★ Circus Music ★

[dark veldt]

I forgot to put it in the almanac, but I was going to put an optional rule that you can't claim to give most players the same order

[paper temple]

wouldnt that go more on just: dont waste our time

[proper kraken]

Like idk if it would be like "You've spent 1 minute claiming Gentleman & giving orders"

[paper temple]

as some orders can be super short

[proper kraken]

Yeah that would solve it. I just brought it up to be sure

[paper temple]

also why i think giving a mass order be better...

cause it sorts that out

[dark veldt]

I mean, if it's clear what you mean, like "I'd like to order everyone to not vote for me."

I was thinking initially that LM was talking about like "If either of you vote, you'd be disobeying"

[proper kraken]

yeah, i hadnt actually considered that. I definitely didnt mean that a player could be executed for someone else's actions. Just trying to see how best to communicate giving 2 orders to scare 2 people

Also, I like that I abbriviate to Lil Monsta : )

[dark veldt]

(also as an ST I would not let a Gentleman cause someone else to be executed for a player's actions. The player who is being disobedient needs to be the one who is disobedient.)

[heavy haven]

This one is amazing. No notes, no criticisms, no concerns. It's great.

[dusky bison]

Having seen this in Last Cull too, Gentleman is maybe my favorite minion design out there

[odd nacelle]

Good players bluffing gentleman is very much on the cards fwiw

You can do all kinds of things with that

But uh that might be an unpopular opinion

[golden burrow]

Just like bluffing ET

[odd nacelle]

yeah but this has real benefits

[dark veldt]

I view it as more synonymous with Goblin: It's useful for good players who are struggling to convince good players to work with them

[golden burrow]

Don't think claiming goblin helps you convince good players to work with you

Opposite it is

[odd nacelle]

bluffing gentleman does

[dark veldt]

claiming gob convinces players to not execute you (in theory)

[viscid lintel]

Welllll not all the time

[dark veldt]

in theory lmao 😅

[viscid lintel]

True

[dark veldt]

I think I've come to the decision that after the next script is complete, I'm gonna drop a Fabled & Traveller, and then take a break, probably for the rest of 2024

The upcoming script is probably going to have an early November release date. There's 2 characters I definitely want to release in October, and a lot of these characters are developed enough that I can probably squeak in a 3rd.

[main frost]

👀

I'm hype

[dark veldt]

That's really just gonna be a 1.5 month break, but I don't plan to work on this collection during that time, so character releases would most likely continue in late January or early February. The upcoming characters are very exciting tho 🍬

[main frost]

Candy character?

Confectioner?

[dark veldt]

I keep some tricks up my sleeve

[edgy locust]

CANDY ROTS TEETH ORTHODONTIST CONFIRMED

[dark veldt]

I'm gonna drop the next character hint

It's probably gonna be like, a good spell before this character drops.

I'm honestly not sure, could be tomorrow, could be tonight. Might be next week. We'll see.

Y'all are gonna like this one

...Until I got engaged, in a violent metaphor...

[paper temple]

👀

[dark veldt]

Alrighty folks!

The time has come!

Steel yourselves for the legendary

the extra scary

[proper kraken]

🐉

[dark veldt]

the terrifying

The super-thriller

THE DRAGON KILLLER!!

Only the Demon can register as an evil player or character to Townsfolk, even if you die.
“I can die 1000 times, and still get up. But you, you only need to die once.”

The Dragon Killer makes Minions dodge their roles.

• Townsfolk abilities cannot perceive any player as evil, unless they’re the Demon.
• This does not afflict Townsfolk who are drunk or poisoned.
• This will usually take the form of Minions, evil Townsfolk, and evil Travellers appearing as good players & characters. Minions can be shown as Townsfolk or Outsiders.
• The Dragon Killer has no effect on information regarding the Demon.

(This is, oddly, an Outsider)

[inner cradle]

The flavor text goes HARD

Wait this hurts town really??

It's definitely a weird one but I'll trust you on that lol

[fleet linden]

You can't differentiate who are minions and Evils

[dark veldt]

Confirmation chains are basically impossible with the DK

[fleet linden]

Yea

[inner cradle]

True

[dark veldt]

Evil pings are a lot more likely to be the Demon, but that just makes it stronger when Minions bluff evil pings, and bluff the DK

[inner cradle]

I'm thinking about noble rn

I guess that's just a script issue

[dark veldt]

yeah

and even then, not always, like I could see it working with Leviathan

[inner cradle]

Is this tested

[dark veldt]

not yet, no

[inner cradle]

Bc I don't have a good intuition for it rn

Hmmmm ok I'd be very curious to see how it plays out

Seems hard to put on a script but it could work well on the right one

You don't prep jinxes right? Not that that's bad, I just feel like this could be jinxed with a lot

as a start

[dark veldt]

I do

[inner cradle]

Oh this is cool with alch

Oh alright

[dark veldt]

This guy is only jinxed with Investigator and Clockmaker

[inner cradle]

Alsaahir becomes a better each day slayer then

[dark veldt]

if they can trust the Dragon Killer

[inner cradle]

I guess that's true

[dark veldt]

A Dragon Killer bluff would let you just completely shut down Alsaahir

[inner cradle]

If the DK hides or is mad or something that also totally shuts it down

Idk, it might be fine?

[dark veldt]

It seems ok to me

Dragon Killer proccing on Magician and Poppy Grower is fucking hilarious, btw

[inner cradle]

Ooh magician feels like a grey area

But if you rule them as interacting (which I assume you do), any version of that is indeed hilarious

[proper kraken]

wait, if there's a good Minion, can you still learn their character type as Minion?

[inner cradle]

Doesn't seem like it

[dark veldt]

nope! Only the Demon can register as an evil character

in fact the Jinxes involve good players registering as Minions, and this is specifically cited as an exception to the DK ability

[inner cradle]

That makes sense

BH is the interaction of all time

Very much a script thing

"YSK the demon"

[dark veldt]

yeah, you need executions to be limited as all hell in order for that to work lmao

[inner cradle]

Yeah ig it could work with leviathan? But eh

I already don't like BH lol

[dark veldt]

Funilly enough, I can actually think of an unreleased CM Demon that kinda works with DK / BH and DK / Noble, the issue is that I can't imagine it being very fun with DK in general, but I haven't given it much thought

[inner cradle]

Oh no this feels like a misreg demon

[paper temple]

this is a really cool character, hope it flows well

[torn ledge]

morti...?

[golden burrow]

Morti

https://tenor.com/view/rick-and-morty-swag-zech-gif-21674590

[heavy haven]

it should go without saying that we hope you enjoy your break and come back with refreshed ideas!

[heavy haven]

as for this...wow, I really like the way that it damages town in an extremely paranoia-inducing way. Bluffing as evil seems very, very strong, at least in the early game.

I like that it dodges drunk/poisoned townsfolk, such that their info is still arbitrary so that evil bluffs aren't super easily dispelled by checking the one who claims DK.

The jinxes seem...fine. This is probably a "I'd avoid putting them together at all" more than a jinx that actually creates new and interesting gameplay opportunities.

I do think Dragon Killer may turn out to be too harmful to Town and its ability to function? There are some number of characters who are pretty nearly blank tokens with it in play, but that might be okay. I'd very delicately script build around this particular outsider.

Also, this is an extremely nitpicky and pedantic note, but I think the jinxes should very technically say "despite" rather than "in spite of" (I don't like feeling like I'm being a language hall-monitor, that's not what this is I promise)

(and for the record I haven't gotten the Gentleman out of my head since it was released. What a great design.)

[dark veldt]

Oh I believe language hall monitering is perfectly valid! That's how you get things worded well! I'd probably change it, the only reason I can think of for me not wording it like that is that it's slightly more clear, but I think I agree that the length probably takes the edge here

[heavy haven]

I'm glad it didn't come across poorly, then!

[dark veldt]

I also think it's important to keep in mind with the DK that while it's main intent is shattering confirmation characters, they still confirm people as not being the Demon. Steward, for example, can't trust their player fully, but they can still rely on their player most likely being good, and for sure not being the Demon!

[heavy haven]

that is a very good point. I do worry about, for example, the Empath being nearly blanked by this, but then again, if they get a 1 that's possibly worse for evil than ever...

so maybe it comes out in the wash. Excited to see this tested.

[inner cradle]

Yeah it's cool but script building with it is scary lol

[dark veldt]

DK is such a weird character because it's simultaneously unfair for the good team in terms of destructive power, and unfair for the evil team in destructive power.

[inner cradle]

I think I like it a lot with farmer for example

[dark veldt]

Ooh didn't even think about Farmer, that's fun

[proper kraken]

Also, it’s flavor is actually really appropriate given that it’s really off putting for both teams

You may actually make it easier to kill the boss, but because you “decided” to ignore the boss’s Minions, you might just game over

[dark veldt]

I love the flavor I came up with. This is one of very few characters of mine I came up with the flavor after the effect, and it might be my only time directly and intentionally changing ability text to match flavor

(it used to explicitly target minions with its Misreg, but the 1v1 flavor made it make more sense to word it how it is)

[heavy haven]

oh gross I love it

and the flavor is unique as far as it usually goes
it kind of reads like a bottom-up design rather than top-down, and I think that's relatively unique in botc characters, especially homebrew

[inner cradle]

would be cool to see a script with DK + some of these

That list ended up longer than I thought :D

Obviously I don't wanna throw those all on one script but those all feel like really good interactions

[dark veldt]

I will not leak government secrets regarding the next script

[inner cradle]

Plus some demon finders ofc

[dark veldt]

Oh Courtier is weird

[inner cradle]

Drunk the DK 👀

But you can't drunk minions if the DK is real

Definitely weird but it seems cool

[dark veldt]

You can choose DK, and the ST can reg a Minion as the DK to drunk them instead

[inner cradle]

Oh true

They'd probably hard to fit on a script together just because of the other roles they both ask for. But if they can both fit it's a cool interaction

Boff-DK seems fun

Especially with its ability to suddenly disappear

Shugenja is also cool but if you know it's a DK game then it's a bit OP

oh shoot Drunk is a cool interaction too

It's like Drunk/vortox

Widow poisoned DK also seems really cool, it's not often that widows choose outsiders but it would be a great way to spread misinfo. And again with the disappearing thing

That's also why I put fang gu on that list, the effect disappears

Oh yeah, baron is there bc it makes it way harder to confirm the outsiders, meaning the baron's main weakness is taken care of. But also the good team is aware of it

[heavy haven]

I was specifically thinking of baron when I mentioned evil bluffing the role seeming real good

[inner cradle]

LoT being fully immune to empath in a DK game is silly

Well, almost fully

[golden burrow]

Oh

LOL

[dark veldt]

...I disagree, this isn't just for kids!...

