Template:Story Plaguebearer
Mechanics
- You are equipped with a Powerful attack and an Invincible defense. You rampage at any house you visit each night, and will attack anyone who visits you.
- Your Invincible defense means you can not be killed at night at all. You will bypass even the highest of attacks, such as an Arsonist ignition, an assault by a fully-powered up Juggernaut, a Jailor execution, and even a Jester haunt.
- Since you only deal a Powerful attack, anyone protected by any form of protection, such as from a Doctor, Bodyguard, Guardian Angel, or Potion Master will survive.
- The only way you can die is through being lynched during the day, so if the whole Town is against you (or any other faction that has the voting majority) you will most likely die. Utilize the support of any roles that do not oppose you to keep yourself from being lynched.
Strategy
- Your main enemy is the Town due to them having the largest majority most games, the second are the Mafia, Coven, and the Vampires. The third is the Neutral Killing roles because they are likely loners, although they don't show much threat considering they can't do much of anything to you.
- The main role that opposes you is the Mayor; if you end up in a 1v1 with them they can put you up on the stand and lynch you. Luckily, once you become Pestilence all the Town can do is delay their death. If a Mayor reveals, use paranoia to your favor to trick them into hanging the Town Protectives, and then go for the Mayor themselves.
- You are an extremely powerful killing role, with a Powerful attack and Invincible defense. You also ignore role blocks and controls, unlike all of the Neutral Killing roles.
- While you can bait people into visiting you the same way a Veteran does, this carries a lot of risks. First, if too many people have you as the last target in their Last Will, the Town will likely realize you're Pestilence; and second, knowing that Pestilence is present, the Town will likely view any attempt at baiting as suspicious.
- As with the Plaguebearer, Werewolf strategies are compatible with this role due to the similar mechanics - potentially even more so, due to Pestilence's higher capacity for destruction.
- When you become Pestilence, the entire Town will receive a message about your evolution, and that will probably send them panicking as they try to find you.
- The message the Town receives is "A plague has consumed the Town summoning Pestilence, Horseman of the Apocalypse!"
- Use this to your advantage. Start accusing people of being Pestilence for one reason or another, and the Town will probably believe you and lynch that person, wasting one day of voting.
- However, back it up with fake proof and claims. Sometimes, it's also preferable to not accuse anyone and just go with the flow, as more experienced players may catch on. You also have to be careful that the information is accurate, and that you don't make yourself look suspicious in the meantime.
- Another option is to claim to be a Town Investigative role that found someone that might be Pestilence. This method gives your lead credibility but will put you under suspicion when the Town realizes you were wrong. To avoid this, remember to claim that you investigated the person you are going after BEFORE they "became" Pestilence. Pestilence kills anyone who visits them, claiming otherwise will make it obvious that you are lying and it might even get you lynched. However, this may work as a Jester strategy or for a fake Jester claim.
- Always talk during the day, making suggestions that could "help" to find Pestilence, but don't be too talkative. This way, you do not look suspicious during the day, and you can go on with your nightly killings as an unstoppable force. However, do not excessively talk so that you draw so much attention, or look like someone who is trying too hard not to be suspicious.
- One strategy is to act as a Jester. The only way to be killed as Pestilence is to be lynched - and people want to refrain from lynching Jesters. As of version 2.3.0, Jesters can now haunt voters who abstain too, so it may be effective to keep acting like a Jester if you get on trial. Refer the Jester page for strategies regarding this. Town may be desperate to try and find the Pestilence. However, this may backfire as the Town could take the chance and attempt to lynch you.
- If you don't know who to kill at night, just kill someone with a name that sticks out, such as some that don't make any sense, are intended to mock a person or faction, or are about a controversial topic; essentially one that's the most likely to be visited by. You can also pick a default name because most people place suspicion on default names for virtually no reason other than that they were too slow. Another strategy for who to kill is to look back on the night you infected the most, and go to kill that player, as people could still be visiting and you could take out a huge chunk of the Town. This strategy also works for the Werewolf.
- As Pestilence, there is no point trying to be under-cover with your kills other than the stay at home Werewolf strategy. Any Lookouts or Trackers who catch you are going down, so your only threat is a Medium. Even then, Medium claims are rarely believed, so they might be lynched under suspision of being you!
- Start the game out strong, as a Plaguebearer, try and get confirmed as a Townie as soon as you can.
