack: 80 pages containing the case’s full explanation, clue sources, timelines, and endings. Open it only after your ending and all epilogues are complete at Section 282.

All tiers include these books digitally. The individual print tiers add the Player Edition; the Collection adds both companions in print too.

The Glasshouse Opens

A 100-section solo prequel, playable before or after the main mystery.

Thirty summers before the ball, you are the Wintergarden’s newest under-porter. When the head concierge breaks his ankle, the desk is yours for one day. By midnight the new Glasshouse must be lit, the gala guests dazzled, and the hotel’s name made. Someone from the rival Grand Pass Hotel intends otherwise.

Warm, funny, and full of summer daylight, this is the day your thirty years behind the desk began. The prequel reveals none of the main case. Up to three optional Tags carry forward as story texture only, with no modifier or access to a route or ending.

The Collection includes the prequel’s black-and-white hardcover, PDF, and EPUB from launch. Its hardcover, with both digital editions, is also a $40 add-on for other physical tiers. The $32,000 stretch goal adds its PDF and EPUB to Enhanced Digital and every physical tier; it does not add them to the $5 tier.

Keeping the House Running

A murder at a ball is usually solved by someone who can drop everything. You cannot. The guests still want breakfast, the Chef still wants respect, and the staff look to you to tell them what happens next.

Your staff are your people, and some are scared. Hosting well buys you a calmer house and franker answers. A hard question asked in public can cost you both. The kitchens, servants' passages, guest wing, cellar, and Glasshouse each offer people to question and places to search.

Five Ending Families and Nine Outcomes

Your evidence, your relationships, and what you choose to say shape nine endings across five families. You record your theory before the reveal; the final rolls test how well you can establish it before the house. A difficult public outcome does not erase a correct private deduction.

What You Receive

Every pledge includes:

• The Player Edition, Reference Pack, and sealed Spoiler Pack, each in PDF and EPUB.
• The printable and fillable Case Record, plus an editable text version.
• The practice Bell for learning the investigation procedure.

Enhanced Digital and every physical tier also include the required Core Rulebook Illustrated Edition PDF and every unlocked digital stretch goal. Printed books and the prequel follow the tier descriptions below.

Reward Tiers

Already own the Core Rulebook? The $5 PDF tier gives you the complete mystery. New to WAYPOINT? Choose Enhanced Digital or any physical tier for the Core PDF as well.

Early Bird prices are available for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026.

PDF: $5

For readers who already own the Core Rulebook. All three mystery books in PDF and EPUB, the Case Record, and the practice Bell. The Core Rulebook and stretch goals are not included.

Enhanced Digital: $20

Early Bird: $15 for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026. Recommended for new WAYPOINT players.

Everything in PDF, plus the Core Rulebook Illustrated Edition PDF and every unlocked digital stretch goal. If the campaign reaches $32,000, that includes The Glasshouse Opens in PDF and EPUB.

Softcover Edition: $37

Early Bird: $32 for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026.

The 6 × 9 black-and-white softcover Player Edition on cream paper, plus Enhanced Digital.

Hardcover Edition: $47

Early Bird: $42 for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026.

The 6 × 9 black-and-white case-laminate hardcover Player Edition on cream paper, plus Enhanced Digital.

Premium Color Hardcover: $99

Early Bird: $89 for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026.

The 6 × 9 premium-color case-laminate hardcover Player Edition on white paper, with the illustrations reproduced in full color, plus Enhanced Digital.

The Wintergarden Collection: $137

Early Bird: $127 for the first 24 hours after launch on November 9, 2026. Four physical books.

The premium-color Player Edition hardcover, the Reference Pack and Spoiler Pack as two black-and-white softcovers, and The Glasshouse Opens as a black-and-white hardcover. Includes Enhanced Digital and the prequel’s PDF and EPUB from launch.

Shipping is additional and is charged at pledge checkout. Your destination’s shipping charge is shown before you confirm your pledge. Listed reward prices exclude applicable taxes and import charges.

Shipping for each physical reward is $10 to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom; $15 to the European Union and Australia; and $20 to Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Each physical add-on adds $5.

Optional Add-Ons

Dedication: $5. A name or short tribute on the Player Edition’s Backers page, subject to the published submission and content rules.

The Glasshouse Opens hardcover: $40. The black-and-white hardcover prequel, with its PDF and EPUB, available from launch for other physical tiers. Already included in the Collection.

WAYPOINT Core Rulebook: softcover $30; hardcover $45.

WAYPOINT Year One Digital Library: $35. The included titles will be listed in this add-on’s description.

Stretch Goals

Every unlocked digital stretch goal joins Enhanced Digital and all physical tiers, including their Early Birds. Stretch goals are not included in the $5 tier.

$8,000 · The Guest Register. Fifteen print-and-play portrait cards featuring the guests and staff. Rosalind and Jory share one card. Each gives the portrait and public knowledge only.

$14,000 · The Wintergarden Soundtrack. Ten to twelve instrumental pieces for the ball, the snowbound mornings, the kitchens, and the thaw, delivered as MP3 and FLAC. The music will be generated with Suno and selected and approved by WAYPOINT.

$20,000 · The Concierge’s Desk. A printable play kit: the hotel plan as a poster, the trackers as a desk blotter, and a Watch and Bell reference card.

$26,000 · The Art of the Wintergarden. A digital art book of the mystery’s illustrations with scene notes. Ending artwork sits behind a separate spoiler divider.

$32,000 · The Glasshouse Opens. The prequel’s PDF and EPUB for Enhanced Digital and all physical tiers. The Collection and the prequel hardcover add-on already include these editions from launch.

Delivery and Shipping

Our target is digital delivery on 7 December 2026, print shipping in December, and estimated international arrival in January 2027. These are targets, dependent on testing, final approvals, proofing, and fulfillment. We will report any change to the schedule.

Shipping is charged at pledge checkout, in addition to your reward. Only destinations with verified shipping rates will be enabled. Applicable taxes and import charges are separate from the listed reward prices.

The main mystery and prequel have separate production schedules. The main mystery’s digital delivery does not depend on the prequel. If the prequel needs more time, we will explain the effect on every reward that includes it, including digital editions added by the $32,000 goal.

Why This Adventure Exists

Mysteries usually belong to the detective who arrives on the last train and leaves on the next one.

I wanted the person who stays: the concierge who has kept every guest’s secrets for thirty years, knows which stair creaks and who takes their tea at midnight, and has to solve a murder while the breakfasts and the staff go on needing them.

I wanted a case whose evidence you could examine and corroborate, with a solution you work out yourself. And I wanted a winter book that is warm. The snow is outside. Inside are chandeliers, a terrible Chef, a laundry that runs like a fleet, and people you have known for years.

About WAYPOINT Folio

WAYPOINT Folio creates solo adventures for one capable character, with authored situations, meaningful choices, and consequences that carry forward. Murder at the Wintergarden Hotel shares a world with Seven Days to Crown a King, but requires no earlier adventure. The publisher is WAYPOINT Folio LLC.