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Spy

Each night, you see the Grimoire. You might register as good & as a Townsfolk or Outsider, even if dead.

Any brewmaster worth their liquor, knows no concoction pours trouble quicker, than one where spies seem double.

Storyteller cues

First nightShow the Grimoire for as long as the Spy needs.

Other nightsShow the Grimoire for as long as the Spy needs.

Jinxes

Alchemist

An Alchemist-Spy has no Spy ability and a Spy is in play. After each execution, a living Alchemist-Spy may publicly guess a living player as the Spy. If correct, the Demon must choose the Spy tonight.

Damsel

If the Spy is (or has been) in play, the Damsel is poisoned.

Heretic

Only 1 jinxed character can be in play.

Magician

When the Spy sees the Grimoire, the Demon and Magician's character tokens are removed.

Ogre

The Spy registers as evil to the Ogre.

Plague Doctor

If the Storyteller would gain the Spy ability, a Minion gains it, and learns this.

Poppy Grower

If the Poppy Grower has their ability, the Spy does not see the Grimoire.

How to run it (Storyteller)

Each night, show the Spy the physical Grimoire — remove the Demon and Magician tokens before doing so, and account for Poppy Grower blocking the ability entirely. The Spy's most dangerous ruling is how far you lean into beneficial registration: the Spy can appear good to Empaths, Grandmothers, Washerwomen, Librarians, Balloonists, and Stewards simultaneously, so decide early in setup how aggressively you'll register them to avoid inconsistency mid-game. Watch for the Spy using Grimoire knowledge to direct their team with implausible precision — if they're guiding the Demon to safe kills every night, good players will notice the pattern even if they can't name the source.

How to play

  • Read the Grimoire each night for kill targets: prioritize removing the most dangerous information roles (Investigator, Empath, Slayer) and characters who will out the Demon's position.
  • Pick a Townsfolk claim that the Grimoire confirms is not already claimed by a real good player — impersonating a role you know is genuinely in play invites contradiction.
  • Coordinate with your Demon before dawn: pass targets verbally or via the Storyteller's setup, since the Spy's value is almost entirely in intelligence, not direct kills.
  • Exploit your registration flexibility to seed false information — if a Washerwoman or Librarian pinged you, their result is technically true and you can let it circulate without contradiction.
  • The most common mistake is volunteering too much precision too early; a Spy who seems to know exactly which players are safe to execute will be suspected of having Grimoire access, so pace your reveals and let the Demon absorb the credit for good reads.

How to fight the Spy

  • Track who benefits most from each night's death pattern — if kills consistently target your best information roles while avoiding apparently 'confirmed' good players, a Spy is likely funneling Grimoire data to the Demon.
  • Cross-reference information-role results aggressively: a Washerwoman, Librarian, Balloonist, or Steward who pinged a player as good or a specific type may have been shown the Spy, so treat soft confirmation as weak rather than strong evidence.
  • Poppy Grower hard-counters the Spy's ability for as long as they're alive — protecting the Poppy Grower is a high-value move when Spy is suspected, since it blinds the Spy entirely.
  • If you suspect a Spy, avoid sharing sensitive role information in public nominations or open discussion — the Spy learns everything from the Grimoire, but cannot directly hear private whispers, so restrict your deduction chains to small trusted groups.
  • Use the Damsel cautiously: documented rules confirm the Damsel is poisoned while a Spy is or has been in play, so don't rely on Damsel's ability to fire and factor its unreliability into your win condition.

Key interactions

Poppy Grower

While the Poppy Grower is alive and their ability is functioning, the Spy receives no Grimoire view at all — eliminating roughly 90% of the Spy's strategic value. Good players who suspect a Spy should treat keeping the Poppy Grower alive as a top priority, and the evil team should make killing the Poppy Grower an early target.

Damsel

The mere presence of a Spy in the game — even if already dead — permanently poisons the Damsel, meaning the Damsel's ability to punish a Minion guess cannot be relied upon. Good players should not build a win condition around the Damsel firing if Spy is a possible script character.

Magician

The Magician causes the Demon's character token to be swapped out in the Grimoire, so the Spy cannot directly read who the Demon is — a meaningful blind spot that reduces the Spy's intelligence value on scripts where the Magician is present. Evil should account for this when the Spy tries to relay Demon-identity information.

Empath

The Spy can register as good to an adjacent Empath, giving the Empath a falsely low evil-neighbor count and misdirecting their entire deductive chain. Empaths should be especially skeptical of a clean zero reading when Spy is on the script.

Godfather

The Spy can register as an Outsider to the Godfather, which means the Godfather may believe the Outsider count is higher than it truly is, potentially triggering a bonus kill under false pretenses. On scripts combining Spy and Godfather, the Storyteller should confirm how Outsider registration will be handled before the game begins.