[dark veldt]

DK was the 3rd that I said I might squeak in

[edgy locust]

Im sorry I cant hear DK without thinking of donkey kong

[inner cradle]

Same lol

[dark veldt]

I was stuck between Dragon Hunter, Dragon Slayer, and Dragon Killer, and it is that joke that made me settle on Dragon Killer. Calling it DK felt very fun.

[edgy locust]

Yeah hunter and slayer would probably infringe on BH and slayer too much as well

[main frost]

I personally prefer Dragon Slayer (which also abbreviates to a Nintendo property)

Dragon "Killer" is a little too homebrew-y for me

[dark veldt]

That's fair. The fact that it contained the entirety of the "Slayer"'s name urked me.

[main frost]

That is also 100% fair

Imagine if TPI released a "Hunter" character lol

[golden burrow]

Dragon unaliver

[dark veldt]

alright folks

please put on your scariest faces

to tell a story in the scariest of places

I...just noticed a last minute wording change I made that I need to add to the token rq, hold on

I just noticed I forgot to change the ability text at all on the token, hold on give me several minutes

Wait, I just noticed something really wrong about the character

I think I'm gonna have to wait until next week for the release...

OF THE TRIXTER

Each night*, learn an alive good player who’s mad you're evil.
“Hahaha! You should've seen the look on your face! I totally got you with that one about a Demon eating my face! I got you so good!”

The Trickster messes with their allies to know them better.

• Each night, after the first, if there is an alive good player that is mad that the Trickster is evil, the Trickster learns who they are.
• The player who is mad about the Trickster being evil must be actively attempting to convince the group that the Trickster is evil. This usually means convincing the group they are not the Trickster, but is a Minion or Demon instead.
• If there are no alive good players who are mad that the Trickster is evil, the Trickster does not wake.
• The Trickster could, in theory, learn themself. They should not unless there isn’t anyone else they could learn, and they are genuinely attempting to convince the group that they are evil.

[inner cradle]

-# is this not OP

[dark veldt]

we get a little deceptive

[dark veldt]

Its ability is only active while it's being framed, which in turn, weakens its info. It is powerful, but I don't think it's too powerful.

[inner cradle]

I feel like this forms a meta of "ok tomorrow I'll be mad ur evil and the day after Joe will and nobody else will be. And if you don't wake up on one of those nights then you know that person is evil"

Or, would you call that a preemptive madness break

[dark veldt]

That feels like a Madness break to me

Unless they directly provide a reason why this plan was flawed

[inner cradle]

I guess if you're strict about the madness it'll work

[dark veldt]

Like "I know I said I'd frame this guy, but I genuinely got an FT yes on them. I'm not gonna trust this guy's info, we need him dead to clear worlds."

[inner cradle]

It's a very cool fallback bluff

Yeah ok maybe it's just a ST thing

Cool dynamic

Still definitely strong

[dark veldt]

I'd say Trickster madness should, unless there's Mez or smth on script, be seen as "This guy is evil, and is not just the Trickster."

really, just Harpy madness. Don't let people wink and nudge their way out of it.

[inner cradle]

My point is that since it's good sided, it can be abused in order to play for good

[inner cradle]

But if this is a preemptive madness break that (probably) solves that

Townsfolk madness is hard lol

[dark veldt]

Yeah lmao

[inner cradle]

I can see this working tho

[main frost]

Oh this is good and fun

I like this

Is the old Trixter dead?

I think the "living" clause is unnecessary as this is already decently strong

[dark veldt]

Yeah. It's madness was too nebulous, and it's effect was pretty weak

[heavy haven]

I like this!
it's sort of gossip-y but involving madness makes it more precise; they have to try and be genuinely convincing! Very fun.
The ruling on preemptive madness breaks is fair and reasonable and exactly how I'd run it.

On wording again; would "...who's mad that you're evil" be more appropriate? At least, it appears there's room on the token for the technical grammar.

[main frost]

Yeah agreed

[inner cradle]

Btw good job on the theming

[dark veldt]

It was literally "player that's mad you're evil" until like

[inner cradle]

-# it's better than 90% of tpi characters 😶‍🌫️

[dark veldt]

15 mins ago

[inner cradle]

Oh you did actually change the wording lol

[dark veldt]

Yeah lmao

[inner cradle]

I thought that was completely a bit

[dark veldt]

No, I just made it a bit at the end when I realized I could milk it

I also wasn't joking that I completely forgot to jot the wording onto the token either

I was extremely close to sending this lmao 💀

[edgy locust]

Cool ass character fr

Im tryna think of a way to make it not so easily abused but thats hard without straight up confirming their info

[main frost]

I mean it's partially whatever your group meta determines is a reasonable expectation of "this player is evil" for madness purposes + a little misregistration

[dark veldt]

Yeah, for Trixter madness, just make really sure that you don't let people tongue and cheek it. If the vibes are "This guy is just Trixter mad" then they are not Trixter mad.

[inner cradle]

Is it trickster or trixter

[dark veldt]

At least, imo. It's fine to intentionally be Trickster mad, but be ready to sell it. Like, make up false info, vote for them, stuff like that.

[main frost]

^^^

[dark veldt]

Trickster, but for a very long time it was Trixter, so I often call it that

[inner cradle]

I kinda like it better with the x lol

[main frost]

When people talk about like "oh this madness condition is weak" it's usually just bad ST/group in my experience so far

[inner cradle]

Both are fine tho

[main frost]

Like, you have to actually build worlds using real or fake evidence

If it's day 1 sure you can maybe get away with "evil vibes" but if we're day 3 and you're trying to say "yeah mechanically he's good, but he's playing so evil-like" you shouldn't get shit

[inner cradle]

Ooh this could be cool with legion

"I think it's a legion game and these 4 players are definitely legion" and hope you hit the trixter

(and sell it ofc)

[paper temple]

it also doesnt feel like a horrible good character to have in a legion game

[main frost]

"all these people are saying I'm evil and I'm getting 'No' each night"

[paper temple]

i think thats fine tho

[dark veldt]

It's also fun with evil characters with public effects cough bc you can use those to frame yourself

[edgy locust]

Yeah personally I'd perfer actual genuine belief they're evil but thats me lol

But I'd definitely encourage evil to tell me if madness is pre orchestrated (much like breaking mutant in private)

[main frost]

I was agreeing with you lmao

Elaborating on why it would be a good character in a legion game

[edgy locust]

Fun interaction, would encourage evil to frame them to get them killed, but also to not seem too mad that they could reasonably be given because know,

[inner cradle]

Would following an order count as madness? I think situationally it would

[golden burrow]

Hello week release?

[dark veldt]

I would too, but that's hard to always assess. Being able to lie to satisfy Trickster also allows a lot of fun strats where players lie about their actual info to frame Townsfolk that they hope are the Trickster.

[inner cradle]

I just realized, in a convoluted way this is similar to magician

[golden burrow]

What?

What's similiar?

[inner cradle]

You wanna look evil

The outcome is very different

[golden burrow]

I honestly have no idea what's the topic rn

[inner cradle]

Trixter

[golden burrow]

Twitter

[inner cradle]

TRUE

[dark veldt]

It depends on context

I'd say if you obey / disobey the same as you would an actual Gentleman I'd count it

But it does depend on context bc if there's a Gentleman order on D1 and you aren't pushing on that player, you clearly don't think they're the Gentleman

[golden burrow]

Basically "I claim atheist" almost always guarantees them thinking you are evil

[dark veldt]

Well, I mean, they might just think you're the Atheist

[golden burrow]

[dark veldt]

But that's a solid strat, yeah

[golden burrow]

At that point just claim to them

[golden burrow]

But yeah I think they won't trust you

[torn ledge]

ive been trixted by baked ice !

[inner cradle]

Wait is the reminder token for madness

[dark veldt]

Yeah

[edgy locust]

I think they meant what

What is the madness token called?

[dark veldt]

Mad

[edgy locust]

Aight

[inner cradle]

I meant more that it's weird to have a token for madness here and weirder for there to be just one

[dark veldt]

My philosophy w/ reminder tokens is generally how to make things as easy as possible for me if I completely forget what I'm doing.

[golden burrow]

Bad joke

Immediate ban

[torn ledge]

eddy

ur one to talk

goddamn

[dark veldt]

So if I don't have an exact recollection of the day, it's nice to have a reminder token to remember who I was gonna show the Trickster

[golden burrow]

[golden burrow]

Don't you dare

Shift the attention

[main frost]

^^^ this is also my philosophy lol

Like sometimes I'll use a night pip on a player for High Priestess if I hear something really important during the day and don't want to forget

[heavy haven]

All of this discussion has further solidified to me, cool character 😎

[edgy locust]

See but I want a trixed token :)

[dark veldt]

Also the new official app adds flavor text to characters, and so I think it would make sense to add that to the Circus Music scripts. This does mean I will be updating all of the JSONS, so keep that in mind

I'm also going to use this time to sneak in a Caliban / Clockmaker jinx, which I am very surprised I did not catch initially.

This will not be relevant in Church of Thunder, but it will be in the code.

[inner cradle]

Is it like the summoner jinx?

[dark veldt]

Like the Summoner's jinx with Clockmaker, yeah

(I word it like that because Caliban is also jinxed with Summoner)

[heavy haven]

clockmaker does make sense, good catch.

I love the flavor text being displayed now

[dark veldt]

I do too

[proper kraken]

Side Note: Trixter would probably have interesting synergy with Politician

Politician going “Yeah I know I was helping evil win, but I’m just the Trixter. Also that guy is good. Let’s kill someone else instead”

[dark veldt]

"Stop saying I'm the Politician, I'm a real, scary, evil player!" -the Politician

[proper kraken]

Or good thinks the Trixster is a Politican

Trixster Politician Gentleman (or some other public evil) sounds funny

adds Alch too

[torn ledge]

i will

its called uh

midnight in the house of the damned

[dark veldt]

😨

[torn ledge]

and ice is making it for steven

all very secretive

cant have anyone know about it

[dark veldt]

...I've noticed odd occurrences in my local area, and I ponder who I will contact...

[edgy locust]

GHOSTBUSTERS ‼️‼️‼️

[main frost]

Ghostbuster

Slimer

Stay-Puft

[dark veldt]

Character probably dropping this weekend

sry, life been keeping me well & busy.

