Characters / The Binding of Isaac - Main Cast

The Binding of Isaac Main Character Index
Main Cast | Monsters (Enemies | Bosses | Final Bosses)

The primary cast of the game, both story-wise and game-wise.

As a warning, many characters on this page are spoiler-heavy, due to their relevance to the plot or needing to be unlocked. As such, spoilers below this point may be unmarked. Proceed at your own risk.

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Plot-relevant characters

Isaac Moriah

Isaac Moriah

Voiced by: Tallulah Rossi (The Legend of Bum-bo), Viggo Rossi (Repentance)

A little boy who flees into the basement of his house to escape from his mother who wants to kill him, and must fight for his life against a never-ending assortment of demons and mutants. Beating the game in certain ways or collecting certain items unlocks variations of Isaac with their own unique attributes.

For tropes related to Isaac and his alter-egos in gameplay, scroll down to the section on player characters. For tropes related to Isaac as the Final Boss of the Cathedral, please go to the section on final bosses.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: In addition to having an abusive mother and a Disappeared Dad, flashbacks also show him suffering bullying from other kids, such as having his pants pulled down while trying to impress a girl, getting crapped on (literally), getting knocked down by a dodgeball, and being made fun of for wearing a wig and dress.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Isaac often liked to pretend he was a girl, and would even go out in public as his (imaginary according to Word of God) "sister" Maggy. This was something that his mother Magdalene encouraged despite her ultra-conservative views, and possibly originated from her in the first place.
• Break the Cutie: The entire premise of the game is one for him.
• Bully Magnet: As referenced by his dreams, the other kids of his class loved to pull all kinds of crap on him.
• Children Forced to Kill: Isaac has to fight and kill plenty of enemies just to survive, up to and including his own religiously psychotic mother. Or so it seems.
• Create Your Own Villain: Well, antagonist. Isaac would never have been forced to kill his own mother if she hadn't snapped and tried to sacrifice him in the first place. This gains some very interesting implications in the ending for defeating Mega Satan (Rebirth's final ending), where it's revealed that Isaac becomes either a demon, or the Antichrist inside the chest. Did Isaac have darkness inside him all along, or did he decide to become evil after all the horror that he went through?
  • As it turns out, this trope is played literally, with the revelation that the entire game is Isaac's Dying Dream.
    • And as if that wasn't enough played even more literally when it turns out the whole game including the Dying Dream is just a story Isaac is telling with his dad.
• Crossdresser: A few between-level cutscenes show him wearing a dress or a wig, not to mention the fact that all female "player characters" are him crossdressing.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The horrible memories of things that Isaac suffered through are relived in level loading screens. In one ending, the photograph montage of Isaac's past leaves a lot of interpretation as to what happened to his family, namely what happened to his father (who likely left, went missing, or died). The true ending of Afterbirth†, earned by defeating Delirium confirms that he left, and this point is reiterated in The Legend of Bum-bo's main ending.
• Dead All Along: After beating It Lives for the tenth time and unlocking Ending 10, Isaac comes across his corpse stuffed into a chest. At least one interpretation of this involves Isaac having been dead the whole time. The next three endings explore the events leading up to his death in reverse chronological order, first showing him willingly locking himself in the chest, then showing his self-loathing which led to this, and finally showing his tragic backstory through a heartbreaking Photo Montage. After beating Hush in Afterbirth, if you end your run there, not going on to Cathedral or Sheol, the ending outright confirms this, as Mom opens the Chest to find Isaac's skeletal remains. The true ending to the game reveals that he has long since been Driven to Suicide and that none of the game is even happening.
• Driven to Suicide: Isaac hangs himself upon finding Transcendence (a noose) in Ending 2. This is Played for Drama in the final few endings: after we see that Isaac has been Dead All Along in Ending 10, we are shown him willingly entering the chest himself in Endings 12 and 13, and Mega Satan's Ending reveals that it was due to his self-loathing as he sees himself as a demon after his family breaks apart.
• Dying Dream: The ending added in Afterbirth† reveals that the whole game is this, including the thought of his mother attempting to kill him. Repentance potentially averts this and reveals the game is in fact Isaac's dad telling him a bedtime story with his son's help. Isaac's dad stops the story just before the ending and with a little push from him Isaac agrees to a better story with a happier ending. His father gladly begins this new story about "Isaac and his parents" instead of just "Isaac and his mother". The Afterbirth† ending is still intact, however, so the jury is out on how literal the Beast ending is.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It's unclear whether or not he survives, but regardless he gets over his guilt complex in the end.
• Enemy Without: There are four variations of Isaac that serve as bosses: It Lives, the boss of Womb II confirmed to be Isaac as an embryo; normal Isaac, the boss of Cathedral; Hush, the boss of the Blue Womb and a suffocating version of Isaac; and finally ???, boss of the Chest and Isaac after suffocating to death.
• Fingerless Hands: Bizarrely flip-flopped. While Isaac himself visually has no fingers within gameplay and some endings (such as in Ending 16◊), both his demon form in Ending 16◊ and his skeleton◊ in the cutscene proceeding the fight with The Beast inexplicably have fingers. Whether this is a goof-up or a stylistic choice is anyone's guess.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Unless an item is picked up, Isaac is battling the monsters of the basement stark naked. The fact that you can't see his junk, as seen in one of the nightmares, is because he lost his at some point, though whether this actually happened is debatable, and his Barbie Doll Anatomy could just be due to the art style.
• Game Master: In a meta sort of way; the game takes place entirely in Isaac's imagination. Depending on how you interpret the ending, it's either his Dying Dream or a bedtime story he's telling his dad.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Harshly subverted, and ultimately Played for Horror. Many of the level intermission vignettes have Isaac getting picked on by kids, being made fun of for dressing in drag, getting poop as a birthday gift, realizing he has no toilet paper while he's on the toilet, the list goes on and on. And that's not even speaking of some of the items — the Wooden Spoon gives you scars, implying Isaac was beaten with it, the Belt is self-explanatory, and many of the food items (rotten milk, dog food, a dog snack, rotten meat, whatever there is on a plate, etc.) aren't exactly fit for human consumption.
• Ironic Name: "Isaac" means "he laughed" or "he who laughs." Not much laughing occurs. Quite the opposite, really. invoked
  • Although it was based off the biblical story. See Meaningful Name below.
• It's All My Fault: The ending you get for beating the Chest seems to imply that the cause of Isaac's self-loathing is because he blames himself for his father leaving. His mother seems to blame him too. The final ending eventually reveals that he does blame himself, and this is what ultimately causes him to be Driven to Suicide.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Whenever the player gets a Game Over, Isaac usually states in his final will that he will give what he collected to his pet cat, Guppy.
• Madness Mantra: BAD BAD BAD BAD I'M THE DEVIL, written across his drawings since he feels guilty for his parents fighting and divorcing.
• The Mentally Disturbed: With all said and done about the new endings in Rebirth and its expansions, there comes the spine-chilling conclusion that, by experiencing losses too grave for his age, together with the outcast status forcefully pinned by other children, this whole game can be interpreted as Isaac's slow descent into schizophrenia. Small wonder that the game seems to run on Black Comedy and surrealism now, huh...?
• Mr. Imagination: Horribly deconstructed. Isaac has the vivid imagination expected of a child his age, but his troubled childhood and self-loathing lead to his imagination going to very, very strange and dark places. Even as he suffocates inside his toy chest.
• Naked on Arrival: He is naked throughout almost the entire game.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain:
  • Of sorts. He's a five-year-old and one of the bosses he faces is It Lives who's a fetus.
  • Inverted with his mother, who's the game's Big Bad and she's clearly older than him.
• Potty Failure: Edmund has confirmed that Isaac suffers from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which is why there's poop everywhere in the game.
• Sanity Slippage: Isaac is slowly going insane the longer he is in the chest, as shown by the final level and boss being amalgams of previous levels and bosses.
• Suddenly Voiced: One of the main endings of The Legend of Bum-bo features Isaac's first spoken words in the series, begging Mom to leave his cardboard toys alone.
  "No, no, mama - PLEASE!"
  • He also speaks in the ending from defeating Mother, begging his mom in the real world to not throw him into the closet (and failing) when she finds his monstrous drawings of her.
  • Happens again during the final ending of Repentance where it's revealed the entire game has been a bedtime story told to him by his father with Isaac's help, but they decide together to scrap the whole thing at the last second and tell a different story with a happier ending.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: It is strongly implied that at the ending of Rebirth, Isaac becomes a demon or The Antichrist in order to deal with all the horror he went through, up to and including his mother. Ultimately subverted, as this is how he sees himself, for, in his own mind, being the reason his father "left forever".
• Troubled Fetal Position: Isaac's signature pose.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: With the game's reveal that it was just all in Isaac's head, one could wonder what exactly is going on inside this kid's head, with the game's vast amount of Body Horror and violence. Even the items leave disturbing implications, with the item pool including a gimp mask, a razor blade for Self-Harm, a suicide vest, drug needles, literal cancer, etc. Just what kind of stuff has Isaac been exposed to?!
• Vague Age: It's theorized Isaac's age being from a toddler to at most seven years old. He's at least old enough to walk and go to school, and The Legend of Bumbo reveals that he can talk. Edmund also tentatively handwaved in a tweet that Isaac is five. As of the Four Souls: Requiem expansion, this is put to rest since the back of the game's box confirms that Isaac is 5 years old.
• Walking Spoiler: Due to the endings revealing more and more of what is actually going on between him and his family, it's only a given.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Isaac appears to be a writer at the aforementioned age of 5, having created his own bedtime stories along with his father, and his work contains some particularly weird things to say the least.

Mom/Magdalene O. Moriah

Magdalene O. Moriah

Voiced by: Patty Allen-Scott (The Binding of Isaac), Carla Kihlstedt (Rebirth onward)

I will follow your instructions, Lord. I have faith in thee.

Isaac's mother. A devoutly religious woman who, in a fit of rage/insanity/fanaticism/whatever you think it is, tries to kill Isaac, forcing him to flee to the basement.

For tropes relating to Mom as a Final Boss, please check the section on major bosses.

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• Abusive Mom: Takes away all her son's stuff, locks him in his room, and then tries to kill him, all just at the start of the story. Convinced by God to do so or not, that's all the evidence you need. Some of the items in the game (bad/rotten food for his meals, the Belt and Spoon being speed boosters, etc) also suggest that she abused Isaac physically before the story even started. The final ending and The Legend of Bum-bo strongly hint her to be the reason why his dad leaves them both despite him loving Isaac, on top of her trying to make Isaac believe his dad never loved them. However, Afterbirth†'s ending reveals that, despite abusing him, she never tried to kill him in the first place. Repentance adds ambiguity in its own endings. The Corpse's ending shows Isaac's mother locking him in a closet for drawing her as a hideous monstress, putting more realism on the kind of treatment he received. The dialogue on the way to Home shows her in a more pitiable light as she and Isaac's father split apart, and its ending (regardless of whether the Nested Story Reveal is meant to be taken literally or not) shows that Isaac still wants to see his parents happily together again. The game is vague on the full extent of everything, though Mom's divorce and fall into fundamentalism hit Isaac extremely hard either way.
• The Bad Guy Wins: It's revealed that Isaac suffocated to death while inside the chest. She wanted Isaac to die because of an (alleged) order from God, do the math. However, subsequent endings reveal that Isaac locked himself in the Chest before the events of the game, and Afterbirth† reveals that she was never intending to kill him and that Isaac saw himself as a demon and the cause of his family breaking apart, making this a cruel subversion.
• Big Bad: The game is kickstarted by her attempting to murder her son. Ultimately subverted; the only evidence of this comes from Isaac's own mind, which is unreliable at best.
• Blatant Lies: In one of the endings from The Legend of Bum-bo (voiced, too), she tells her son his dad left them and never loved them. The final ending reveals his dad was the one responsible for expanding his mind to cope with his troubles before he left.
• Establishing Character Moment: Mom's idea of "removing all that is evil" from Isaac's life in the intro involves taking away all of his toys and all his clothes as well. When the Voice tells her that he needs to be cut off from all the evil of the world, she responds by locking Isaac in his room. And that's before she is asked to kill him.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In Ending 21, she is heartbroken when she finds out that Isaac sees her as a monster.
  Mom: This is what you think of me? This is what I am to you? A MONSTER!?
  (Issac tries to reason with her)
  Mom: After all I've done to you, this is how you view me? You think I'm a monster? Isaac, I WILL SHOW YOU A MONSTER!!!
  (Issac tries to reason with her again, only to be kicked into the closet)
  Mom (audibly tearing up): You are just like your father... I can't even look at you...
• Evil Is Petty: She may not be trying to kill Isaac, but she is not a good parent.
  • Her stomping one of Isaac's toys in a flashback comes to mind.
  • She also gave Isaac poop for a gift for… some reason.
  • Then there's her calling Isaac disturbed in the Ascent.
  • Her locking Isaac in a dark space because he drew her as a monstress.
  • Then there's her telling Isaac his father never loved him in Bumbo's ending. Not helped by the fact that Maggy herself was also part of the reason for the marriage collapsing.
• The Extremist Was Right: She's a religious fanatic that appears to think that she's on a mission from God, which is clearly not the case. At least until the end of Rebirth, strongly implying that Isaac either was or now is a demon. If you subscribe to the "just insane" theory, then she's Right for the Wrong Reasons.
  • Subverted as of Ending 20: Isaac made up the story, possibly to explain why she was acting so abusive without taking the blame off of himself.
• The Faceless: While you see her face in Isaac's doodles, you never get to see Mom's actual face at once, only a single eye… or the lower half of it if you use Mom's Bra.
• Foreshadowing: The opening pretty much implies she's reenacting the role of Abraham in Yahweh's covenant. Which means, in case you're not a Bible buff, that this whole act is doomed to fail if she plays it as intended, as this time there's no angel to stop her and save her son's life.
• The Fundamentalist: She's heavily Christian, and her hearing the voice of God is what kicks off the plot. Repentance reveals that she descended into religious insanity during her relationship with Dad, getting this idea into her head that Isaac needed to be "saved".
• Gonk: Played with. In the game proper, she's presented as this to grotesque, nauseating levels. However, the final ending hints at the possibility that this is how Isaac's addled mind interprets her appearance.
• Good All Along: Downplayed. She really was abusive, but Repentance practically confirms she never actually tried to kill Isaac and it was really either a story or Dying Dream on Isaac's part.
• Hate Sink: A petty monster who's responsible for a Mook Bouncer that's apparently intended to annoy the player. A sadistic (at least during her boss fight) Manipulative Bitch. The Big Bad who caused her son's issues via abusing him in more ways than one and tries to kill him. It's subverted as Mom is later revealed to be a Troubled Abuser.
• The Heavy: Her actions kickstart the game's plot, and she's had a lot of negative influence on Isaac's life, permanently etching her into his psyche.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Ending 13 ^note 14 in Rebirth reveals that she used to be completely sane, and the caring and loving mother of a fully-functional family. However, as the family fell apart, so did her sanity.
  • Endings 15 and 17 suggest that in the end, she might be at least somewhat concerned about her son's well-being.
  • Ending 20, confirms that, while abusive, Mom is most likely nowhere near the psycho that Isaac's brain made her out to be, and never intended to kill him at all. She's seen weeping in front of the television after his father leaves the family.
  • However, The Legend of Bum-bo's endings reveal that she's trying to brainwash Isaac into thinking his dad never loved them, despite him teaching his son to use his imagination to cope with his insecurity. While nowhere near a psycho, she does try to manipulate her son into thinking his dad was a bad person.
  • Ending 21, the first of the final endings in Repentance, reveals that Mom considers Isaac to be just like his father, who is a source of much pain for her.
  • The Ascent and the final ending (22) in Repentance reveal that a combination of Dad's alcoholism and his stealing of Mom's money, along with Mom's increasing insanity and fundamentalism due to having turned to religion and the crazy televangelists in her Christian broadcasts in order to cope with her situation, led to the deterioration of their marriage and poor Isaac's suicidal self-hatred.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Her full name is Magdalene O. Moriah, making her initials "M.O.M."
• Manipulative Bitch: She's this at best, if the endings of The Legend of Bum-bo are to be believed. One night, Isaac is talking to his cardboard toys that he and dad made, when she enters the room and tells him she had gotten rid of them, telling Isaac that his dad never loved them, when this was not the case.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is she really hearing the voice of God, or is she just completely insane? The best we get from McMillen is him stating:
  “It was never implied that [Mom's] insane. And if you're going by the Bible and you believe all the stories, then why wouldn't you think that it's possible now for that stuff to happen?”
• Offing the Offspring: Her goal is to kill Isaac in Isaac's Dying Dream.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: An inverted case. Isaac, the game's protagonist, is obviously younger than Mom.
• One Bad Mother: Bonus points for actually being the main character's mother.
• Pet the Dog: As Hidden Depths shows, she did try to look for Isaac when he went missing. Heck, the Beast ending even shows her mourning her son's death.
• Politically Correct Villain: Shows shades of this; despite being a textbook Abusive Mom, Mom isn't bothered at all with Isaac cross dressing, implying that while she is a hardcore conservative Christian, she isn't a bigot.
• Psycho Knife Nut: She's holding her knife in almost every cutscene she appears in, often with an accompanying deranged expression. Mom's Knife is an unlockable item that lets you wield the knife instead of using tears.
• Psycho Pink: Wears pink in one ending, and is an unstable monster who has zero qualms with harming her own son.
• Suddenly Voiced: One of the main endings of The Legend of Bum-bo features the real Mom speaking full sentences for the first time.
  "Isaac... who were you talking to? ...where did you get that stuff? I thought I threw it out... He LEFT us, Isaac. He's GONE. He NEVER loved us, don't you get it?! [...] Isaac, listen to me: it's just us now. It's just us now, Isaac. You. And mama."
• Troubled Abuser: Her in a bloated nutshell; she couldn't handle the repeated betrayals of trust from her beloved husband, so she takes it out on her son whenever he takes after his father. In the endings where Isaac dies, she has a complete breakdown.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom Her abusive moments and lashing out at Isaac for being like his father are a big factor for Isaac's issues. This all devolves into Isaac locking himself into his toy chest.
• Villainy-Free Villain: With the added context given in Repentance. The new endings point to her being less of Knight Templar hellbent on making her son as miserable as possible until she gets the divine command to kill him, and more so a realistically fundamentalist mother who is strict to the point of being abusive. That being said, despite partially being the cause of Isaac's severe self loathing and indirectly leading to him dying, neither were her actual intention and she is genuinely distraught over his death.
• When She Smiles: In the final ending of Repentance, Isaac sees a vision of his own birth. In it, a much more stable and healthy-looking Mom is holding baby Isaac, wrapped in blankets and fast asleep, with a positively radiant grin of joy on her face.
• Would Hurt a Child: You bet. From nightmares showing that she has kicked Isaac, to her heavy association with stomping and knives in-game.

