Tainted Fiend
Tainted Fiend, also known by his title The Bastard, is a tainted character added in Fiend Folio: Reheated. He is the alternative version of Fiend made up of oozing black goo, being able to divide himself into various tiny clones to conquer his foes.
He can be unlocked by opening the hidden closet in Home (using
Red Key,
Cracked Key, or
Soul of Cain on the left corridor) while playing as
Fiend.
He starts with 2 Black Hearts and Malice in his pocket slot.
Abilities & Traits
Malice
Tainted Fiend's main gimmick lies in his starting item, Malice — a 1-charge Active Item with a recharge time of 5 seconds.

Fireball
Using Malice once will transform Tainted Fiend into an invulnerable black fireball that lunges forwards, dealing 15 damage to every enemy hit while also leaving a trail of black creep. The fireball will stop and dissipate upon hitting an obstacle or wall.
- The fireball lunges forward in the direction Tainted Fiend is shooting towards. If he's not shooting, then it launches in the direction he's moving towards.
- The movement keys can influence the direction of the fireball slightly, and can strafe left and right while moving forwards.
- Enemies killed by the fireball have a 20% chance of dropping
Half Black Hearts.
- While Tainted Fiend is normally invulnerable while in this fireball form, touching things that would normally hurt Tainted Fiend may still trigger certain "on hit" effects (such as losing the shield granted by
Holy Mantle).
- (NOTE: This is a result of a bug.)
Minions
After hitting an obstacle while in the fireball form, Tainted Fiend will break down into several tiny copies of himself known as his Malice Minions.
Malice Minions are all controlled by the player's inputs and all fire tears independently, have smaller hitboxes than Tainted Fiend similar to Pluto, and share most of Tainted Fiend's stats and effects of Items he has collected during the run. However, while in this split form, Tainted Fiend and his minions gain a stronger Damage down multiplier (about 0.515× instead of 0.80×).
- A Malice Minion is spawned for every full or half-full
Black Heart Tainted Fiend has in his Health bar, with a minimum of 2 Malice Minions.
- Malice Minions will die from a single hit of damage, and causes Tainted Fiend to lose the respective amount of Health said damage would've dealt. After taking damage, each minion will gain invincibility frames, but the time of invulnerability is much shorter than normal.
- In split form, Tainted Fiend cannot die due to Heart loss; when at half a Heart with 2 Malice Minions, taking damage will only kill 1. Consequently, however, if every Malice Minion dies, then Tainted Fiend will die regardless of if he had any Health remaining.
Reusing Malice while in this split state will cause all Malice Minions to turn into a puddle and start moving towards a player-controlled crosshair. When all puddles combine back together, Tainted Fiend will reform back to his regular size.
- While reforming, Tainted Fiend and his Malice Minions are invulnerable.
- The puddles created while reforming will gain speed until they inevitably reach the crosshair, meaning it can't be used to stay safe from harm for very long.
Health
Regarding his Health, Tainted Fiend works somewhat like the character Dark Judas or
???, but with greater restrictions.
- Tainted Fiend can only gain
Black Hearts. He cannot gain
Red Heart containers, nor pick up
Soul Hearts,
Bone Hearts, or
Immoral Hearts.
- Items that grant Red Heart containers or Soul Hearts will give him Black Hearts instead.
- All Heart pickups have a high chance of being replaced with Black Hearts, while
Soul Hearts and
Eternal Hearts are always converted into Black Hearts.
- This chance is affected by Tainted Fiend's Luck stat — at 13 Luck, the chance for a Black Heart to spawn becomes capped at about ~60%.
Blended Hearts will be converted into
Blended Black Hearts instead.
- Tainted Fiend can only have up to 6 Black Hearts in his Health bar. Any more will not be picked up.
- In split form, Tainted Fiend can not gain any more Malice Minions by collecting Health (unless they reform and break down again).
Notes
- While not in his split form, Tainted Fiend constantly emits short-lived slowing black Creep.
- Right after switching forms from using Malice, Tainted Fiend will gain invulnerability frames for a brief amount of time.
- Additionally, Malice can be used to enter Cursed Room doors without taking damage, both when charging and reforming.
- When placing a Bomb in split form, all of Tainted Fiend's Malice Minions will place tiny Bombs that all explode at the same time.
- The movement of Malice Minions in split form don't all directly match the player's; only one Minion is controlled, while all other Minions will follow them closely.
- While in split form, Tainted Fiend can pick up
Spicy Keys without taking damage. (This might be a bug.)
- Tainted Fiend has a hidden increased chance for random Coin pickups to become
Cursed Pennies, being at 5% by default.
Birthright
"Malicious Healing + Individuality Up"

Tainted Fiend's Birthright strongly increases the chance for
Malice to drop a
Half Black Heart on enemy death. Moreover, in split form, the Malice Minions spawn with various hats that grant a different amount of Damage, Tear rate, Luck, and Tear size to the wearer.
Unlock Condition
Icon | Name | Unlock |
---|---|---|
![]() |
The Bastard |
Unlockable Achievements
Icon | Name | Unlock Method |
---|---|---|
Chunk of Tar |
| |
+3 Fireballs? |
| |
Soul of Fiend |
| |
Golden Slot Machine |
| |
Malice |
| |
Hatred |
| |
Modern Ouroboros |
|
Trivia
- Tainted Fiend has several different headcanons by the developers of Fiend Folio — According to Peas, "The Bastard" is a future version of Fiend after he has been corrupted by his curse, causing his body to melt into sludge.[1] At one point according to Maria, however, The Bastard has been described as a separate imp that is a clone of Fiend named Steve.[2]
- Tainted Fiend, just like regular Fiend, also flips the bird instead of giving a thumbs up.
- Many hats provided by Tainted Fiend's Birthright effect are references to other media. These are:
- A cap similar to Super Mario's (with an F instead of the M)
- A helmet with an antennae, similar to Captain Olimar's spacesuit from Pikmin
- A pair of goggles similar to those of Despicable Me's Minions
- A Ghastly Gibus, which is a Team Fortress 2 hat
- A suspicious visor similar to those of Crewmates from Among Us
Audio
Gallery
For more images, see the gallery here: The Bastard/Gallery
References
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Regular Characters | ![]() ![]() |
Tainted Characters | ![]() |
Challenge Characters | ![]() ![]() |
Secret Characters | ![]() ![]() ![]() |