Pukka

Identity: Pukka
Alignment: Evil
Category: Demon
Ability: Each night, choose a player: they are poisoned. The previously poisoned player dies and then becomes healthy.

Explanation: Every night (including the first!), you choose a player to be poisoned (messing up their ability). Next time you use this ability, the previously poisoned player dies (visit the Plague Doctor for more information about being poisoned).

Tips for playing as the Pukka: The devious Pukka is the deadliest demon in the game for its viciousness and cruelty. All the other demons give the town the courtesy of a single night; the Pukka has no such patience, sowing chaos into the town from the first night, selecting their first victim before the townsfolk even get a chance to act. The Zombuul may be a little hardier than you, and the Shabaloth and Po may kill more effectively, but they are vulnerable to the most deadly weapon the good team wields: information. Not only do you kill but you neutralize your victims, forcing them to spend their last days in delirium, their information confused and the danger they once posed reduced to nothing. The good team always hopes you are not in play, as they have to spend the whole game doubting all of the information that would normally lead them right to your door.

Factor in who you want to poison as well as who you want to kill. An aggressive and talkative Chambermaid who doesn’t realize their last day of information is wrong can do a lot of legwork for you beyond the grave. If you get very lucky, you could catch an Exorcist or Courtier out before they catch you, or you can expose an Innkeeper’s patrons to your Godfather or a Moonchild curse with a little bit of good timing. You are the only evil player in the game who can befuddle your target’s information, so why not take full advantage?

Tips for fighting the Pukka: The first step to fighting the Pukka is figuring out the Pukka is in play. Look for suspicious deaths at night, such as the Fool dying early, or the Sailor dying at all. Or, consider that when nobody dies at night time, it was due to the Pukka target being executed that day instead. If a pattern forms around these two signals, you almost certainly have a Pukka in the game.

Once you have figured out that a Pukka is in play, you’ll need to do some informational backtracking. Each player that died last night, was poisoned the day and night beforehand. Dead Tea Ladies have a reason that their ability did not work while alive. Dead Gamblers have a reason that they did not die when they picked a player the night before. Dead Chambermaids got false information the night before last. Dead Exorcists might have actually chosen the Demon on a night where players died. Backtracking can be complicated, since what happened the night before last is more difficult to remember than what happened last night, but will grant enormous information if you can do it.