Tainted Bethany

What you start with

The mechanics that actually govern this character.

• 3 soul hearts, 6 blood charges, and Lemegeton in the pocket slot (6-charge). She cannot use red hearts as health or gain red heart containers, like ???.
• Red hearts become blood charges at one charge per half heart, tracked next to the pickup counters. Blood charges pay for missing bars on your active item at one charge per empty bar. Every effect that restores red hearts gives charges instead - but full-heal effects give nothing at all.
• Every stat point ABOVE base is cut to 75%: damage, tears, speed, range and shot speed, and familiars and orbitals also deal 75% damage. So 4.5 damage becomes 4.25. Her soft tears cap is 4.43 instead of 5.00. Direct fire-rate modifiers such as Mom's Perfume are exempt.
• Lemegeton wisps: maximum 26, each blocks 4 shots or survives 2 explosions, deals 2x your damage per contact tick, and has a 25% chance to come from the CURRENT room's item pool. Wisps do not count toward transformations or the Collection Page, and mapping wisps only apply on the next floor on 1.7.9.

How to play them

• The gimmick in plain language: you are permanently worse at stats than every other character, and you make up for it by turning red hearts into active-item fuel and by printing free passive items out of Lemegeton.
• The 25% room-pool roll is the whole character. Hoard blood charges through normal rooms, then dump three or four Lemegeton uses inside an Angel Room, Devil Room, Planetarium, Secret Room, Shop or Curse Room.
• Blood charges are also your panic button: any active item in your slot can be fired instantly if you have the charges, which turns a 12-charge item into a resource question instead of a room-counting question.
• Since red hearts are only ammunition, treat Devil deals as cheap and red heart drops as pickups rather than healing. Soul hearts are the only real health.
• Do not overvalue raw stat items - a +1 damage item gives you +0.75 and a +2 speed item gives 75% of the excess. Fire-rate items using direct modifiers dodge the penalty entirely and are worth more than their listed numbers suggest.
• Wisps are also your defence. 26 orbitals each blocking 4 shots is a lot of coverage, and they deal 2x your damage per contact tick, so running into things is a legitimate attack.
• Wisps do not grant consumables and do not progress transformations, so do not count on Lemegeton for Guppy or Bookworm.

Items to hunt for

Strong on this character specifically, not just strong.

• Birthright: Lemegeton spawns FOUR wisps of quality 3 or higher items, and those wisps are much larger with far more HP. It is the single biggest power spike on the character.
• Car Battery: Lemegeton fires twice per activation, so every use is two wisps.
• Converter: grants blood charges on use with no change to health. With Car Battery it consumes 3 blood charges and produces 4, at no health cost, which is a genuine infinite charge loop.
• 2 of Hearts card: doubles your held blood charges. With Blank Card that is effectively infinite charges once you are above 12. Queen of Hearts spawns 1-16 full red hearts and does the same job with any duplication method (Blank Card, or Jera plus Clear Rune).
• Charge farms: Leech (1 charge per kill), Charm of the Vampire (charges every 13 kills), Maggy's Bow (doubles charges from red hearts), Blood Bag (10 charges), Little C.H.A.D. (roughly one charge every three rooms).
• Items that hand over 12 blood charges on pickup: Binge Eater, Immaculate Heart, Magic Mushroom, PJs, Raw Liver, Red Stew, Sacred Heart, Sausage and SMB Super Fan.
• Satanic Bible: cheap to spam with charges, and after using it on a floor, Lemegeton used in the Boss Room pulls from the Devil pool - even on bosses that do not drop a standard boss item such as Mom, Satan or ???. Unicorn Stump and The Gamekid also turn the wisps' contact damage into a room-clearing melee button.

Traps to refuse

Picks that are neutral or good elsewhere and bad here.

• 4.5 Volt is a genuine brick: with it equipped, Lemegeton stops gaining charge entirely for as long as your normal active item has empty bars. Jumper Cables and Lil' Battery have the same priority order (active first) but only waste overflow rather than stalling Lemegeton permanently.
• Sacrificial Altar: converts every Lemegeton wisp into a half soul heart. The passive effects only survive the current floor, so it is a large net loss of a built-up wisp ring.
• The Jar: hearts only begin collecting in it once you are at 99 blood charges, so it does nothing for most of a run.
• Full-heal effects give no blood charges at all. Prefer half and full red heart pickups over anything that says full heal, and do not go out of your way for healing machines.
• Items that spawn very large numbers of blue flies can make wisps disappear (known bug) - be careful stacking fly generators on top of a big wisp ring.

Cheese and techniques

Verified against 1.7.9 on console — anything patched, PC-only or Repentance+ only is called out rather than listed.

• Converter plus Car Battery is a real infinite: 3 charges in, 4 out, no health cost, repeatable.
• Bank charges deliberately and spend them all inside high-value rooms. Four Lemegeton uses in a Planetarium or Angel Room gives four independent 25% rolls at that pool's items, permanently, for free.
• Satanic Bible before entering the Boss Room converts your Lemegeton pulls to the Devil pool for the rest of that floor, which is the cheapest way to farm Devil items on any character.
• Glowing Hourglass wisp duplication works on 1.7.9: rewind to the previous room, then use it again. Duplicated wisps exceed the 26 limit and let you stack multiple copies of the same passive effect. 3 uses per floor.
• Red Key: she can afford far more red rooms than anyone else, and using Lemegeton inside a red special room pulls from that room's pool on top of its normal contents.

Getting the marks

• 7 secrets. Isaac, ???, Satan and The Lamb collectively unlock Expansion Pack. Mega Satan gives Confessional, Boss Rush OR Hush gives Soul of Bethany, Greedier gives the V - The Hierophant? card, Delirium gives Lemegeton, Mother gives Beth's Essence, The Beast gives Vengeful Spirit.
• The Mega Satan run wants charges banked rather than spent: Key Pieces are quest items so they arrive free, and a full 26-wisp ring is both your damage and your shield for that fight.
• Mom's Heart and normal Greed give no secret for tainted characters; both marks still need filling for the note and for Death Certificate.