THE GLOSSARY

One of a small group chosen at the start of the game, known only to each other. Each night they meet in secret and choose a Faithful to murder. Their numbers can grow mid-game through recruitment, an ultimatum or, in New Blood, the Accomplice twist.

Fantasy impact: The highest-scoring role in fantasy. A Traitor who survives to the end takes the entire fund, and scores accordingly.

Everyone who is not a Traitor. They do not know who the Traitors are, and are trying to identify and banish all of them.

Fantasy impact: The default role. Faithful score by surviving Round Tables, holding shields, and reaching the end with the Traitors caught.

The public vote that closes an episode. Everyone accuses, defends and argues, then votes to banish one player. The banished player's role is revealed on the spot.

Fantasy impact: The single biggest scoring event of a round. A banished Traitor is a heavy negative for the player but the moment the Faithful were playing for.

Elimination by group vote at the Round Table. Public, debated, and immediately followed by the reveal of whether the group got it right.

Fantasy impact: Scored separately from murder, and never merged with it. Being banished as a Traitor costs more than being banished as a Faithful.

Elimination decided privately by the Traitors overnight. The rest of the cast discovers it at breakfast the next morning.

Fantasy impact: A negative for the murdered player, but a small one: being murdered means the Traitors considered you a genuine suspicion.

Protection from one night's murder, usually hidden in a mission. The holder is safe until it expires, and can choose whether to tell anyone.

Fantasy impact: Winning a shield scores. A shield that actually blocks a murder scores considerably more, because it denied the Traitors a kill.

A group challenge that adds money to the shared prize fund. Some hide a shield, some carry a twist, and failing one costs the group.

Fantasy impact: Cast-wide scoring. Every surviving player is credited when the group banks a mission and debited when they fail one.

The shared pot the players build through missions across the season, advertised at up to $250,000 and only paid out at the end. New Blood added a bounty: every Traitor the group banishes puts an extra $15,000 in the pot.

Fantasy impact: Not scored directly, but it is what the endgame is fought over, and it decides how much a win is worth in the story.

An offer from the Traitors to a Faithful: turn, or face the consequences. The Faithful can accept or refuse, and refusing has historically been dangerous.

Fantasy impact: Accepting flips a player's scoring family mid-season. Refusing scores on its own, and refusing then being murdered scores differently again.

New Blood's opening twist. The two original Traitors secretly chose two Faithful as Accomplices and gave them covert tasks to complete in plain sight. The Traitors then promoted one Accomplice to Traitor, and the other was murdered.

Fantasy impact: Scored through the recruitment family: being picked as an Accomplice counts as an offer, the promoted one scores for accepting, and the one left behind scores as a murder.

Recruitment with no way out. A lone Traitor sits a Faithful down face to face: become a Traitor, or be murdered. In US seasons 2, 3 and 4 the answer was yes every time.

Fantasy impact: The recruitment it produces scores either way, and a Faithful who turns changes scoring family on the spot. Receiving the ultimatum itself is an optional event, off by default, that a commissioner can switch on.

A Traitor hidden even from the other Traitors. US season 4 used one: the Secret Traitor drew up the murder shortlist, and the known Traitors could only kill from it without knowing who wrote it.

Fantasy impact: A role of its own in scoring, because a Traitor nobody else in the turret knows about plays a different game from the rest.

A power introduced in US season 3. The winner could make one player reveal their true role to them, face to face.

Fantasy impact: An optional scoring event, off by default, that a commissioner can switch on. It is the only way in the game to know someone's role for certain before the Round Table reveals it.

A power from US season 4 that made its holder's vote count twice at one Round Table of their choosing, within a set window.

Fantasy impact: Not scored as its own event, but a doubled vote can decide a banishment, and banishments are the biggest swing of a round.

The room where the Traitors meet at night to choose a victim, hooded and away from the rest of the castle.

Fantasy impact: No direct scoring, but turret scenes are where recruitment and internal Traitor conflict happen, which both score.

The closing sequence. The remaining players vote repeatedly on whether to banish again or end the game and split the fund. Every US season so far has required a unanimous vote to end: one dissenter and the group banishes again.

Fantasy impact: The largest scoring swing of the season. Ending the game with a Traitor still seated hands them everything.

The morning scene where the cast works out who is missing. If a shield blocked the murder, nobody is. Players arrive in groups that production chooses, and production has been known to send Traitors in late, so arriving last proves nothing.

Fantasy impact: Not scored, but it is where a blocked murder becomes public and where suspicion for the coming round is set.