Pick a premise
Every premise is a painting and a cast with one seat for you. Or write your own: give the narrator a seed and a cast, and it does the rest.
The Last Train Out
A night train, a dead porter, and one ticket stub that shouldn't exist.
The Specimen
A botanist comes home with a flower worth killing for and three people who know it.
House of Cards
Four strangers, one rigged card game, and a priest who keeps winning by accident.
The Lighthouse Keepers' Wager
Two rival keepers, one bet, and a lighthouse lens that vanished overnight from the top of a locked tower.
The City Under Saltmere
The deepest shaft in Saltmere broke through into a city that was sealed on purpose.
The First Election on the Long Voyage
For two hundred years the ship's captain has never been challenged. This year someone is running.
The Widow's Claim
The railroad wants the Hollis ranch. The new owner wants to keep it. Everyone in Dry Fork is about to pick a side.
The Haunting of Hollin Hall
The bells in the servants' hall ring for rooms that were bricked up a hundred years ago.
A Season at Fairweather
A matchmaker has six weeks, five guests and one very public wager to see somebody married.
The Great Pudding Bake-Off
Somebody put salt in the champion's sugar. The Little Wending Pudding Prize will never be the same.
Cold Harbor Station
The last plane out left in February. The next one comes in October. Somebody on the station is lying about what they found in the ice.
Neon Debt
One job, one night, and every crew member owes the same loan shark a different kind of debt.
The Queen's Cartographers
The queen wants the borderlands mapped by midsummer. The borderlands do not want to be mapped.
Seven Days at the Sanatorium
Snow has closed the only road down the mountain, and someone at the Haus Edelweiss is not as sick as they claim.
The Dragon Sitter
Mind the egg for one week, the dragon said. It hatched on the first morning.
The Long Walk Home
Eleven hundred miles of broken country between four strangers and the only town that still has its lights on.
Murder at the Mapleford Fête
The prize marrow judge is dead in the tea tent, and the whole village had a reason.
Bloodline
The old prince of the night court has finally died, and every knife in the house is looking for the heir.
The Free Company
Two hundred sellswords, four months unpaid, and an employer who just lost the war.
The Mystery of Camp Tamarack
Lights over the lake every night at eleven, and every morning another canoe is gone.
The Grand Tour of the Outer Planets
Twenty-one nights among the gas giants, all inclusive, and the navigation system has just been bought by a rival cruise line.
The Queen's Taster
Three tasters have died this year. The fourth has decided to find out why before the next banquet.
Deep Water
Sixty men, three hundred feet down, and one passenger whose orders are sealed even from the captain.
The Inheritance
The will leaves everything to whoever can finish the jigsaw puzzle on the dining-room table.
Pirates of the Brass Sea
The most wanted ship on the Brass Sea has a hold full of stolen music boxes and a navy officer in the brig.
Small Gods of Ferrow Street
On Ferrow Street the gods are small, forgotten and broke, and one of them has just gone missing.
The Expedition to the Plateau
1912: a mountain nobody has climbed, a photograph nobody can explain, and a newspaper that has already printed the headline.
Velvet Rope
Chicago, 1926: the best speakeasy on the South Side has a body in the cold room and a fed at the bar.
Return to Sender
Someone in Little Pellow is writing gorgeous love letters, and every single one is going to the wrong address.
The Siege of Ardmor
The last fortress of the Vale has walls, water and forty days of grain, and the army outside has all the time in the world.
The Clockwork Detective Agency
Someone is stealing the clocks of Gearhaven, and time in the city has started running a little bit wrong.
Snowed In at the Edelweiss
An avalanche closes the only road, a priceless brooch vanishes from the safe, and then the lights go out.
Ghost Light
The oldest touring company in the country has one last season, one last play, and one critic who can save it.