The Orphans · The Light and Tragic Company

The Orphans Presents: Blood on the Clocktower

November 26, 2024·51 min·3 clips

The players learn their storytellers were 'hung, drawn and devoured' overnight and only their faces remain, nailed to the clock tower.

Zach opens by greeting Orphans fans and pitching a new show from the Realms of Peril and Glory world. He frames Blood on the Clocktower as the ultimate social deduction game, and the comparisons are plain enough: Werewolf, Mafia, The Traitors. There is an evil team. The good team does not know who they are. Everyone is hiding in plain sight, and the point is to work out who is lying before the lie gets comfortable. The guest list is a broad one, with folks from No Rolls Barred, Oxventure, and Realms of Peril and Glory. The Orphans are in the mix too, with Pip Gladwin and James Barbarossa among the voices you hear. The whole thing has the feel of a table that has already started without waiting for the listener to catch up, which suits the game just fine. Roles get discussed out loud, then revised, then half defended, which is exactly the kind of chaos Blood on the Clocktower seems to invite. One player says they have almost never been the soldier. Another says they have long planned to claim imp no matter what. The slayer comes up as a fun role, with the possibility of publicly picking a player and killing the demon if the guess lands. Bluffs are named as bluffs. Soldier, virgin, and mayor all get used as decoys. Someone deliberately keeps quiet about being the fortune teller. The trick is to say just enough to sound trustworthy without giving the table an easy win. Then the imp voice comes back, now hydrated and ready to get the show moving. The episode also works as a direct invitation to listeners, with a pointer to realmspod.com/clocktower and a suggestion to search for Blood on the Clocktower or Realms of Peril and Glory wherever podcasts live. It makes clear that two episodes are already out. The whole thing plays like a group building the game as they go, while also trying to beat it.

As heard by us

A promotional but lively social deduction pitch, carried by ensemble banter and the pleasure of watching paranoia do the work.

Realms Blood on the Clocktower reads as a spinoff pitch built on a familiar social deduction premise: an evil side hiding in plain sight while the good side works through suspicion, bluffing, and bad reads.

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Why you'd press play

You want a bluffing game where everyone is lying in plain sight.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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