NOTE: Pelican can only be in the game if neither the vulture nor the falcon are. If either of these two roles are drafted or randomly dealt out, then pelican will not be.
A neutral role armed with nothing but a huge appetite matched only by the size of his stomach, the Pelican seeks to hunt down, devour, and digest his rivals until he is the sole survivor. Then maybe his hunger will finally be sated (but don't count on it).
Role Description:
Win as the last survivor. You can swallow players whole, but they do not die until a meeting is called. Your tasks are fake.
Special Ability: Swallow (Cooldown: 20 + 5 per living player swallowed)
Works very similarly to the Kill ability. However, instead of killing the player and leaving behind a corpse, the Pelican will swallow that player alive and whole. That player will remain inside the Pelican's belly until either the Pelican dies (every swallowed player reappears on top of the Pelican's corpse) or until a meeting of any kind is called (every swallowed player is digested alive and killed). There is no limit to the number of players that can be swallowed at the same time. If proximity chat is enabled, players inside the Pelican's belly can communicate with each other and the Pelican. The Pelican can also speak with players in their belly. Players outside of the Pelican cannot hear players inside the Pelican. Although swallowing isn't a "kill", the Pelican will report the Canadian when swallowed. If a player that is holding one of the Demolitionist's bombs is swallowed, the bomb can explode inside the Pelican, killing the Pelican and causing everyone swallowed to reappear. Should the Pelican get killed by a map hazard such as SS Mothergoose's airlock or Jungle Temple's Boulder, everyone in the Pelican's belly will also die (except for the Adventurer).
Special Ability: Pelican Time
Geese cannot win by voting out all of the ducks and ducks cannot win by outnumbering non-ducks while the Pelican is alive. If the Pelican and 2 other players are alive AND not swallowed, Pelican Time will begin. During Pelican Time, a countdown will begin with a message that differs depending on the reader's faction
- Goose: Complete your tasks, or kill the pelican if you can.
- Duck: Kill the pelican
- Pelican: Survive or swallow the others
- Other Neutrals: Complete your objective
If the timer expires or the remaining players are either killed or swallowed, the Pelican wins. If the Crow transforms during Pelican Hunt, the timer will be paused until the Crow dies.
Strategy
Like the Falcon, the Pelican has no allies so it must play a lot more careful than other ducks who can vouch for each other. Unlike the others though, swallowing victims does not leave behind evidence which makes you harder to catch. Instead, the more undigested food is in the Pelican's belly, the longer it takes to make room for more; this makes a rampaging Pelican vulnerable to being killed due to having a very high gulp cooldown. So if you do decide to gorge yourself, you may want to find a place to hide. The portal at the tunnel in the Basement is often the safest place for a Pelican to hide, but because of this, experienced players will often check this area. Another safe place in Basement the coffin in the tunnels where you pay respects if that has already been done. In SS Mothergoose and Bloodhaven, there aren't as many safe places to hide, so the best thing to do is to keep moving and get in a group if you can find one, as killers are a lot less likely to risk killing within a group and the group may end up vouching for your innocence. If your cooldown starts to get dangerously high, you have the option of calling an emergency meeting in order to digest your food and empty your stomach, resetting your cooldown back down to 20; if a Pelican is known to be in the game, people will often become suspicious of people that random call votes, so make up a good reason (claiming to be resetting Pigeon, for example). Doing this also means you won't be able to call a meeting to save yourself if you swallow someone with a bomb, so weigh the risks against the rewards. There are also various roles that you should be careful of as they alone can end up messing up your game:
- Any role that can kill, regardless of team, will want you dead. If someone claims a killing role, you will want to keep clear of them unless you can catch them by surprise. The fewer killers there are in the final 3, the more likely you are to win though, so if you find the opportunity to ambush a killer, take it.
- The Canadian will cause you to auto report itself when swallowed. If a Canadian claims, it is best to let them stay outside of you as they are no threat to you once Pelican Hunt begins, as meetings of all kinds are disabled during this time. Once you reach the final 4, you are free to gulp down the Canadian as that leaves a total of 3 players which triggers the Hunt and disables the meeting you would have been the caller of.
- The Stalker can have an arrow follow a player of their choice. If you eat the stalked player, the arrow will still follow them from inside your belly. If the Stalker is observant, they can easily determine that you ate their target and call you out.
- The Serial Killer can have you as a target at any point. If he does, then it is impossible for you to hide from them. The Serial Killer will also end up following their target from inside your belly lile the stalker if you eat their target. If you suspect a Serial Killer is in game, keep moving and have an itchy trigger finger (or in this case, a hungry trigger belly?).
- The Demolitionist's bombs, when swallowed, can blow you up from the inside. If you hear ticking inside you, or if you swallow someone who is ticking. Rush to the bell to digest the bomb before it explodes.
- Other neutrals can complete their objective and steal the win from you. If you suspect a neutral is close to winning, hunt them down and swallow them.
- If the Crow ends up transforming, the best thing you can do is pray, but you can also move around and try to hide far from the Crow. If you see the Crow's model, go the opposite direction. If the Crow expires without killing you, there are usually very few people left, making you the next winner.
Trivia:
- The Pelican was released alongside The Basement, The Invisible Duck, the Astral Goose, and the Esper Goose in patch 2.03. It was a role that could only be found in The Basement until patch 2.14 where it now appears in S.S. Mothergoose as well. Bloodhaven was released with the Pelican in patch 2.21, and patch 2.23 added the Pelican to Mallard Manor and Jungle Temple. In patch 2.27, pelican is now available in every map.
- The Pelican was nerfed in patch 2.04. Before then, the Pelican did not have an increased cooldown when swallowing someone, did not "jump" to the victim's location, did not report Canadians, and survived swallowing bombs.
- While coming up with the Pelican, one idea was that players would not be killed during meetings, but instead would be slowly digested over time. Once a player is finally digested, their corpse would be dropped at the Pelican's current location.
- There is 1 achievement related to the Pelican. The achievement is called "Gulp", and it is earned by winning 75 games as the Pelican.
- The Pelican's role colour is green.
- The Pelican's role icon depicts a bird bulging out of another bird's belly.
- The Pelican's swallow ability icon depicts a goose trapped inside a large beak.