God/The "Voice From Above"

In the opening narration, a voice from above claims to be God to Isaac's mother and instructs her to kill him.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Is it really God's voice? Satan's? Or someone else's? One of the between-floors clips added in Afterbirth shows the scene of Mom hearing the voice from above, except the camera, moves up to show The Lost speaking. The final ending implies that there was no "voice" to begin with, and Mom was never trying to kill Isaac.
• Devil, but No God: Played with in that while God does seem to exist in the setting, not once is he ever seen. Only angelic creatures appear, and yet, Satan makes a physical appearance both for Devil Deals and for multiple boss fights, alongside countless demonic entities.
• The Ghost: If it's actually God who's speaking from above… despite playing a part in the game's initial story, he never actually appears in-game. Even the holy counterpart to Devil Rooms are Angel Rooms, which have Uriel and Gabriel in them instead. The only item outright said to be God-related^note "God's Flesh" is a slang term for psychedelic mushrooms is Godhead, which gives Isaac a third eye and a glow on his head.
• God Is Evil: If the voice that spoke to Mom really was God himself, then this trope is in play. How else can you describe a supposedly benevolent deity demanding a mother sacrifice her son as a sign of her devotion?
  • Subverted if you believe that it was all a Secret Test of Character that Mom failed given how he saves Isaac in The Epilogue.
• Secret Test of Character: The Epilogue suggests this was the case with Mom, as the narrator describes her death as "God intervened" despite supposedly ordering her to kill Isaac in the first place.
• Third Eye: Godhead gives Isaac this and "God tears". If the item is considered as adding a God-like third eye to Isaac's head, since Isaac's "normal" eyes are unchanged and the item itself just shows one eye in a triangle, then this game's depiction of God might have only one eye instead.
• The Unfought: Isaac never encounters God in-game. Even when going to a cathedral, the boss of that is Isaac himself, and the floor after that is not another holy location so much as it is a chest where Isaac's post-mortem counterpart lies (and where Isaac must confront reality).
• The Voice: He makes no physical appearance whatsoever, but his voice being heard by Mom plays a big part in the plot.

Dad

Dad

Voiced by: Matthias Rossi

Isaac's father, who is not part of the family by the time the game takes place.

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• Abusive Dad: Some of the items in the game (bad/rotten food for his meals, the Belt and Spoon being speed boosters, etc) suggest that Isaac has at least one abusive parent. Subverted for Dad at least on some level, however, as the endings suggest that the abusive parent is most likely Mom, and the final ending + The Legend of Bum-Bo makes it clear that for any other faults he may or may not have, he holds no ill will towards his son. The Ascent of Repentance shows Dad's faults in an argument with Maggy, but he mournfully tells Isaac he's sorry when he leaves.
  • Collecting the passive item Dad's Lost Coin also makes poor Isaac look miserable though given the information above he’s likely miserable because he misses his father.
• Alcoholic Dad: The Dad's Lost Coin card◊ in The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls is an Alcoholics Anonymous chip. His alcoholism is one of the main reasons why His and Mom's marriage fell apart.
• Big Good: As suggested by The Legend of Bum-Bo, the various stages in the game are actually created as an escape for Isaac, for if he ever needs an outlet to escape from the stresses of his terrible life. Played with, as he's not completely good and caused some issues for the family with his alcoholism and tendency to steal from his wife.
• Disappeared Dad: Right from the beginning of the game, the intro states that Isaac lives alone with his mother. The final ending implies that something happened which caused him to leave in anger and drove him away from Mom, and by beating the Boss Rush as The Forgotten, you unlock the Divorce Papers. Notably, the Dad's Key item lets Isaac open any door; in other words, leave the given room he's in. The Repentance expansion plays conversations between him and Mom relating to their collapsing marriage on the way to Home to drill it in further. The possible Nested Story Reveal in the subsequent ending shows Dad and Isaac together telling a bedtime story, though he still seems to be divorced.
• The Ghost: Justified considering the game's setting. He's already out of the family, and Isaac instead wanders the Basement fending off demons. However, even as it becomes clear that the gameplay is set in a Dying Dream, Dad himself is never directly encountered.
  • In Repentance, he continues his role as narrator for the story from The Legend of Bum-Bo and his voice is heard in The Beast ending. He stops telling the story just as he finishes summing up all the horrifically dark events of it and asks Isaac if this is really how he wants the story to end, reminding him that he's the one writing it. He suggests a happier ending and Isaac verbally agrees as his Dad happily starts the story from the beginning, only this time the story is not about Isaac and his mother, but about Isaac and his parents.
• Good Parents: The Legend of Bum-bo's final ending reveal he tried to be this. He gave very well-intentioned advice to Isaac about fueling his imagination to help cope with reality, and claimed that he will always be with Isaac in spirit. That said, he's also the one who made the cardboard toys Isaac plays with, which are… mature, disturbing, and grotesque, to say the least, and may have been the result of his alcoholism — certainly not appropriate for a five-year old to play with. The final ending of the main game does have him attempting to help his son cope better through a bedtime story, at least.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Subverted. He is mostly responsible for the deranged setting and monsters that Isaac encounters, but he only created them in the hopes that Isaac would learn to use his own imagination as a coping mechanism. What's more, with him gone since the start of the story, the only candidate for Big Bad is Isaac's mom.
• Monster Progenitor: As it turns out, according to The Legend of Bum-Bo, the monsters Isaac faces are actually cardboard toys that his dad made for him.
• Narrator All Along: The one who's telling Isaac his bedtime stories.
• Parents as People: There's a lot to suggest that he isn't exactly a model father, and his encouragement of Isaac's imagination could be interpreted as, at best, turning Isaac into a Wise Beyond Their Years Dirty Kid with experience in mature themes, and at worst, making Isaac's self-hatred even worse. There's also the fact that he wasn't a very good person in the first place, as he stole money from his wife and struggled with alcoholism, and possibly worse addictions, seeing that he squandered his family's life savings. But the endings to The Legend of Bum-bo and Repentance show that, even with his faults, he does genuinely love his son.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • The Legend of Bum-bo reveals that he (at least partially) created the "world" that both it and The Binding of Isaac take place in, with the intention of teaching Isaac to rely on his own creativity in order to deal with the stresses of reality. Unfortunately, Isaac becomes too delusional with the mental world he and Dad formed together, and ultimately may have chosen to commit suicide instead of moving on with his life…
  • Repentance shows that he willingly left the family in order to protect Mom and Isaac from his alcoholism. This ultimately just made his son and wife's mental health problems even worse.
• Walking Spoiler: Plays a part in the game's overall lore, but is not really hinted at doing so until around unlocking the Polaroid/Negative, which takes over a dozen playthroughs (assuming no skipping involved with items, buttons, or Error/Black Market rooms generating trap doors). Or by going through Hush and Delirium and seeing Ending 20, since it is possible yet difficult for newer players to beat that path before unlocking either photograph. The Legend of Bum-bo takes it even further by revealing Dad's true significance in the setting of both games.
• You're Insane!: Says this to Mom when her religious fanaticism gets worse, to the point that she's yelling at Isaac (who can't be more than four to five years old) about confessing his sins and becoming saved, telling her that she is taking this too far.

Bumbo

Bum-bo

Voiced by: Matthias Rossi

A naked baby who lives with his trash. He's the protagonist of "The Legend of Bum-bo," when a monster steals his precious golden coin.

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• Berserk Button: He’s very attached to his single coin, so when a monster takes it away, he does not hesitate in following it and beating up any other monster who stands in his way.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He’s a loud, brave bum who likes to punch his enemies into mush. It’s especially evident whenever he kills a boss, letting out a triumphant “OOOOH YEAH!” as it explodes into gibs.
• Breakout Character: Originally a familiar for Isaac to recruit, Bum-bo saw a considerable rise in popularity before starring in his own game. He's even playable in the Four Souls card game as of the Booster Pack, being one of the very few NPCs from the main Isaac that is playable.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Bum-bo has an interesting thought process when he encounters the chest at the end of the game. Some of the things he thinks could be inside are a spider with a long butt, a bean with magic powers, a hot dog with teeth, and a dancing can.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Isaac is a scared child who enters the unknown depths to escape from his mother, and primarily attacks with ranged tears. Bum-bo, however, is brave and cheerful, willingly follows a monster into the unknown depths after it takes his coin, and prefers to smash enemies with his fists.
• Dumb Muscle: He's far stupider than Isaac, that's for sure. That said, while Isaac has to fight with his tears, Bum-bo has no problem smashing his enemies apart with his fists.
• Hulk Speak: On top of him being a Third-Person Person.
• The Gambler: Despite his obsession with the coin, one ending features him feeding it to a slot machine (though he hesitates for a long while before doing so).
• Magikarp Power: How he works as a familiar in The Binding of Isaac. Bumbo starts out doing nothing but taking money (which makes him even worse than Bum Friend, who at least gives you stuff in return), but as he collects more coins, he gains more abilities. Once he's fully powered up, Bumbo becomes among the strongest familiars in the game, capable of spitting out tons of items and single-handedly murdering most bosses.
• Spell My Name With An S: As a familiar in Isaac, his name is spelled as "Bumbo" without the hyphen. Also Early-Installment Weirdness as the hyphen was added after he got his own game.
• Third-Person Person: He mostly speaks this way whenever he's narrating a cutscene. This may be because "Bum-bo" is in fact Isaac's dad, narrating the setting of the world Isaac would escape to if he ever becomes too stressed.
• Weak, but Skilled: Among his various classes, Bum-Bo The Nimble is this. Nimble can't be played without plenty of strategy, and building up the power of his Needle through combos and power ups. That said, he's firmly Difficult, but Awesome, and can destroy multiple enemies in a single turn if played properly.
• Wham Line: In the true ending, Bum-bo talks about making his "kingdom" and expanding it, filling it with adventure, until his voice suddenly changes, and reveals that his kingdom was made for Isaac and that "Bum-bo" was in fact his father, who did it all to help Isaac escape the stresses of reality.

Playable Characters

In General

• Acrofatic: Several items make your character fatter, and most don't negatively impact speed. Combine these with items that increase your speed and you have this trope.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Stat-boosting pills change the character's color (Green for Luck, red for Health, etc), as do a few of the items. Most demon-related items turn the character into a black-skinned demonic hybrid, and Anti-Gravity turns them blue, for two examples.
• Art Evolution: Repentance gives a lot of them updated appearances, particularly the ones with large hairstyles like Magdalene and Samson.
• Badass Adorable: He's still a child at the end of the day.
• Berserker Tears: Unlike most examples, he fights by crying. Samson weaponizes this by increasing damage every time he gets hurt, but it goes away when entering a new floor.
• Blessed with Suck: Guppy's Tail makes you find golden treasure chests more often. This comes at the expense of keys needed to open those chests, though if you're lucky, the chests cough them up. Works wonders with items that can create keys, such as the Skeleton Key or a Flat Penny, or if you can just open Gold Chests for free with the Paperclip trinket. This is made potentially worse or better with The Left Hand trinket that changes all chests to Red Chests. They don't require a key to open, but half or more of the things that come out of a red chest are not something you want (including enemies and troll bombs).
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The three female playable characters: Magdalene (blonde), Eve (brunette), and Lilith (redhead).
• Body Horror: Many items mutilate or mutate the character in some horrific way. For example, Chemical Peel causes half of the character's face to be torn off, Growth Hormones causes hideous lumps to form over the character's body, Stem Cells causes a fetus to grow on the side of the character's head, The Parasite burrows into the character's skull and dyes their tears a disgusting orange-brown, and 8 Inch Nails has two nails shoved in each of the character's eyes.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Entering a room with half a heart makes the player leave yellow urine stains on the floor (unless playing as Eve, whose stains are red instead).
• Bullet Hell: It's possible to get a character that shoots a four-way bullet spread at the speed of a machine gun with additional single shots from the other three cardinal directions. And honestly, that's a pretty tame possibility.
• Dark Is Not Evil: An Isaac with a lot of Devil items is still just looking to survive.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Isaac can tear apart any number of bosses over the course of the game, including Satan.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The four "dead" characters (???, The Lost, Keeper, and The Forgotten) are known for being much harder to play than the standard cast. ??? can't gain regular red heart containers, The Lost dies in one hit (two if the Holy Mantle is unlocked for him via Greed Mode), the Keeper has a unique HP resource in coins and always takes a full heart of damage, and The Forgotten has his HP split between himself and The Soul, who can only obtain Soul Hearts. In exchange, these characters are granted boons to make things easier. ??? can never gain red hearts, which means he technically can never lose them either, making it so that he always has a high chance of accessing Devil Deals and Angel Deals. The Lost has natural flight and spectral tears, allowing him to fight at a distance, and his Holy Mantle effect protects him from one hit per room. This means he can enter cursed rooms for free. He can also take Devil Deals for free, though Repentance nerfs this to only letting him take one of the items on offer. Keeper spawns with natural triple shot and can unlock Wooden Nickel and Store Key as starting pickups, giving him a steady supply of health and free access to shops. Repentance even allows him to buy Devil Deal items, which can combine with his triple shot to turn him into a real powerhouse. Lastly, The Forgotten's skeletal club has very solid damage scaling, his bone hearts afford him more HP than one might expect due to how they take three hits to break, and The Soul's ability to fly over gaps makes for a character with a lot of utility.
• Empowered Badass Normal: No matter which version you choose, you'll inevitably turn him into a supernatural being in the process of beating the game.
• Fantasy Character Classes: The characters are based on archetypal RPG classes (with a few exceptions).
  • The Hero/Fighter: Isaac and ???
  • The Cleric: Magdalene
  • The Rogue/Pirate: Cain
  • The Black Mage: Judas
  • The Druid: Eve
  • The Barbarian: Samson
  • The Dark Knight: Azazel
  • The Theurgist: Lazarus
  • The Phantom: The Lost
  • The Summoner: Lilith
  • The Gambler: Keeper (only after unlocking Wooden Nickel)
  • The Blue Mage: Apollyon
  • The Brute: The Forgotten
  • The Ranger: The Soul
  • The Red Mage: Bethany
  • The Tag-Team: Jacob and Esau
• Flash of Pain: His sprite blinks when he takes damage.
• Flight: Plenty of items, both permanent and temporary. You can become an angel, a demon, an angelic ghost, a demonic ghost, a floating head, and a cat (which somehow flies). All of these let you pass through rocks and over pits, and over hazards like creep and spikes.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Before the events of the game, his clothes were taken away from him as part of Mom's attempts to remove the evil around him. In most playthroughs, he fights his way through monsters naked.
• Gasshole: Certain items can invoke this in the player, such as Butt Penny, Mysterious Candy, the "Bad Gas" pill, and pretty much all the bean items, and is also combined with Fartillery if the item is used for combat. One of the Planetarium items introduced in Repentance, Jupiter, even exaggerates this; the item causes the player to fart every time they move, bringing a whole new light to the term "gas giant".
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Both are possible, though not at the same time — Angel items for the "good" variant, and Devil items for the "evil" ones. Azazel always starts with "evil" wings.
• He Who Fights Monsters: As he fights through deformed monsters and demons, he will end up getting a lot of things that make him just like those deformed monsters and demons.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Isaac seemed to love Cricket (Max before Rebirth) second most out of the pets, or possibly equally to Guppy, seeing as Cricket's Head makes him cry the hardest of all items. And considering how powerful Cricket's items are (splitting tears and/or a significant damage boost), it's very worth it.
• Improbable Weapon User: Mainly his own tears. With appropriate items, he can upgrade to teeth, urine, and explosive vomit, etc.
• Item Get!: Holds up new items — even in battle. You're not invincible when that happens, either.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover:
  • Isaac seems to adore Guppy the cat the most out of his (deceased) pets. There's quite a few Guppy-related items to collect, and getting enough turns you into a form resembling Guppy.
  • There's Tammy, who, although she doesn't evoke as strong a response as Guppy, will still make Isaac cry more than normal, translating into a 360 shot. Said shot also copies your tear effects.
• Magikarp Power: Nearly all of the playable characters start off rather weak, with even spiders and flies proving to be formidable foes. However, with enough perseverance and luck (and maybe some exploitation), the player can quickly become an nigh-unstoppable monstrosity capable of annihilating Satan with the push of a button. Specifics for certain characters can be found in their respective folders.
• Meaningful Name: Most of the playable characters' names relate to Bible stories, with Isaac's name relating to the Binding of Isaac story the game is based on. Four Souls suggests his last name is Moriah, the mountain from the same story.
• No Name Given: His surname is never known in-game. When Four Souls confirmed Mom's name, his last name would logically be Moriah — the mountain in the Biblical story of Isaac. The only hazy part is whether or not that's Mom's maiden name, and whether she and/or Isaac have it after Dad left.
• Ocular Gushers: Most playable characters have a constant stream of tears running down their faces. After all, they are Isaac's main weapon. This doesn't apply to Lilith since she's always blindfolded, so she's forced to use familiars to attack with. Azazel also is exempt from his trope due to starting with a cutdown version of Brimstone instead of tears.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: It is strongly implied in-game (and confirmed by Word of God) that all the characters are just Isaac putting on a wig, eyepatch, hat, different degrees of decay, etc.
• Secret Character: There are numerous transformations available, which are activated by collecting three items of a particular set (flies, cats, etc.), after which the transformation effects are permanent for that run. The three items only need to have been held once, even if replaced (for Active items) or rerolled (for passive ones). The original had only Guppy, while Rebirth added Beelzebub. Afterbirth added nine more, and Afterbirth† added another four.
  • Guppy, activated by picking up three Guppy items, transforms the player character into Isaac's pet cat. Doing so unlocks a new item (the first time), gives you flight, and applies a buffed version of the Mulligan that spawns a friendly blue fly upon every hit.
  • Beelzebub/Lord of the Flies, activated by picking up three fly-related items, turns the player into a humanoid fly, grants flight, and turns all regular flies into friendly blue flies.
  • Super Bum, activated by picking up the three Bums, combines the three Bums into a single Bum that grabs every pickup in the room and drops twice as many in return.
  • Yes Mother?, activated by collecting three Mom items, dresses Isaac as Mom and creates a copy of Mom's knife which trails behind the player (not as a familiar, but as an inverted copy of the knife controlled by movement).
  • Bob, activated by picking up three Bob items, turns Isaac green and causes him to release a trail of green creep where he walks.
  • Fun Guy, activated by picking up three mushroom items, gives Isaac a mushroom hat and adds a heart container.
  • Seraphim, activated by picking up three holy items, gives Isaac angel wings for flight and three soul hearts.
  • Leviathan, activated by picking up three satanic items, transforms Isaac into a Lovecraftian horror, granting flight and two black hearts.
  • Conjoined, activated by picking up three of a certain set of familiars (Brother Bobby, Harlequin Baby, Headless Baby, Little Steven, Mongo Baby, Rotten Baby, and Sister Maggy), causes Isaac to grow two tumors on either side of his face, giving him a permanent triple shot with diagonal tears similar to The Wiz, at the cost of slightly lowered tears and damage.
  • Spun, activated by picking up three syringe items, makes Isaac a buff berserker, gives him a huge damage increase and a moderate speed increase, and spawns a random pill.
  • Oh Crap, activated by picking up Flush, The Poop, and E. Coli, turns Isaac into a walking poop and heals him by half a heart every time a poop is destroyed.
  • Bookworm, activated by picking up three book items, gives Isaac a monocle and lets him occasionally shoot from both eyes at once.
  • Spider Baby, activated by picking up three spider items, gives Isaac a spider familiar that applies random status effects to enemies.
  • Adult, activated by taking three Puberty pills, makes Isaac's voice deeper and gives him a scruffy beard reminiscent of Edmund McMillen and a heart container.
  • Stompy, activated by increasing in size three times through any combination of Leo, Magic Mushroom, and the One Makes You Larger pill, causes Isaac to create dust clouds when walking and lets him occasionally release rock waves when taking damage.
• Swiss-Army Tears: As a weapon! With the appropriate items, Isaac can get poison tears, homing tears, fear-inducing tears, spectral tears, magnetic tears, petrifying tears, exploding fire tears, tears that summon beams of light from Heaven, or any combination thereof. And that's not even a complete list.
• Tears of Fear: Pretty understandable given the situation he's in.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: The bombs he can carry around are pretty good for killing things too.
• Took a Level in Badass: Throughout the game, if the right items are acquired, Isaac starts the game as a crying child and can potentially end it as a flying demon that can demolish bosses in seconds with giant lasers.
  • To a lesser extent, this applies to all characters with unlockable starting items. These either make new runs easier to get through, or patch up whatever weaknesses a character may have. Isaac, for example, starts out as a Master of None… but with the coveted D6, he gains a significant advantage.
• Winged Humanoid: Possible with certain items. Azazel always has this and can always fly. Apollyon also has them, but they're non-functional.

