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A little girl and her grandmother were wandering in the forest just outside of Salem, where the raspberry bushes grew wild, their baskets were overflowing, ready to make a delicious feast. As she ran over a hill she saw a marvelous bush with dark blue berries and bright pink flowers, and she simply had to try them. Her grandmother managed to limp over the hill. Old as she may have been, she recognized those berries from a mile away. She ran to the girl and slapped the berries out of her hand, frantically grabbing at her clothes, screaming "Did you eat any?! Did you?! Please tell me you didn't eat any!", and the girl nodded earnestly. "That's a good girl!" a moment passed, and she started screaming again, "Don't you ever touch those plants! You hear me!? Those could kill you!" The girl nodded again, having learned her lesson.

A decade had passed, and she had learned about every berry and herb in a hundred-mile radius. They called her a freak at school, an orphan, a meaningless nobody. How she hated them. She was young and impulsive but unfortunately not stupid. She ground those berries from the very same bush that had nearly killed her as a child and poured the pulp into a pie. She went over to the worst bully of them all, the Mayor's son and offered him the pie. He ate it, and within a moment was dizzy, and nauseous. The day after he was dead. The lookout screamed, "She's the one who visited him two nights ago and gave him a laced pie! She's the murderer!"

Fueled by adrenaline, she ran and ran, as fast and far as her legs could take her into the forest, where the town lost track of her. She kept on running until she ran into an older woman collecting mushrooms. The Coven Leader took the young girl under her wing and decided that inexperienced as she may be, she had potential. She hid the girl from the Town, on the agreement that the girl would work for the Coven as the Poisoner. (credit)

Mechanics

  • Your poison will deal a Basic attack the day after you poison your target. Anyone with Basic or higher defense will survive.
  • A Doctor, Guardian Angel, or Potion Master can purge your poison if they heal your target.
  • Poisoned players will know they were poisoned.
  • With the Necronomicon, your poison is not curable by a Doctor. However, your poison can still be cured by a Guardian Angel's purge. Your attack will not become more powerful.
  • If you poison someone with the Necronomicon, it will show the message "You were poisoned. You will die tomorrow!" instead of "You were poisoned. You will die tomorrow unless you are cured!"
  • You cannot poison a player who has left the game. 
  • With the Necronomicon, If someone has been poisoned and they gain basic defense the next night, like a Bodyguard or Survivor self vesting, they will still die to the poison the next night.

Strategy

  • Your delayed kill means that Lookouts will sometimes have a harder time finding you. You can use this to "prove" your innocence in the latter part of the game. However, smarter Lookouts will notice you visiting your target, so when they die a day later, they will be suspicious of you or even call you out if their target claims they were poisoned.
  • Doctors are a high-priority target; with them in play, you are virtually useless until you have the Necronomicon, the reason being that anyone poisoned can simply claim so and the Doctor will heal them.
  • The revealed Mayor is very vulnerable to poison as he can't be saved by a Doctor. Note that you might be caught by a Lookout poisoning the Mayor, so it's wise to find the Lookout first and poison them before poisoning the Mayor
  • Claiming to be poisoned has its benefits - it means the Doctor will heal you that night, protecting you from harm. Even if the Town notices you haven't died, you can simply claim to have been healed. Of course, this will not work once the Coven gets the Necronomicon, as healing no longer prevents death by poison.
  • Coordinate with your fellow Coven members on who you should poison. Before night 3, you might be the only Coven member who can actually kill, with the other early game killer of the Coven being the Potion Master.
  • If you play with a Medusa, you can ask her to claim poisoned while you don't poison anyone and ask her to stone visitors the following night. This might allow you to kill the Doctor and make your poison incurable; however, a Guardian Angel may still remove your poison through purging. Be warned that smarter players will notice if someone says they will visit the Medusa and dies from stoning the day after.
  • The Poisoner is very much like a Mafioso, except with a higher chance that your target will get Purged and/or Healed. The Necronomicon is like a Mafioso becoming a Godfather, and thus the role should be treated as a Mafioso.
    • Since a Poisoner is a delayed Mafioso, you are the least powerful Coven member, but you are also the most kill-consistent Coven. Use this to your advantage.

Dealing with Poisoners

  • As a Lookout, if you see someone visit your target and your target claims they were poisoned, you may have found the Poisoner. If your target dies of poison the next day, the player you saw is most likely the Poisoner.
  • As a Doctor, make sure to heal anyone claiming to be poisoned. Not only will it remove poison from them, it will protect them from any killers. On the other hand, if you believe the Poisoner has the Necronomicon, then healing poisoned people is a waste of a night.
  • As a killing role, targeting people who are poisoned is a bad idea. Not only will they likely be protected by Doctors or Guardian Angels, even if they are defenseless, they will die from poison anyway, wasting a kill. However, if you have a Rampage attack, targeting a player that claims to be poisoned may help you eliminate a Doctor.
  • As a Tracker, you can call out a Poisoner if you see them visiting someone who claims to be poisoned the next day. Beware that the player you tracked is not necessarily the Poisoner, they may have happened to visit the same target as the Poisoner.
  • As a Mayor, you have the largest risk of revealing yourself if a Poisoner is known as a Doctor can't heal you. Always request protection and safety of any kind, such as a Bodyguard or even a Crusader if you feel there are no more protectives around. Lookouts can cover you and identify the Poisoner, and Trappers can be a good bet.
  • If a known Doctor visits a role that has claimed to be poisoned and dies to a Medusa, there is a good chance the person who claimed they were poisoned is the Medusa.

Trivia

  • During playtesting on the Public Test Realm, the Poisoner would come up as Psychic, Ambusher, Poisoner or Medusa to the Investigator.
  • The Poisoner is one of the few roles able to directly kill after death. 
    • Note, however, that if you change your Death Note after you die, those changes will not be reflected.
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