The Forgotten

What you start with

The mechanics that actually govern this character.

• Two bodies sharing one health bar. The Forgotten has 2 bone hearts, damage x1.50, and fire rate halved; The Soul has 1 soul heart, damage x1.00, speed 1.30, flight and spectral tears. Swap with R2 on PlayStation (RT on Xbox, ZR on Switch). If either dies, the run ends. Because the bar is shared, each side caps at 6 hearts rather than 12.
• He cannot hold red heart containers - Health Ups become bone hearts, and soul or black hearts go to The Soul. He also has a +20% chance to convert soul heart drops into bone hearts.
• The bone club deals 3x damage on a swing and 1.5x thrown, passes through walls, rocks and enemies, and a thrown club can hit the same enemy twice (out and back). Shot speed and tear falling speed do nothing; range moves the swing arc outward but barely affects the throw.
• Repentance specifics: at 30.00 fire rate or higher the swing auto-repeats while you hold fire and releasing throws instantly with no delay; below 3.5 damage the throw switches to 1x damage plus 1.75 flat. While you control The Soul the body is invulnerable, blocks shots, and slightly attracts them.

How to play them

• Melee is your damage. The throw is for reaching what you cannot walk to, and for builds where the ranged form is genuinely better (Polyphemus, Mutant Spider, The Inner Eye). Do not stand back and lob bones by habit.
• Use The Soul as a scout and a bullet sponge. Park the body somewhere safe, switch, and clear ranged threats with spectral tears; enemy shots that hit the body are simply deleted.
• Pick up health as The Forgotten, not as The Soul. Health Ups taken in Soul form become soul hearts, and bone hearts are far rarer.
• Bone hearts containing at least half a red heart cannot break, no matter how big the hit. That is your Sacrifice Room and Blood Donation engine: keep a red half-heart inside the container and grind spikes.
• Devil Deal rule: in Repentance he can pay with bone hearts like red hearts. If a deal would kill The Soul, buy it as The Soul and immediately swap to The Forgotten - you can take a 3-heart deal for one soul heart this way.
• Danger on 1.7.9: taking a deal that would kill The Forgotten and then swapping to The Soul can softlock the run. Never empty the bone side to zero and then swap away.
• If The Soul has no hearts at all you cannot swap to it until you find another soul or black heart, so keep half a soul heart in reserve on purpose.

Items to hunt for

Strong on this character specifically, not just strong.

• Mom's Knife (you have it unlocked): it welds onto the club into a scythe for +4 flat damage, a bigger swing and throw, and a single swing hits an enemy twice instead of once.
• Godhead (you have it unlocked): gives the thrown bone homing, but note it does NOT give the club a damage aura, so it is a smaller upgrade for him than for tear characters.
• Birthright: unchains The Soul entirely. It can leave the body behind, walk into other rooms, and swapping back teleports you to the body even out of a sealed hostile room.
• Polyphemus makes the club physically larger so hits cover more area; Proptosis triples melee damage in Repentance.
• Ipecac: the melee explosion triggers on hit and does not hurt him, and in Repentance the thrown club also explodes on first contact harmlessly. Add Pyromaniac and every hit heals you.
• Compound Fracture and Cricket's Body spawn extra bone shots on melee hits, and in Repentance Compound Fracture also fires them off the throw.
• Brittle Bones (his own Lamb unlock) swaps his containers for six bone hearts and every break is a permanent tears up; Marrow, Crow Heart and Dad's Ring keep bone hearts alive, with Crow Heart stopping containers breaking while any red health remains.

Traps to refuse

Picks that are neutral or good elsewhere and bad here.

• Guppy's Paw and Potato Peeler are unusable - neither bone hearts nor soul/black hearts qualify.
• Tiny Planet: in Repentance the thrown club orbits at high speed but still cannot hit the same enemy more than twice and gains no hitbox, which is a straight DPS and accuracy loss.
• Chocolate Milk: the club grows on charge but can no longer be thrown, and you cannot spam-tap the swing, so his best attack pattern is gone.
• Technology plus Ipecac: the thrown club explodes continuously and the self-damage is unavoidable.
• Eye of Belial, Pop!, Pupula Duplex, Rubber Cement, Technology Zero, Parasitoid and Tropicamide do nothing to the bone club - do not treat them as damage picks.

Cheese and techniques

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

• Challenge and Boss Challenge Rooms: the game checks The Forgotten's and The Soul's health separately, which bypasses the Repentance entry restrictions. Drop one side to a single heart to open the door, then swap to the healthy side inside.
• With Birthright, Curse Rooms are completely free: leave the body outside, walk in as The Soul, take everything, swap to leave. Zero entry damage. Careful at Rotgut though - bringing the body inside means swapping back after phase 3 teleports you into a respawned phase 3.
• The bone club opens chests through obstacles and takes no damage from a Mimic Chest. Bomb Chests still cannot be opened this way; Locked and Eternal Chests still need a key or the Paper Clip.
• The club also punts things it cannot pick up, so you can launch live bombs Dr. Fetus-style and knock Troll Bombs away from yourself.
• How to Jump plus a swap cancels the jump animation into a fully invincible dash that still deals contact damage.

Getting the marks

• Non-tainted, 14 secrets, all Hard marks unlocks Bone Baby.
• His unlocks are the bone item set and most of them make him stronger later, so grind him rather than saving him: Mom's Heart gives Marrow, Isaac gives Slipped Rib, ??? gives Jaw Bone, Satan gives Pointy Rib, The Lamb gives Brittle Bones, Boss Rush gives Divorce Papers, Hush gives Hallowed Ground, Ultra Greed gives Finger Bone, Ultra Greedier gives Dad's Ring, Mega Satan gives Bound Baby, Delirium gives Book of the Dead, Mother gives Bone Spurs, The Beast gives Spirit Shackles.
• Satan/Lamb and Isaac/??? are mutually exclusive endings, and Mother and The Beast are separate routes again, so budget a minimum of four runs to sweep his marks even with perfect play.
• You already have Strange Key, which removes the 30-minute limit on the Blue Womb door, so a slow melee run can still bank both the Boss Rush star (Mom within 20 minutes via Depths/Necropolis/Dank Depths, 25 via Mausoleum/Gehenna) and the Hush face in one go.