Red Bones

Red Bones
Artwork of a Red Bones
First appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Latest appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch) (2024)
Variant of	Dull Bones

“You'll go no farther, and from this moment on... You'll be nothing but bones!”

—Red Bones, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Red Bones are enemies that appear in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. They are slightly stronger than Dull Bones, and if their HP reaches zero, they can come back to life after a few turns unless finished off by fire, lightning, or explosive elements. They act the same as others in the Dry Bones family, except a Red Bones can summon some Dull Bones slightly more frequently. They resemble Dull Bones but have a pink skull, hands, and belly, red shoes and shell, and cyan eyes. One Red Bones appears as a mini-boss in Hooktail Castle and another appears as a standard enemy for a certain puzzle in the Palace of Shadow Tower, although the tattle of a Red Bones can be found in Frankly's trash can after Chapter 1. The Japanese name and their field tattle in the French version indicate that they are red due to being bloodstained.

Statistics

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door enemy
Red Bones
	Max HP	5	Attack	3	Defense	1
	Location(s)	Hooktail Castle, Palace of Shadow	Role	Boss, common	Level	14
	Sleep?	0%	Dizzy?	40%	Confuse?	40%
	Tiny?	90%	Stop?	85%	Soft?	90%
	Burn?	90%	Freeze?	80%	Fright?	0%
	Gale Force?	80%	KO?	0%	Moves	Bone Throw (3), Multibone (1x3) Build (Summons Dull Bones), Shake (N/A), Get Up (+5HP)
	Exp. points	0	Coins	3	Items	Dried Shroom (drop only), Honey Syrup (drop only)
Tattle Log #: 21	Log	This ugly, red Dull Bones is stronger than a normal Dull Bones. Even if its HP drops to 0, it can come back to life.
	Tattle	That's a Red Bones! A little TOO red, I think. No fashion sense, y'know? Max HP is 5, Attack is 3, and Defense is 1. Unlike your average Dull Bones, even if you pound it to O[sic] HP and it crumbles... It totally might revive! Like a zombie! My advice is to get rid of all the Dull Bones, then attack the Red Bones. Oh, and one more thing! Once its friends start to fall, it may create some more!

Field Tattle

Outside of battle, Goombella can use Tattle on Red Bones only in Hooktail Castle before Mario examines it.

• "What a creepy pile of bones. I mean, they're ALL creepy, but this one's SUPER-creepy! I don't really feel like taking a look at it, but if we don't, we'll never get farther..."

Related

• Dry Bones
• Dull Bones
• Dark Bones

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	ブラッディホネノコ[?] Buraddi Honenoko	Bloody Dull Bones
Chinese (traditional)	血紅骨頭慢慢龜[?]	?
French	Skelécarlate[?]	Pun on squelette ("skeleton") and écarlate ("scarlet")
German	Roter Knochen-Koopa[?]	Red Dull Bones
Italian	Kooposso Rosso[?]	Red Dull Bones
Spanish	Template:Nowrap[?]	Red Dull Bones

Trivia

• In the trailer to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, several scenes involving Red Bones were present, including one where he is selected in battle. This particular scene reveals that Red Bones was known as Red Koopa Skeleton in one of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's early versions.
• Red Bones is the only enemy in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door that's fought more than once and can have its Tattle Log entry appear in Professor Frankly's trash can. The player can obtain Red Bones' Tattle Log entry after defeating it in Chapter 1, even though the player is forced to fight another Red Bones in the Palace of Shadow Tower. This implies that the second Red Bones battle was added later in development. This is fixed in the Switch remake.
• Red Bones is the only enemy in the game to have a susceptibility to the Burn status ailment that is between 0% and 100%.
• In the tattle for Red Bones, the "0" representing its HP is mistakenly written as the letter "O".