Introduced in the base game

Isaac

Isaac

Debut: The Binding of Isaac

Named after the biblical son of Abraham, is playable from the start and has no defining accessories. According to Edmund McMillen, he represents the fighter/balanced class from traditional Role-Playing Games games. He initially begins with no items, but defeating a certain boss with one of the game's joke characters allows him to start with the D6.

His Birthright effect causes all future item pedestals to cycle between two options, one of which he can take.

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• Badass Normal: He's the only playable character that starts off without any sort of items or supernatural assistance. Even the D6 is merely a six-sided dice.
• Boring, but Practical: In both the Flash and Rebirth versions, before unlocking his starting D6, he always starts with just a single bomb. It seems like nothing much, but it guarantees you'll be able to blow up a tinted rock (and get The Small Rock or soul hearts/bombs/keys) should you encounter one, or take a shot at finding a secret room.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: His unlockable starting item is the D6… which is merely a six-sided dice. Many players agree that it is among the best starting items in the game regardless, since it rerolls any pedestal items in the room into potentially better ones.
• He Who Fights Monsters:
  • Isaac himself is an alternate final boss that can be fought instead of Satan. More details can be seen in the Boss character page. His desecated (and defecated) corpse is the boss that follows in the Chest.
  • By the end of a run, Isaac will most likely be far from human, being angelically enhanced, possessing demonic powers, becoming his own dead cat, and many more means to attain his power.
• Jack of All Stats: Average in all stats, so he is commonly used to determine the balance of other characters' stats, such as Eden.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The all-mighty D6 dice! An activated item capable of transmuting any pedestal item into a different one.
• Magikarp Power: At first, he'll be outclassed by almost every other character you unlock, as they are more durable, faster, more powerful, and/or more useful than him. But if you take your time and persevere in order to unlock his starting item, the D6, he'll become one of the most versatile and flexible characters.
• Master of None: His stats are middle of the road, and he gets no starting item to work with, unlike the others. …until you unlock the D6.
• Meaningful Name: The Biblical Isaac was going to be sacrificed to God by his father Abraham under orders from God himself. Sounds a lot like what's happening to Isaac… sort of.

Magdalene

Magdalene

Debut: The Binding of Isaac

Named after Mary Magdalene, a woman who traveled with Jesus as one of his followers. She is distinguished from Isaac by her blonde hair and bow, and is unlocked by having seven or more red hearts at once. Magdalene represents the cleric class from traditional Role-Playing Games and starts with the Yum Heart, an activated item that restores one heart upon use.

Her Birthright effect gives her an extra heart container and raises her health cap to eighteen hearts.

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• Balance Buff: Completing challenge 32 unlocks a Speed Up pill for her, patching her most noticeable weakness. This was changed to a Full Health pill in Repentance, but she's now guaranteed to have Full Health and Health Up in her pill pool.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Her gimmick is somewhat bland compared to the others, but having four red hearts to work with allows for Devil Room deals early on without severe consequences. Additionally, the Yum Heart restores a red heart every 4 rooms (without any items that accelerate charging), which helps keep her healthy.
  • In Afterbirth†, you can unlock a starting Speed Up pill for her by completing Challenge 32. Not flashy, but as stated above, it does patch up her biggest weakness. It also takes up a slot in the pill pool that could otherwise be occupied by something less desirable. It got even less flashy in Repentance when it was replaced with a Full Health pill, although this lets her make bigger plays in Sacrifice Rooms or Arcades.
• Combat Medic: Called "the cleric" in the art booklet. In Repentance, the Yum Heart was given a special effect in True Co-op where it heals other players for half a heart, letting Maggy act like an actual proper healer.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: As seen in Meaningful Name below, she's named after a follower of Jesus. Her unlock items are also holy in nature and many can be found in Angel Rooms, and art usually depicts her smiling outside of the game.
• In-Series Nickname: Usually referred to as Maggy.
• Irony: Most of her unlocks are for angel rooms, but her actual playstyle (namely her high starting HP) encourages taking devil deals.
• Junior Counterpart: She's a younger version of Mom that Isaac used to dress up as. Her unlocked items are very holy while Mom was so devout in faith that she tried to sacrifice her own son. She also starts with the Yum Heart, an item heavily implied to be consumed upon use, while Mom is overweight.
• Meaningful Name: It's implied that she borrows her name both from the biblical Mary Magdalene and Isaac's mother, Magdalene O. Moriah. Repentence highlights the connection even more, where it is revealed during the Ascent that "Maggy" is actually a nickname for Isaac's mom, suggesting that it originally comes from her aswell.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted; she has the same first name as Mom. Because she's an identity Isaac created to imitate her.
• Stone Wall: Magdalene has low speed and average tear damage, but has the highest starting health and the Yum Heart by default. This only got reinforced with Repentance and her Birthright effect, with it letting her have up to 18 hearts, giving her the greatest survivability of all characters by a long shot.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Longish blonde hair and a bow.
• Useless Useful Spell: Yum Heart with certain playstyles can become this. If you need to use it (read: took red heart damage), your chance at getting powerful Devil Deal items likely got severely cut.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Magdalene represents Isaac's habit of dressing up as his mother and pretending to be her daughter.

Cain

Cain

Debut: The Binding of Isaac

Named after the biblical son of Eve and the first murderer, he is distinguished from Isaac by an eyepatch. He is unlocked by having 55 or more coins at the same time. He represents the Thief class from traditional Role-Playing Games and starts the game with the Lucky Foot, a passive item that improves random events in various ways. In Afterbirth, donating 67 coins to the donation machine at the end of Greed Mode allows him to start with the Paper Clip, a trinket that allows him to open chests without using keys.

His Birthright effect increases his Luck, makes Lucky Foot even more effective, and makes an Arcade with extra machines and beggars appear on every floor up to and including Chapter 5.

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• Balance Buff: After the release of Rebirth, Cain was widely considered the worst (non-joke) character due to his sub-par stats and his newly nerfed Lucky Foot. Afterbirth compensated a bit for this by letting him start with the Paper Clip, provided it is unlocked through Greed Mode. Repentance buffed him further by un-nerfing his Lucky Foot, turning all pills beneficial as it did in vanilla Isaac.
• Born Lucky: Cain's starting item gives him increased luck in certain situations.^note Pills will never have negative effects (in the original and Repentance), Rewarding Vandalism is more likely to happen, the odds of winning the Skull game increases from one-third to one-half, and gold chests are more likely to give items (as opposed to pickups).
• Eyepatch of Power: He has an eyepatch, and also starts with higher attack than most other characters.
• Fragile Speedster: Starts with great speed and attack and an average rate of fire, but suffers from lower range and health than usual. Outright called "the thief" by the art booklet, a class known for usually being this.
• Master of Unlocking: In Afterbirth, where you can unlock the Paper Clip trinket as a starting item for him, allowing him to unlock golden chests without using keys.
• Name of Cain: While not outright evil, Cain is somewhat shady-seeming — he wears an Eyepatch of Power and his abilities make him resemble a "rogue" class.
• Nerf: The mechanics of Lucky Foot changing in Rebirth indirectly hurt him REALLY bad. Afterbirth compensates a bit, as stated above in Balance Buff. Repentance reverted the change to Lucky Foot.
• Secret Art: In Repentance, picking up Abel as Cain will make Abel's tears red and deal more than double their normal damage.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Downplayed, but his eyepatch actually factors into gameplay. For most characters, Technology 2 stacks the beam on top of their tears. Cain's the exception, his tears being shut off due to his eyepatch. Chemical Peel and Blood Clot are changed, too; while with other characters, every other tear will have increased damage due to one half of the face being scarred, with Cain, every tear has a 50% chance of dealing increased damage. Fortunately, Technology 1 gives him the ability to keep both "Technology" items, letting him shoot from both eyes.

Judas

Judas

Debut: The Binding of Isaac

Named after the disciple who betrayed Jesus, he has a fez to distinguish himself from Isaac. He represents the mage class from RPGs and starts the game with the Book of Belial, an activated item that increases attack power for one room. In the original game, he unlocks after beating the Womb for the first time. In Rebirth, he unlocks after beating Chapter 5 for the first time.

An alternate form of Judas known as Dark Judas was also introduced in Rebirth, only attainable by dying with the Judas' Shadow item. Finishing a run as Dark Judas counts as a Judas run for unlocks and achievements.

His Birthright effect turns Book of Belial into a passive item that combines with other active items, much like the Book of Virtues. The longer the charge time of the other item is, the more damage Book of Belial grants. Certain active items also gain additional special effects. If Judas wasn't holding Book of Belial, he's still granted the effect. Dark Judas shares this effect.

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Tropes that apply to Judas:

• Deal with the Devil: While holding the Book of Belial, the chances of a Devil Room appearing are increased. Unfortunately, Judas' starting single heart makes it incredibly hard to make deals unless he gets more heart containers or soul hearts, or buys an item that grants him soul or black hearts. Passing up Devil deals means that subsequent Devil Rooms can be replaced by Angel Rooms, which give you free stuff.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Starts off with consistently high damage (Eve and Samson's powers are conditional) and an item that can boost his damage further for a single room, but with only one starting heart and average speed for dodging, you don't have much leeway to screw up.
• Glass Cannon: Starts with an average rate of fire, range, and speed, but high attack power that's further bolstered by his Book of Belial. In exchange, he starts with only 1 heart. Lampshaded with his role as the character in the "Glass Cannon" challenge.
• Signature Headgear: Judas' fez, which is the only thing that distinguishes him from Isaac. Edmund claimed that it was based on Phil Fish, due to him voting against Edmund and his comrades at the Independent Games Festival... although he later stated that the explanation wasn't true, but he went along with it for a while because he found it funny.
• Squishy Wizard: The artbook refers to him as the "mage", fitting in the other RPG archetypes. It fits since Judas has high starting damage (especially with the Book of Belial active) but very low starting HP.
• Status Buff: The Book of Belial increases his damage for a single room. This is especially handy for challenging or multi-wave rooms like trap rooms, Greed mode, or boss fights. Before Repentance, it only applied once, so it's not as effective on Boss Rush or Greed mode, though as of Repentance, it can now be used multiple times in the same room.

Tropes that apply to Dark Judas:

Dark Judas

• Back from the Dead: Picking up the item Judas's Shadow, dying, and reviving with it on hand is what allows you to play as Dark Judas.
• Came Back Strong: The benefit of resurrecting as Dark Judas over other characters is his potent base damage multiplier of 200%.^note This puts his base damage at 7.00. For comparison, Judas starts with 4.72 damage.
• Greater-Scope Villain: His presence in the cathedral ending suggests that he represents Isaac's perceived faults and flaws that Isaac is trying to avoid, and the reason he entered the chest in the first place.
• Lightning Bruiser: Upon resurrection, he starts only with two Black Hearts, but has slightly more speed and a 2x damage multiplier — higher than that of regular Judas.
• Living Shadow: He's brought to life by the Judas' Shadow item, making him this.
• Nerf: He can no longer gain Red hearts in Repentance, converting them into Black hearts. Granted, this is only debatably a nerf since Black hearts are more useful than Red hearts at the end of the game, but it does make it harder to take Devil deals.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The only two colors that make up his character sprites are black with red details.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has large red eyes and also the highest damage multiplier of any character (aside from Tainted Samson during his Berserk attack).
• Secret Character: This form was introduced in Rebirth and is only attainable by dying with the Judas' Shadow item.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Dark Judas represents Isaac being fully consumed by his religious insecurities, gaining powerful dark abilities. This is further explored with his Tainted counterpart.

???

???

Debut: The Binding of Isaac

Unlocked after defeating Mom's Heart ten times, ??? starts with three soul hearts and is unable to use red hearts at all. Any red heart-granting items will be converted into soul hearts. He also starts with The Poop, which creates a pile of dung once per room. In Repentance, Devil Deals are cheaper for him and he generates flies upon destroying a poop. While his official name is ???, his nickname is "Blue Baby", which is how he signs his death note on the Game Over screen.

Despite being a Joke Character gameplay-wise, he is possibly one of the most plot-relevant characters in the game. His reveal indicates that the vignette of Isaac suffocating in the chest is canon, and not only that, but he somehow died of asphyxiation whilst there. At this point, it is implied that Isaac has been Dead All Along and Endings 11 and 12^note 12 and 13 in Rebirth seem to indicate that Isaac actually locked himself in the chest after being Driven to Suicide.

His Birthright effect causes effects that grant a heart container to grant him two Soul Hearts instead of one.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: Justified, since he's dead and cyanotic.
• Balance Buff: Update 1.7.8 gave a huge buff to Blue Baby, causing Devil Deals to no longer cost 3 Soul Hearts and also giving him an innate Lil Larva effect to spawn a friendly fly from each destroyed poop. This was very needed, since there are now lots of characters who have Blue Baby's gimmick but other upsides to help them out, leaving him pretty lame in comparison.
• Jack of All Stats: No outstanding stats or notable starting item, with the exception of his "-1 HP", meaning that he depends on soul hearts just to live. However, he is actually slightly faster and stronger than Isaac.
• Joke Character: Blue Baby is incapable of gaining red heart containers; any situation that would give him red hearts instead converts them to soul hearts. Also, soul hearts remain much rarer drops than regular hearts, making getting hit even less feasible. At least he can still gain black hearts.
• Joke Item: The Poop; it only creates a mound of poop like those you usually see.
• Lethal Joke Character: While he can't have red heart containers, this does come with its own situational advantages. Since his health can only be composed entirely of soul and black hearts, he can exploit certain health-based mechanics (such as the Whore of Babylon, which is permanent if picked up), leading to quite a few potential and powerful combos. He also can't lose Devil and Angel Room percent chances, since he can never have red hearts, and thus can never take red heart damage.
• Lethal Joke Item: Despite its lackluster effect, you'd be surprised how situationally useful The Poop can be. A pile of poop spawned can be used to create a temporary cover, and can be bombed like a rock to cross single-tile-wide gaps. It is affected by the Petrified Poop trinket (which it can also create), meaning you can get a coin every room or two if you have it, and Midas' Touch will give you a high chance to spawn golden poop for even more money. In Afterbirth, using the Poop deflects incoming projectiles a la buffed Butter Bean. Said far can also be used to knock an item from behind spikes if you're able to get close to it.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Tamer than later examples, but his restriction on hearts makes quite a few items work very differently for him as noted. Most health-ups are bad or useless, but anything that gives soul hearts is exponentially more powerful.
• My Name Is ???: A unique example in that it's never revealed what the question marks are obscuring (unless you go with the theory that he's just a post-mortem Isaac). The matter is further complicated by ???'s Soul Stone. Using other Soul Stones has the narrator read out the name as you'd expect ("Soul of Isaac", "Soul of Magdalene", etc.) but using Soul of ??? has the narrator read out "Soul of" in a very confused tone of voice.
• No Dead Body Poops: Oh yes they do. Which is the whole point of his Joke Item.
• Not Quite Dead: Well, his body is dead, but he's moving around and acts normally despite being a corpse.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Blue Baby is more like a walking corpse than a flat out zombie, but he still counts by virtue of being a walking corpse.
• Secret Character: While he's on the menu from the very start, new players probably won't assume that "???" is his actual name. His secrecy is lessened by him being the first Secret Character players are likely to unlock, and the only one unlocked by playing the game normally.
• Toilet Humor: You can't get much closer to this than being able to poop on command.
• Undead Child: He's the corpse of a child that's somehow still animate.
• The Unpronouncable: He's usually just referred to as "Blue Baby", even on his last will, since "???" isn't exactly easy to pronounce.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact he exists is a Spoiler by itself.
• Wingding Eyes: Crossed-out eyes.

Eve

Eve

Debut: Halloween Update

Named after the first woman and original sinner, Eve is distinguished from Isaac by long dark hair and eyeshadow. In the original game, she is unlocked by taking two Devil deals in one run. In Rebirth, she's unlocked by not picking up any hearts for two floors. Representing the druid class from traditional RPG, she starts with the Whore of Babylon, which turns her into a demon at low health, and the Dead Bird, which fights for her when she is damaged. After donating 439 coins to the Greed Machine, she also starts with the Razor Blade, which lets her damage herself on demand.

Her Birthright effect causes Whore of Babylon to activate regardless of her current health and Dead Bird to follow her even if she hasn't taken damage.

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• Adam and/or Eve: Named for the Biblical Eve.
• Attack Animal: The Dead Bird. It activates by taking damage, causing the little birdie to pummel enemies for the current room Eve took damage on.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Without enough red heart containers, her Razor Blade can be this. It damages Eve and gives an attack boost for the current room, which is fairly useless over multiple rooms and only good for getting the Whore of Babylon to activate. It's more useful in Greed Mode, though, since Angel/Devil Rooms are guaranteed by beating the final wave.
• Balance Buff:
  • Rebirth made Whore Of Babylon activate for her (and only her) at one red heart rather than a half red heart, making it easier for her to attain her Critical Status Buff.
  • Afterbirth allows her to start with the Razor Blade, letting her damage her red hearts on demand until she can transform into Whore of Babylon. Strategies with this item exist, too.
• Cast from Hit Points: Two of her starting items, which happen to also last for only the current room.
  • The Dead Bird, which is activated by simply taking damage in a room.
  • The Razor Blade, which removes a full heart when used in exchange for a large damage increase.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Both of her starting items (and the items she can unlock) are Cast from Hit Points, and she is the only character who doesn't leave a puddle of urine upon entering a room with half a red heart; instead, she leaves blood. Afterbirth ups the ante if you donate enough coins in Greed Mode, by giving you the Razor Blade.
• Critical Status Buff: When she's down to half a heart, her Whore of Babylon powerup grants her greatly increased attack. Rebirth buffed this by allowing it to activate at one full heart. Predictably, getting more than one full red heart container cancels the buff; however, it can be permanently kept with soul hearts.
• Cursed with Awesome: The "curse" that Eve starts the game with.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Eve starts with good speed, but two heart containers and a terrible attack stat. Getting the most out of her Critical Status Buff makes her a Glass Cannon with higher starting attack than most other characters, Judas included (though Judas has a damage multiplier whereas Eve doesn't). Her status buff disappears if she has more than one full red heart container, but can be permanently kept while keeping her healthy by picking up soul/black hearts instead of red heart containers. As a result, Eve thrives from making repeated devil deals, buying items in black markets, or removing her red heart containers (via items like Guppy's Paw, Potato Peeler or Abaddon), and benefits significantly from items that activate with minimal red hearts.
• Emo Teen: Definitely evokes the stereotype, both in looks and in playstyle. You can even unlock the Razor Blade as a starting item for her, which further adds to this.
• Four Is Death: In Ending 11, the character montage shows Eve being present at the game's fourth level, the Womb. And considering how Mom is...
• Fragile Speedster: High speed, low health, low attack unless reduced to critical health. However...
• Glass Cannon: She becomes this when hurt due to her Critical Status Buff.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her hair is styled to cover one of her eyes, as visual representation of the mental and emotional reclusiveness common of an Emo Teen.
• Looks Like Cesare: Has eyes encircled with black and messy black hair (though not scraggly).
• No Periods, Period: Averted via an Easter Egg. Every other character leaves a puddle of urine if they enter a room with half a heart left, but Eve leaves a bloodstain.^note This was absent for most of Rebirth, but returned in Booster Pack #5.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "What a horrible night to have a curse!"
• Secret Art: Eve is the only character that activates Whore of Babylon at one full heart remaining rather than half a heart. Additionally, it also changes her innate damage multiplier while active (Eve normally has a 0.75x damage multiplier that is normalized to 1.0x when Whore of Babylon activates), which it doesn't do for any other character.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The Dead Bird in her hair looks like a bow.
• Useless Useful Spell: A few items that regenerate half-red hearts passively are normally somewhat useful, but can be detrimental to Eve if they take her out of her Critical Status Buff and has soul/black hearts protecting her red hearts. Afterbirth compensates for this with the Razor Blade.