[golden burrow]

Understandable, don't strain yourself

[main frost]

^^^^^

[heavy haven]

Excited and ready to wait!

[dark veldt]

character coming soon, sorry life has been a lot but I am determined to get this character out before the end of the month

[heavy haven]

:)

[dark veldt]

Character close enough to dropping that I can say this character has, I feel by far, my least favorite alignment swapped version.

It looks ok, but the rest look badass and this just looks ok. I love the original art tho.

[heavy haven]

so which icons could depend on very blue or very red motifs
let's brainstorm folks

Blood?
Roses?
Fire?

[inner cradle]

Water?

[heavy haven]

maybe, but admittedly a red river usually comes off as a pretty cool "river of blood" motif

so maybe waves?

[main frost]

Yeah I feel like blood or perhaps a wax seal

Maybe something skeleton/skull/death related

[heavy haven]

wax seal is very convincing

that's my pet theory

[dark veldt]

alright, sorry for ghosting y'all over the weekend, I'm doing final check ups, but I think this is ready to release

PLEASE PREPARE YOURSELVES

FOR THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN DYING TO SEE

PLEASE GIVE A STANDING-BEYOND-THE-GRAVE OVATION FOR

THE ONE

THE ONLY

THE SHAAAAAAADE

Once per game, a player you vote for might die tonight (& learn this), but appear alive until executed.
“I worry that when I'm not looking, people I love are dying, and they aren't around to tell me.”

The Shade kills a player who is the only one that knows they died.

• When a player is nominated, if the Shade votes, the nominee might die that night, and learn that the Shade killed them.
• That morning, it is not publicly declared that they are dead, even if the Demon attacked them at night. It is the dead player's responsibility to tell the group that they are dead (if they want to).
• Players killed by the Shade only appear alive, they do not register as alive. This means that they cannot nominate, can only vote once, and will register as dead to abilities.
• If the player killed by the Shade is executed, it will be declared that they die, even though they are already dead. If they voted before this, they do not gain another vote, but only the player killed by the Shade knows this.
• The player killed by the Shade will continue to appear alive until they are executed, even if the Shade is poisoned, drunk, or dead.
• If a player killed by the Shade is resurrected, then only that player learns this. They do not learn why they have been resurrected, and nothing is declared about it in the morning.

[proper kraken]

👻

[heavy haven]

HAHA we were so off base
"by the end of the month" became "in like 10 minutes"
also the icon is incredible

Okay now for the actual character
it's...weird honestly
I'm wondering what script it's for
doesn't really work like any other character I've ever seen
struggling to come up with opinions on it because it's just so foreign

[hasty forge]

is it an outsider?

[dark veldt]

yes

[inner cradle]

BARROW FOG

Wait this feels really townsidery

[main frost]

In terms of script, it's on The Last Cull

[dark veldt]

fun fact, the oldest versions of Trickster and Shade were actually made together during last year's October

[main frost]

Spooky

[proper kraken]

Why? Like sure, you know you’ve been Shade killed but you can’t prove that to the Shade or anyone else. Evil can easily claim to be Shade killed or a Shade who never prices

And also, you’re dead, so there goes your ability and one step closer to evil winning

[graceful moss]

👻

[inner cradle]

Sure, but it's also a NWM ping on an alive player

A weaker one but still

[proper kraken]

Also… I suppose restrictions on Shade noms/votes must be the same as Golem

Like that you aren’t allowed to just prove yourself by nomming or otherwise trying to say any player claiming shade deathwho doesn’t try to nom is evil

I suppose you could say Shade is just weakened Golem

You don’t control when death goes off, confirmation is limited to the killed player, and you can’t easily prove it

Though you can still nominate. Idk if that’s technically still less Townsider than being a psuedo Virgin

But they do probably have use cases, in that Golem scripts are designed to hurt if evil can exploit bringing you to F3

[inner cradle]

Yeah it does feel golem adjacent

[proper kraken]

Its rpobably script dependent then. Esepcially since with Shade, ST can always wait to proc you when it hurts the most

Golem des get powerful confirmation, but I imagine Golem scripts are designed to work like Shepard, where evil just wins if they get a procced Golem to F3

Shade's real use is wasting executions that you dont commit because then you might just uselessly double tap

[inner cradle]

Yeah that makes sense

It's not like it's the only townsider out there

[inner cradle]

Yeah basically? Golem smashes are also just worse executions

Wow I love lag. Surely these messages will send in a timely manner.

There we go, they sent I think

[proper kraken]

Yes and no. You still et your execution that day & you either confirm yourself or make a very hard world for evil to bluff. But then again, Golem is designed to make hat confirmation as hard as possible to exploit

Or we just dont have ballsy enough Minions who are willing & able to sell a failed Golem punch in games

[inner cradle]

It trades a worse "execution" now for no execution later (by removing your nom)

So... yeah

[proper kraken]

(mean plyers here, not actual characters)

[proper kraken]

We probably need to see the proper Golem script to actually see that tradeoff in context. Since I feel like I lot of people just try to use the Golem to solve the game faster before it becomes an issue. That or Demons are cowards & dont actually try to win with a procced Golem F3

An F3 with Golem, good, and a Demon basically just results ina Silvesmith-off where the 2 uncofnrimed players nom each other

[inner cradle]

Unspent golem is risky too, if you guess wrong then oops evil wins

But yeah I think the character has potential that doesn't get shown off much

[proper kraken]

True. though i have never seen a good Golem punch in F3

Most Golems I see just punch immediately, get killed by evil, or end up in Fang Gu games. I dont think ive ever seen good or evil play around late Golem

[inner cradle]

The only golem script I'm familiar with is midnight oasis and it has psychopath :(

[proper kraken]

I guess the attitutde is that early Golem solves itself by intimidating evil into killing them & effectively getting 2 good controlled deaths: the worse execution & the real execution. ANd basically treating it as "we do effectively get that final day execution earlier because evil isnt willing to sell Golem or keep them alive for Shepard wins"

[inner cradle]

I think the common perception of golem as a townsider makes it more of a townsider than it otherwise would be

[proper kraken]

Yeah. I think its the fact that town generally & correctly assumes evil doesnt often commit to Golem plays & so they sorta solve the problme for you

by killing the Golem, which lets them keep the town benefits & wastes evil's time

[proper kraken]

Oh btw, getting back to Shade, I think its ST control taht makes it really Outsidery. If you restrict your voting too much, you become a Pawn. If you do kill someone, then they can confirm you, but you have accelerated the game & removed a player's voing power & ability. If you're not caerful, Shade can ironically use it better than Golem because they preserve their voting power & nominations

It also doesnt help if you guess wrong & kill someone evil was going to kill anyways. That really sucks to get wrong

[dark veldt]

I also think about how like...a Shade kill can be really devastating if you aren't careful

[proper kraken]

I guess aside from not proccing Shade, you kinda rely on the idea that a minor NWM ping that kills someone doesnt really help, especially if you can do it on someone town didnt execute

[dark veldt]

Like, a Shade killed Minion suucks

[proper kraken]

Why?

Oh wait no I see

You bait town into sleeping on 4

[dark veldt]

Bc they just say nothing and then uhh

Well even more, Town might kill an alive player at "5"

And then demon kills bringing it down to an evil win

[proper kraken]

I was gonna say "How much OG meta does Shade encourage" except that it really doesnt. Its not loud enough or devastating enough that town can be encouraged to start commiting to single executions in advance (vote turtling)

Ideall, you as the Shade only want to vote on executions you think will pass. But you wont always be far enough in the vote to know what things will pass & what wont. And as mentioned, town isnt going to vote turtle if its not as loud as OG or devastatning as Hwisp loss

[dark veldt]

Well if you spread out votes, evil can bluff a Shade kill, but that's usually not so bad that you'd limit votes to stop it

It's kinda like Bully ig, where as Shade you can say "hey, I'm the Shade, I don't want this player to be a problem later can we not lift?"

[proper kraken]

I'm saying that Shade kills arent so bad town defends against them by commiting to not spreading out votes. And notably, being able to force that action with one evil bluff is still hurting town

[inner cradle]

Oh shoot ur right

[dark veldt]

Yeah. The Shade will want to be careful with their votes, but the Town as a whole can be chill

[proper kraken]

Yeah.. most towns will usually vote on multiple things, so Shade cant easily go "I will only vote on executions that are gonna pas anyways"

[inner cradle]

Imagine being shade killed as good and harpy mad that the shade is evil

[proper kraken]

And even if you try voting once per day, you still get screwed over if the player you vote for isnt executed

[proper kraken]

Thats probably easy, if painful, as long as it happens on the night you are pinged. But having to do it after youve outed a Shade ping sounds silly. "Yeah guys, I lied about the Shade thing. They are super evil"

[heavy haven]

yea, all of this discussion has led me to having a better understanding of this character, which is nice. I still prefer other outsiders, but this is nice.

My thoughts on Golem: You just expressed what my vehement defense of golem has always been; it's not a Townsider unless some combination of the community/scriptbuilder wants it to be.

[proper kraken]

Tbh, I donta ctually know exactly what Golem likes, though I imagine Tomb probably will help it a lot. Having low info makes it less scary to keep a Golem alive. And knowing when killing the Golem is absolutely necesarry fhelps a lot. Because evil knows where the Golem is: they just dont necsarilly have a perfect answer for killing them or not

Though the community meta of firing Golems early & always night killing them sooner or later doesnt help. Its probably at leats pat of why even Minions never bluff it for cheap kills.

[heavy haven]

Yea, that's reasonable. The "always kill the outsiders" meta has always been frustrating for me, not only because it's not fun, but because it's often not even optimal

[proper kraken]

Fang Gu might help it out too on well made scripts

[heavy haven]

my beloved

[proper kraken]

You mean night killing Outsiders?

[heavy haven]

I mean executing them

I've seen a lot of outsiders with a lot of text, but in play a lot of them amount in games to "lose an execution" in a lot of lobbies I've been in

[proper kraken]

I thought the probem isnt that Golems get executed, but that town never executed them. That Golems just hard confirm theselves & town hunts for Demons. And that any non FG Demon just kills the Golem at night

Maybe its different between text & voice (wait "lot of text" doesnt mean text games per say)

[heavy haven]

ah, interesting

(I play voice, no text for me)

[proper kraken]

Idk. I feel like Ive never seen evil try to keep a Golem alive to pressure town. They just kill the confirmed Golem.

[main frost]

Butler moment

[heavy haven]

noted, will find golem scripts and play that way >:)

[main frost]

Actually no

Recluse moment

[dark veldt]

"I feel like they're lying about being the Shade. I feel like someone else who voted for me was, and is laying low, but this guy is not the Shade!"

