Duchess
Each day, 3 players may choose to visit you. At night*, each visitor learns how many visitors are evil, but 1 gets false info.
We shall entertain between the hours of 6 and 7 precisely. Tea at 6:15. Scones at 6:45. Do not be late. Formal wear applies, as always.
Storyteller cues
Other nightsOne at a time: Wake each player marked VISITOR or FALSE INFO. Show the THIS CHARACTER SELECTED YOU & Duchess tokens, then give a finger signal.
How to run it (Storyteller)
Playing with the Duchess — as good
- Cross-reference the counts all three visitors receive publicly — if two visitors report the same number and one is the outlier, the outlier is likely the one who got false info, but do not assume this without triangulation since evil visitors can also lie about what they received.
- Coordinate who visits so that at least one visitor is someone with high social credibility whose information the town is likely to trust; if that person gets the false count, flag it immediately rather than letting it anchor the day's logic.
- If you are good and visit, share your number openly and compare with the other two visitors the same day — information decays if you wait, and evil can intercept the narrative.
- Avoid having all three visitors be established good players, as this wastes the ability's evil-detection value; ideally include at least one player with uncertain alignment so the count is actually diagnostic.
- Remember that exactly one visitor always gets false info, so even in a group of three good visitors one number will be wrong — never treat any single visit result as confirmed ground truth.
Playing with the Duchess — as evil
- Volunteer to visit the Duchess as an evil player and then publicly misreport your number; since good players know one visitor gets false info, a false claim from you can cast doubt on a genuine good visitor's accurate report.
- If two evil players visit together, coordinate beforehand on what numbers to claim publicly regardless of what you actually receive, creating a false majority that outvotes the one good visitor's truthful account.
- If no evil player visits, encourage a trusted good player to visit so they are more likely to be the one handed false info, then push hard on any inconsistency that emerges between that player and the other visitors.
- Use the Duchess visits as social cover — volunteering to visit signals town-reads willingness to be scrutinized, which can build false trust for a Demon or key Minion.
Key interactions
If the Duchess is poisoned, all three visitors may receive arbitrary numbers that night, making the entire visit worthless and potentially framing one good visitor as the false-info recipient when nobody actually got true info. Good players should treat nights where the Duchess's outputs are wildly inconsistent as a signal that she may have been poisoned.
A Spy visiting the Duchess registers as evil for the purposes of the count, so visitors may receive a non-zero count that misleads good players into thinking an actual evil player visited when it was only the Spy. Conversely, the Spy learns their own count result, giving evil direct insight into what information good players are working with.
A Recluse who visits may register as evil at the Storyteller's discretion, inflating the count visitors receive and making good players suspect one of the visitors is evil when all three are actually good. This is especially disruptive because the Recluse themselves receives a count that may not match their true alignment, compounding the confusion.