Introduced in Wrath of the Lamb

Samson

Samson

Debut: Wrath of the Lamb

Introduced in Wrath of the Lamb and named after the biblical strongman, he has long, brown hair and Big Ol' Eyebrows. He also starts with a red headband called Bloody Lust. This is fitting with the fact that he represents the Berserker class from RPG. In Wrath of the Lamb, Samson is unlocked by skipping two item rooms, while in Rebirth, he's unlocked by not taking any damage for two floors.

An extremely important part of this character is how he was substantially changed. In the original, Samson started with one heart container and a soul heart, and gained a damage boost for every enemy he kills in a room. In Rebirth, he starts with three heart containers and gains a damage boost every time he takes damage, which lasts for an entire floor.

His Birthright effect increases the damage cap of Bloody Lust, allowing it to activate four additional times per floor.

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• Balance Buff:
  • Rebirth drastically changed his playstyle so that for Bloody Lust to activate, instead of killing enemies to become stronger, he must take damage it in order to do so. To compensate, he now has three red heart containers.
  • In Afterbirth†, completing Challenge 34 (Ultra Hard) allows him to start with the Child's Heart trinket, making finding red hearts easier and thus helping keep him healthy.
• The Berserker: Bloody Lust can actually support Attack! Attack! Attack! to an extent, with the damage he takes actively improving how fast he can end the fight and letting him keep that improved damage for the whole floor.
• Blood Knight: His trademark power-up is called Bloody Lust, after all!
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Invoked in the original by his special hairband. The more enemies you face in a room, the more powerful you'll get! But single-target rooms won't trigger any attack-boost. This is changed in Rebirth, although re-added in Afterbirth as an unlockable item called Lusty Blood.
• Critical Status Buff: In Rebirth, Bloody Lust makes Samson deal more damage as he takes damage, with him reaching near maximum damage for having taken several hits in a row. In this case, he literally Turns Red to reflect Bloody Lust activating.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • In Wrath of the Lamb, Bloody Lust makes Samson powerful… if you manage to survive the hordes of enemies that give him his strength. Only having a single heart (later a soul heart too) makes that easier said than done. Oh, and the attack bonuses are lost at the end of each room, too.
  • In Rebirth, his playstyle is radically different and more similar to Eve, although he's still a challenging character. Bloody Lust now triggers when he takes damage, but the bonus is lost at the end of each floor rather than room. That means he'll be stuck with mediocre damage if you don't take hits, and can't manipulate it the same way Eve can. However, by taking/buying items that give Samson benefits in exchange for his health (or buying the Dull Razor from Afterbirth†, which triggers the damage bonus with no health loss), he can keep triggering Bloody Lust and gain damage, potentially moreso than Eve. Items that further improve his capacity to take a hit (most notably The Wafer) predictably benefit him, too.
• Gathering Steam: In the original, he gains damage as he kills enemies, but loses it after he leaves the room.
• Glass Cannon: With just one starting heart container (and, later, a soul heart), he's as fragile as Judas. However, his special gear makes him extremely effective against large groups of enemies and/or mook makers. This is changed in Rebirth, which gives him much more starting health; however, to max out his damage output, he has to deliberately take a lot of damage.
• Heroic Build: His character preview in Rebirth shows his torso muscles in striking detail, compared to the rest of the characters. Subverted in-game, though.
• Irony: In Rebirth, he is unlocked by going through two floors without taking damage. His main gimmick has him gain attack by taking damage.
• Martial Arts Headband: It's the source of his Blood Lust ability.
• Power-Up Letdown: He's probably the most difficult character to unlock in the original (with ??? possibly being more tedious than difficult), as it requires you to pass on 2 free items on a regular run… and its capacity is dubious, to say the least. After months of complaints, Edmund promised a buff to Samson. The buff was starting with a soul heart on top of his single regular heart… which didn't change all that much. He became much more useful in Rebirth, as he now starts with three regular hearts and his buffs remain until you leave the floor. On the other hand, now you have to clear two floors in a single run without taking any damage to unlock him, which is arguably even more difficult.
• Unstoppable Rage: What Bloody Lust represents as of Rebirth.

Introduced in Rebirth

Azazel

Azazel

Debut: Rebirth

A demonic-looking character whose name is associated with evil. Unlocked in Rebirth by making three deals with the devil in one run. Starts with the ability to fly and a short-ranged version of Brimstone.

His Birthright effect greatly increases the width of his Brimstone beam, without increasing the length or damage.

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• Action Bomb: He starts with three black hearts, which trigger the Necronomicon effect when depleted. He can still gain red heart containers, though.
• Bloody Murder: His main Brimstone attack.
• Boring Yet Practical: His Birthright effect simply widens the area of effect of his Brimstone attack. Nothing too special, but it's effective. And it stacks with size increases from other sources too, like the actual Brimstone item or Sulfur.
• Breath Weapon: His starting attack is a limited-range Brimstone.
• Clone by Conversion: What's left of his right horn is able to temporarily turn other characters into a copy of himself. While it's not coming off his head anytime soon, his Tainted counterpart will make it start appearing in future runs after killing Mother.
• Close-Range Combatant: Until The Forgotten, Azazel was the closest thing that Rebirth had to one, since his starting weaponry forces him to get relatively close to enemies. He compensates by possessing above-average speed and flight.
• Crutch Character: Despite his low range, Azazel's flight, speed, and high damage make him by far the easiest character to play as. However, he plays entirely differently from every other character, meaning that playing with him doesn't build the skills you need to be good with the rest of the characters. In addition, many items have no effect on his short-range Brimstone, so he's locked out of a lot of neat synergies. Finally, the final bosses indulge in Bullet Hell, which makes them much tougher to beat with Azazel, since you constantly risk getting shot in the face. Fortunately, his unlocks are all powerful items from the Devil Room pool.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's a demon and starts with black Hearts, but he's still a playable character just trying to escape the basement dungeon.
• Disc-One Nuke: His flight and Brimstone are a major advantage in the early game, and flight remains an important bonus throughout. However, his limited range will really begin to catch up to him when it comes time to face the endgame bosses.
• Dungeon Bypass: Possessing flight lets him ignore spikes, rocks, and other terrains right from the start. Rather useful.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Subverted. Azazel has demon wings, but is good (or at least on Isaac's side) and also on the same side as Apollyon, who has angel wings.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Unlike others who depend on kiting with tears, Azazel often has to fly in, blast several enemies with brimstone, then get out of there before they retaliate. He can also strafe multiple enemies for the duration of his Brimstone, but again, he has to be closer than normal for this.
• Horned Humanoid: Although one of his horns is broken.
• Lightning Bruiser: Fast, possesses flight, has high starting damage, his black hearts damage everything if one gets depleted and he can eventually gain red heart containers through Health Up items. His only drawback is his poor range and having to charge Brimstone for attacks.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: At the time of his release, Azazel was by far the most different from the other playable characters, since he starts with miniature Brimstone instead of tears, has black hearts (but can gain red ones, unlike ???), and has flight (which only The Lost shares). The result is a rather different playstyle, including item selection, since his smaller Brimstone makes many items useless/redundant, but makes others extremely powerful.
• Necessary Drawback: Though Azazel can increase his Brimstone's range with upgrades, the benefit is mediocre unless you pick up several of them, which is unlikely without the use of items and consumables which can re-roll items. In addition, his short range negates any homing effects.
• Nerf: An update in Afterbirth nerfed Azazel's damage and charge time a bit too much, making him much harder to play. This was undone in a later update, released nine days later.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: He inverts this by being a heroic Player Character with red eyes with a lot of black.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: A non-villainous case. He has red demonic eyes, and he's one of the most powerful characters in the game.
• Required Secondary Powers: At the time, a melee character would've been an interesting addition to the roster, but being forced to rely on an actual melee attack would make multiple rooms Unwinnable by Design. Azazel being equipped with the piercing/spectral brimstone and flight fixes both of these problems. A true melee character eventually came along in the form of The Forgotten, which has its own set of required secondary powers.
• Winged Humanoid: Starts with flight.

Lazarus

Lazarus

Lazarus

Lazarus Risen

Debut: Rebirth

Named after the one that was brought back from the dead. Unlocked in Rebirth by having four or more soul hearts at once. He starts with average stats except for bad range and luck, but has the innate ability to return as Lazarus Risen after dying, giving him better stats, a permanent damage up, and Anemic. His gameplay is a unique balancing act between sticking to an underpowered character with an Extra Life or killing yourself to gain better stats. Lazarus was also significantly buffed in Repentance, as Lazarus Risen will transform back into Lazarus with a new extra life at the start of each floor, and reviving will only cost one permanent heart container instead of setting him to one.

Birthright has no direct effect for him. After coming back as Lazarus Risen (or when picking it up after having already died), it grants a massive, temporary damage boost.

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• Back from the Dead: Dying as Lazarus revives him as Lazarus Risen.
• Balance Buff:
  • Afterbirth† introduces Challenge 31 - Backasswards. Completing it allows Lazarus to use Anemic right from the start without losing his extra life first; this also patches up his previously inept range. Additionally, Anemic is activated permanently if Lazarus dies and is resurrected (or another character resurrects as him), with no need to take damage.
  • Patch 1.7.8 (post-Repentance) gave Lazarus a huge buff, where now he turns back into regular Lazarus at the start of each floor, meaning he can now revive once every floor. On top of that, you now only lose one heart container upon reviving instead of setting it to 1, Lazarus Risen received a higher damage multiplier of 1.4x (higher than Judas), and he receives a permanent +0.5 damage up with each revival.
• Born Unlucky: He starts with negative luck, although this is cleared upon resurrecting.
• Bloody Murder: As Lazarus Risen, he gets the Anemic item, which lets him leave a damaging trail of blood for the duration of the room upon taking damage. Beating the Backasswards challenge in Afterbirth† makes this trail permanent instead for Lazarus Risen and gives the previous version to normal Lazarus.
• Came Back Strong:
  • Lazarus Risen is statistically better than normal Lazarus in every way aside from health, in addition to gaining Anemic (or, if unlocked, leaving a permanent blood trail) and a small permanent damage up each time he revives. Therefore, intentionally killing yourself (preferably via devil deals or blood donation machines) is a viable strategy if the player has enough health upgrades/soul hearts to afford it. Before the rework, many players would kill themselves as soon as they can to take advantage of Lazarus Risen's better stats as early as possible and while they have less heart containers to lose.
  • Lazarus's Birthright effect in Repentance leans hard on this aspect of Lazarus, as resurrecting with Birthright will grant Lazarus a powerful temporary damage boost. On the other hand, it also punishes you for using up your extra life in a situation where you can't capitalize on the damage boost right away.
• Crutch Character: One of the first characters available to unlock, he technically has a higher tolerance for damage than Isaac, with the only apparent downside being his negative luck. After unlocking the D6, however, his advantage seems rather insignificant. Without using his extra life tactically, he ultimately plays like either a less lucky Cain or a less powerful Judas… until you complete Challenge 31 in Afterbirth†.
• Death Is Cheap: The Repentance 1.6 balance buff encourages this as a playstyle, as he has an extra life that refills every floor and losing it gives a permanent damage buff in exchange for losing a heart container.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: He has a very heavy association with self-harm and self-destruction, in particular his role in the "Suicide King" challenge (which involves Lazarus trying to reach and defeat Isaac with Ipecac and My Reflection, a loadout that will literally blow up in his face if he doesn't maneuver correctly).
• Master of None: Apart from his resurrection ability, he essentially plays like Isaac without a D6.
• Meaningful Name: Who else but Lazarus would start with the ability to rise from the dead?
• Not Quite Dead: His gimmick is being able to resurrect instantly, rather than outside the room he died in (forcing him to restart it) like most revival items.
• Power-Up Letdown: The old version of his extra life only resurrected you with exactly one red heart container, and only gives you a blood trail for the current room if you get hit once. On the other hand, it does resurrect you on the spot (unlike the other extra lives that return you to the previous room), possibly allowing you to finish off whatever killed him. Lazarus also receives a considerable boost in Luck, Range, Damage, and Speed, but still, that one heart container can make it tricky run.
• Touched by Vorlons: Downplayed with his Lazarus' Rags item. Before dying, his stats are nothing to write home about. After dying and reviving, his stats receive a buff and he now leaves a trail of blood whenever he takes damage (or permanent if Challenge 31 in Afterbirth† is cleared).

Eden

Eden

Debut: Rebirth

Named after the biblical garden, Eden's stats and starting items are randomly generated every time you play as them. Their gender is undefined, and to play as them requires the use of one "Eden token", earned by beating Mom's Heart/It Lives or Ultra Greed. Unlocks in Rebirth after beating the Womb for the first time.

Their Birthright effect spawns three items from random pools on pickup. Only one can be taken — the rest will disappear.

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• Animal-Eared Headband: One of their random hairstyles has a kitty ear headband.
• Anime Hair: The hairstyle is random, and many options look like this. The colour is always white.
• Confusion Fu: Always starts with a random set of items and stats.
• Delinquent Hair: Three of their styles are a spiked mohawk, a smattering of punk spikes all over, or a swept fauxhawk.
• Gameplay Randomization: Eden's main draw; they have a randomized starting loadout and stats. Eden could start with particularly good DPS, or bad stats that are salvaged by their items.
• Glitch Entity: Hinted to be this in-universe due to their unlocks. These unlocks include items with glitchy appearenced like "Undefined" and "GB Bug" with various kinds of random effects.
• Luck-Based Mission: The stats and item(s) you start off with are randomized each time, making it equally possible to have a strong early advantage or a really weak one. Most character power level discussions simply leave Eden out because of how inconsistent Eden runs are.
• Monochromatic Eyes: In the ending that unlocks the character and on the character select screen. You can give any character these eyes by picking up Eden's Blessing.
• Mystical White Hair: The mystical part coming from their random stats and starting items.
• Necessary Drawback: As Eden's random stats can potentially give you either very good or very bad combinations, each Eden run consumes an Eden token, and you only earn one each time Mom's Heart/It Lives/Ultra Greed is beaten. This is to discourage reset spamming for a good/game-breaking item combination.
• Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Word of God is that Eden lacks gender. Their hairstyles include moustaches with a bald head, full beards, various styles of long hair, and other more ambiguous styles. As described by Edmund McMillen:
  [...] Eden isnt a man, nor are they a woman.. they just are.
• Palette Swap: Eden's hairstyles include white versions of Eve and Lazarus' (pre-Repentance) hair, and another of the "Old Man Keeper".

The Lost

The Lost

Debut: Rebirth

A ghost character, and one of the only characters not based off of any sort of religious context^note unless it refers to the "souls lost in Limbo", next to ???, the Keeper, and the Forgotten. It is the secret character of Rebirth and had a very complicated unlock process… until Afterbirth came along.

The Lost starts with flight, but dies if it takes any damage, with the inability to ever pick up health. Afterbirth significantly buffed The Lost by granting it spectral tears and the D4, and the ability to unlock Holy Mantle as a starting item. Repentance later buffed him further, replacing the D4 with the Eternal D6 and making Holy Mantle an inherent ability, meaning it can never be rerolled away. To compensate, Holy Mantle's invincibility frames were nerfed from four full seconds to merely half a second, which makes The Lost more difficult to play.

His Birthright effect removes all useless items from all item pools, such as raw HP upgrades, items that grant flight, and items that trigger on taking damage.

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• Balance Buff: And what a bunch of buffs it was! Afterbirth allowed The Lost to start with spectral tears (allowing it to shoot enemies with safety behind obstacles) by default. Blowing up 30 arcade machines unlocks the D4 for it to use, and donating 879 coins to the Greed machine also lets it start with the Holy Mantle, allowing one hit per room before dying. Repentance pushes it further by making the Holy Mantle effect intrinsic to The Lost so it can't be rerolled. However, this did come with some Nerfs to Holy Mantle's Mercy Invincibility.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Actually, it appears several times prior to being unlockable, albeit so briefly that few players would actually notice. Specifically, it is the ghost that departs from Isaac every time he dies.
• Difficult, but Awesome: With zero health and only one free hit per room with the Holy Mantle, you need to be good at dodging. If you can manage, however, and get lucky with free Devil Room deals, Black Market deals, and cursed room items, you can end up with a flying Glass Cannon powerhouse. Repentance gives him the Eternal D6, thus allowing him a much greater chance of getting items beneficial to him. Its unlocks are also some of the most powerful items in the game, chief among them being Godhead.
• Fog Feet: As befitting a ghost.
• Ghostly Glide: Has flight by default, meaning it does not interact with ground-based effects such as creep and most spikes. The Lost is also the only character to not be lying down on (or even touching) the floor during the pre-boss Versus Character Splash.
• Glass Cannon: And how! It has zero health and can't gain any type of hearts, period. On the upside, The Lost can take Devil Deals for free, and Repentance adds the Perfection trinket, which drops if you manage to clear three floors without taking damage and dramatically boosts your Luck while holding it. Since The Lost can't take any damage without dying, this means Perfection will always drop. Played properly, The Lost has probably the highest damage potential out of any character in the game, and will be proccing deadly tear effects left and right to debilitate entire rooms with Perfection equipped.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Unlocking it is a bit… convoluted. First, you need to let yourself get killed by a Mulliboom in the basement as Isaac. Next, you need to blow yourself up with one of your own bombs as Magdalene in the caves, then let yourself get killed by Mom's foot as Judas. Finally, you need to let yourself be stomped to death by Satan's hoof as Azazel. And you need to do all of this in a row, without winning or dying in any other way. Mess up once and you have to start all over again. Not very easy, to say the least, although the at the very least you get (cryptic) hints as to the next step once you've completed one, and you can use seeds to make it easier, in contrast to almost every other unlock. The "guide" was at least hidden in-game, though it would have been hard for one person to piece together. Dying in a sacrifice room while holding the Missing Poster trinket shows a puzzle piece as a cause of death. Putting the puzzle pieces together show the four game-over screens required to unlock The Lost.
  • Afterbirth vastly simplified the unlock process; you just need to die in a Sacrifice Room while holding the Missing Poster… which needs to be unlocked by beating The Lamb with Isaac. And of course, nowhere in the game does it tell you this.
• Joke Character: Starts with the ability to fly and shoot spectral tears (which lets its attacks pass through objects)… with the downside of having absolutely no HP, meaning it will die after a single direct hit.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Its lack of HP means that it can take Devil items (some of the most powerful items in the game) for no cost at all; normally, it would cost one or two heart containers for one of those items. This can lead to very powerful combos, turning it from a joke character into a feasible Glass Cannon if you get multiple deals with the Devil in a single run.
  • In Afterbirth, this is cranked up hugely due to the Holy Mantle being unlockable as a default item. This means it can take an extra hit per room (so you both don't have to be absolutely perfect) that he can heal back each time you enter a room. It also has access to curse rooms at no cost.
• Lethal Joke Item: A handful of terrible items become better in The Lost's hands, such as Glass Cannon not having a downside since you don't actually have any health to reduce.
• Nerf: Repentance changed a number of items and mechanics in its sweeping Balance Buff changes, and some of these indirectly affect The Lost. Holy Mantle had its invincibility frames reduced to one twentieth of what it used to be, and Devil Deals were changed on The Lost so he can only pick one before the other items dissappear.
• Necessary Drawback: The Lost's Eternal D6 is an unreliable version of Isaac's D6 on a two room charge, thus requiring some drawbacks to be balanced properly. Every time the Eternal D6 is used, it has a 30% chance of totally deleting the item that was rerolled, meaning The Lost can't reroll willy-nilly.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Dies in one hit from anything. Earlier versions had it die from continuing a run (though that was a Game-Breaking Bug). In Afterbirth, however, it is possible to earn the Holy Mantle shield as a starting item for it.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: This one gets blown away by a stiff breeze.
• Power-Up Letdown: Some thought that Samson and ??? weren't worth the effort it took to unlock them, but The Lost is quite possibly even worse in this regard (at least in Rebirth), especially since unlocking it involves a dose of Guide Dang It! too. Afterbirth mitigates this by having The Lost start with the D4 (which allows it to reroll any items it is carrying) and spectral tears, and the Holy Mantle once you donate enough coins to the Greed Machine. Most notably, the powerful items you unlock by beating the game with are why people get it. As soon as that's over with, many players will choose to forget it even exists unless they want a challenge.
• Silly Spook: Being a ghost doesn't stop the Lost from gaining a lot of the comical items that any other character can get.
• Regenerating Shield, Static Health: The Holy Mantle, once unlocked as a starting item (or intrinsic feature in Repentance), puts this sort of spin on the Lost's One-Hit-Point Wonder nature.^note Holy Mantle itself technically qualifies as this for any character who obtains it, but the Lost is the only character who starts with it, and they can't take any damage whatsoever without it. The trope itself is also downplayed, since the Holy Mantle doesn't refresh over time; it can only be restored by leaving the current room and entering another one (meaning that it can't be restored during a fight). Furthermore, the fact that the Holy Mantle is expended with just one hit means that it's more of a Single-Use Shield than a secondary health bar. Yes, Holy Mantle can only absorb one hit per room, and a second hit will kill you. But Holy Mantle can absorb one hit per room, meaning that the Lost can take one hit in literally every single room in a run and still limp through to a win as long as they don't take a second hit within any one room — all without any health upgrades or pickups. This makes it actually something of a toss-up whether or not the Lost is actually more durable than the pre-Repentance Keeper or the Tainted Keeper, both of which are Two Hit Point Wonders who can't get a lost hit point back unless they can find a coin.
• Useless Useful Spell: Once you unlock the Holy Mantle for the Lost, the D4 becomes this, simply because the ability to actually take a hit per room outweighs just about anything it can potentially be rerolled into. A large portion of the items in the game also fall into this category, namely any item that gives only health and anything that activates on taking damage. Repentance changed the D4 to the Eternal D6, which eliminates this issue, but went a step further and made Holy Mantle inherent so it can no longer be rerolled away.
• Walking Spoiler: Naturally, being the secret character of Rebirth, his whole existence is a Spoiler.
• Wham Shot: Afterbirth adds a new, interesting loading screen. That voice that told Isaac's Mom that he was evil? It was the Lost, speaking from the attic.