- Trying to get yourself confirmed as Investigator, Tracker, or Sheriff is a good idea as the Investigator will most likely not investigate you. However, you are considered a threat to the mafia or any evil so asking for a Town Protective when confirmed as a Town Investigative is a good idea as they will most likely attack you blowing your cover. Executioner is another great claim as it gives you the immunity defense.
- Don't kill any roles that are harmless to you, such as Survivor, Jester, Executioner or an Amnesiac, unless the Amnesiac wants to join an opposing faction. However, if these roles show signs of wanting to vote against you, do not hesitate to kill, but make sure they aren't the only ones against you. Otherwise, you could be lynched.
- Killing Amnesiacs is less risky than killing the other neutral roles, as they have to remember to win and you are a one-man faction. However, if you kill the Amnesiac, they can't carry on your win if you are lynched, so you have to be certain that you have control over the votes.
- Gaining the support of roles such as Survivor is a big help for you, especially later in the game. They can give you extra votes, which can keep you from being lynched.
- Remember, you can still be lynched. Claiming to be an Investigator or a Tracker is a bad claim if the Town is notified of you being summoned due to these roles sharing investigative results.
Amnesiac remembering the Pestilence role.
- Since you can only die to being lynched, the Mayor is a serious threat to you and should generally be dealt with quickly.
- The Necromancer is one of the few roles that can effectively oppose you; they can use Doctor, Bodyguard, and Crusader corpses to safely block your attacks, and can send zombies to visit people in order to identify you (since they see how their zombies die.) Additionally, since they only visit the graveyard, their visits won't expose them to your rampage. You should prioritize attacking necromancers whenever possible.
Dealing with Pestilence
- If you have identified a likely Plaguebearer before they transformed, finding Pestilence is easy.
- Otherwise, while Pestilence's ability to kill anyone who visits him is extremely powerful, it is also his sole weakness. Carefully read the wills of anyone who died to Pestilence, and try to figure out who he targeted. From this, you can deduce if anyone targeted him (and died as a result.)
- Additionally, once Pestilence has transformed, anyone who was visited and who didn't immediately die cannot be Pestilence. This can be used to rapidly narrow down the list of possible culprits.
- Pestilence kills both anyone who visits his target and anyone who visits himself. As a result, it is usually best to avoid unnecessary visits while Pestilence is active, especially if you are Mafia and there are few people left.
- Arsonist, Town Protectives and Hex Master may be exceptions.
- If you are a Jailor, in your will write "Kill!" or "Execute" next to the names you execute. This way, if you die from jailing Pestilence, the Town will know who the Pestilence is.
- Because of the fact that Pestilence does not die when their lover dies, you can carefully look at who claimed who was their lover, and deduce if they died along with their lover or not, if they haven't, they are the Pestilence !
- Because Pestilence can only be killed by voting, it's usually best for killing roles to cease killing as long as Pestilence is active; an active Pestilence can reduce the population of the town extremely fast, and killing anyone (even dangerous enemies) may leave you without the votes to lynch them. Additionally, visiting to kill while Pestilence is active risks exposing you to both their rampage attack and death by visiting them.
Trivia
- If you turn into Pestilence in Lovers Mode, and your lover dies, you will receive the message, "You care not for a lover, for a Horseman feels no love, no pain, no happiness."
The message you receive when your lover dies in Lovers Mode
- The outfit worn by the Plaguebearer in the wikia origin story is likely inspired by the outfit commonly worn by doctors in the Second Pandemic of the Black Death (1348-1352) for these reasons: the black wax cloth was covered with oil because it was believed that this would make it so the plague could not stick to them, and the mask (bearing the appearance of a bird's beak in the case of the doctor) was filled with fragrant herbs because it was believed that disease was caused directly by foul-smelling air, which would be filtered out by the herbs.
- If a Pestilence and a fully powered up Juggernaut attack each other, all players will get a message saying, "An unstoppable force meets an invincible object. The ground beneath your feet shudders." The Juggernaut will still die though, because its defense cannot withstand the Pestilence
- The Pestilence message can appear during the day if all but one person is infected, and the last uninfected is lynched.
- There used to be a bug where the Juggernaut was able to kill Pestilence considering if they stayed at home. A link to a video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGswmAZ_jxw
- There was a bug where when a Pestilence attacked a Jailor, the death message would say "They were obliterated by Pestilence, Horseman of the Apocalypse.", but twice. This bug was fixed in a later version though.
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