Brittle Bones

This article is about Brittle Bones, similar in appearance to Compound Fracture.

Brittle Bones is an unlockable passive item added in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth † (Booster Pack #5).

Effects[]

Grants 6 empty Bone Hearts.
Removes all Red Heart containers. Does not remove existing Bone Hearts, but does empty them.
Upon losing a Bone Heart, including ones acquired from other sources, Isaac fires a ring of 8 bones that split into more bones and gains a permanent +0.4 fire rate, which can break the tear fire rate cap.
- Each bone does twice Isaac's damage plus a flat 22 damage; split bones do half this amount.

Picking this item up as The Lost or Keeper will give a one-time +0.5 tears up ( +0.4 fire rate). This bonus is retained even if the item is later lost or rerolled.
- Keeper will also gain 24 Blue Flies.
The tears up bonuses gained through this item will persist in the escape sequence of Mines II.
Losing Bone Hearts through a Devil Deal will not give the tears up effect.
If Brittle Bones is removed (such as with Tainted Isaac), existing tear upgrades will not be removed.

Empty Vessel: The empty Bone Hearts will trigger Empty Vessel's effects.
???: Brittle Bones will not get rid of ???'s Soul Hearts, and considering he can't fill the Bone Hearts, he can break them, giving him lots of tears ups without any downsides. However, having more than 8 Soul Hearts will get rid of the other Soul Hearts to put in the Bone Hearts.