Overall Themes – Bad Moon Rising
Bad Moon risings is a very death oriented script focusing on themes of sacrifice, divine intervention /protection, Life after death in the forms of the undead and resurrection, hidden knowledge and symbolism in the names, visuals and flavor text produced by the official wiki. This script pulls from different cultures, religions and myths to create a well balanced script for the players to explore.
Townsfolk
-
Sailor
The Sailor is a townsfolk that can not die normally, but must choose a player to drink with each night: one of them will be considered drunk until dusk. This means either someone is getting false information or will have their ability not work. So, if the Sailor becomes drunk they can die as their “can not die” ability will no longer work. This connection to death and the implications of hidden knowledge from intoxication is quite interesting as the sailor is able to prevent drinking with a townsfolk that would be useful to keep their ability working. From a religious perspective, Sailors had many superstitions and patron saints to help ease their mind on the open waters. One saint that stands out is St. Clement as he was tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, St. Clement’s cross, also known as the anchored cross, was worn by sailors to provide protection on their travels (Stracke). Given that the anchor is the symbol on the Sailors token, it would make sense there would be a level of holy protection. In a similar way to the Drunk in Trouble Brewing, the consumption of alcohol and intoxication can be deemed sinful and could morally blind the Sailor preventing his saint’s protection for stopping his death.
-
Tea Lady
The Tea Lady is very spiritual and has connections to divine communication, and protection. The ritual of reading tea leaves has been used to see the future, and to learn about fate and destiny. This practice was originally used by Buddhist monks in China (Obubu, 2016). The Tea Lady uses this practice to protect the good players close to her (her living neighbors) but the wickedness of the minions and demons can cause this spiritual protection to fail as the fates warn her something unholy draws near. From a gameplay perspective, the Tea Lady being able to prevent the death of their neighbors so long as they’re good, both confirms the Tea Lady and that all three of those players are good.
Bad Moon Rising consists of:
Townsfolk
Minions
Outsiders
Demons
Outsiders
-
Goon
The Goon in Blood on the Clocktower has ties to Good vs Evil and can be used as an allegory for temptation, corruption and redemption. This is based on the goon’s ability and play style on this script. As each night the first player to select the Goon with their ability, that player becomes drunk until the next night. The Goon changes their alignment to match the player that selected them. The Goon will know if their alignment changes. This balance of Good and Evil makes playing the Goon rather scary as you’ll never be seen as trustworthy with the risk of changing alignment on a dime. Some play styles for the Goon involve trying to find an evil player and convince them to let them join the evil team, while others will confess to being evil and beg for a good player to turn them back. This can be seen as the players wanting to give into temptation and corruption or begging for redemption. Based on the flavor text the Goon is likely connected to a gang or the mafia. This is more likely the mafia as the Godfather is also introduced in this script. The Mafia has links to catholicism (Marty, 2017). The last line in the Our Father prayer contains the religious idea of the Goon; “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”(Catholic prayers) This lines up as the Goon starts as good but the Godfather is evil. Having a character swap alignment and spreading misinformation unknowingly, is an interesting role in a social deduction game as it creates further confusion making the game more open ended when determining what’s true.
-
Lunatic
The Lunatic is the second outsider in Blood on the Clocktower that doesn’t think they’re an outsider. Mirroring the Drunk in Trouble Brewing, The Lunatic believes they are the Demon; they are not. However the real demon knows who the lunatic is and what choices they make in the night. The Lunatic believes they are the one to help bring the evil team to victory. This reflects some of the ideas found in the study “Three Christs of Ypsilanti” which had three men with paranoid schizophrenia who all believed they were the next coming of Jesus. In this experiment the three men were put in a room together. Afterward each man was interviewed alone; each claimed the other two men were mentally unwell and they were the one true Chris (Rokeach & Moody, 2020). Ironically the Lunatics pressences on a script can do quite the opposite. As the real demon might believe they are the Lunatic causing paranoia for the evil team as they try to convince their demon they’re not crazy. The Lunatic brings a level of chaos and deception as you don’t want to claim you’re the Lunatic when you could actually be the demon. While the real demon can deceive you through following through with the choices you made in the night, furthering the Lunatic delusion and spiral into madness as the rug gets pulled from under them when they learn they were never the demon. This makes the game more interesting as when the Lunatic learns they are the Lunatic the many worlds trust and is able to talk about their idea plan while thinking they were the demon. Bad Moon Rising is a script that the Lunatic really shines in as it causes doubt in the real demon and also can give an unknowingly good player control over death and make kills in the night seem more sporadic.
-
Moonchild
The moon child is more spiritual than religious and has links to death and divine punishment. The flavor text for the moon child mentions rituals and astrology as the child looks into the Stars to see misfortune. This makes sense as its ability upon death allows them to choose another character and if they register as good they die that night. The moon itself has a lot of religious and mythical connotations. In several mythologies there are usually God’s associated with the Moon, one of the most well-known examples is the Greek god Artemis who’s also the god of wilderness and the hunt. Artemis also has connections to the stars as the constellation Orion. One story of Orion is that his hubris got the better of him and boasts to Artemis that he wanted to hunt and kill all the animals in the world. The earth goddess Gia punishes Orion by sending a scorpion after him which kills him. Zeus then puts both Orion and the Scorpion (his becomes the constellation Scorpio) into the sky as a form of punishment (Miscellaneous Myths: Orion 2020). Socripo is also the one consultation directly mentioned in the Moonchild’s flavor text. This plays into the divine punishment aspect of the moon child as their death can directly cause another. From a spiritual perspective the Moon is also seen as a major Arcana in tarot decks. The Moon represents fears, illusions, and uncertainty (The Moon tarot card meanings 2024). Which lines up with the ability of this outsider as the reason for the selected player’s death can easily be hidden due to this script’s death-heavy nature. However killing a moonchild is a scary thought for the town as it can remove a powerful community member’s ability.
