Murder at the Belle Nuit (Eureka Adventure Module) Preview October 31st 025
A downloadable mystery module
We are taking down Murder at the Belle Nuit from itchio until the editing, rewrites, and revisions are finished. Regrettably, I was led to believe it was finished enough to put out to the public when it was not, and have spent the past two months trying to correct that mistake, but it is just taking too long and it seems every editing session we learn more and more of just how unfinished it is. Unlike a rulebook, we can’t just release updates to an adventure module as we go. And now that we are in the home stretch, we don’t want anyone playing the old version when the new and more finished version is right around the corner. If you are about to play Murder at the Belle Nuit, or are only in like your first session, we urge you to stop and wait for the new version to release some time probably this month. The version that has been on itchio and the patreon thus far is not finished enough to be public and is not the Eureka experience we want to provide.
Payments for it will be disabled until further notice and the file that’s there will be replaced with a preview of the improved version we have been working our asses off on for the past two months.
Have you ever wanted to be stranded in a Louisiana hotel by a flood with a bunch of other people and also there’s a murder? Probably not, but with this adventure module, your investigators can be.
Inspired by Agatha Christie’s classics, this is a bottle mystery that truly rewards deduction, inference, and theorizing. This is a detective’s game, first and foremost, with a dozen fleshed out NPCs, each with who knows how many motives and secrets and tricks, inside a setting with a foreboding history. The Truth is complex and layered, and challenges investigators to look between the lines, find the contradictions, and piece the Truth together theory by theory.
Here's the hook!
"A vibrant entertainment convention bursts with life and money, but of all the possible places to stay for the night, the Belle Nuit Estate is chosen only by the most cheap or curious or clueless, a hotel with only one claim to fame - that six years ago within its walls, one person murdered and dissected another, uploaded the butchery online, and was never caught. Even now, the hotel barely breathes through the visits of, once more, the cheap or curious or clueless. When a freak storm floods the streets, such people might regret choosing this hotel as shelter, but only more so when a new body shows up overnight - dissected like its most infamous guest. The investigators are stranded with strangers, any of whom could be a murderer poised to strike again, and behind any door could be the next clue, body, or killing strike, all in a deathtrap hotel sealed off from the world through a hellish storm that assaults the aging walls. May they enjoy their stay."
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I just saw a couple reviews on Tumblr so I came to download it as part of my research on writing better modules. I'm excited to look through it!
I was a part of playtesting, and I've got to say Belle Nuit is a phenomenally written mystery from top to bottom, with colorful and interesting characters. The mystery is intriguing, tense and satisfying with answers at the center of it that will stick with you. Belle Nuit feels like a mystery you'd see in a theater, in the best ways possible.
Having GMed this module during play testing, this is my favorite Eureka module yet created at time of writing. This adventure plays to Eureka’s particular strengths in a way I haven’t seen before. The cast of NPCs is interesting, well-realized, and relatively easy for the GM to portray. This is the best Eureka adventure to start with if you were drawn to the game to play a classic detective murder mystery.
This module uses Eureka’s mechanics to great effect. For example, the setting incentivizes splitting up: the storm places a time limit on solving the case and two groups can search rooms or question suspects twice as fast as one. But because players whose PCs aren’t present for a scene don’t get to see what happens, that decision feels legitimately heavy and tense when a killer is on the loose. The time tracking and splitting-up mechanics are used to create tension in a way that feels completely natural in-universe. Something like this could be said about the majority of Eureka’s rulebook in this module; it is obviously designed in deep conversation with the rules.
The NPCs shut in the hotel with the investigators are probably the highlight of the module. Each one is realized very well, with enough color to make it seem obvious to the GM what they would say and do in nearly any situation. The character profiles have a lot of detail, laid out in a way that makes them easy to reference while playing each NPC while still providing a lot of information about them. The characters themselves are near-universally very fun to play as and interact with, and many of them are bizarre in fascinating ways that create useful opportunities for players to decide how their PC would feel about this person.
The relatively high number of NPCs that are together in one place can be challenging to run in some ways, especially considering the hidden motives of many of them. I am habitually forgetful and it can be easy to gloss over NPCs that the investigators are less interested in. If this happens, it has the effect of group scenes feeling somewhat underpopulated and characters who are meant to be proactive or distinctive behaving more passively. When GMing this module I recommend taking a bit before sessions to note down what each NPC is up to and what they might do this session, whether the PCs are watching or not. The character profiles will help you with this.
As a take on the whodunit genre, this module is refreshing and very interesting. My strongest recommendation of this module is for people who are into this genre and therefore know more about it than I do. I expect mystery nerds will find this module’s twists thematically fascinating, and it has a lot to say about the stereotypical assumptions of detective stories.
Do take the content warning seriously. The nature of the mystery makes it difficult to accurately warn for without leading the players, but I want to reiterate the module’s advice to “be ready for anything”, including things that would generally carry a more specific content warning. Communicate with your group about this.
If that isn’t a dealbreaker and you’re at all interested in Eureka or the whodunit genre, I seriously recommend playing this module. It’s a really interesting take on the genre and a very well-executed RPG module as well.
My favorite kind of story, brilliantly executed. A vibrant array of excellent characters, caught within an intricately interconnected web of schemes and lies, punctuated by the stellar atmosphere surrounding it all. Each piece of this puzzle satisfyingly clicks together to reveal an emotionally devastating whole. Masterpiece.
this is a grade A top notch AMAZING mystery! it facilitated wonderfully tense moments with its excellently written NPCs, it was just challenging enough that every new piece of information and clue felt so rewarding, and every single session left me DYING for next time! i would recommend this module to everyone as not just one of the best mystery modules, but one of the best modules PERIOD.
When I first got into Eureka, THIS was the module I wanted. THIS was the module I was looking for. It didn't exist then, but it has arrived. The classic whodunit bottle mystery experience, brought to TTRPG with unprecedented success. There are no modules like Belle Nuit out there. As Eureka was for TTRPGS, a rallying cry which made clear the potential of the artform: Belle Nuit defies any preconceived notions of what a Module can accomplish. This is a work of art, a redefining triumph of the medium. Firing on all cylinders, this module takes advantage of nearly every mechanic in the book to present an engaging and demanding mystery which simply will not solve itself. Like the system it’s built for, Belle Nuit is down to its very bones, player character driven. There will be no trail of crumbs to follow, no series of set pieces leading to a climax - just a situation which will not end well if left to its own devices. Every lead a piece of the puzzle, and just enough pieces missing to demand from its players and player characters the conviction and confidence to crack the case.
Please, if you can afford it - pay the full price for this module. It is absolutely worth the asking price and ANIM desperately needs the money if we want them to keep putting out amazing works like this.
5/5 Stars