The game that Kira (Skyler Wexler) and the Hell Wizard (Calwyn Shurgold) are playing is a complex fantasy board game called Descent. Orphan Black co-creator John Fawcett taught them how to play the game.
The name of the new Castor clone (Ira) is the first name of the actor who plays them, Ari Millen, spelled backwards.
The orb monster with eye-stalks on the sweater that Hell Wizard (Calwyn Shurgold) wears is called a Beholder, and is part of the Dungeons & Dragons game universe, first appearing on the cover of the Greyhawk supplement in 1975.
Maria Doyle Kennedy (Siobhan Sadler) and James Frain (Ferdinand Chevalier) have previously worked together in the TV show The Tudors (2007). They played Queen Catherine of Aragon and Thomas Cromwell, respectively.