Introduced in Afterbirth

Lilith

Lilith

Debut: Afterbirth

Named after Adam's first wife who defected from Heaven with Samael. She's also known as "The Mother of Demons." Unlocked in Afterbirth after clearing Greed Mode with Azazel. Starts out blindfolded, meaning she is unable to shoot tears, but also starts with the Incubus familiar whose tears have the same properties as hers, the Box of Friends active item, and the Cambion Conception passive item.

Her Birthright effect repositions familiars to be in front of her; with just Incubus, this makes her function more like a regular character.

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• Awesome, but Impractical: Cambion Conception spawns minions after she takes a good amount of hits. Some of the minions are extremely good, like Lil' Brimstone or Dark Bum, especially when doubled with Box of Friends. You'll need to take at least 15 hits per minion though, which is easier said than done with Lilith's starting health.
• Badass and Baby: Lilith and her Incubus.
• Cute Monster Girl: Apart from her bloody, bandaged eyes, she's a demon girl who is very human-looking.
• Difficult, but Awesome: While incapable of shooting tears herself, she starts with the item Box of Friends, which adds a copy of any familiars she has for a single room and takes four rooms to recharge. This makes her the best character by far in Greed Mode, as the battles on each floor take place in a single room, and she recharges the item every four waves of enemies. At a minimum, you can quadruple your friends by the end of the floor.
• Eye Scream: Implied by the bloodstains on her blindfold.
• Glass Cannon: Box of Friends effectively doubles her damage output for a room, allowing her to deal significant amounts of damage, but with only one red heart and two black hearts, she struggles at taking hits.
• Horned Humanoid: Has demon horns.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Lilith doesn't start naturally with Cambion Conception, and it has to be unlocked by defeating ??? in the Chest. Once done, however, it'll be available in the Devil Rooms and as a starting item for her.
  • If you can pick up more familiars or find a way to spawn at least one more with Cambion Conception without dying, Box of Friends' effectiveness begins to multiply. Gaining boosts to spacebar charge rate such as 9 Volt and AAA Battery increases how often she can double her army of minions, and BFFS! just makes everything stronger.
• Mechanically Unusual Class:
  • Lilith has a blindfold over her eyes, similar to challenge runs where you can't shoot any tears, or other tear-replacing attacks like Mom's Knife or Brimstone. She compensates for this by starting out with the Incubus, a powerful familiar that copies the player's tear stats (for the most part).
  • Lilith's Incubus is part of being Lilith. It will not reroll even with a full run re-roll; you can pick up a second Incubus normally; and if you somehow change from Lilith to another character, you lose the Incubus.
• Nerf: A rather deserved one, though. Her active item, Box of Friends, was gutted in a patch about a week after the release of Afterbirth, making it a 4-room charge instead of 2. Repentance balances between the two by giving it a 3-room recharge.
• The Minion Master: Starts with a familiar as her only way to deal damage. Her Box of Friends active item creates a copy of each familiar she possesses when used (copied familiars don't count, so only the originals are duplicated), and her Cambion Conception gives her another (permanent) familiar if she is damaged a certain number of times (which, as stated under the Glass Cannon entry above, can be tricky due to her low starting health).
• Mook Maker: Playable variant. Lilith starts with Cambion Conception, which permanently spawns a new demonic buddy after taking enough damage by giving birth to it, if the progressively more and more pregnant appearance is anything to go by.
• Pregnant Badass: Due to her Cambion Conception, Lilith can become this upon taking enough damage. It still isn't gonna stop her from taking on all the monsters in the basement.

Keeper

Keeper

Debut: Afterbirth

A character unlocked by the efforts of the community in the Afterbirth ARG, Keeper is the corpse of Isaac that killed himself by hanging. He becomes playable by donating 1000 coins to the Greed Machine. His name refers both to the shopkeepers he resembles and to Cain's words in the book of Genesis, "Am I my brother's Keeper?" He starts with an innate triple shot and is healed by pennies... but cannot pick up hearts, and heart pickups become Blue Flies.

A secret version of Keeper nicknamed Old Man Keeper can be played on each April 1st.

His Birthright effect gives him an extra coin heart and raises his cap to four.

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• Assist Character: The Strawman item in Repentance will spawn a Keeper who will follow and fight with you like Esau.
• Back from the Dead: Like ???, he is an undead Isaac. In this case, one who paid for his greed and became one of the greyed corpses you see running the shops.
• Balance Buff: Repentance gave Keeper changes to greatly improve his survivability. His speed and tears were slightly increased, he's now able to have three coin hearts (with his Hush unlock now allowing him to start with that amount), the health down pill doesn't spawn when you play as him, and he now spends money instead of health in devil deals.
• Born Unlucky: Has the lowest starting luck at -2, though this is likely justified because this affects room clear rewards.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He appears in Ending 18 as the corpse of Isaac that shrivels up to a shopkeeper.
• Double Unlock: Although the ARG "unlocked" him by adding him to the game, he's only playable after donating one thousand coins to the Greed Machine.
• The Gambler: He has a lot of coin-themed unlocks, which are frequently chance related. Once Isaac is defeated he also starts with the Wooden Nickel, which gives him a 50/50 at generating one coin per room.
• Good Counterpart: He's a Keeper monster who's on Isaac's side, and his combat style is identical to that of that of Greed.
• Glass Cannon: By default, he has above-average damage and a triple shot. Just giving him some fire rate boosters makes him dish out pretty decent damage. However, he is usually never more than two hits away from death, with special items like Holy Mantle (and its weaker counterparts the Wooden Cross and Safety Blanket) and Greed's Gullet being the only ways to extend that.
• Guide Dang It!: Not necessarily his unlock, but to unlock his unlock. A long series of cryptic hints led to a treasure hunt in Santa Cruz, CA, culminating in the discovery of a small buried Keeper doll. This led to the patch being released on Steam that added Keeper to the game.
• Joke Character: Probably the biggest of the three (the Lost at least doesn't need to rely on pickups to have some small measure of margin for error once their starting Holy Mantle is unlocked), though it's mostly (and thankfully) subverted with the Balance Buffs he got in Repentance, as described above.
  • Instead of hearts, Keeper has two coin slots (and in most cases can only have a maximum of two); any kind of damage takes a health coin (which still counts as red heart damage for the purposes of Devil/Angel Room generation), but taking another coin on the floor heals it back without increasing your coin count. He can't even obtain soul or black hearts in any way. This means that Curse Rooms (without Holy Mantle) and two-heart Devil deals will straight-up kill him, while one-heart Devil deals leave him as a One-Hit-Point Wonder. All health-increasing items are worthless unless you've lost one coin slot already. He also can't take soul or black hearts, as they get converted into flies. Thankfully, this was lessened in Repentance by increasing his natural coin heart container cap to three (which he starts with if he's defeated Hush, and can be extended further to four with Birthright) and removing the main ways for him to lose max life (Health Down pills never appear while playing as Keeper, and Devil Deals cost money rather than health containers).
    • There's one item in the game, Greed's Gullet, that can boost his health beyond the normal max of two coins, up to six. However, it's one of the rarest items in the game, as it can only be found in secret rooms, at an extremely low chance (<1% for a secret room to contain it), and it requires you to pick it up while carrying no more than 24 coins to get its full benefits down the line. This item got an indirect buff in Repentance due to another item, Deep Pockets, having its effect changed from granting a second consumable slot to increasing the coin cap to 999; if you can get both Deep Pockets and Greed's Gullet in the same run, it can effectively override Keeper's built-in cap and allow him to have as many as 12 coin heart containers!
  • Keeper has an innate triple shot, but his fire rate isn't programmed as the normal Inner Eye item would, so it's effectively even lower than that of The Inner Eye.
  • Keeper's starting items aren't available until you unlock them, and they're mundane at best. The Store Key trinket only opens access to shops, whereas the Wooden Nickel has a chance to fail, as seen in Lethal Joke Item below, and he only starts with a bomb (and a penny when you unlock it… by beating Hush).
• Lethal Joke Character: In a few ways, though still less so than its counterparts.
  • Since Keeper's triple shot's fire rate isn't programmed as the normal Inner Eye item would, by picking up enough Tear stat boosters (and by enough, we mean a lot), it's still possible to end up with the regular maximum fire rate possible.
  • It's possible to extend his life with a few items. A Swallowed Penny or the Piggy Bank can drop coins in battle if he gets hit, which will restore his health if picked up. (Unfortunately, they have a chance of failure in the Keeper's hands to prevent him from being functionally unkillable.) Meanwhile, Greed's Gullet is the only item capable of extending his health above the maximum by picking up coins and never spending them.
  • In Greed Mode, Keeper effectively gets hearts every wave that can be picked up mid-combat provided the player is fast enough. The only downside is that doing so decreases the money available to buy pickups and items. This extends to Ultra Greed's battle; since his attacks make you drop coins on contact, you just keep getting health back, and since Ultra Greedier's attacks generate coins during the fight, you'll never run out short of gross incompetence.
  • Post-Repentance, he's actually pretty decent. Going from two to three coin hearts gives him far more wiggle room, meaning he won't die from one mistake and a little bad luck anymore. The ability to safely tap into powerful Devil Deals — for cheaper than any character not named The Lost — also gives him a perfect avenue to scale into the endgame. He's still very challenging to play, but is actually rewarding now if you can pull it off.
• Lethal Joke Item: Zig-zagged. By unlocking the ability to start with the Wooden Nickel, it's possible to generate a coin to heal him back. Problem is, it has a 50/50 chance of working.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Has the most unconventional playstyle of the Joke Characters. He has only two hit points, but those are coins instead of hearts. Any heart pickups that appear are replaced by friendly flies.
• Magikarp Power: Downplayed. He's a pretty difficult character to play as, but by defeating certain bosses as Keeper, you can get some mundanely useful starting items for him (and a single dumb penny), making him... still pretty difficult to play, but at least a little better. He's much more useful in Greed Mode, as he can rapidly build up coins and heal back any damage taken. The Wooden Nickel item is also quite nice, if unreliable.
• Number of the Beast: He starts with the Store Key trinket after defeating Satan. Notably, this trinket is first unlocked by donating 666 coins to Greed's donation machine.
• Secret Character: Doubly so.
  • He hadn't been added to Afterbirth's data until a real-life ARG was completed, preventing the datamining debacle that uncovered The Lost.
  • He isn't listed on the character screen until he's unlocked.
• The "The" Title Confusion: Unlike fellow secret characters The Lost and The Forgotten, Keeper is just Keeper. That doesn't stop most of the community from referring to him as The Keeper anyway.
• Undead Child: Distinct from ??? in that his cause of death is from hanging, not suffocation.
• Walking Spoiler: Like the Lost, he is a heavily hidden character. The developers even took care for him to not be discovered by hackers before his ARG had been concluded.

Tropes that apply to Old Man Keeper:

Old Man Keeper

• Beard of Sorrow: Has a very noticeable beard and fights using tears.
• Eyes Always Shut: Which makes one wonder how he even fires tears.
• Red Herring: His spritesheet was added to the game files during the Keeper ARG to distract the dataminers.
• Secret Character: Is only playable on April 1st in place of the regular Keeper. Aside from looking like the Old Men from the original The Legend of Zelda, he doesn't change at all from Keeper.
• When Elders Attack: Is the oldest of the playable characters but can defeat enemies and bosses as much as any of the others.

Introduced in Afterbirth†

Apollyon

Apollyon

Debut: Afterbirth†

A mysterious statue-like angel who is unlocked by killing Mega Satan for the first time. He starts with the Void item, which destroys and copies the effects of activated items while turning passive ones into random stat boosts. Apollyon is the Greek name of (and he therefore represents) Abaddon, the angel of destruction and the abyss in Revelations, the last book of the Bible.

His Birthright effect adds a chance for Void to generate an item it had previously destroyed when used. It has no effect if Apollyon isn't holding Void.

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• The Assimilator: Void destroys passive items and turns them into stat boosts, and gains the effects of any active items it destroys. The latter can stack indefinitely, so Void can become a pretty ludicrous item by the end of the game.
• Black Eyes of Evil: His eyes are completely black. On the loading screen between floors, they look like hollow holes.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Using the Void item to its fullest potential (and therefore mitigating Apollyon's pitiful stats) requires the player to understand how pretty much every item in the game works and whether or not they're worth picking up vs. Voiding vs. leaving it behind altogether.
• Fallen Angel: Mentioned to be one of his character traits in the blog post. In addition, his name is Greek for the Hebrew word Abaddon, which means he could represent the angel of destruction and has a relation to Sheol.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: He has a pair of feathery wings. He is one of the playable characters, so he's good.
• Horned Humanoid: He has two small black horns.
• Living Statue: He is one, according to Edmund. Cryptically, Edmund also said that "his skin is flesh but appears like stone".
• Magikarp Power: Starts with 2 hearts and average stats, and his starting item Void doesn't do much without items to feed it. However, Void can convert unwanted passive items into random stat boosts and absorb the effects of activated items permanently. This allows you to turn useless items into damage or other benefits, and Void's ability to stack effects allows for insane combos that can shatter the game if you luck out and find the right items.
• Meaningful Name: His name is the Greek word for "destroyer". Sure enough, his main ability is to destroy items to gain their abilities or stat bonuses.
• Mundane Utility: Void allows Apollyon to turn bad or detrimental passive items into more useful stat boosts, though he's out of luck if he finds bad or detrimental active items.
• Nerf: Void initially kept any single-use items it sucked up, allowing them to be used again and again. This caused some truly gamebreaking stuff, like having Mama Mega every floor. It was quickly changed to use the item once and never again, to very few people's complaint. An exception is the Sacrificial Altar, the effect of which can be absorbed even though it's supposed to consume itself. Then again, you do have to keep feeding it familiars, so it balances out.
• Power of the Void: A successful Apollyon run depends in big part on judicious use of his Void starting item, which can turn into an all-powerful item and/or give Apollyon massive stat increases by the end of the run.
• The Swarm: Not in-game, but most of Apollyon's unlocks are locust trinkets of some kind, as a reference to the biblical Apollyon's status as the king of an army of locusts.
• Wings Do Nothing: Unlike Azazel, he doesn't use his wings for flight. They're just decoration.

The Forgotten

The Forgotten and the Soul

The Forgotten

The Soul

Debut: Booster Pack #5

The Forgotten is a skeletal character added in the final update for Afterbirth† (originally meant to be the final update for the game). He has a melee attack and uses a special type of "bone hearts," and can switch to a ghost called the Soul, which can fly but is chained to the Forgotten's body. All red hearts become bone hearts and are given to the Forgotten. All soul and black hearts go to the Soul. He is unlocked by assembling a special shovel and using it on a room late in the game.

His Birthright effect causes The Soul to be unchained from The Forgotten's body, allowing him to fly freely and even leave the body behind in another room.

