Brindlewood Bay: The Jolly Bad Baking Show, part 2

 Part 1

 The TV show continued with the cake round.

Rosemary made a Vietnamese cake to commemorate her husband’s death there (falling off a bridge while on holiday), Daisy made a version of her daughter-in-laws wedding cake, Margaret made a frightening black cake as a tribute to Paul Riviera and for some reason Laura made fish-cakes.

Margaret snooped around the tent and found a baking tray on a dresser to the side that was sprinkled with something odd. Spotting a nearby empty tub of rat poison she put two and two together but unfortunately was not quite careful enough and became a bit nauseous.

A makeshift judging team of Jane Leaf and the two presenters, Sue and Timothy, rated all of the maven’s cakes quite highly - Tim was especially impressed with Margaret’s got his cake, but in the end Daisy’s local baking rival, Melanie Blair, was judged to be the winner.

After filming ended, Laura and Margaret decided to question the other two contestants (Melanie and Scott) while Daisy decided to go back to investigate the tent. (Rosemary had gone home to sort out her phone)

Scott told Margaret that Paul’s wife Donna was apparently having an affair with Buck the cameraman but then Margaret’s nausea got worse and she had to visit the ladies restroom.

Meanwhile, Melanie started coughing up blood and collapsed. Luckily, she was saved by Laura’s medical training but a suspicious Sheriff Dalrymple arrived on the scene and misunderstanding the situation, arrested the maven.

Daisy entered the tent to search for more on the rat poison but only found a cake with “You’re next!” written in what she hoped was red icing. Still shaken from earlier events she retreated from the tent and finding everyone else gone, she decided to head home.

Laura managed to patiently explain the situation to the police who finally released her and drove her home.

Finally, Margaret had discovered she was locked in the restroom and everyone else seemed to have left for the night. Undeterred she attempted to escape via a small window. It seemed disaster would strike and that she would fall face first onto the concrete below but she was saved by a timely commercial break (for a local lumber merchant).

The next morning the mavens spent the morning reinvigorating themselves via their hobbies before heading back to do more investigating. This gave Laura the opportunity to remember she had picked up some paper that Melanie had dropped- it was the missing page from the cookbook.

Returning to the crime scene,  an eventful afternoon ensued talking to the cast and crew. Sue Mellon revealed that Melanie had asked her for money and a fairly fruitless discussion with Heath Hendricks, the producer, was interrupted by a commotion outside. In the excitement of leaving the production van, a smashed Britty award was spotted.

Margaret had been attempting to interview Timothy Boosh but just before he could reveal any useful information he was shot by persons unknown.

The police ushered the Mavens off-site for "their own protection" and they were left pondering what they had learnt.

TBC 

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Brindlewood Bay: The Jolly Bad Baking Show, Part 1

 Cast:

Rosemary, Margaret, Laura and Daisy

We started with Daisy received bad feedback on the Jolly Good Baking Show from judge Paul Riviera for serving him an underbaked pie which contained a live weasel with an eye in its mouth.  However, this just turned out to be a nightmare.

So after a bit of a cosy montage of the Mavens preparing for the show we moved onto the mystery. All the mavens had somehow made it to the televised final of popular British TV programme, "The Jolly Good Baking Show" and they were working through the pie round.

A pear, walnut and blue cheese pie

Daisy's Pork and Apple pie was obviously a triumph (as baking is her cosy move) but Rosemary's pumpkin pie also went down well with the judges due to the large amount of rum included. Unfortunately, Margaret's custard pie had a soggy bottom and was deemed to be a bit of a disaster even though judge Jane Leaf said the fruit preserve was delightful. Finally, Laura's fish pie was also marked down because she had missed the brief that it was meant to be a fruit pie.

Cast, crew and contestants broke for lunch but then disaster struck. Paul Riviera had been found dead in his trailer by producer Heath Hendricks . After a bit of snark about which person's pie had killed him it was determined that he had been murdered by person's unknown. Most of the crew had left the site for lunch, taking Daisy's pork and apple pie with them.

The suspects plus the late Paul Riviera (from the Brindlewood Bay card and dice set)

The mavens sprung (as much as elderly ladies can) into action. Laura grabbed her medical bag as an excuse to examine the corpse. It appeared Paul had been poisoned despite also being tied up and his face covered in flour. She was then ushered from the trailer until the authorities arrived.

Margaret went to the perimeter to determine that the local police force, led by Sheriff Dalrymple had done a surprisingly competent job of keeping people out of the site, limiting the suspect list to the remains judge, two presenters, the contestant, the producer, a cameraman and Paul's wife Donna.

Rosemary went to comfort Donna, who seemed to be taking events in her stride although in need of a stiff drink of cooking sherry plus a ciggie. 