[heavy haven]

butler and recluse both for me :(

[heavy haven]

barber and mutant also

[proper kraken]

Touche

[main frost]

Town not executing golems is great for evil though

It moves up your final 3 cause you never have to kill them

[proper kraken]

Yeah.. idk. maybe i havent seen enough Golem script/games, but I feel like town desnt see the thing as a downside. Idk if they just think accelerate F3 is better or if evil night kills Golems, but thats the vibe i get

[main frost]

The issue is that evil keeps killing golems

[proper kraken]

It also doesnt help that some people do Baron-Golem, which usually confirms the other Outsiders too much

[main frost]

"ahhhh confirmed player!!!!"

They're not a Virgin

They can't nominate anymore

Let them live and see if town keeps thinking they're an outsider

But yeah, golem needs more day killers to truly be an outsider, but it's not as much of a townsfolk as people say (unless put on psycho, ET, Leech, etc. scripts)

[proper kraken]

Golem is interesting because it seems like an analysis that defeats the greatest point of a confirmed player: someone with nomination-vote power to push executions. Like how Banshee gets increased vote power fo its bait

Honestly... I'm having a vauge idea for Stormcaught Golem, w/ or without Mez. To play with Golem but also to make the Pit Hag Golem fear happen all the time

but i suck at script building

[heavy haven]

woah
that idea is just crazy enough that I might try it

[proper kraken]

Update on that is that I'm torn between continuing with the original plan or doing a more Tomb-esque script using BH (may still do Stromcaught Golem w/ or without Psycho)

But Stromcaught Golem Mez is a very funn idea & perhaps good temptation for Golem to turn..

[heavy haven]

agreed

[proper kraken]

if you can make a good one, i might run it some time

[heavy haven]

I'll brew about it, but I promise no talent on my end :)

[proper kraken]

im hsappy to chat with you about the subject at any time : )

[dark veldt]

Like I said, it looks ok

but come on

[heavy haven]

Yea, that's reasonable

Blue seer is sick

[main frost]

Red Trixter is the best though

[dark veldt]

It is a shame TPI got to "Spooky" as a game term before I did!

[edgy locust]

Just add pumpkin in anyways

[dark veldt]

I will not let this mistake occur again <- (clueless)

[dark veldt]

Honestly, the idea of "Spooky" as a game term is really making me think there's a Trickster rewording somewhere in there

Something like "If you were scary today, learn an alive good player you had scared tonight."

Like that's...that's almost comprehensible

But making up new syntax is probably really grating on ppl's minds. Doing that is a quick way to start collecting bugs in Homebrew just from ppl misunderstanding you.

[edgy locust]

If nothing else a reminder token reword

[dark veldt]

...y'know I really could just change the reminder token if I wanted to.

It does hurt function a little bc it's less intuitive what you'd use it for, but also like...that's amazing form.

I'll think on it

[dark veldt]

...I can't have a large?...

[inner cradle]

Barista-- oh wait

[main frost]

Fast Food Customer During A Recession

[golden burrow]

Terribly wrong if taken out of context

[dark veldt]

Is there context right now?

[golden burrow]

No

It sounds wrong

[dark veldt]

Alright!

It is time!

For the penultimate release of the year

EVERYONE PLEASE STAY IN YOUR SEATS

AND READ YOUR PALMS TOGETHER

FOR THE CARDS ARE ALL ON THE TABLE

FOR THE ONE

THE ONLY

THE MEDIUM!!!

Once per game, at night*, choose to learn which dead players are evil.
“I like to be honest with my clients. Your grandfather is a real حمار.”

The Medium can learn the true nature of every single dead player.

• Once per game, the Medium can use their ability. When they do, they learn every dead evil player.
• If no dead players are evil, or there are no dead players, you tell the Medium a 0.
• They can learn players that they'd think are alive, such as those killed by the Shade, or a player who died tonight.

a fun fact about this character is that this character, despite being on The Last Cull, was actually designed to be in this collection before it ended up there

[golden burrow]

Hey

Don't say that

Especially my grandfather

[golden burrow]

They can learn players that they'd think are alive, such as those killed by the Barrow fog

[golden burrow]

🔥

[dark veldt]

Rejoice

[golden burrow]

May Barrow Fog rest within our hearts

😔

[dark veldt]

From my perspective, it never really died, but I'll take it's word that it did 😔

[golden burrow]

DoN and Pirate followers hunted down the Barrow Fog and shot it down

[edgy locust]

Barrow is perfection

(Much like medium)

[proper kraken]

Medium exactly as perfect as Barrow fog, so it gets removed from the game

[dark veldt]

...Feeling quite cross...

[inner cradle]

Heretic

[dark veldt]

Also instead of releasing a Traveller and Fabled, I'm just gonna give a bunch of love and reworking to the Church of Thunder content. I'm gonna reconsider a bunch of jinxes, adding flavors, and some...other changes that you may find exciting.

[heavy haven]

awesome!

[dark veldt]

Alright!

It is time

I AM PROUD TO PRESENT TO ALL OF YOU

FOR THE FINAL CHARACTER OF THE SECOND CIRCUS MUSIC PERFORMANCE

TO PUT THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN

IT IS NONE OTHER THAN THE ONE

THE ONLY

THE AMAZING

CARPENTEEEEEEER!!!

Each night*, learn if one of the Demon’s 2 alive neighbors died tonight.
“כדי לבנות בית, כל פיסת עץ חייבת לסמוך זה על זה. לא הצלחתי לבנות כבר זמן מה...יש בוגד בתוכנו."

The Carpenter learns when the Demon betrays those closest to them.

• Each night, after the first, the Carpenter learns whether or not an alive neighbor of the Demon died tonight.
• The Carpenter learns information about all players who died tonight. If any of them were an alive neighbor of the Demon, the Carpenter learns a yes. This can include players not killed by the Demon, or evil players.
• If no one dies at night, the Carpenter learns a no.
• If a player dies during the day, the Carpenter does not learn about them, even if the Demon caused their death.

But don't leave your seats just yet!

With this comes the final part of our second performance!

[main frost]

LET'S GOOOOOO JESUS' DAD!!!!

[dark veldt]

Dinner & A Show is a script dedicated to the art of performance! Good players are encouraged to pretend to be evil ones, while the group conversation is at the most public they've ever been. The Good team has nothing to hide from the evil team, aside from their alignment! Many characters on this script present players who wish to look evil a variety of ways to confuse what's occurring and spinning the narrative, whilst simultaneously attempting to determine what is real and what is just for show. This is an advanced script, for players who want fun, chaotic games, that will be remembered dearly.

notable interactions:

• It's best not to leave all of the Curionist reminder tokens on the Grimoire when showing it to the Seer. Usually, knowing whether or not a single player is poisoned each night is more than enough.
• Be conscious of how the Seer changes the High Priestess! Private conversations are much more suspect, so be prepared for the High Priestess to be more of a leader for public discussion.
• The Dragon Killer can cause Minions to be executed by the Virgin. Watch out for the Boomdandy! (you should usually leave the Virgin alive in such an instance)
• Making Minions look like the Drunk to the Seer can make it a lot more interesting to determine who their Minions are. Keep in mind that when it comes to good players you must be candid about who is the Drunk, even if it blows a Minion's cover!
• The Alsaahir can win by guessing the Demon alone if the Dragon Killer is in play, but the Alsaahir must be certain whether or not they trust the Dragon Killer, as guessing any Minions if one is in play prevents the Alsaahir ability from activating that day.

Also I only just now notice that Curionist is the only character common between the 2 scripts

neat

[edgy locust]

In the wise words of one Sabrina Carpenter "Jesus was a carpenter"

[inner cradle]

Cannibal jinxed with off script butler 🗣️🔥

DK VI is cool

Carpenter seems really strong on 1kpn scripts, except with like, exactly seer and lleech

On a death mod script it seems cool, on a solo seer script it's a skill issue if the demon reveals itself

[hasty forge]

How has there been so many new homebrew collection releases this weekend 😵

the Lord giveth

[dark veldt]

It is, but also keep in mind that the Demon has a lot of tools against them. Most important is that if the Demon is unsure whether or not Carpenter is in play, they can kill away from them, and kill the players the Carpenter would be confirming aren't the Demon. Also keep in mind that extra deaths don't necessarily nerf the Carpenter! If 3 players die in the night, and the Carpenter still gets a "no", that's up to 6 players confirmed to not be the Demon!

[main frost]

Yeah, Carpenter is just really strong in general lol

[inner cradle]

Yeah that's true

It's probably like artist in that you can't just slap it on any script

[golden burrow]

Put it in bmr

[inner cradle]

Zombuul cries

Not for the normal reasons tho

[main frost]

Yeah Recluse-likes and Wine Gremlin really help make Carpenter not super strong

[proper kraken]

Carpenter Perfumer Wine Gremlin script when

[golden burrow]

[heavy haven]

Heyyy this is very very funny
The icon is also silly

I think this Townsfolk is simple, elegant, and makes a lot of sense.

[dark veldt]

I have just noticed that the wording of the Carpenter ability on Dinner & A Show's script image is slightly inaccurate. I'm also gonna update the character ability text to use "1" instead of "one"

The almanac and HTR implicate it heavily, but just to make it explicitly clear, if both alive neighbors of the Demon die in a single night that's a Carp yes

[dark veldt]

after looking over the last thing a bit more, I don't think it will be as relevant to Church of Thunder as I was hoping for, sadly. I'll still do it, but it doesn't really work there.

[dark veldt]

...Long live the Duke...

[edgy locust]

👀

[inner cradle]

Like from coup!

[heavy haven]

this is exciting

[golden burrow]

Duke Fishron?

Wowie

[dark veldt]

Y'know, that's closer than I would've expected

[torn ledge]

duke fishron goofy ahh boss

[dark veldt]

Alright!

you all may be pondering

"Hey, why are we having another character release?"

Well, I figured that since I was dusting cobwebs adding flavor and jinxes to the Church of Thunder ( which I have finished by the way! Rejoice!), that I might as well tie up one loose end with that script

the way these performances have been structured is that, for the most part, I determine which characters will be on the script at the start of the process

And while a lot of these ideas are of wildly varying newness (I think I came to the finished Ariel abillity, like, the day I released it?)

I still want to have a solid idea of the chars prior

but there was one idea, that I knew should've been on the Church of Thunder, but I just couldn't make it work while I was making the character list

and then (it was actually when I started getting Ariel solidified that I thiink I came up with this idea)

I figured out how to do it!