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• Bad with the Bone: Unlike other characters, The Forgotten's weapon is a bone which he swings to strike enemies with, much like a sword, dealing three times the normal damage.
• Ballistic Bone: He can throw his bone like a boomerang, the distance determined by how long you charge it. Unless you hit the enemy on the way back though, it's only half as strong if used as such.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Rather than moving on after death, the Soul is forever bound to the Forgotten. This is implied to be Isaac's final fate after committing suicide in the Chest.
• Can't Live Without You: Dying as the Forgotten or the Soul is Game Over, regardless of the health of the other party. However, it is possible to kill the Soul through a Devil Deal and survive if you swap back to the Forgotten during the Item Get! animation; if you do this, the Soul will be disabled until you collect a Soul/Black Heart to restore it. Using the Converter to drain the Soul also won't kill you, merely force you back to the Forgotten once you've done it.
• Close-Range Combatant: The Forgotten's bone club attack is fairly powerful, but requires him to get up close to use it. It can be thrown, but the damage is weak enough that it's easier to just use The Soul.
• Dem Bones: Well, he is a skeleton. The special bone hearts he uses (which become available as drops for all characters after he's unlocked) take three hits to deplete and can be refilled with red hearts, but are lost forever if they're destroyed.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He plays nothing like any other character in the game, and you have to master being able to switch between the skeleton and its Soul when the situation best calls for it, which isn't easy considering that both the skeleton and the soul use different forms of health, and because of how they work, you can never have more than six bone hearts or six soul hearts. However, his melee attack is very powerful, and while the Soul is active, you can use the inactive skeleton to shield yourself from bullets without taking damage. The Soul also has flight and spectral tears, enabling him to fly over obstacles, pick up items, and fire through rocks just like the Lost, but without being a One-Hit-Point Wonder. Additionally, the bone hearts are not counted as red health unless you completely break a bone heart, so you won't lose a chance at a devil deal just from taking damage as long as you can heal up. However, Devil Deals can only be taken by the Soul, so you have to have enough Soul/Black Hearts to survive it.
• Game-Breaking Injury: Any heart container that he would normally acquire gets replaced by special Bone Hearts. Bone Hearts deplete within three hits instead of two: two for the heart, one for the bone covering. As long as the bone part remains, a normal red heart can refill it. However, if a Bone Heart is completely destroyed, it's gone for good until you collect another item that grants extra health or find a special Bone Heart pickup.
• Ghostly Gape: The Soul has blank, black eyes with no reflections and an open mouth.
• Guide Dang It!: His unlock method is pretty convoluted. First, you need to kill the Basement I boss within one minute. If you manage it, you'll hear Mom calling for Isaac and loud footsteps. Return to the starting room and plant a bomb, then the first half of Mom's shovel will fall from above. This shovel will make Mom constantly try to stomp you through the entire time you hold it, and its active effect only stops this for one room or one Boss Rush wave. Oh, and it vanishes if swapped out for another active item. Then, beat the Boss Rush while holding the Shovel part to get the second part of Mom's Shovel, while handling the above stomping. Once the Shovel is complete, get to the Dark Room and find a room with a small mound of earth on it. Dig that mound with the Shovel and you'll unlock the Forgotten.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Like Azazel, sometimes as the Forgotten you'll need to run in, take a swing or two with your bone club, then either run away or dodge before they retaliate before swinging at them again.
• Immune to Bullets: While you're controlling the Soul, the Forgotten becomes an immobile, invincible skeleton. He can be used as a bullet shield in this state, and even attracts bullets to himself in a very short radius. He also counts as a solid object, and will block charging attempts by certain bosses.
• Lethal Joke Item: Size up items not only increase the Forgotten's size, they increase the size of his melee weapon, giving him greater reach. If you manage to stack enough of them, you don't even need to aim. Conversely, size down items should be avoided, as they will reduce his range for the same reason. Thankfully, there is a hard minimum for the melee attack, so you can't render it completely useless.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Forgotten is a double-character, with one side having a melee attack, and the other sharing mechanics of the Lost (flight and spectral tears) and ??? (can only collect soul hearts). Health up items are applied to the side that collects them (unless they specifically grant bone/soul/black hearts). Additionally, the Forgotten's melee attack interacts very differently with tear-changing powerups compared to other characters; for example, getting Mom's Knife sticks the knife on the end of his bone, increasing damage and the range of the swing.
• Mundane Utility: The Forgotten's melee attack can be used to open spiked chests without taking damage. Furthermore, hitting anything with the melee attack counts as touching it for the purposes of collection, which can be used to grab collectibles (but not items) from behind rocks or over short pits. This is normally redundant with the Soul's flight, but can come in handy if the Soul is disabled.
• Necessary Drawback:
  • Because the Soul possesses every advantage of the Lost except with the ability to gain health, he's chained to the Forgotten at all times, limiting your movement radius to a half-dozen tiles or so. This prevents you from fully exploiting his flight to avoid enemies, though it's more than enough to collect anything in a given room most of the time.
  • Since the character uses dual health bars, the Forgotten and the Soul can only have 6 hearts total each. This is lessened by bone hearts being tougher to lose than normal hearts, but it's further exacerbated by them being rare and permanently destroyable. Also, you can't use soul hearts to protect your bone hearts, since they go straight to the Soul.
• Nerf: Repentance made it possible to take Devil Deals with bone hearts... which had the consequence of taking away The Forgotten's ability to snag early deals using his expendable soul hearts. The new Boss Challenge Room rules also means he can't gain access just by switching to The Soul, unless one of either character has only one heart remaining.
• Required Secondary Powers: As the true melee character, The Forgotten has a few attributes to prevent certain rooms from being unbeatable, most notably the ability to either throw his bone club or switch to The Soul to deal with enemies across gaps or under spikes. The ranged abilities are also necessary to deal with self-destructing enemies without losing hearts.
• Swap Fighter: He can freely swap between The Forgotten and The Soul, which have different strengths and weaknesses. Since they can only have six hearts total each, you're encouraged to use both to make the most of tough boss fights.
• Switch-Out Move: Their Birthright effect unchains the Soul from the Forgotten's body, letting you freely switch between either character with no punishment. Furthermore, it lets the Soul leave the Forgotten's body in another room, letting the Soul teleport out of the current room by switching back to the Forgotten.
• Tag Team: Their whole gameplay is based on the ability to switch between the Forgotten and the Soul at any time. Also, if one of them is killed, it's game over for both.
• Undead Child: Heavily implied to be Isaac's skeleton, after his corpse spent God knows how long locked inside the chest.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If either character dies, the run is over regardless of the health of the other. There are some exceptions with the Soul, however, as you can use up all of the Soul's health through a Devil Deal and switch back during the Item Get! animation, disabling the Soul until you get more soul/black hearts.

Introduced in Repentance

Bethany

Bethany

Debut: Repentance^note originating from Antibirth

Named after the village that was home to Lazarus, Bethany is unlocked by beating Mom's Heart on hard as Lazarus without losing a life. Uniquely, she cannot use soul or black hearts, instead adding them to a consumable counter when picked up. She can spend these hearts to use her active item if it isn't charged. She starts with the Book of Virtues, which summons Wisp familiars that shoot alongside her and block shots, but can be destroyed. If she is holding any other active item, Book of Virtues combines with it, granting it the ability to summon wisps themed to the item.

Her Birthright effect causes her active items to sometimes refund any Soul Hearts used to fuel them.

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• Aerith and Bob: Like Eden, she's named after a place rather than a character.
• Balance Buff: Big time. She was horrendously underpowered in Antibirth, since she can't use soul hearts to make Devil deals safely or even just secure the Devil chance. She was also extremely reliant on Book of Virtues to give her shot-blocking familiars, which made other active items worthless for her. Repentance fixed this by adding a passive effect to Book of Virtues, letting her summon Wisps with other active items. She also has a flat Angel room chance, making it easier to get free Angel items instead of costly Devil deals. Also as a side benefit, she can use bone hearts to protect her Angel chance since they aren't added to her soul counter.
• Girlish Pigtails: She sports a pair tied up with blue ribbons.
• Lethal Joke Item: Not her Book of Virtues itself, but rather the synergies it has with otherwise pathetic items like Butter Bean.
• Magikarp Power: Bethany's inability to pick up soul hearts means that one would have less health overall, and needs to avoid taking damage period to have a good chance at getting an Angel/Devil room for the floor, to say nothing of the fancy dodging required to build up flames with Book of Virtues. However, the soul hearts function to get much more use out of her starting item, and with enough cleared rooms and/or soul hearts picked up, she could have a huge multi-layered tornado of flames that each fire a spectral shot on their own.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: As stated above, Bethany uses temporary heart pick-ups to increase her counter to recharge space bar items with. This lets her use space bar items more often at the cost of being more dependent on health-increasing items and pick-ups. Players who favor the strategy of paying red hearts for devil deals that would otherwise grant soul or black hearts to keep them healthy will find that removing all of her red hearts will just kill her.

Jacob & Esau

Jacob & Esau

Jacob

Esau

Debut: Repentance^note originating from Antibirth

A pair of brothers that are unlocked by defeating the final boss of the Corpse for the first time. Both brothers are controlled simultaneously, but they have separate items, trinkets, and health bars with Jacob having more health and Esau having more damage. If Jacob or Esau dies, the run is over. They are named after the twin sons of Isaac.

Their Birthright effect causes whichever brother picked it up to gain copies of the three most recently obtained passive items from the other.

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• Always Identical Twins: Played with. Jacob has an ordinary pale skin tone, whereas Esau is lacking in skin, giving him a dark red appearance. Both have the same hair style.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In Antibirth, Jacob and Esau instantly used any pills, cards, or runes they picked up since the use button is Esau's active item key. This made consumables a lot less useful for them. In Repentance, they can hold consumables and instead can swap between their item or consumable by holding left control.
  • In Antibirth, Jacob and Esau had separate Speed stats, which made avoiding damage even harder. In Repentance, Speed is the only stat shared between both brothers.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Esau is a dark red because the Biblical Esau was described as "red all over" when he was born.
• Bash Brothers: Jacob and Esau are always together, and with the right items, can easily take down anything lurking in the basement.
• Born Unlucky: Esau starts with -1 luck. Jacob starts with +1 luck which balances them out in terms of room rewards, but it makes luck-based items less effective for Esau by default.
• Competitive Balance: In theory, Jacob is a Stone Wall with a decent 3 red hearts to start but only 2.75 damage, while Esau is the Glass Cannon with 3.75 damage but only a single red heart and soul heart.
• Can't Live Without You: If one of the brothers dies, both die, so neglecting one of them to make the other stronger is out of the question.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In order to use the consumable Jacob is holding, you have to hold down left control then press spacebar. Pressing spacebar to use a consumable feels unnatural, so it's common for players to use Esau's active item (just pressing Q) or to use Esau's consumable (left control + Q) by accident.
• The Dividual: Both Jacob and Esau are controlled by the player and if one dies both die.
• The Drag-Along: Their unlock image shows Jacob literally dragging Esau along behind him.
• Fake Difficulty: The game is not designed around 2 hitboxes so cheap damage is practically inevitable while playing as them.
• Jacob and Esau: Well, yes. In terms of gameplay, having to choose which brother gets which item may just result in you stacking items onto just one of the brothers, leaving the other to make do with what's left behind.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The player is in control of two characters at once, and needs to manage their health and who gets what items. At first, it's essentially like having double firepower, but it starts to get funky once the brothers have different tear stats or effects, or even things like flight. They also have a unique UI to accommodate them, with Esau's health, active item, and trinket all in the bottom corner that normally shows your pill/card/rune.
• Palette Swap: Esau is basically Jacob's sprite, but with different hair color and red skin and tears.
• Promoted to Playable: Esau, due to his blood tears, skinless-looking visage and his penchant for copying Jacob's moves, is essentially a friendly Dople.
• Single-Minded Twins: Literally. Both brothers are controlled by one player, and move and shoot at the same time. You can however control Jacob independently by holding right control, which is useful for positioning them for grabbing items or placing bombs.
• Some Dexterity Required: Not only do you have to juggle your consumables, active items, bombs, and tear attacks for one character, you have to do it for ANOTHER one, switching to him by holding a button. It can get hard to do at times, especially during hard fights.
• Tears of Blood: Esau has these standard.

Tainted Characters

Repentance added alternate versions of every playable character, including the undead secret characters and the ones added in the expansion. Each of them is unlocked by using either the Red Key or a special similar item in the Home floor, while playing as their respective main counterpart.

In General

Debut: Repentance (All)

• Bad Future: The characters appear to be the originals from the worst possible timeline. They're broken, injured, depressed, or otherwise mutilated beyond recognition. For the Biblical characters, it's whatever horrible fate happened to them in the Bible, while the original characters suffer some further punishment.
• Break the Cutie: Being all versions of Isaac, a five-year-old boy, naturally they've all suffered some serious trauma in their timelines. Even the ones that get off relatively lightly, like Eve, Jacob, and The Lost, still look rather decrepit and miserable. The only possible exception might be Judas, who seems to have slid way off the slippery slope into pure evil.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: All of their special items are bound to Q by default, with the option to press left control to switch between the item and consumable as if you had Little Baggy/Starter Deck/Polydactyly. Whenever you pick up a consumable, it automatically swaps. This makes it pretty easy to accidently waste your consumable, or worse yet for some characters, to use your item instead of a card.
• Discard and Draw: Most tainted characters lose some of the signature abilities of their normal counterparts in exchange for new powers. For example, Keeper loses his Wooden Nickel, Store Key, and extra starting coin in exchange for a more powerful attack and the ability to make enemies drop money.
• Fantasy Character Classes: Many of these characters are also based on archetypal RPG classes.
  • The Hero/Fighter: Isaac
  • The Paladin: Magdalene
  • The Artificer: Cain
  • The Ninja: Judas
  • The Necromancer: Eve
  • The Alchemist: Blue Baby
  • The Barbarian: Samson
  • The Battlemage: Azazel
  • The Phantom: The Lost
  • The Summoner: Lilith
  • The Warlock: Bethany
• Meaningful Name: Their unlock achievements give them titles fitting for the fates they've suffered and their playstyle in general. Bethany, for example, is the Zealot, due to having become essentially an Undead Child after a zealous descent into Blood Magic, while Eden is the Capricious due to constantly changing their loadout into random items whenever they take damage.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: All seventeen of them play in a totally unique way, different to their base selves and any base character (except arguably Eden and The Lost, although both were mechanically unusual already). Several of them have a unique feature with an undroppable active item that's bound to Q (swappable for your consumable the same way Jacob & Esau work).
• Secret Character: Seventeen of them. Since there are even counterparts to the pre-Repentance Secret Characters, they are secret characters even compared to the other secret characters. In order to unlock them, you're required to make your way to Home while carrying the Red Key or a Cracked Key (the latter of which can be gained by leaving a trinket in treasure rooms or boss rooms, then entering them during the Ascent, where they become Cracked Keys), then using it on the red door outline next to the entrance to Mom's bedroom. Doing so creates a red closet where the normal character's Tainted counterpart resides, and touching them unlocks the Tainted version for play.
• Shown Their Work: Like their original versions, the Tainted characters all have their fates and abilities based on their namesakes, albeit resulting from a Bad Future. Jacob, for example, constantly has Esau chasing after him, referencing how the biblical Jacob fled from Esau after taking their father's birthright from Esau.
• Super-Empowering: Defeating Delirium (or The Beast, in the case of Isaac and The Lost) with the Tainted characters unlocks their gimmicks to be used by other characters, including the normal counterparts, in the form of items; for example, defeating Delirium as Tainted Judas will add Dark Arts to the Devil Room item pool^ExceptionsThe Keeper and Eden have no equivalent items, though their unlocks still share similar themes with who unlocks them.
• Tarot Motifs: Defeating Ultra Greedier with these characters unlocks reversed Tarot Cards, which provide different or oftentimes inverted effects from their original counterparts, such as The Tower? spawning random rocks and obstacles instead of troll bombs.
• Walking Spoiler: The existence of any of them relies on the context of using the Red Key in Home, which is itself a hidden alternate path.

Isaac, the Broken

Isaac

MORE OPTIONS LESS ROOM

Isaac's tainted form is covered in bruises and cuts. In place of the D6, he causes all item pedestals to rapidly flicker between two options, which he can lock in by picking one of them up. However, he can only hold eight passive items at a time, and must sacrifice one of his choice each time he wants to pick up another.

His Birthright effect allows him to carry up to 12 passive items, without taking up a slot itself.

---

• Anti-Frustration Features: Active items are of course exempt from the 8 item limit, but unique items that are required to access special areas and bosses (The Polaroid for The Chest, The Negative for Dark Room, the Key Pieces for Mega Satan, the Knife Pieces for the Corpse, and Dad's Note for the Ascent) also have this exception. This way, even if Isaac has hit the 8 item limit, he still is allowed a chance to get to those areas. Also, trinkets that get permanently applied via items like Marbles or Smelter don't count toward the limit, either. Finally, the built-in limitation only applies to passive items; Tainted Isaac can still build up his stats through means such as pills or items as often as he can find the resources to do so.
• Broken Bird: He looks really beat up and battered here, indicating he suffered physical abuse.
• Crutch Character: On the first few floors, Isaac has unparalleled control over what items he gets. Once you hit that cap of 8 items, he stops getting stronger exponentially and has to start making tough choices.
• Disability Immunity: Well, it's more along the lines of "disability resistance", but if Tainted Isaac picks up a passive item that ends up doing him more harm than good for some reason (in particular, because of Curse of the Blind), his inventory cap mechanic allows him to remove detrimental items from his build more easily than any other character. It's still not effortless or consistent since he has to collect enough to reach his limit and then find a new item to replace the bad one with (and it has to actually be an improvement, or else he's just going from one bad situation to another), but at least he can remove items from his inventory.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: He can only carry eight passive items at a time, with a special UI to pick what to drop. The crux of his gimmick is ditching items that are no longer any use, like red hearts that have been spent on Devil Deals or weaker familiars to make room for better ones.
• Jack of All Stats: Like his normal version, Tainted Isaac has average stats across the board, with his "more options less room" gimmick being his trademark compared to everyone else.

Magdalene, the Dauntless

Magdalene

LETHAL HUGS ITEMS HEAL MORE

Tainted Maggy has half of her hair shaved off. She begins with two empty red hearts, and the Yum Heart item permanently occupying her consumable slot. Healing she receives from sources other than heart pickups is doubled. However, if she ever has more than two filled red hearts, she begins bleeding, trailing creep on the ground and draining back down to two hearts. Half red hearts frequently drop from killed enemies, but despawn very quickly. Additionally, if she comes into contact with an enemy, she will perform a "Lethal Hug", a powerful melee attack.

Her Birthright effect grants her a third Red Heart container that doesn't bleed away.

---

• All Take and No Give: Implied. Without constant healing, she slowly bleeds away to almost nothing; her "lethal hug" goes off automatically when anything gets close enough to her, and the hearts she spawns will likely be unobtainable if she isn't staying close. She's full of life when topped off, but it can't last, and she'll always benefit from getting up in foes' faces and hugging them to death to take their hearts — and her title, "the Dauntless", implies she's beyond caring what it does to anyone else.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Because her playstyle encourages deliberately taking damage, as long as she has leaking red hearts, taking red heart damage as her does not cancel out the devil/angel chance.
• The Berserker: Playing her well basically requires you to be constantly running into enemies, which makes any invincibility items practically game-breaking on her.
• Close-Range Combatant: Can be played like this, since her "Lethal Hug" deals a great amount of damage and will likely put her in a position where she can heal back up from any hearts dropped by the foe she just hit. Since she does this on touch, Tainted Magdalene can put items that work on touch to good use.
• Crutch Character: On the first few floors, Maggy can more or less safely ram into enemies and heal it up with the inevitable red hearts they drop. Once you get to the Womb and start taking double damage, you're not guaranteed to get back as many hearts as you took, forcing you to rely on her weak tears for most rooms. And that's not getting into the obvious difficulty and futility of trying to employ contact damage against the endgame bosses' Bullet Hell and massive health pools.
• Good Counterpart: She shares a near-identical fighting style to Lust, but is a player character instead of a Sin.
• Healing Factor: Like her normal counterpart, she starts with Yum Heart as her active item, and heals twice as much from it and other healing effects. However, like other Tainted characters, her Yum Heart takes permanent residence in her consumable slot, meaning she can't drop it. She will need it.
• Killer Bear Hug: Presumably what her "Lethal Hug" is.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Her attack may be called "Lethal Hugs", but in-game, it comes across as her punching whatever she runs into. With how tanky some of the later bosses become, Maggie will have to hit them a lot to bring them down, and she has the damage to do it.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: Any time she's above her soft health cap, she very quickly bleeds it all away.
• Power Up Let Down: Her Birthright grants her a third permanent red heart container that does not bleed out. However, this comes at the cost of removing a heart container that ignores the usual rules of granting angel/devil room chance.
• Traumatic Haircut: Half her hair has been sheared off of her head.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Whatever happened to Maggy has left her permanently unable to go above two hearts. The only exception is Birthright, which gives her a single extra 'real' heart.

Cain, the Hoarder

Cain

NO DESTINY

Cain's tainted form begins with the Bag of Crafting, a special item that lets him collect pickups from the floor and combine them into items. The rarer the pickups he collects, the better the item produced is. However, he cannot pick up any actual items, instead converting them into a selection of random pickups.