Finally, Daisy went to check on the main marquee, where she found cameraman Buck setting up some establishing shots. Looking around she found that one of the electrical cables in the tent looked dangerously frayed.

She then moved off to the judge's tent but upon entering a mysterious figure attempted to push a dresser on her before fleeing the scene. Visibly shaken she was comforted by Jane Leaf who also revealed that Paul had been putting in unreasonable contract demands that was putting the future of the series in doubt.

Rosemary attempted to find more information about Paul using her phone but it ran out of charge.

Margaret had arrived at the scene of the crime with Sheriff Dalrymple. She scouted around the trailer and discovered an abandoned recipe book. It was authored by Jane and Paul but one of Paul's recipes was missing.

Heath had wandered off but was eventually found to allow Laura to view the outtake footage. He was slightly suspicious of her motives and insisted the Sheriff accompanied her. It seemed despite the perceived friendliness of the show, there was a lot of needle between various cast and crew members.

At that point is was time for the final round of the show (hey, if they won't stop cooking shows due to sexist behaviour of the hosts, why stop when one dies. Plus think of the ratings!). So the bakers prepared for the cake round.

To be continued... 

Part 2

 

Maven Mayhem Part 2

(Part 1)

We resumed the investigation into Albert Krause’s death after a brief recap and a flashback to a dream that Daisy had about a bridge between two Brindlewood Bays and dead fish saying the word “Void”.

Daisy and Rosemary were visited by Emily Krause as expected but also her annoying brother David (dressed rather improbably in the hind legs of a pantomime horse and a shirt designed to look like it was made of straw).

The Mavens spotted the David was carrying a concealed gun and that Emily was engaged in an intimate text conversation with an illicit lover. Daisy was also convinced that one of Emily’s Pokémon tattoos had evolved into another one.

Meanwhile Margaret and Laura headed to the yacht using the ploy of delivering some sympathy flowers from the townspeople. This seemed to work and a number of clues were discovered from snooping and talking to Alison Krause (Albert’s wife) before the butler became suspicious and politely asked them to leave.

The Maven all met up and compared notes. The clues all pointed to David being the culprit - Albert had discovered he was involved in an art scam and had died following a confrontation.

Then they gathered the suspects at the fish market. David tried to escape but fell into a fish cart and was promptly arrested.

Afterwards they had a rather strange encounter with the yacht captain who said his family had been living in Brindlewood Bay for many years and gave the Mavens a warning (threat?) that people in Brindlewood keep dying or mysteriously disappearing…

GM notes: the players seemed to want to track down every clue imaginable so I had to encourage them to Theorise. I struggled a bit this week with role playing all the suspects but we seemed to muddle through.

We’re going to play Starfinder next week but the Mavens are likely to return…

Maven Mayhem

So I ran my first session of Brindlewood Bay: Dad Overboard

Cast:

Rosemary, Margaret, Laura and Daisy

After a pre-credit dream sequence involving a masked figure, Daisy woke with a start. Then the Maven’s got on with their cosy day.

But later Sheriff Dalrymple interrupted the Maven’s book club to ask for help proving the death of a financier was foul play (although he specifically told them not to solve the murder or interfere with the body) otherwise he would have to release the body.

It turned out one of the victims daughters, Emily, was a friend of Daisy’s daughter. She phoned her up and invited her around for cake the next day.

Rosemary and Laura went to the tourist fish market where the body was being stored. Using the ruse of looking for Rosemary’s cat they managed to make their way into the cold storage. Inside the body’s suit pocket they found the results of a paternity test suggesting somebody had a different father than expected and also overheard some locals saying they had seen two of the siblings arguing violently.

Margaret went down to the seashore to inspect the sight where the body washed up. The area was cordoned off but nearby she found a dead cod with a dead rat in its mouth. Strange…

Daisy tried to get one of her late husbands political contacts to pull some strings to stop the Krause’s yacht from leaving. Unfortunately, the contact was a close personal friend of the Krause’s so would help with that but did reveal that somebody had been uninvited from Allison Krause’s big charity fundraiser party.

The next morning, Daisy was telling Rosemary how to make flower decorations for cakes when the phone rang… Emily had accidentally redialled Daisy and they overheard something that led them to believe Emily had other issues on her mind apart from her father’s death.

Meanwhile, Margaret was in the process of preserving the cod and rat explaining to Laura the process. Comparing notes from the evening before, they realised that the person who found the body said he was still alive when they phoned the police and ambulance.

With that we wrapped up for the night with a mid-credit grisly scene sting of some mysterious eye gouging cultists.

Keeper notes: it took us a bit of a while to get the hang of this. It took a while for the players to understand that I wouldn’t give them more details on the existing clues but instead give them new ones. I had a bit of trouble distinguishing day/night moves from meddling moves.