So...

Prepare yourselves, for a truly magical performance

PLEASE PRESENT SOME THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE

FOR THE ONE

THE ONLY

THE DUKE OF MOTHER FUCKING MILAN HIMSELF

THE PROSPEROOOOOOOOOR

Each night*, all players may silently choose to die. Only evil players see their choice, & they win if no one dies tonight.
“Siamo fatti della stessa materia di cui sono fatti i sogni e la nostra breve vita è circondata dal sonno.”

The Prosperor gives people command over their fates, but is ultimately in control.

• Each night, except for the first, the Storyteller will ask for silence. They will then ask every player who wants to die that night to raise their hand, and will wake every evil player before they make their decision.
• If there is a night where no players die, the evil team immediately wins.
• Evil players can see who will be dying tonight before making their decision on whether or not they die. Depending on the context, they may not be waken together. In this case, the Storyteller chooses which order to wake them in.
• If players chose to die, but something prevented them from dying, they don’t count as dying for the Prosperor ability.
• Dead players can choose to die again, but this is usually irrelevant.

[main frost]

LET'S GOOOO TT DEMON

[dark veldt]

additionally, you can (it's got a few rough interactions, and is jinxed with Lunatic) replace Imp on the Church of Thunder should you be so inclined for a radically different experience using mostly the same characters

Here's Church of Thunder with Imp replaced with Prosperor. Like I said it only kinda works, Soldier is particularly rough for good, being basically an Outsider, and Ravenkeeper is probably too powerful.

[night ibex]

LET'S GOOOO

PROSPEROR >>>>>>>

[inner cradle]

Wait huh why jinx with luna

Oh wait

Nvm I see it

It's the waking, not the killing

This is cool but it's so wildly different from normal clocktower that I don't think I have a proper opinion on it yet lol

Any idea if this tends to kill more than 1kpn? Seems weak if not

(like, ~2kpn feels good I think)

[dark veldt]

My guess is that it's usually around 1kpn? It's certainly not less lmao. The issue is that 1kpn is risky as hell, but you don't want Minions to be able to rise up for a super kill night late game

The CoT Minions definitely all shift Prosperor a ton tho, like Ariel might get a random kill off earlier on if they're expecting a powerful curse, and Caliban is uhh

A whole can of worms

[main frost]

Yeah I was gonna say, it's like ||PDD|| all it takes is 1 evil player saying "yeah I'll totally raise my hand tonight" and gg evil team

[dark veldt]

With Caliban, that player doesn't even have to be evil when they say they're going to die tonight!

Also, while this is the last release of 2024, I hope you all look forward to the future performances. The things I have in store for this collection are truly, truly, interesting and I cannot wait to share them. Well actually, I can. But trust me, you'll like it.

If you thought that the Showman's applauding mechanic was novel, you haven't seen shit. I don't even know how to foreshadow some of these characters, but stay in your seats folks.

[night ibex]

It's okay,

the seats have already been allocated for you :)

[main frost]

I can't deal with such a long wait. There's so much time until next year.

(I wish that no one detected the secret hint in what I've said)

[dark veldt]

Had to update the CoT json again, bc the ability text on one of the Shankaars was scuffed

also it somehow never clicked to me until now, but in the event where the Lunatic thinks they have a Caliban, please show the choices in order

[edgy locust]

Waiter confirmed

[dusty tendon]

I love this character. It’s the perfect fusion of autarch from HBL and Al had.

[dark veldt]

I appear to have made a similar error with Cleric. Fixing it

[dark veldt]

Snowman (Outsider) - Players who don't wish you (& only you) a Merry Christmas might die at any time.

Shitpost character, textured by Dark

[torn ledge]

pumpkin ahh release

[heavy haven]

ok but wait this character is actually fire sooooooo

[inner cradle]

I love that this is actually quite distinct from showman

It's active immediately, rather than on death

And there's no implicit "even if dead" because of that

The game could be over n1 because of this

[dark veldt]

Showman can activate before it's death, just for clarity. It often won't, especially on DaaS, but it can to simulate stuff like Witch

(it does this through players applauding other player's death)

[inner cradle]

Well yeah

I'm just saying this is active immediately

With no external input

Which is just delightful

[main frost]

Yeah this is distinct

It's funny

[plucky aurora]

good morning, everyone's dead, congrats to the evil team

[inner cradle]

Good wins that actually

[edgy locust]

Good morning, everyone is dead except demon and snowman

Evil wins.

[solid lake]

Malady / Showman moment ‼️‼️ Another win for Malady nation ‼️‼️

[proper kraken]

Iliterate Pyn moment

[golden burrow]

What's malady

[solid lake]

the best character ever ‼️ ‼️

no i am not taking comments at this time‼️ ‼️

[solid lake]

(we will be ignoring how horrendous of a combination malady/showman is, apoc people)

[solid lake]

anyways

ice

wonderful creator

10/10

[golden burrow]

I have a comment on this message: what's malady

[solid lake]

No comment ‼️‼️

[torn ledge]

i can comment

its the best thing ever

that works amazingly with showman

malady showman is a script that will go down as the greatest character combo in history

better than bangers such as atheist legion

[solid lake]

Malady / heretic, my beloved that 100% works and is unjinxed and not bad in any way

[inner cradle]

What if instead there was a comment

[solid lake]

what if no ‼️

[torn ledge]

my comment is lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

[inner cradle]

So true

[dark veldt]

...How lett us form a band by this name?...

[inner cradle]

🥬

[dark veldt]

next character dropping on my favorite holiday, although it has nothing to do with this holiday

[inner cradle]

St Patrick's day no way

[main frost]

Your birthday? I don't even know when that is

[dark veldt]

I have no idea when I will be pushing these changes, but I have 3 wording changes planned for previously released characters.

2 of these are literally just wording changes, with no intended major mechanical changes (ok, one of them makes a very confusing ruling standardized, but it standardizes it to what the Almanac says)

the 3rd is actually a pretty substantial rework of one of the characters, which hopefully you all will like because I think it turns one of the worst characters on here into...well I mean, an ok one ig? A significantly more interesting character.

[main frost]

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Love to see Circus Music updates woooooooo

[dark veldt]

alright

It's the moment you've all been waiting for

[inner cradle]

👏

[dark veldt]

I can't wait to show you all...

the grand

the amazing

...

updates coming to the released Circus Music scripts, including 3 wording changes and an Ariel rework!

(Christmas is not my favorite holiday, the next character reveal will wait a bit)

[dark veldt]

ok, everything shoould be updated

[small elbow]

do minions still learn the seer as a demon

[proper kraken]

Yeah

Its not mechanically changed, its just to make the character more explicit

[nocturne tapir]

wait so whats ariels point now?

im a bit confused

[inner cradle]

It's a bit closer to goblin now I think

[nocturne tapir]

i dont see it really affecting players decisions on who theyll nominate and execute

[inner cradle]

Its bluffspace is just as important as its actual power

[inner cradle]

It's not super different from executing a saint I don't think

[nocturne tapir]

nor fearmonger

which i want to add, isnt it just weaker fm?

[inner cradle]

To me it seems weak but not useless

[inner cradle]

It's silent and it doesn't care who nominates

[nocturne tapir]

"publicly choose a player"

thats the rub

[inner cradle]

I don't think it makes sense to compare directly to fm

[nocturne tapir]

well actually

ur right

evils can fake being ariel

[inner cradle]

It's more like goblin/saint/gentleman

[nocturne tapir]

although characters outting themself as evil like goblin only really works in a handful of scripts, i now see this as having a diff purpose

[inner cradle]

Idk I could see good players claiming it to get someone off the block

Though

If there's like 10 votes on a good player, can't ariel just use their ability on them and force a win?

[proper kraken]

Ive discussed this with Ice

You can try to do this, but the Storyteller should be giving time to react to Ariel claims, even at end of day. And if good overvotes with like 10 on a good player, thats on them

[inner cradle]

Ok so it is intended

[dark veldt]

yep, on Ariel scripts you should just be keeping lifts in your back pocket. Same with old Ariel

really, this is, in almost all contexts, just an upgrade of Ariel bc it no longer needs to burn a vote token to pop off, and can directly choose who to pop off on, even after that player has been nominated

[proper kraken]

and we now have no dead vote characters again

[dark veldt]

Ariel's purpose, as it was before, is to be a high stakes bluffable evil character, that makes dead evil players much more of a threat. Now, it can hopefully fufil that job easier, by having slightly lower stakes in order to activate

[proper kraken]

Because Ariel was built on the idea of "freedom" and being free through death to becom dangerous?

oh now I like Politican Ariel even more

[dark veldt]

yep! Being freed from their binds of life into being a dangerous trickster spirit.

[small elbow]

so with this version of ariel once someone has been put on the block with almost impossible to beat votes they can just win right? so you want as town to keep votes as low as possible on noms?

[proper kraken]

Well there’s 3 things about it

(1) Ariel has to be dead
(2) You have to get a bunch of votes on a good player
(3) You have to have enough you can’t lift

[graceful moss]

If town is placing almost impossible to beat votes on a player with ariel on the script they're signing their own death sentence

[proper kraken]

But if you’re putting majority votes on a good player & Ariel is dead, there’s a chance that either evil has played well or good has played poorly

[small elbow]

that sounds about right

[proper kraken]

It’s not unbeatable and evil does have to make sacrifices to activate Ariel if good doesn’t execute the Ariel instead. And good can also just… figure out who’s actually evil

But if all else fails, good should be able to do an emergency lift. And if they overvote on an Ariel script, that’s their own fault

[dark veldt]

especially if there's any chance in hell that player is good

[night ibex]

@dark veldt what's the Seer Soldier interaction?

[dark veldt]

If the Seer chooses the Soldier, they will not die

same with Tea Lady, Inkeeper, Monk, and Fool

[night ibex]

Does the Seer see the Soldier as the Soldier?

[dark veldt]

I personally wouldn't consider the Demon knowing your character to be a directly harmful effect that such an ability would resist

[night ibex]

@bitter gulch

This is the interaction lmao

[nocturne tapir]

@dark veldt quick question. i was looking over the circus music page and saw the carpenter's flavour text, and i cant tell if its a bit mistranslated. what exactly is the intended english text? when translated directly, it means In order to build a house, every piece of wood must [count/trust/rely] (ambiguous) on each other. I was unable to build for a while...there is a traitor among us.

[dark veldt]

yeah, that's basically it. My memory isn't the sharpest regarding my initial intend, but it was something very close to that.