His Birthright effect doubles the amount of pickups he converts items into.

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• Cherry Tapping: In addition to picking up pickups, the Bag of Crafting's swing can deal a small amount of damage and a bit of knockback to enemies.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Is likely going to be incredibly frustrating for newer players, as he needs to use up consumables to craft items, and most good items require some rarer ones like nickels or soul hearts. However, he can easily cheese unlocks for other characters via the Clicker or potentially go for powerful synergies, as he can stack items, which other characters are more-or-less incapable of doing without the help of the Diplopia item.
• Eye Scream: His eye has been freshly ripped out, with blood pouring from under his eye patch and a visible wound around the socket.
• Item Crafting: His main gimmick, the Bag of Crafting, allows him to craft items by collecting pickups with it.
• Noodle Implements: Cain is somehow able to craft any item in the game using coins, keys, bombs, pills, hearts, cards, and runes.
• Sequence Breaking: The Bag of Crafting is one of a few ways to grab the Death Certificate before unlocking it^note its recipe, all Bone Hearts, is guaranteed for every run, so if you have a reliable source of Bone Hearts, Tainted Cain can craft it multiple times to grab certain story items (knife/key pieces, Polaroid/Negative) without having to deal with their respective prerequisites. This can also allow him to get nearly every completion mark in one run if he's able to reliably craft the R Key as well.

Judas, the Deceiver

Judas

SHADOW EATER

Tainted Judas begins as Dark Judas with an upside-down cross embossed on his forehead. He cannot gain red hearts, instead only using black hearts. His innate item, Dark Arts, lets him become a shadow and teleport through enemies to damage them. For each enemy he damages with Dark Arts, he gains a temporary damage boost.

His Birthright effect massively increases the range that Dark Arts affects enemies in.

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• Card-Carrying Villain: Doesn't get any more blatant than having a red, inverse cross on your forehead.
• Casting a Shadow: Dark Arts, as expected.
• Close-Range Combatant: Tainted Judas has a range penalty compared to other characters, and Dark Arts encourages getting in close to enemies to strike them.
• Dash Attack: While not a strict "dash", using Dark Arts increases Judas's speed while channeling it.
• Delayed Causality: Enemies hit by Dark Arts will freeze in place, but only take damage once Judas stops channeling it.
• Devious Daggers: He's seen brandishing his wicked dagger in his achievement picture, and carries Dark Arts with him at all times.
• Flash Step: Dark Arts grants Judas this ability.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Judas becomes invincible for a brief second when activating Dark Arts, which allows him to safely pass through enemies and bullets. While this doesn't let him abuse blood-donation machines or Devil Beggars, it does allow him to freely enter and leave Curse Rooms, open mimic chests, and pass over spikes without taking damage.
• Living Shadow: Much like Dark Judas, he's the shadow of Judas made manifest into a physical form.
• Obviously Evil: Nothing quite so blatantly says "This guy is bad news" as a glowing red inverted cross branded on his forehead.
• Parrying Bullets: Dark Arts can be used this way, though can be hard to use defensively since Dark Arts gives invincibility on use anyways. That said, it can be good for maintaining a damage boost, since hitting bullets with Dark Arts counts towards the status buff.
• Shadow Walker: Once again, Dark Arts.
• Superpowered Evil Side: In the same context that Dark Judas is, see the entry for Then Let Me Be Evil below.
• Status Buff: In addition to dealing damage, Dark Arts gives a temporary damage boost to the user after use, depending on how many enemies are hit by it.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: His character select refers to him as a "shadow eater" and, compared to the other abused or deranged Tainted characters, he doesn't seem much worse for wear — just utterly inhuman from the get-go, and even more aggressive than the original Judas. Furthermore, if the original Judas was another manifestation of Isaac's religious insecurities, then Tainted Judas is him giving in to and embracing them.
• Token Evil Teammate: Of the Tainted characters. Maybe.

???, the Soiled

???

NO BOMBS ONLY POOP

Blue Baby's tainted form cannot use bombs. Instead, he collects various types of poop that have special effects, which he can throw at enemies to damage them.^{Poop types}A normal poop with no effects; A corny poop that summons blue flies over time; A flaming poop that leaves behind a fire when it's destroyed; A green poop that has a poison aura; A black poop that creates slowing creep around it; A white poop that boosts ???'s tears and damage and grants homing while standing near it; A grey poop that's hard to destroy and deals significantly more damage when thrown; A butt bomb, which just acts as a thrown bomb; A fart that poisons and knocks back nearby enemies; Five bombs dropped over time similar to the Explosive Diarrhea pill; A trail of brown creep that grants bonus damage while ??? stands in it and gains other effects if it's in contact with another type of poop. Enemies will drop poop pickups on death, and ??? will occasionally drop them while fighting. He can hold up to 9 poops at once, and can store a tenth in his special Hold item to save a particular type.

His Birthright effect increases his maximum number of poops to 29.

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• Difficult, but Awesome: In order to circumvent his "shitty" starting stats, playing Tainted Blue Baby requires learning how to use each poop to its best in the current situation, when to Hold one for later, and how to manipulate the battlefield with their varying effects. It's a lot to take in, and will require a lot of practice for Tainted Blue Baby to shine like a polished turd.
• Dung Fu: Even more so than ??? normally is, as poop replaces his bombs, and his "tears" (if they even are tears) are brown-stained. He can even kill enemies by tossing poop directly onto them!
• Fartillery: One of their poop variants is just a fart that leaves behind a cloud of gas.
• Farts on Fire: Some of his poop attacks leave behind brown clouds of gas. Using an explosive or fire attack on them will cause them to explode.
• Lethal Joke Character: Compared to normal Blue Baby, his stats really went down the toilet. His only recompense is being able to fling poop at enemies. However, these turds are incredibly strong offensively, with varying utility allowing them to be used in any situation. Still doesn't change the fact that, in the end, he's still flinging shit at his enemies.
• Mad Bomber: For a given meaning of "dropping bombs".
• No Dead Body Poops: Averted even harder than his normal version. He can't even control when he drops a turd on the ground!
  • Upon death, he drops all of his collected poops behind him. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.
• Playing with Fire: One of his poops is literally on fire, damaging enemies by touch even after landing on the ground.
• Toilet Humor: Instead of carrying a poop item, he can now throw poops with special abilities!
• Visual Pun: He quite literally ate shit and died.

Eve, the Curdled

Eve

CLOT SUMMONER

Eve's tainted form has longer, messier hair and her mascara is mixed in with her tears, giving her the appearance of crying black. After firing for a set time, her health is converted to blood clot familiars that fire with her and can take damage. Her starting item, Sumptorium, converts any living blood clots back into health. If she ever has half a heart left and no clots, she gains a huge stat boost and wields Sumptorium as a weapon that functions like Mom's Knife.

Her Birthright effect causes clots to spawn temporary heart pickups upon death.

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• Anti-Frustration Features: Being that she has to sacrifice health to summon her minions, that means she cannot kill herself by trying to use her last half heart. Which, considering how hectic later levels can get, is a godsend.
• Bloody Murder: Her shtick involves using up her health to summon little minions that copy her tear effects and potentially tank any hits that come her way. While this can make for some impressive damage, this comes at the cost at making her really fragile and liable to die the instant she so much as brushes against something damaging.
• Cast from Hit Points: She uses her own health to summon more minions.
• Creepy Loner Girl: Compared to normal Eve, it's quite obvious she simply doesn't care about her appearance anymore, and most likely what anyone else thinks of her.
• Critical Status Buff: She still has a version of Whore of Babylon, but it requires her to actually take damage that brings her down to her last half heart to kick in. Once it does, her tears are changed to wielding the Sumptorium similar to Mom's Knife. If she happens to have any minions out, they also wield a copy of Mom's Knife.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: She constantly makes minions at the cost of her health as she fires. Do you want to keep some health or feel like you've amassed enough familiars at the moment? You'll need to periodically stop firing, though the period to stop can be so short that it does not negatively impact your DPS.
• Desperation Attack: Being down to half a heart (of any type) with no blood clot familiars left will trigger a unique version of the Whore of Babylon, in which Eve uses Sumptorium as a weapon akin to Mom's Knife.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Don't be surprised if you die a few times trying to get the hang of her, as Eve is extremely susceptible to being one-shot out of nowhere if you have a lot of minions but one bullet manages to sneak through and hit her. But should you be lucky enough to get a bunch of hearts and good enough damage boosters (either straight boosts or multi shot items like Mutant Spider), then Eve is effectively encased in a fortress of firepower that will decimate just about everything in her path. Throw in some extra lives and/or damage-blocking orbitals and other items, and she's effectively unstoppable.
• Glass Cannon: The more blood clot minions she has out, the less health she has. They could tank shots for Alternate Eve herself, but that still leaves her vulnerable to direct damage.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Takes this further than her normal version by having her bangs not only hiding her right eye but partially covering the left, representing her being broken further into seclusion and devolving from an Emo Teen to a Creepy Loner Girl.
• Magikarp Power: In the early game, she's very fragile, since a lot of her damage potential comes from relying on the blood clot minions she sacrifices health for. However, should you be lucky enough with later drops (like say, Brimstone or Ipecac) and do your best to avoid getting hurt, Eve becomes an absolute beast. You still need to be careful with getting hit, of course, since unless you have something to mitigate it (like Nine Lives, Guppy's Collar, Pretty Flies, Big Fan, etc), one stray bullet could end your run and you won't notice until the Game Over screen comes up.
• The Minion Master: She can quickly amass several blood clot minions under her. If she's able to rack up lots of hearts, she can form a huge army of blood clots to follow her everywhere.
• Necessary Drawback: With the ability to create a whole army of familiars, she's capable of firing a ridiculous number of tears with every shot. To balance this out, she starts with a much lower rate of fire than any other character.

Samson, the Savage

Samson

Normal

Berserk

UNDYING RAGE

Tainted Samson begins much weaker, with almost all of his hair shaved off. However, after taking or dealing enough damage, he trades his tears for a massive speed boost and an extremely powerful melee attack. It only lasts for a brief period, but can be extended by killing enemies.

His Birthright effect triples the Berserk duration bonus he gains from killing enemies.

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• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Whatever semblance of strategy Samson had gets thrown out the window once he goes berserk. In this state, his best course of action is to simply charge head-first into the enemy to kill as many of them as possible.
• Bad with the Bone: Once he starts berserking, he attacks with a jawbone. This is in reference to a Bible story where Samson kills one thousand Philistines using only the jawbone of a donkey.
• The Berserker: Once his rage boils over, he loses all control and begins murdering people.
• Brought Down to Normal: Without his hair, he loses his super strength. Upon raging, his hair suddenly regrows even wilder than before.
• Close-Range Combatant: When enraged, his main attack is a jawbone, though it can be thrown similarly to how the Forgotten's bone attacks work.
• Eye Scream: When he goes berserk, he suddenly loses his eyes, referencing his blinding at the Philistines' hands in the Book of Judges.
• Heroic Build: Like his normal counterpart, his character preview has a finely-chiseled torso, though it's contrasted with a borderline Nightmare Face making him look like a ruthless barbarian.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When enraged, he suddenly gets his hair back, though it makes him look less like a herculean strongman and more like a wild, bloodlust-driven maniac.
• Rage Breaking Point: Tainted Samson fights like a normal character until he goes berserk, at which point he lets all of his rage out in a bloody rampage.
• Suplex Finisher: While the November 2021 update fixed a bug where using Suplex! on an enemy as soon as Tainted Samson's/Berserk!'s transformation expires would freeze them in place if they survive the suplex, trying the same trick now gives the suplex a special visual effect that ends with him creating a Mama Mega!-style explosion.
• Traumatic Haircut: Nearly all of his hair, save a single tuft, has been shaved off of his scalp. His Big Ol' Eyebrows remain, however.
• Unstoppable Rage: Samson's rage renders him unable to die^note Unless Damocles' effect activates until it runs out, making it possible for him to plow through entire floors with ease.

Azazel, the Benighted

Azazel

BROKEN WINGS

Azazel's tainted form has his other horn broken and both his wings torn off. He obviously cannot fly anymore, but his Brimstone is more powerful to compensate. It's now infinite range, but only fires in a very thin beam and deals significantly reduced damage. Beginning the charge has him shooting a short-ranged blast that knocks away enemies and covers them in blood. Enemies covered in blood take full damage from his Brimstone.

His Birthright effect doubles the width and length of his sneeze.

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• Broken Angel: Well, more like Broken Demon. Tainted Azazel has had his demonic features broken off by some external force, removing his flight capabilities.
• Blood from the Mouth: Azazel's Hemoptysis, which is the result of him spewing out an improperly-charged Brimstone.
• Bloody Murder: Both of his main attacks involve him weaponizing the blood he spits out of his mouth.
• Brought Down to Badass: Azazel has lost his wings and horns, depriving him of flight. He's still fairly strong, having gained a less unwieldy Brimstone variant and a melee attack.
• Close-Range Combatant: While he has the option to attack from any range, it's far more damage-effective to get close, attack with a sneeze, then follow up with Brimstone from a medium range, so you can deal full damage and easily reapply the debuff when it wears off.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: In addition to knockback, his melee hit will give enemies a debuff for a short duration (enough for two full lasers at base attack speed) that causes them to take full damage from Azazel's attacks.
• Disability Superpower: Having been forcibly crippled via various traumatic injuries, Azazel's ability to channel a proper Brimstone attack has been impaired, only being able to spit out a relatively pathetic mouthful of blood or, at best, a very thin and weak Brimstone beam (which at least doesn't peter out after only one meter or so). His failed attempts at Brimstone, however, result in his Hemoptysis attack, which is fairly strong and can amp up his fully-charged Brimstone beam.
• High-Pressure Blood: The visual for Hemoptysis's Damage-Increasing Debuff has the affected enemy release extra blood when they get hit with Brimstone.
• Nasal Weapon: His melee Hemoptysis attack is described as a "double tap sneeze", while Birthright says it gives him stronger sneezes. Keep in mind that hemoptysis is coughing up blood from the lungs.
• Power Limiter: If Azazel's Rage (his broken left horn) is any indication, his injuries are an attempt to impose this on him. Killing the Beast, however, unlocks the Rage and gives Tainted Azazel (or anyone else) a chance to get the horn back, enabling him to slowly rev up a massive full-damage laser and unleash it every four rooms.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: His laser deals pathetic damage by default, but becomes much stronger when used in combination with his sneeze.
• Wave-Motion Gun: In exchange for losing flight, he gains a longer-ranged but thinner brimstone attack.

Lazarus, the Enigma

Lazarus

Lazarus

Dead Lazarus

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

Tainted Lazarus is trapped between life and death. Every time he clears a room, he changes into a bloodied ghost with pale eyes and higher damage, and changes back upon clearing another. The two halves of Lazarus do not share items, but his special Flip item lets him change on demand once every six rooms. Additionally, all items that naturally spawn in a room (Shops, Treasure Rooms, Devil Deals, etc., but not Boss or chest items) will have an uninteractable ghostly item behind it. Activating Flip will switch the real and ghostly items around, allowing them to be collected.

His Birthright effect causes the "inactive" form to appear as an invulnerable ghost, moving and firing tears similar to Esau. When one half acquires Birthright, both gain the effect.

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• Came Back Wrong: Instead of coming back to life stronger than ever like normal Lazarus, this version of Lazarus is forever trapped between alive and dead.
• The Dividual: Alive Tainted Lazarus and Dead Tainted Lazarus are for all intents and purposes completely different characters, each having their own stats, items, trinkets, and even consumables.
• Driven to Suicide: This version of Lazarus seems to have slashed his wrists. Clearly, it didn't work right.
• Jekyll & Hyde: His gimmick is that every room clear forces him to change forms. Neither form can share items, causing a similar issue with Jacob & Esau. This is made up for by giving items alternate "ghosts" that can be accessed with Flip.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: He has a variant where the reflections in water will show his other self, including any items he has. This goes both ways — the reflection of Alive Tainted Lazarus shows his dead self and the reflection of Dead Tainted Lazarus shows his living self — so it's not a clear-cut case of the reflection always showing which form is "real".
• Mortality Grey Area: Tainted Lazarus' gimmick revolves around him dying and resurrecting every time he completes a room. The character selection screen explicitly states he's "between life and death".
• Multiform Balance: In terms of starting stats, both forms are a Jack of All Stats, but Living Tainted Lazarus has better HP, speed, and luck, while Dead Tainted Lazarus has better damage^note his actual starting damage stat is 1.00, same as the living form, but his innate damage multiplier is 1.5x, the same as Judas, tears, and range; as such, the living form leans towards Stone Wall and the dead form leans towards Glass Cannon.
• Nightmare Face: Dead Lazarus, particularly during boss vs. screens and level intermissions.
• Split-Personality Switch Trigger: The purpose of Lazarus's Flip.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Dead Lazarus starts with more aggressive stats, but wears an evil grimace and has milky white eyes and deathly pale skin.
• Swap Fighter: He's an involuntary one, switching between two characters each time a room is cleared. He can switch on demand using Flip, although this can only be used once every six rooms, meaning it's usually better for getting extra items or for extreme emergencies.
• Undeathly Pallor: Dead Lazarus' skin is pale white and his eyes are grey and empty.

Eden, the Capricious

Eden

EVER CHANGING

Tainted Eden functions and appears exactly the same as regular Eden. However, after taking damage, all of their items, stats, and consumables are randomized again.

Their Birthright effects prevents their base stats and currently-held items from being rerolled, although future items can still be affected.

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• Confusion Fu: Even more so than regular Eden, given that getting damaged forces a new item set entirely.
• Glitch Entity: More so than regular Eden, having a glitchy portrait and effects whenever they are hit. Some of the items they unlock are also very glitch-themed.
• Good Counterpart: Considering their main trait, Tainted Eden can be thought of as a playable version of Delirium.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: They are even more associated with glitches than the regular Eden. Their "locked" closet door icon on the character selection is distorted from glitches, their face is similarly scrambled when unlocked on the character page, and they temporarily glitch out whenever hit. November 2021 update also makes their face glitch out in their screen transition portrait.
• Paradox Person: A lot of how Tainted Eden is presented implies that they aren't supposed to exist; in much the same way that Eden "just is", Tainted Eden "just isn't".
• Required Secondary Powers: Rerolling constantly would normally very quickly Breakfast your run, rendering every item nothing but useless HP ups. When Tainted Eden takes damage, their items are instead returned to each item pool, letting them freely reroll back into them.
• Video Game Randomizer: Eden, but taken up to eleven. It gets even worse with some of the items they unlock:
  • Beating Hush and the Boss Rush unlocks Eden's Soul stone, which acts like a one-time use combo of the D6 and D20. For extra fun, the rerolled items can be drawn from any item pool a la Chaos.
  • Beating Mother unlocks Modelling Clay, which activates a random passive item whenever you enter a room.
  • Beating the Beast unlocks the TMTRAINER passive item, which causes any items collected after picking it up to have completely randomized effects, ranging from "borderline useless" to "instantly win the game by turning props in a room into End Chests". Unlocking Tainted Eden themself also gives you access to a hidden, 45th challenge where you begin the run with TMTRAINER.
  • Beating Delirium as Tainted Eden causes Secret and I AM ERROR rooms to potentially have randomly-generated items a la the TMTRAINER.

The Lost, the Baleful

The Lost

BETTER ITEMS NO MANTLE

Covered in dust and cobwebs from hiding in the attic, The Lost's tainted form does not begin with the Holy Mantle, rendering him a true One-Hit-Point Wonder once again. To compensate, he starts with a Holy Card, which is a one-time-use Holy Mantle, items that are normally useless for The Lost cannot spawn, and Holy Cards are found more often.

