Halloween Witch Hunt

The Halloween Witch Hunt is a scavenger hunt-type of event where groups of 5 are led into the woods with a first hint and part of a map. Their goal is to go from station to station to entangle the background story and get the new part of the map. The tour starts for the participants with a friendly companion guiding them into the forest and explaining them the starting point of the story: It's 1903 and a few days ago Duke Ernst Ludwig went for a huntig trip with Tsar Nikolaus into the woods when suddenly his Daughter started to feel bad. They brought her back to the castle but nothing could help her anymore, she died just 8 years old, but nobody knows what caused it. Hänsel and Gretel are sure this was the deed of a witch, as they’ve encountered one before, so they went into the woods to find her and find out who she is but they are gone for 5 days now and never came back. Now it's on the participants to go after them and get to the root of the story. Shortly after they enter the dark forest the participants have to continue alone but get the first page of Hänsel's diary that was found. Hänsel and Gretel believe that the Witch is connected to the witch hunt under Duke Georg in the 16th century and that she is seeking on the family of the dukes and the people of Darmstadt. On the four stations which are decorated according to the theme they find people of the story that tell them their part and give them the next page of Hänsel's diary with the next part of the map. The story they discover step by step is based on a true story of this time containing an old weaver women, her children Sara and Wolf as well as another innocent victim, Anne. Also the mysterious death of Princess Elisabeth is a true story, used as a teaser for the participants to this event and well described on Wikipedia:
 

On 6 October 1903, Ernst hosted a large family gathering at Darmstadt for the wedding of his niece, Princess Alice of Battenberg, to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark. A few weeks later he took Elisabeth to stay with his younger sister, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, and their family. At the imperial family's hunting lodge in Skierniewice, Poland, Elisabeth went on long walks and had picnics in the forest with her cousins.[15]

Her nanny, who called Elisabeth "my baby," woke Elisabeth in the middle of the night and settled her in a window seat of the nursery so that she might look out on the game spread out upon the grounds below.[6] One morning, the eight-year-old awoke with a sore throat and pains in her chest, which the Russian Court doctor put down to too much excitement with her cousins the previous day. Her fever rose to 104 degrees. The imperial party didn't believe her illness was a serious one and went ahead with their plans for the day and attended the theater as planned. By the evening Elisabeth was in even more severe pain and had started gasping for breath. A specialist was summoned from Warsaw. The specialist gave her injections of caffeine and camphor to stimulate her slowing heart, but without success.[6]

"Suddenly she sat up in her bed and looked from one to the other of us with wide, frightened eyes," wrote Eagar. "She cried out suddenly, 'I'm dying! I'm dying!' She was coaxed to lie down again, but remained agitated. "The child turned to me, and said anxiously, 'Send a telegram to mama.'" Eagar promised it would be done. "She added, 'immediately.' ... We continued to fan the feeble spark of life, but moment by moment it declined. She began to talk to her cousins, and seemed to imagine she was playing with them. She asked for little Anastasie and I brought the wee thing into the room. The dying eyes rested on her for a moment, and Anastasie said, 'Poor cousin Ella! Poor Princess Elizabeth!' I took the baby out of the room."[6] Doctors told Alexandra that the child's mother should be notified, but the telegram did not arrive until the following morning, when Elisabeth had already died.[16] An autopsy following her death confirmed that she had died of virulent typhoid, although it was rumored she had eaten from a poisoned dish intended for the Tsar.[17]