[night ibex]

that seems fine tbf

[nocturne tapir]

alr, the only issue i noticed is the ambiguous wording due to lack of context, which gives it an awkward reading

i believe it can be worded as כדי לבנות בית, כל פיסת עץ חייבת לתמוך זה בזה. לא הצלחתי לבנות כבר זמן מה...יש בינינו בוגד

the changes are that it doesn't start with 'in order', uses 'support' instead of the ambiguous count/trust/rely, and the start of the second sentence is 'I haven't been able to build for a while...'

i dont understand the second sentence's meaning in general, but i put some more accurate wording

[dark veldt]

They can't build because the wood does not trust each other. There is something present that is betraying that which is close to it. There's a traitor in their midst, and they must be careful.

[nocturne tapir]

ahhh that makes sense

thanks for clearing it up

[dark veldt]

np!

[main frost]

Consider though: a Demon who knows the Soldier is the Soldier would never try to kill them, potentially giving good an extra execution, which makes seeing their character a harmful effect because it's disadvantageous for the good team

• even if you disagree with that, give Soldier some love, it would be soooo cool if that's how the interaction worked & would make me want to put Soldier on a Seer script

[night ibex]

Hmmmm

[dark veldt]

1. That logic opens up the gateways to much more suspicious possibilities, like Soldier registering as an evil player to Leviathan, which work under similar logic but are more clearly silly
2. If that wording makes the game more fun for everyone, then rules as written be damned. I'd word that as a bootlegger jinx, since I still personally view it as reasonable RAW to not run it that way (Monk makes my point clearer as well). Since I wouldn't consider this ruiling RAW, no matter how you go about it, make sure all players know it exists.

[main frost]

Valid but also soldier registering as evil to Leviathan is so cool actually? I never thought of that

[dark veldt]

Ok, yeah, now that I think about it, that is pretty sick

[plucky aurora]

yeah ice you're cooking with that

[dark veldt]

I do just want to highlight some other nuances of the Seer / Soldier interaction RAW, which while it might not be the spiciest, I think makes it the most reasonable given the 2 characters. The biggest thing is that Soldier being a Townsfolk evil can't get rid of is powerful on its own, and Seer really needs the most accurate Grim it can get to be strong. The Seer undertakes a very large downside, especially if the good team makes sure to capitalize on it, so sacrificing that upside reduces Seer's power by a lot. Letting the Seer see characters that want to hide also give them a much more interesting dynamic on Seer scripts, as they have a lot more to gain by being honest, and the Storyteller can use them as Minion bluffs to reduce the chance that the Seer shoots themself in the foot

but like I said, if the dynamic created by obscuring the Soldier works better for you, then go with that

[main frost]

Every time I think about Seer the more I want to play with it

You really cooked while making Seer

[torn ledge]

im still not accustomed to the new name

still think of seer as darkness 😭

[paper temple]

That sounds like a jinx

[half lava]

It's literally Wormtounge (LOTR) but +1 instead of +2 outsiders (no im not joking)

Not saying it's a bad thing but I see a light of reused abilities in other scripts

[proper kraken]

There is a lot of parallel evolution, but this is not reused from that script

In fact, I think Caliban predates the Lord of the Rings script by a fair bit in general

[half lava]

Humm how old is this?

[proper kraken]

You’d have to ask Ice. I believe it’s probably as old as September 2023 minimum

[main frost]

Caliban is from the Last Cull so that's like a year at least

[proper kraken]

But realistically earlier than that too

[main frost]

Mhm

[half lava]

So the character itself is old but it's just being reused here

[proper kraken]

If you mean reused from Ice’s older drawing board, then yes

But the fact that the ability appears in 2 unrelated scripts is more parallel evolution and different people considering the same concepts

It even happens with offical and homebrew stuff. TBA had a bunch of stuff that’s very similar to offical characters and one (Fencer) even matches an unrelated character word for word

But none of that’s copying. It’s just coming to the same concept from different directions

[dark veldt]

Yeah, this character is old as shit. I think my initial ideas were like, early augustish 2023

[dark veldt]

it isn't, but it's from around the time I was making it

[main frost]

^^^ Cawthane is like 2-3 years old right? TPI released Kazali after that, but it's not like either copied the other

[dark veldt]

"Reused" is a funny way to word that, I'd simply say "used" since I've never used the character for anything before the Circus Music Collection, and if anything, started it to release that character.

[proper kraken]

Yeah My earliest record of Cawthane is like February 2023? The oldest visible post of it is beta Warband, but Elluna probably had the idea some time before that

[proper kraken]

not to be pedantic, but it is technically valid in the sense of "it was a character bulit fr a full hb & then brought into collection". But i dont disagree that it a weird usage

[half lava]

Some mention of it existing previously.

[proper kraken]

it certainly has an unflattering and unecesarry connotation

[dark veldt]

Caliban was not initially made for TLC. There are early versions of that script where I tried to shoehorn in the character because I really liked it, but I had abandoned that idea very quickly

[proper kraken]

oh right. It does still work if you stretch the definition as far as possib. But at that point, its essentally meaningless to say it was "reused"

when "used" effectively communicates the same meaning in a less strange way

[paper temple]

Wormtongue has in the credits that it's a reflavoured caliban

I believe

[dark veldt]

wait, I'm sorry they what

[half lava]

Oh. It's kinda hard to find that since (you physicly can't use links posted in in-game chat)

[half lava]

Ironically you can copy paste everything EXCEPT chat

[proper kraken]

"Check out bakedice's Circus Music, featuring Caliban, Wormtongue's (nearly) identical inspiration!"

[dark veldt]

Oh

[paper temple]

Previously was just +1 outsider and said it was reflavoured

[dark veldt]

Wish they asked first, but y'know. Good for them ig

[paper temple]

Now changed since the outsider mod changed

[half lava]

So if I made a lord of typhoon with +2 minions it's no longer inspired?

[proper kraken]

Im not sure I understand?

[paper temple]

It is inspired

Reflavoured was used since it was just different art and name but same ability

If it's inspired it generally has the ability changed which was my point

[dark veldt]

(btw, this is simply an expressal of personal preference, especially since the flavor & ability was changed. Proper credit was provided, all is good, no one offended.)

[nocturne tapir]

btw shade jinxes are broken - you put "id" twice for the Caliban's jinx

[dark veldt]

Ooh lemme look at that. Thx for pointing that out

[dark veldt]

should be good now

[dark veldt]

In my timzeone we got a few hours left before the flip of the year

I got 2 things that I wanna climb on my itsy bitsy soapbox to yell at y'all before that occurs

First of all, thank you all for an amazing year. I did not expect this project to blow tf up like this, but the feedback has been amazing! Also thank you to all my friends from APoC for being real ones. 2023 was good, but 2024 was awesome. We did so much cool shit this year, and all of you are responsible, don't ever forget that. The love and dedication you all put into your projects (both on APoC and here) are consistently inspiring, and I'm proud to be in such a consistently, artistically, vibrant community. Seriously, knowing my work makes this many strangers happy, and that I can call so many of those strangers friends is really nice, and something that I would've never expected when I was younger. When I was younger, I used to think I had good ideas, but that I could never get them off the ground and make something, and I am so fiercely honored to able to prove myself wrong so consistently. Y'all are the best, keep loving yourselves, and thank you for an amazing year of Circus Music.

(fun fact: the name of this collection was almost entirely improvised. My bloodstar was getting full, so I booted the best of my stuff over to a separate one and called it circus shite bc it was very silly and frivolous. But it felt weird seeing the word "shite" next to my work so often, so I changed it to "music" because that atleast sounded complete. And then it kinda stuck lmao, and any serious justification I've given in retrospect has been that, a justification in retrospect.)

and the 2nd...

The first 2 scripts of the Circus Music collection have been designed for Intermediate to Advanced players. Some characters (Seer and Caliban in particular) are a little more on the difficult side, but generally, nothing is (atleast, meant to be) too hard to play with. The next 2 scripts, I uh...I can't make any similar promises. If you've been wanting to try out any of the Circus Music scripts, I'd absolutely start with the first 2. The 3rd will hopefully still be reasonable, but you'll probably feel a noticeable shift towards a more experienced audience. My intent is to still make the characters fun, and I personally love every character that I'm intending on releasing, but just be warned that this collection going forward is gonna start taking the gloves off, and start getting into the weird stuff. The next character and Heliolater will probably be the most controversial characters of the 3rd script, and honestly I'm expecting most of the 4th script characters to be atleast a little controversial. I still intend to hold myself to the high standard of quality which I have been in the past, but that might not mean it's accessable, or for every script. Take that as a blessing or curse, and I hope you all have fun, because I know I will

(also the HBL character dropping tomorrow is so cool. If y'all ain't checking out HBL, uhh, you should, the production value and character design over there is freakin' gnarly.)

[main frost]

💙🙏

I LOVE HELIOLATER

🗣️🔥

[dark veldt]

I haven't slept all year 🥱

[nocturne tapir]

Fatal insomnia

my condolenses

[dark veldt]

Btw, that was just a joke, not like, a hint or anything. I just really love New Year's

[dark veldt]

I think I'm gonna go for an early morning release because anticipation if effing killing me, and I already got enough from the TBA release yesterday and the HBL release later tonight

SO LETS GET THIS SHOW STARTED!

WELCOME CIRCUS MUSIC, TO THE FIRST CHARACTER OF 2025!

WITH INTELLIGENCE OUTSIDE OF THIS WORLD

PLEASE PUT YOUR PALMS TOGETHER

FOR THE AMAZING

[proper kraken]

👽

[dark veldt]

FANTASTIC

WORLD FUCKIN' SPINNING

P-P-P-PROOOODIGYYYYYY

You start knowing everyone who shares a trait. Each day, even if dead, you may guess it. Until you guess true, your team will lose.
“The other children kicked the ball amongst each other, playing in reality. I kicked the ball alone, playing with reality.”

The Prodigy is cursed with infinite knowledge.

• The Prodigy learns everyone playing the game who shares a trait decided by the Storyteller at the end of the first night. The Prodigy does not learn this trait.
• The Prodigy can learn any number of players, and can even learn themselves, the Storyteller, and Travellers. If the Prodigy’s trait applies to an in play Fabled character, the Prodigy will not learn this.
• Each day, the Prodigy may publicly, or privately with the Storyteller, guess a trait that applies to their info. Their ability will be active until they guess something which applies to every player they learned, none of the players they didn’t learn, and was true when the Storyteller gave them their info. This will, most of the time, be the trait the Storyteller intended, but it need not be. The Prodigy does not learn whether or not they've guessed true.
• Until the Prodigy makes a guess that meets the above criteria, if the game ends, then the Prodigy’s team will lose.
• The Storyteller has the opportunity to deny a Prodigy’s guess and inform them that they are doing this. This is mostly to prevent obviously true guesses, such as “all players who are wearing glasses”.