His Birthright effect grants an extra life. On death, he releases a massive explosion that damages nearby enemies then revives on the spot in the current room.

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• 1-Up: Tainted Lost's special Birthright effect, which acts as a resurrection item for him, coupled with a huge explosion to wipe out whatever offed him in the first place.
• Cobweb of Disuse: He's covered in them, likely due to hiding in the attic for an extended period.
• Glass Cannon: Even moreso than the Lost, because he can't avoid damage as easily thanks to not being able to rely on Holy Mantle (which the Lost has). On the upside, item pools are adjusted so that health ups, hit-activated items, etc. are removed from pools during his runs, so there's less of a chance of wasted items for a One-Hit-Point Wonder like him. He also starts with a similar damage multiplier as Judas (who's an example of this trope himself), so any damage-up items he finds will be more useful to him than most other characters.
• Lethal Joke Character: While he's just as fragile as his pre-buffed normal self, items that are completely useless for the Lost (i.e. most health upgrades and items that activate on hits) are removed. A result of this is that it's far easier to build him as a powerful Glass Cannon, since his item pool is more limited to offensive upgrades.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Like his normal version, but without the safety net of Holy Mantle. His only way to take any damage whatsoever is via temporary Holy Cards, and he isn't even guaranteed to find them all the time.
• Power at a Price:
  • He can avoid useless items, guaranteeing the run will be easier than the typical Lost run. However, he doesn't get the Holy Mantle, turning him back into the extremely difficult Joke Character he was in Rebirth.
  • Several of the defensive items The Lost normally had access to do not spawn for the Baleful, including staples like Nine Lives, Gnawed Leaf, and even Holy Mantle itself. Because of these of these removals, the Tainted Lost is likely to get a bunch of powerful offensive items… but they'll still be a Glass Cannon at best.
• Power Up Letdown: Your reward for beating Mega Satan with him? A new chest type that spawns a Polty to try and kill you. The only upside is that this can only replace Mimic Chests, which would oftentimes be much more difficult to open without taking damage.

Lilith, the Harlot

Lilith

FETAL FURY

Tainted Lilith's blindfold is removed, revealing the holes that used to be her eyes. Instead of an Incubus, she can spawn a familiar named Gello from her now-bloated stomach which can be whipped at enemies to damage them and fires tears on her behalf. It can be steered with tear controls, but fires at a fixed distance from Lilith's body.

Her Birthright effect causes following familiars to be conjoined to Gello, allowing them to be controlled in the same way. Each conjoined familiar increases the damage of her whip attack.

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• Chest Burster: Invoked. Lilith can only attack with her own unborn child Gello, by launching him out of her belly.
• Eyeless Face: With her blindfold removed, you can see that her eyes were removed from her head.
• Eye Scream: Without her blindfold, players get to see the empty sockets in her face.
• Fetus Terrible: Uses her unborn child, Gello, as her means of attack.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: In addition to firing tears, Gello himself can be used to hit enemies.
• Improbable Weapon User: Out of all the characters' methods of attack, nothing can get more creatively absurd and outrageous than beating monsters to death with your own unborn demon fetus.
• Long-Range Fighter: Since Gello is connected by a long umbilical cord, he can attack enemies from across the screen and can shoot over rocks. The downside is there's a huge blind spot between the cord and Lilith where he can't easily shoot, forcing the player to use the less DPS-efficient whip attack to keep enemies that rush you at bay.
• Mighty Glacier: Has among the slowest starting speeds of all characters, but is still as tanky as normal Lilith with her two black hearts and a red heart. That by itself doesn't sound like a lot, but Tainted Lilith can avoid damage from Close-Range Combatant enemies a little more easily than other slow characters such as Magdalene, since launching Gello directly into enemies knocks them back a decent distance. In addition, Gello is very strong early-game, as the direct Gello-whip attack does more damage per hit than tears, being strong enough to kill most early-floor enemies in just one or two strikes.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Downplayed, but she is the only playable character shown to be visibly obese without any item such as the Bucket of Lard or Infestation making her fat (she even looks obese in the character select screen). This is most likely because she's perpetually pregnant.
• Pregnant Badass: With the twist that her unborn child is as much a badass as its mother.
• Puppet Fighter: She can't attack unless she summons her umbilical familiar.
• Sex Is Evil: Judging by her title and how she's forced to use Gello to attack, this version of Lilith went from just being followed by demonic familiars to actually carrying one around at all times. This might also explain how she lost her eyes in the process.
• Traumatic C-Section: Her stomach is split open by a C-section, which she can use to launch Gello out.
• Womb Horror: Weaponized! Lilith is grotesquely pregnant with a demon familiar, which bursts from her stomach to attack enemies.

Keeper, the Miser

Keeper

BETTER SHOPS GREED IS GOOD

Modeled after Super Greed, Keeper's tainted form fires a quad shot instead of a triple shot. He is once again capped at 2 coin hearts, and killing an enemy causes them to drop a coin. However, these coins despawn almost as soon as they drop, forcing him to play extremely aggressively. Also, shops contain extra items for sale, and item pedestals require him to spend money, encouraging him to get greedy.

His Birthright effect causes money dropped by enemies to be pulled towards him within a short distance.

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• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Everything costs money for Tainted Keeper. Even the angels won't let him take an item without paying the price.
• Deadly Upgrade: He gets a stronger attack and tons of money from killing enemies. However, the impermanence of coins and his lower health pool both require and punish him for playing much riskier than Keeper normally should.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Tainted Keeper has quite possibly the worst survivability of any character in the game (outside of the Lost and Tainted Lost, and the former at least has Holy Mantle to function as a self-refreshing extra hit point), being capped at 2 coin hearts and being forced to play aggressive and up close to both heal and have enough money to get by. That being said, the extra items in the shops combined with the massive amount of money you’ll amass quickly if you’re good means that Tainted Keeper runs are far more powerful on average and it's very easy to get extremely broken builds.
• Glass Cannon: He has a quadruple shot and can gain tons of items assuming he has the money, but he only has 2 coin hearts and can't get any more barring very, very few exceptions. Not to mention the fact that the coins generated from enemy kills will disappear quickly means that you need to be fast in order to collect the coins — and you will probably need to put yourself in harm's way to have a decent chance of grabbing them.
• Greed: Par for the course for Greed-related entities, but used as a game mechanic turned to its maximum.
• Money for Nothing: In later stages, the Miser can find himself swimming in money with nothing to spend it on. Even though enemies will continue to spawn coins, money will have lost its main purpose by then.
• Money Spider: Passively turns every enemy into this. The coins don't last long, though.
• Noose Necktie: Like the regular Keeper as of Repentance, the Miser has one as standard.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Mook Makers tend to stop producing coins after a certain amount of mooks, preventing you from grinding too harshly.
• Power at a Price: Literally. The Miser's passive abilities allow him to find items in shops that come from other item pools, and like Keeper, he can buy devil deals with money instead of heart containers, granting him widespread access to items throughout a run. The catch? Buying is the only way to get most items, as almost every pedestal has a price associated with it, even the normally free Angel Room items. Keeper will grow very strong as the run goes on, but he is going to pay for it.
• Power-Up Magnet: His Birthright item allows him to attract coins that spawn from defeated enemies from a longer distance, allowing him to play things slightly safer.
• Spread Shot: Fires four tears per shot, as opposed to normal Keeper's three shots.
• Wingding Eyes: Like Super Greed, Tainted Keeper's eyes are replaced with coins.

Apollyon, the Empty

Apollyon

PLAGUE BRINGER

Tainted Apollyon has two additional horns and half his face cracked open, revealing a swirling void inside. Instead of the Void, his innate item is the Abyss, which destroys other items like Void does. Rather than converting them into stats or copying their effects, they're turned into permanent red flies that he can command to attack enemies.

His Birthright effect makes flies stick to enemies to deal continuous damage as long as the attack button is held instead of returning to him.

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• Body Horror: A variant. Half his face has been broken off, juxtaposing the normal half with the swirling red void within.
• Four Is Death: He has four horns compared to his normal counterpart's two, and Abyss is focused on his role as a harbinger of the apocalypse.
• Empty Shell: Stated by his title, implied by his items and appearance. This version of the angel of destruction, driven only by a looping abyss, derives no strength from the things he destroys, and is ever surrounded by the remnants of their decay.
• The Minion Master: His playstyle revolves around creating fly familiars to attack enemies.
• Nightmare Face: He has a swirling vortex where half his face should be.
• The Swarm: With enough items sucked up, Apollyon can build up an army of red flies to fight for him.
• Two-Faced: Due to part of his head being damaged.
• Zerg Rush: With enough items absorbed by Abyss, Apollyon can produce enough flies to shred just about anything in his way once the swarm passes over it.

The Forgotten, the Fettered

The Forgotten

The Forgotten

The Soul

DEAD WEIGHT

Possibly the most unique of them all, the Soul is now severed from the Forgotten and can float freely, being the main character you control. However, he is incapable of attacking on his own, and must throw the Forgotten's body, which is just an inert, invulnerable pile of bones, which swings its club when attacking but is incapable of movement.

His Birthright effect grants the special Recall item in the consumable slot. It can be activated to pull The Forgotten's body to The Soul from any distance.

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• Bad with the Bone: Exaggerated. He doesn't use just one bone, he uses an entire skeleton in the form of the Forgotten as a weapon.
• Barred from the Afterlife: The Soul is finally free from the the Forgotten's bindings, but he still can't move on. Instead, he now has to literally carry his burden everywhere.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Having an indestructible body capable of putting out Forgotten-level DPS from technically any distance is incredible. Of course, that requires you to very carefully position the body, and keep the fragile and defenseless Soul out of harm's way to reposition it.
• The Dividual: Entering a third Victory Lap restores both of them to regular gameplay, making them more akin to Jacob and Esau. However, the standard rules of Victory Laps still apply, turning them both into the Lost too.
• Fastball Special: The Soul's main contribution to combat is to chuck the skeleton at the enemy; otherwise, he doesn't fight.
• The Fettered: The Soul cannot attack on its own, and the Forgotten cannot move on its own. Even though it's no longer visually present, they are still practically chained together.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The best way to deal damage with the Forgotten is to simply throw his skeleton right at enemies.
• Improbable Weapon User: He is certainly unique for using an entire skeleton to beat enemies down with.
• In the Hood: The Soul is wearing a cloak.
• Puppet Fighter: Rather than attack, the Soul must carefully position the Forgotten to attack enemies. This lets him stay out of the line of fire, but forces him to either corral enemies towards the body or put himself at risk to reposition it.
• Some Dexterity Required: Entering a third Victory Lap as the duo turns them both into the Lost, controlled in the same manner as Jacob and Esau. As a result, continuing requires the same type of skill as the latter, with the added challenge that both now go down in one hit.

Bethany, the Zealot

Bethany

BLOOD POWER WEAKER ITEMS

A satanic form of Bethany, with tears of blood and a purple orb embedded into her forehead. She cannot use red hearts, instead using them to fuel her active item with extra charges. Additionally, all positive stat modifiers and familiars are 25% less effective for her. She begins with the Lemegeton, which gives her a random passive item along with an orbiting ghost copy of that item. The ghost can block shots as long as it's alive, but the ghosts can be killed if they take too much damage, destroying the item in the process.

Her Birthright effect summons four random ghosts with more health than normal. Each item is guaranteed to be high quality.

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• Blood Magic: She powers Lemegeton (and other active items) by consuming Red Hearts, rather than the Soul or Black Hearts that Bethany used to power the Book of Virtues.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Her Book of Virtues has been replaced with the demonic Lemegeton, and she has a much more one-way relationship with the familiars summoned with it; they float around her as power sources and living shields, inactive but making her stronger. Her magic now runs on blood instead of soul, and angel rooms hold no special appeal to her anymore. What she's gained in power from a zealous dive into the arcane, she's lost in purity.
• Nerf: Lemegeton used to generate items from the room pool, which could easily be abused by Tainted Bethany's red heart reserves to get a massive number of Secret Room, Devil, Angel, or even Planetarium items for free. It now only has a 25% chance to give an item from the room pool, with a 75% chance to just give a shop, boss, or treasure room item.
• Power at a Price: Lemegeton allows Bethany to quickly amass an army of passive items, on top of still getting items from all normal sources. However, not only are the Lemegeton items temporary, all items are only 75% of their normal strength. If she ever runs out of Lemegeton charges, she's left very weak.
• Squishy Wizard: Bethany has fairly plain stats to start with, but powers herself up with the Lemegeton spawning items around her, which can lead to serious game-breaking combos… but this is balanced by said items acting similarly to vulnerable familiars, and if they're destroyed, Bethany immediately loses that item's affects.
• Undead Child: Due to her not being able to have red hearts, similarly to Blue Baby, it's implied she's only kept animate by the demonic magic of Lemegeton. This is possibly represented by the glowing orb embedded within her forehead; notably, it goes out when she dies.
• Useless Useful Spell: Because of the fact that all HP ups and pickups associated with the items her wisps represent don't appear, there's a remarkable amount of items that are next to if not completely useless as Lemegeton wisps, such as Box, Booster Pack, Bomb upgrades, or even Bethany's own Birthright.
• Weak, but Skilled: Her items aren't as strong as other characters', but she makes up for it by gaining quite a few more via Lemegeton.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Believe it or not, Lemegeton can be used with the Book of Virtues, resulting in the Lemegeton ghosts gaining the offensive properties of the Book of Virtues wisps.

Jacob, the Deserter

Jacob

Jacob

Dark Esau, the Revenant

REPENT FOR YOUR SINS

Depressed and filled with regret, Jacob is played solo and begins with the innate Anima Sola, which locks a nearby enemy in place. However, 20-40 seconds after starting each floor, Esau's vengeful ghost will emerge from Hell and chase Jacob, occasionally charging at him. If Jacob is caught, he's turned into The Lost with no Holy Mantle for the rest of the floor. Esau can be temporarily stopped with the Anima Sola, but will only cease his pursuit when Jacob enters the next floor.

His Birthright effect splits Dark Esau into two equally dangerous halves. They are both chained at once with Anima Sola and can be released one at a time. They both charge at Jacob simultaneously and will not charge if one isn't in a valid position.

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• All There in the Manual: Dark Esau's official title is "The Revenant", but he is only referred to as such in external media; namely, on his Four Souls card.
• Anime Hair: Dark Esau's hair is far spikier than his non-tainted counterpart's.
• Balance Buff: Jacob was given several huge buffs in the November 2021 patch to make him slightly more playable.
  • He can now gain health while in ghost form. While he's still a One-Hit-Point Wonder, the health will carry over into the next floor instead of simply vanishing as it did before.
  • His invincibility frames are slightly longer now after Esau hits him. Also, Esau will no longer turn Jacob into a ghost while Jacob is invulnerable.
  • Dark Esau himself is now completely invulnerable; while this means you can't get rid of him and/or use him to nuke the current room, he won't die to random damage to screw you over anymore. Additionally, the player's tears and bombs now pass through him.
  • Esau will now keep a short distance away from you while he isn't charging, preventing him from wandering into you randomly or blocking doors.
  • Esau's charge now ignores boss armor, making it much more deadly late in the game.
• Berserk Button: If you pick up the Birthright item, the item's description becomes "It's not yours". Cue Dark Esau splitting himself into two.
• Bullfight Boss: Esau acts as one, attempting to charge at Jacob constantly. Interestingly, his behavior is similar to that of Mother's Shadow, so knowing one can prove to be effective for dealing with the other.
• Deadly Dodging: Part of Jacob's playstyle revolves around luring Esau into charging into enemies for massive damage.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Played straight, but not in an entirely helpful way. Should Esau be successfully killed, this makes him explode with a huge radius, killing all enemies in the room… and forcing Jacob into his Lost form anyway. (Thankfully, this won't kill Jacob if he's already in his Lost form.) While this can be used to clear a room of difficult enemies, you only have one chance per floor to do so, and then have to deal with being a One-Hit-Point Wonder for the rest of the floor. However, as of the November 2021 patch, Dark Esau is now completely invincible.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Using Dark Esau as a weapon. If used properly, Esau can be incredibly powerful, as his charge can destroy most enemies and can cause some serious damage to bosses; potentially killing earlier ones in a single charge. However, this makes it easier for Esau to ram into Jacob, turning him into his ghostly form. Additionally, using Anima Sola to "aim" Esau means that the player must wait 15 seconds between attacks (barring room clears), on top of having no way to stop Esau if in a situation where the charge is nigh-unavoidable.
  • Tainted Jacob's Birthright effect magnifies this, increasing the danger by having you deal with two Dark Esaus but also making them more predictable and controllable for a skilled player (both Dark Esaus must be in a valid position to charge before either can, with Anima Sola allowing Jacob to fire both off one by one), as well as increasing how much damage he can do.
• Easter Egg: In multiplayer, Dark Esau won't damage players other than Tainted Jacob... unless someone is playing as Jacob & Esau, in which case he will be able to hurt Jacob (but not Esau).
• HP to One: Should Esau successfully hit Jacob, the latter will turn into his Lost counterpart, with all that entails. The only way for Jacob to regain his body is to reach the next floor.
• Implacable Man: Once he appears, Esau will never stop hunting you down.
• Irony: Tainted Jacob's Birthright effect, splitting Dark Esau into two entities, is darkly hilarious when you realize the twin Esaus are a villainous counterpart to the regular Jacob and Esau.
• The Jailer: Anima Sola lets Jacob lock enemies in place with infernal chains. However, enemies will eventually break out of them.
• Living Shadow: The second Dark Esau that splits off the first when Jacob gets Birthright. It's completely black except for the light coming from its eyes and mouth.
• Murder Into Malevolence: In life, Esau was Jacob's loyal twin brother. In death, he wants nothing but to kill Jacob in revenge.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Even before Esau starts to literally haunt him, it's obvious that Jacob is filled with regret over his brother.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It's risky to do, but Esau's charges and contact damage can work in your favor, if you exploit how he will always charge once he breaks free of the Anima Sola. Set up right, you can deal massive damage to bosses in this way, meaning that Esau could end up being the reason you survive the run.
• Playing with Fire: Esau trails fire everywhere he floats. He also unleashes a fiery explosion should he be killed.
• Poison Mushroom: The effects Birthright gives to each playable characters are meant to be buffs to help them with their general gimmicks. Tainted Jacob's Birthright effect causes Dark Esau to split in two, both of who want to still kill Tainted Jacob. While the idea of the Birthright item is to use Anima Sola to redirect the two Dark Esaus to charge at enemies and the two Dark Esaus cannot desynch from their attack formation, it still hinders Tainted Jacob's survival chance. However, considering the story of Jacob and Esau, more specifically Dark Esau trying to kill Jacob for stealing his Birthright, this is most likely intentional.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Esau can unintentionally do this while trying to attack Jacob and is one of the keys to playing the character well. Utilizing Deadly Dodging can result in enemies getting shredded by his charges and making it much easier to clear rooms and/or take bosses down. The further the run goes, the more monsters Esau slaughters while determined to make his brother pay. It's debatable if he even notices all the monsters he's killing, given how fixated he is on Jacob.
• Splash Damage Abuse: The main upside of the character is Esau's charge, which can damage Jacob but can also kill enemies, and is extremely effective at that.
• Unstoppable Rage: Nothing will stop Esau from taking his vengeance against his brother. Not walls, enemies, obstacles, bosses, or even boss armor. Even Anima Sola only holds him in place for a few seconds, before he eventually breaks free. Notably, he charges out of Anima Sola when it wears off, unlike any other enemy who simply resumes what they were doing before.
• Vengeful Ghost: Esau, who's now covered in fire and wants nothing but to kill Jacob for stealing their father's birthright.

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