To prepare a Monster of the Week mystery, give the threat a need, connect it to a problem the hunters care about, prepare useful evidence, and write what happens without their help. Our Mirror Man arc shows how those pieces can support very different choices at the table.
Izaak Sutherland is the Keeper in this game. Paul plays Lucas. We are rebuilding a prep sheet from recorded play, rather than presenting Izaak’s original notes. The monster type and countdown below are our working reconstruction. Recorded events have episode and time references.
1. Start where the hunters already belong
In the opening episode, Mark tells Lucas that Cindy Mulligan did not come home. The homeroom teacher later reports her disappearance, says the police are searching, and tells students to head straight home. The trouble enters through people the hunters already meet during a school day. EP1, 08:20 and 16:55.
That gives us a useful prep lesson: put the first lead inside the characters’ lives. A classmate’s empty seat and a worried friend can give a strange event weight before anyone sees a monster.
For your notes, write who brings the problem, what they know, and why the hunters might care. Keep the unanswered question clear: what happened to Cindy? Her disappearance starts the investigation. It does not yet explain the creature or prove her fate.
2. Build clues the players can connect
Danny has a premonition of a student being pulled through a bathroom mirror. When the vision is examined again, the mirror has no reflection before a hand appears. The Keeper describes a possible future event, not a death the hunters have already witnessed. EP1, 18:58 and 25:55.
Then the group finds Cindy’s wrecked pink BMW. Its mirror stays foggy and gives no reflection even after wiping. Danny connects that detail to his vision. A strange image now links two scenes. EP2, 12:17–14:13 and 25:02.
When preparing evidence, ask what each clue helps the hunters understand. Here, the missing reflection connects a missing person, a place, and a possible method of attack. It gives the group something specific to test.
Keep the limits of a clue clear, too. In the bathroom, only one of three mirrors is fogged. The episodes do not establish that every mirror is an open doorway. EP4, 12:12.
3. Work backward to the threat’s need
The ending changes how we understand the danger. Through magical communication, Lucas receives images of a chrome family displaced from its world. They fall into the school basement, suffer in the ordinary world, and find refuge through a cracked mirror. Asked why they took Cindy and Timothy, they communicate that they need the humans because they are dying. EP8, 19:02–23:40.
The harm is real. Cindy and Timothy stand immobile beside chrome doubles. Their lower legs become chrome while the doubles gain human-looking lower legs. Cindy’s change is farther along. The Keeper later confirms that both would have died without rescue. EP8, 04:45–06:48 and 35:24–35:56.
The danger also claims a life: an ambulance driver dies after a chrome hand reaches through the rear-view mirror and attacks him. EP7, 11:28–11:45.
Reconstructed danger sentence: A displaced chrome family takes human captives and exchanges their forms to survive, putting the captives’ lives at risk.
Proposed type: Parasite. This is a useful fit for a threat that survives at its hosts’ expense. It is our classification for this teaching version, not a confirmed choice from Izaak’s prep.
Write both the need and the harmful method. “They want to survive” helps you answer a peaceful approach. “They are taking human bodies” keeps the rescue urgent. Sympathy gives the hunters more to consider; it does not erase the victims.
4. Separate observed powers from open rules
A compact threat sheet should help you make consistent decisions. Start with what the game actually shows, then mark the rules you still need to choose.
- Mirror access and confinement
- Danny can put his head through the bathroom mirror, then becomes trapped until Lucas helps him free. Record access and entrapment as demonstrated capabilities. EP4, 07:34–08:18 and 10:34–11:57.
- A way into the mirror world
- At the atrium mirror, Lucas touches the shard to its surface. A ripple spreads across it and the group passes through. The object provides access in this scene; that is different from proving it can kill the creatures. EP7, 63:14–66:30.
- Body exchange
- The captives and doubles change in opposite directions. Use this visible progress to show the stakes. The recording does not provide a fixed conversion rate. EP8, 04:45–06:48.
- Damaging a shape may not end the threat
- A creature Chad had smashed is partly reformed when the group returns. A damaged body alone does not prove permanent defeat. EP8, 07:03–07:52.
- Weakness and combat details still need a ruling
- The episodes include individual harm rulings, but we have not recovered a complete original stat block. Choose attacks, armour, harm capacity, and an exact mechanical weakness before running your own version. Do not turn isolated rulings into an invented official sheet.
The chrome key or shard is especially easy to misread. It strikes a creature’s chest, the creature catches it, lowers its claws, and starts communicating. No injury is described there. The object helps change the encounter; this scene does not establish a lethal weakness. EP8, 15:53–17:59.
5. Reconstruct a countdown without scripting the hunters
A countdown describes what the danger does if the hunters never intervene. The six stages are Day, Shadows, Sunset, Dusk, Nightfall, and Midnight. The order comes from the game’s published errata.
Working reconstruction: The table below combines recorded facts with a proposed progression. Its stage assignments and projected final transformation are new prep choices. This is not the sequence the players must follow.
| Stage | Threat progression | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Day | The displaced family reaches the school and shelters through the cracked mirror. | Origin revealed in EP8; placing it here is our reconstruction. |
| Shadows | Cindy is taken and held beyond the mirror. | Her disappearance and captivity are recorded; the stage is proposed. |
| Sunset | Timothy is taken as another human the family can use. | His captivity is recorded; this stage and ordering are proposed. |
| Dusk | The exchange advances. Human legs harden into chrome as the doubles gain flesh. | The partial change is visible in EP8. |
| Nightfall | Cindy becomes almost entirely chrome; Timothy’s change follows. | New projection beyond the partial change shown in play. |
| Midnight | The exchange completes and the human captives die. | Death without rescue is confirmed; completion as its mechanism is our proposed ending. |
Notice what this leaves open: whether anyone enters the mirror, starts a fight, talks to the family, or finds another way to save the captives. Those are choices for play. If the hunters interrupt the exchange, change the situation and reconsider which stages can still happen.
6. Prepare a problem with room for a new answer
The actual ending grows from communication and a gift. Dotty takes the chrome object, which changes into an aspen-wood form, then offers it back. Wood spreads across the creatures. Cindy and Timothy fall free as their legs return to flesh. The group returns to the forest, where the family becomes six aspen trees. EP8, 26:30–32:58.
Our lesson is to make the threat understandable enough for players to respond to it. Give the danger a need, evidence of that need, and consequences. When the players try something that fits, resolve it through the fiction and moves. The recorded gift is this group’s answer, rather than a step every future group must discover.
Your prep checklist
- Who brings the mystery into the hunters’ lives?
- Which clues connect the missing person to the threat?
- What does the threat need, and how does it hurt people?
- Which powers are established, and which rules must I choose?
- What happens without intervention?
- Can the hunters change that outcome in a way I have not written?