Widow
On your 1st night, look at the Grimoire & choose a player: they are poisoned. 1 good player knows a Widow is in play.
More wine? Château d’Ergot ’07 is a very special vintage. My yes, very special indeed.
Storyteller cues
First nightShow the Grimoire for as long as the Widow needs. The Widow chooses a player. ◦ Put the Widow to sleep. Wake the player marked KNOW & show the Widow token. ◦
Jinxes
An Alchemist-Widow has no Widow ability and a Widow is in play. After each execution, a living Alchemist-Widow may publicly guess a living player as the Widow. If correct, the Demon must choose the Widow tonight.
If the Widow is (or has been) in play, the Damsel is poisoned.
Only 1 jinxed character can be in play.
When the Widow sees the Grimoire, the Demon and Magician's character tokens are removed.
If the Poppy Grower has their ability, the Widow does not see the Grimoire.
How to run it (Storyteller)
How to play
- Spend your Grimoire look identifying the most dangerous good information role — a Sage, Virgin, or Chambermaid — and poison them before they can generate reliable data that exposes the evil team.
- Remember that one good player will know a Widow exists unless you poison yourself, so self-poisoning is a real option when your team most needs to conceal your presence in the script, especially in small games.
- Coordinate immediately with your Demon: share everything you learned from the Grimoire on night one — token positions, role clusters, the Demon's neighbours — so the evil team plays from a position of near-perfect information all game.
- Claim a low-information good role such as Farmer, Pacifist, or a townsfolk with a one-shot ability you can pretend has already fired, minimising pressure to produce ongoing 'information' that could be checked.
- The most common mistake is poisoning an obvious protective role like the Monk or Soldier when the real value is denying the Town informational roles; a poisoned Investigator or Librarian does more damage over the game than a poisoned defensive role.
How to fight the Widow
- The moment one good player privately learns a Widow is in play, they should share that information openly but carefully — being outed as the 'Widow knower' makes you a high-value target, so time the reveal to maximise its impact rather than announcing it night one.
- If the Widow knower becomes evil through a Mezepheles or similar effect, the Storyteller tells a different good player, so persistent Widow knowledge reaching the town means the chain of knowers may have been corrupted — treat early knowers who later act suspiciously as potential converts.
- Identify who is behaving as though they have full information from day one: a Widow's Grimoire-read often produces an evil team that plays with unusual precision and avoids killing certain players, which can fingerprint the Widow's target choices.
- If a Damsel is on the script, treat them as almost certainly poisoned and do not rely on their ability to safely identify Minions; the Widow's mere presence in play poisons the Damsel regardless of the Widow's chosen target.
- Nominating and executing early is especially valuable against a Widow because their poison is permanent — unlike the Poisoner, there is no nightly choice to disrupt, so you cannot outlast the effect; killing the Widow removes the poison.
Key interactions
The Damsel is poisoned the entire game simply because a Widow is in play, with no action required from the Widow after setup. Good teams with a Damsel should treat that ability as compromised by default and should not build execution strategy around it until the Widow is dead.
If the Poppy Grower's ability is functioning on night one, the Widow is denied the Grimoire look entirely — the single biggest source of the Widow's value disappears. Evil teams should strongly consider bluffing to execute or otherwise remove the Poppy Grower immediately on day one.
A Magician in the game has their token removed from what the Widow sees, so the Widow cannot distinguish the Demon from the Magician's seat — this meaningfully degrades the Grimoire intelligence and is a strong reason for good teams to include a Magician on Widow scripts.
An Alchemist who holds the Widow ability has no Widow power themselves but can publicly guess a living player as the Widow after each execution, forcing the Demon to kill the correctly-identified Widow that night. This creates a powerful good-team tool for burning through the evil team, so Widows should lobby to execute the Alchemist immediately.
The Storyteller may allow the Widow to see the Recluse as evil, as a Minion, or even as a Demon in the Grimoire, which can mislead the Widow into poisoning or misidentifying the Recluse as a threat — however this misregistration is not recommended, so in practice do not rely on it as either side.