Minions
-
Assassin
The Assassin is a minion that can kill a character once a game. The character chosen dies even if that character couldn’t die for some reason. Most of the characters in Bad Moon Rising that can prevent death or can’t die themselves typically have some form of divine protection based on their ability. This is why the demon can’t kill these players at night but the Assassin can as the Assassin isn’t unholy. This can shake the faith of the town and those with divine protection. From a gameplay perspective this can throw the good team into disarray as their theories of what demon is plaguing the town can be thrown into question. This also puts the player that died under suspicion as they should’ve survived the night or another player as their protection abilities failed such as the innkeeper or the tea lady. The Assassin shakes up the game by eliminating a threat the demon couldn’t. Allowing this minion to hide the true identity of the demon in play and be able to throw suspicion on players who claimed they can protect others or can’t die themselves successfully spreads doubt within the shadows.
-
Devil’s Advocate
The Devil’s Advocate is able to choose someone at night to survive execution that day but they can’t pick the same player two nights in a row. This minion’s connection to death is a way of sowing doubt into the circle as townsfolk with protection abilities might fall into suspicion. This ability can be used to convincing bluff to deceive the town into thinking you’re good and trustworthy, An example of this would be if the Devil’s Advocate bluffs as the Sailor and chooses to project themselves night one, and to prove themself they try to get executed in the day, assuming it goes through the minion would be executed but does not die due to their ability. Letting the town be more willing to believe that a minion is truly a good townsfolk, shifting the scales of life and death to be in their team’s favor. Religiously, the Devil’s Advocate was a person used by the Catholic Church as a lawyer to argue against and criticize a candidate to see if the church should deem them worthy of the official saint title (this process was also known as canonization) (Fanning, W, 1911). Since the church only did this process when the candidate was deceased; having this minion keep someone who is truly good and holy alive, prevents the town from fully knowing their goodness and lets the circle wonder if nominated was protected by something holy or as a way to hide their sins.
Demon
-
Po
The Po is a lonely Spirit which has religious and mythical themes of deception, death and ritual. In Chinese folklore the POe represents the animalistic and Primal side of the human soul. When a person dies and their death is not respected the pole portion of the Soul remains and becomes a malevolent and sometimes very vengeful spirit (Britannica, Po). The failure of respecting the soul in life leads to the pose ability in game to be able to kill every night or they can charge up and kill three players but at the cost of not killing that night. This ritualistic practice can also be akin to a calm before the storm as in a death heavy script having A call hello in death caused the town to panic and the pole will have a chance to deceive and spread out within the fear. Overall being able to kill three players at night is incredibly deadly and this playstyle is easy to pick up on making deception a key factor in playing as the poe as the lack of deaths could be preparing for a Slaughter making it quite obvious.
-
Pukka
This demon has themes of death, corruption and hidden knowledge. This demon’s ability involves selecting a player to poison and the previously poisoned player will die and become healthy. This means the pucker is the only demon to act on the first night and has a delayed kill. This demon has some very close ties to Celtic creature called the Puca. Puca are shapeshifters that have troublesome intentions (Rainbolt, 2023). Is troublesome shapeshifters could reflect the pucker’s ability to Warp player’s perceptions of their information at night when they are selected to be poisoned.
-
Zombuul
The Zombuul is Blood on the Clocktower’s take on a living dead/zombie inspired demon. This can be seen visually with the token’s depiction of a rotting/decaying arm. It can also be seen in the flavor text shown on this demon’s wiki page as it refers to itself as a restless being wanting to return to the earth from which it came.
The Zombuul’s abilities also have connections to death and life after death despite appearing to be the least deathly out of the demons in Bad Moon Rising, its lethality comes with its ability to live after death. This demon’s ability to kill at night is solely dependent on there being no deaths in the day. However the first time the Zombuul dies (either in the night or the day) the Zombuul still lives but registers as dead, not ending the game. When dead the first time, the Zombuul can no longer nominate and can only vote once for the rest of the game as any other dead player but can still kill at night if no deaths occur during the day. In a script as death heavy as Bad Moon Rising, having the town determine if the Zombuul is in play, if it’s alive or already dead and have to go through several rounds of executions for both living and dead players, makes the Zombuul more challenging for the good team than originally expected.
Based on how the Zombuul behaves, this demon likely has inspiration from Vodou; a Haitian religion. Vodou depicts zombies as corpses that were resurrected through magic (Basta, 2020). They represent death, and loss of autonomy. This could be why the Zombuul’s ability to kill is conditional, as if it has lost its autonomy to kill. Using this idea for a zombie inspired demon instead of the more aggressive, brain eating depiction seen in modern media, creates an interesting and well thought out character that stands out. When paired with the other demons in Bad Moon Rising it makes the town more willing to sacrifice their own more than once in order to keep the Zombuul at bay. But with members of the town possibly causing deaths on their own and minions able to influence death as well, this demon can be hard to spot and even harder to kill. The religious ideas behind the Zombuul help prevent this script from becoming one note and forces players to think before they use their own abilities. Something not seen often in other games within this genre.
Clue Up
The variety of cultures used in the demons alone show how diverse and well rounded Blood on the ClockTower can be. With many of the scripts character’s having religious and mythical connections to death through killing and protecting others or themself, makes tracking and understanding the cause of death a key part of the mystery in this script along side the different playstyles each demon has to offer, it gives a level of replayability that other social deduction games don’t always have. Making Bad Moon Rising great for replayability as it’s never the same game twice even with the same characters.