Seeing the Prodigy almanac on the CM page is hilarious, it's so fuckin' huge

This is an Outsider

[proper kraken]

@dark veldt Btw you didnt capatalize Chambermaid and Mathemitician in almanac

[inner cradle]

Klutz fallacy outsider??? Let's goooo 🔥🔥🔥

[dark veldt]

:| Will do

[proper kraken]

Its also very GoS

You get info, sit around, and solve

Though Prod is also funny because its a psuedo Heretic. You cant let the Demon figure out you havent guessed

If they do, Heretic strats will work

[nocturne tapir]

this is a cool character, although it needs some tweaking in its text and jinxes

for the text: its a bit confusing on whether the wincon effects will occur even whilst dead, and for jinxes: spies, espers, widows, or whatever grim seekers can see a prodigy, and bank on having the demon kill themselves on night 2 as itll be unlikely the prodigy makes a good guess on D1

[torn ledge]

i agree with the jinxes but i think those were obvious, i dont fully agree with the even if dead because the team will lose "until it's guessed", and guessing is even if dead, it doesnt feel like a hard connection to me

[dark veldt]

unlikely but not impossible

If I'm the Storyteller and I know there's a Widow in play or something like that, I'm definitely skewing the Prodigy trait in favor of it being plausible that Prodigy d1 guesses

You might disagree with that call, and if people agree it's a problem I'm willing to change it, but that is a feature and not a bug atm

[dark veldt]

Again, if it becomes a reocurring issue, I'll see what I can do, but yeah making Prodigy this intuitive in this few characters was not easy. I think the only people genuinely confused will be people intentionally trying to rules lawyer, because if that weren't the case why would Prodigy be able to guess while dead. I'll scan over the almanac and see if it's clarified or not tho, and if it isn't I'll elaborate

I've updated to almanac to make this clearer

[nocturne tapir]

i can see that being possible, but then thats a waste of a perfectly good outsider

it kinda limits script potential, and i feel like maybe adding this to a script im cooking

i think maybe the jinxes for grim see'ers can be If the X is (or has been) in-play, the Prodigy will not cause their team to lose until after Day 3

that way, you can give reasonably moderate targets for the prodigy without shutting down any connections to these types of characters

[dark veldt]

I mean, I do see the perspective that makes that the case, but I do feel it's a little reductive. Even if it's plausible that the Prodigy gets it right on the first day, only the Storyteller knows for sure if they did or not. That's still gonna be a good player encouraging town to hold off on serious Demon candidates, and who is making town prioritize things that aren't killing the Demon. If the lack of a jinx here is the only thing preventing you from putting the Prodigy on a script, my philosophy is that it's best to just make up your own to make it fit. This is a game for fun, so run it as is fun.

[nocturne tapir]

true yeah, sorry to be a bit intrusive on your own creation

[dark veldt]

I do also want to ask, why are you putting a character like Prodigy with Grimseers? On scripts where the Demon can kill themselves, secrecy is an important skill of the Prodigy, and that seems antithetical to how Grimseers work

[nocturne tapir]

cause esper works really well with the script im cooking, although i decided ill use world-hopper instead since it achieves another needed purpose. this is what it currently looks like

[dark veldt]

Nah, it's cool, stuff like this is how things get better. Like, I was kinda snippy about the death thing, but that is an important thing for the almanac to clarify

Ahh, so you're trying to run Godfather / Prod, ok I see the vision

[nocturne tapir]

its a script where every nearly character has numerous archetypes

information, protection, killing, droison

pestilence, acro, WH, and zombuul are there cause they fit really well with all other things going on

and esper

[dark veldt]

I don't think the jinx you proposed fully works, even in this context, because it means that in smaller games the Prodigy won't be able to activate their ability (or it will be very unlikely), but as I said that doesn't make the Prod useless (altho they are decently likely to know if a GF is in play or not, since they're an Outsider. FG helps this a little)

Esper I personally would jinx the same as Spy, although I know you expressed that you didn't like the "easy trait" solution

[nocturne tapir]

i mean to be fair, i also have a jinx with grim-see'ers on another character that just removes a present reminder token

lawl

[dark veldt]

I see the vision with Prodigy on this script, but the downside of a Heretic-like, imo, doesn't play amazingly with some of these characters. Zombuul and Mouldwarp kinda steal some of Prodigy's thunder, and Carancula, Godfather, and Esper (and potentially "God" and Pestilence) will lead to a very informed evil team. I agree with the vision that Prodigy's style of getting info works well here, and there's a lot of interesting Prodigy info you could give, but I'm not entirely confident (I could be wrong tho) that its downside fits here.

[near forum]

i have a question about seer - is it not massively nerfed in 3 minion games because it doesn't recieve any bluffs and doesn't see the grim until night 2?

[proper kraken]

I mean, you could still lie your ass off on D1, until you get to see a grim

[dark veldt]

It is nerfed, but I don't know if I would use the term massively. Chances are, if you double claim a Minion's bluff, they'll let you have it. Minions can also intentionally try to cover for you with characters like the Nightwatchmen, and there might be a good character that you can intentionally double claim, and later justify by saying that you wanted the Seer to think you were evil (the Showman is a great example of such a character)

On scripts with other Demons aside from the Seer, the good team also just has significantly more reasons to lie anyway, so you can claim to be a good player lying for those reasons

[nocturne tapir]

wait i just realized about seer

dont minions still learn the seer directly?

wait nvm they do but u can just say 'hey i know ur seer' in every private convo as good

[proper kraken]

And also, another strategy is to just be suspicious of anyone who does private chat

So in either scenario, good does play a bit more publicly & always have a reason for why they would bluff evil

[dark veldt]

yep

[heavy haven]

Adore the icon for this one

This actually feels like an Outsider I'd be happy to draw out of the bag, and bluffing it is even sorta fun cuz you can farm free info (on good or evil)

also love the idea that the trait is something innocuous like "these 3 all wear glasses"

[dark veldt]

Well that's actually an example that I would try to avoid, but if it's something that your group finds fun then absolutely go ahead! That is something I'd totally understand your group enjoying, but make sure it's clear whether or not it's on the table. You don't want players or Storytellers feeling cheated when either a Prodigy solves their ability like that, or a Prodigy who lost learns that their trait was that

[heavy haven]

Right, certainly wouldn't apply it liberally. It's like a silly amne ability, in that way.

[dark veldt]

yeah! A silly Amne ability with game risking stakes lmao 😅

[dark veldt]

After thinking about it, I've figured out an easy way to convert my images over to Imgur easily. I'll hopefully get all of these in the JSONS, starting with Dinner & A Show, then Church of Thunder, and then the 3rd script [I'm not giving away the name that easily]

the 3rd script is actually very close to being finished internally, but I'm going to keep releases somewhat spaced out because there's a good amount of art left to do, and I don't want to rush myself.

[wintry cairn]

Take your time, we have plenty of content as is with your current releases.

[dark veldt]

Updated D&AS to remove the uneeded Shade / Riot jinx, and to boot the images to Imgur instead of Bloodstar

[torn ledge]

ding & (and) sich

[dark veldt]

I feel like releasing another character soon. Can't really say how soon this character will be released, but soonish

It's mostly done

...Harold Holt's demise...

[dark veldt]

Alright

[proper kraken]

[dark veldt]

Let's DO IT FOLKS

PLEASE PUT YOUR COLLECTIVE HANDS TOGETHER

IN A UNIFIED ROUND OF APPLAUSE

FOR THE ONLY ONE

THE RIGHT ONE

[proper kraken]

1

[dark veldt]

THE LAST ONE LEFT

THE CONSPIRACIIIST

Each night, learn an evil player or Outsider. If a neighbor is evil, you get false info.
"Yes, if everyone were telling the truth, I am wrong. All the evidence provided by our alleged peers points to the opposite of my conclusions...however-”

The Conspiracist knows who's in cahoots, but little about who they work for.

• Each night, the Conspiracist learns a player who is either evil, an Outsider, or both. The Conspiracist does not know which this player is.
• The Conspiracist will learn false info if they neighbor an evil player. This means that the players they learn each night cannot be evil or an Outsider. Most players that meet this description are Townsfolk, but not all (such as Good Travellers).
• If the Conspiracist is poisoned or drunk, they can learn false or true info.
• The Conspiracist does not know if they are getting true or false info, they must deduce this for themselves.
• The Conspiracist is only concerned with their direct neighboring players, not their alive neighbors. Whether the Conspiracisst gets true or false info can change throughout the game due to effects like the Mezepheles and Matron.

[dark veldt]

(this was flavor, not like, indication that this character is the last of any particular thing)

[proper kraken]

Bluff

not really

[inner cradle]

Oooooooooooooo

This is cool

I was trying to design smth like this from first principles at some point, I ended up going a different direction but it's super cool to see another character like this

(I wanted power scaling via "everything is true or everything is false". This makes it non arbitrary tho which is also cool)

Ya I like this a lot

[dark veldt]

I...just noticed I sent the wrong token. My b, here's the token with the actual text (the other one was literally me trying to recall the text from memory)

[heavy haven]

Maybe my favorite icon so far?
Super super fun info role, both mechanically and thematically. I like that even if evil is right under your nose, it's still possible to figure out that you're learning Townsfolk and therefore you neighbor an evil. I feel like I'd be super in my head in a very fun way.

[dark veldt]

thx lmao. This icon was one of my oldest, with I think the only older one that's still being used being Shankaar.

[limber sun]

Gave +1 Thanks to @heavy haven (current: #1305 - 8)

[dark veldt]

A character I've very explicitly foreshadowed is likely going to have a theme change

[torn ledge]

and if that were to happen it may or may not be my fault

[dark veldt]

so it kind of will and kind of won't. It's icon is going to look very different from any kind of initial plan, but it's name will stay the same

[torn ledge]

yeah the icon will be different from whats obviously expected but yknow

blame it on me if you dont like the icon

[dark veldt]

new character release proobably in the next week or two?

I'll give you all a tasty hint about the upcoming script though:

There is a version of this script that had the same number of official characters in each type as a Teensyville script

also potential changes coming to Dinner & a Show and some of the Homebrew characters on it, but I'm quite unsure and don't want to be hasty

[nocturne tapir]

> "tasty"
NEW CHARACTER WHERE YOU CAN EAT TOKENS CONFIRMED

[dark veldt]

My train of thought reading that message:
"Hah, lmao, that's a good joke"
"...Man, that's a pretty unique way of interacting with the game. Why haven't I come up w/ something like that."
"[Ice], WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, IT'S EATING THE TOKENS!???? THAT ISN'T A GOOD IDEA ACTUALLY ?????????????"

[nocturne tapir]

Vulture (Traveler) - Each day, you may publicly choose a player: eat their character token to remove their ability.

BOOM! not only have i solved what the new character is, i also solved what the next TBA traveler is

[torn ledge]

omg her real name isnt ice???

[nocturne tapir]

DMCA-claim took the other half of their name in the divorce. full name was originally 'Vanilla Ice'

[dark veldt]

Dark lmao you know my real name

[torn ledge]

okay and

[main frost]

Yeah, it's Bakedrick Isaiah, I thought we all knew this

"BakedIce" is just a shortened nickname

[inner cradle]

Just like how my full name is Hello Saint Wrecks

Hy st rex

Trust me bro

[main frost]

Oh my bad

I thought it was Hysteresis Rex like a dinosaur

[inner cradle]

No, that's a common misconception

-# i have NO idea where I'm going with this bit

[dark veldt]

...What is your favorite insect?...

Character release tomorrowish

If I had to create a list of characters that I basically created Circus Music for the purpose of releasing, that list almost certainly contains this guy, Prodigy, and Caliban

[torn ledge]

butterfly

[candid slate]

Rhino beetle

[dark veldt]

I just noticed a pretty severe hole in how the Night Order works, which is gonna take me a sec to undo, but I will do it

some characters you may have to manually adjust the night order of to make em fully work...?

Church of Thunder and Dinner & A Show seem to be working fine

[nocturne tapir]

idk i dont have a sibling

[dark veldt]

"Josie, the [New Character], loves video games."

Actually revelant line from the examples for this character btw

[inner cradle]

Hater (Demon): Each day, you may choose a topic in private. Players with a positive opinion on that topic might die.

[dark veldt]

I love the implication that the ST is genuinely considering killing the Demon w/ their own ability

[inner cradle]

Well obviously

[main frost]

Close enough, welcome back Skinkulus

[inner cradle]

NOO

"today's topic is men"

[dark veldt]

Close enough, welcome back ||Coachman|| (joke about a speculated character)

[dark veldt]

Alright, let's do this

WITHANT ANY MORE STALLING

(why am I struggling to make puns for this one?)

[proper kraken]

Without buzzing around

[dark veldt]

BEES PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER

FOR THE ONE

[proper kraken]

THE MANY

[dark veldt]

THE OWNER OF MANY

THE BUUUUG COLLLEECTOOOORRR

The Storyteller has a picture. Each night*, see it, & learn if you were correct about what it means yesterday.
“...Eat daily, just like humans! Spiders also like to eat their mates, just like mantises. Though mantises, unlike ants, don't live in colonies. Ant colonies are so cool! They have a graveyard area, and if an ant produces a certain pheromone, they'll think they're dead, when they're actually alive! Comparing and contrasting the role of ant queens and bee queens, you actually find that…”

The Bug Collector knows a lot on a specific subject

• The Storyteller will draw or find a picture which, in some way, relates to the game. Each night, except for the first, the Bug Collector will get to see this picture. The picture will not change between nights.
• When playing in person, the Storyteller should bring a notebook or sketchbook with them to make drawings with, and simply present this picture to the Bug Collector, similar to the Grimoire for the Spy, Widow, or Seer. Online play is slightly more complicated, and it is recommended you direct message the player a picture of your drawing, or an image downloaded from the internet. If you have access to a web camera, you can also use this to show the Bug Collector their picture.
• If pictographic communication, for any reason, is off the table then it’s recommended to substitute with a different artistic medium, such as music or poetry.
• Alongside seeing their picture, they will learn if they’ve correctly described how it relates to the game yesterday. They do not learn how the picture relates, and they learn they were correct even if they posed several theories, and only 1 was correct.
• The Bug Collector can accurately describe their picture on the first day! This might take the form of something like “I don’t trust Sami. My picture will probably be about them.”
• The Bug Collector can learn about…anything! Any one thing, several things, and through any style. Feel free to get creative and metaphorical. Generally, the harder to parse the Bug Collector’s info is, the more rewarding it should be to finally understand.

Christ, I had to split that into 2 seperate messages

[inner cradle]

https://tenor.com/view/huh-cat-huh-funny-cat-cute-gif-3799404593284528017

Wait this seems cool but I can't rlly imagine how it'd play out

Could it be like this and then the meaning is that all the minions play guitar

[dark veldt]

Absolutely!

[inner cradle]

Oh that's cool

[dark veldt]

I might adorn that guitar with some kind of evil symbolism, like a villainous mustache or smth to make it clearer that it's pointing to evil players, but depending on who in the group plays guitar that might be a fine enough clue

"There is a Kenku in play, and a Pixie who knows this. Josie, the Bug Collector, loves video games. The Storyteller knows she is familiar with Banjo & Kazooie, a video game about a bear and a bird working together. The Storyteller draws these characters, and shows Josie this on the second night. On the 3rd day, Josie proposes that this picture is talking about jumping to conclusions, since those characters jump a lot. That night, Josie learns that she was wrong about what her picture means. On the 4th day, she correctly deduces that her picture is in reference to the Pixie and Kenku being friends, and learns that she was correct on the 4th night."

Here's one of the examples from the almanac

[solid lake]

Ice, post my “don’t do this” example 🤭🤭

[dark veldt]

no <3

[solid lake]

as you shouldn’t <3

I will post a funny one I made in the past though

"The Fisherman is a Demon Bluff"

[dark veldt]

(Hollow Knight spoilers)

[heavy haven]

actual clownshoes character (compliment)
no notes amazing

[dark veldt]

Ty lmao

[nocturne tapir]

hey i just realized, Prodigy needs a jinx with Vortox

wait

fuck

its not townsfolk

im dumb

i forgor that about vortox

[naive shale]

Wait is this a townsfolk that's meant to nuke the demon

[proper kraken]

Nope

[dark veldt]

While that idea is funny, this is sadly an Outsider. Apologies for not clarifying

[proper kraken]

It’s an Outsider that nukes everyone else

[naive shale]

tragic, I imagined the town having incentive to bluff it with the risk of nuking themself

lol

[dark veldt]

Sadly not. Double claiming the Showman is something which makes a player look very evil, and I can't think of a context where a good player would want to do something like that

(this is a joke about the Showman's role on Dinner & A Show, a script where they might want to do something like that)

[dark veldt]

Merry Valentine's day!

I think I want to release a character tonight, but I don't know what hint I could possibly give for them

Ehh this is probably good enough

Can you feel the light?

[plucky aurora]

candlemaker 2

[proper kraken]

is Candlemaker even released? i dont believe it is?

maybe its called Chandler or something

[plucky aurora]

is it not on TLC?

[proper kraken]

I believe it is, but not on Circus Music

[dark veldt]

It is still tonight, bastards!

So lets make the most of it

LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

TO A LEVEL YOU CAN'T CANDLE

FOR A TRULY WICKED RELEASE

(and the first one to actually get predicted)

I PRESENT THE ONE

THE ONLY

CANDLEMAAAAKER

Once per game (even if dead), publicly choose a player: chosen Minions, while alive, win if (& only if) you do.
“The light forward isn’t always clear, but I will make sure it is there.”

The Candlemaker can guide a Minion to the good team.

• Once per game, even if the Candlemaker is dead, they can publicly choose a player. If this player is a Minion then they will win & lose with the Candlemaker's team until they die.
• If a Minion chosen by the Candlemaker is dead, they still win and lose with their original team.
• If the Minion chosen by the Candlemaker would cause their own team to win through their ability, then nothing occurs.
• Minions chosen by the Candlemaker are not good. To abilities they still register as evil, they are still a Minion, and they do not learn of their alignment changing, since their alignment hasn't.

[dark veldt]

Also, just so that it is abundantly clear, the Circus Music collection will (and has) featured characters from my script The Last Cull. These characters will come with jinxes specifically to accommodate interactions with every official and Circus Music character, as well as custom json data. I also tend to do a lot of bells & whistles to clean up characters before sending them here, like redoing the flavor text n whatnot.

While these characters have been publicly released, and have often been visible for quite a while, I still hope that releases of them are special. It isn't my intention for releases like these to "take the spot" of more surprising releases, it's just that like...I design the scripts with these characters in mind, so I've got to release them at some point. If my presentation skills are ever faltering and there are better ways to bring you all more joy, don't be afraid to let me know. I'll concede that my work schedule is currently a bit slow as I have been locking tf in on other projects in my life (both botc and not).

(Also on that note about the jinxes, I was really conflicted on whether or not this should have a jinx with the Dragon Killer. I don't love the exchange, but I think it's one that you can make work, especially with the help of characters like the Godfather or Widow who can reduce some of the "feelsbad"iness)

[inner cradle]

It's giving ONUW in the best way possible

[dark veldt]

...I can see it

Ooh wait no, yeah I see it lmao

[inner cradle]

"I'm the troublemaker I swapped you" "yeah I was the werewolf lol" "haha no I'm just a vanillager you just outed evil"

Seems like a fully equivalent dynamic

Kinda surprised there's no droison clause but I'm sure it's fine considering a minion is the one that needs to know

[inner cradle]

(I won a game like this literally today. well yesterday but midnight isn't real)

[inner bluff]

me as the spy immediately coming up to the candlemaker and giving them the grim:

(i dont win with them because i register as a townsfolk)

[paper temple]

the part about that is that it is kind of the most helpful use of the spy ability for evil 😭

[proper kraken]

me as the Widow coming up to the Candlemaker and giving them the grim

Foolproof

[proper kraken]

Actually, thas doubly evil because you can also just poison your Demon

Say "Hey, I'm the Widow, here's the Grimoire, my Demon is poisoned. Watch as no one dies N2 or 3, then we kill the Demon :)"

[inner bluff]

the candlemaker proceeds to turn your other minion good because they thought itd be funny

[dark veldt]

Widow / Candlemaker is usually not an amazing idea

I'm sure there's a context where it works, like, I could see it working on Riot. But it's gotta be real talored

[inner bluff]

me as the widow coming up to the candlemaker i poisoned and giving them a fake grim

[inner cradle]

thoughts on exactly ojo as cover for kenku?

like those are the only ways to get more than 1kpn