Chapter 3: The Skull Heart's Call

Learn about the Skull Heart, the powerful artifact in Skullgirls 2nd Encore. Discover its history, role in story mode, and how it corrupts wishes into Skullgirls.

Alright, let's talk about the Skull Heart. This thing is central to the whole plot of Skullgirls, so it's good you're getting familiar with it. Think of it as a cosmic monkey's paw – it grants wishes, but always with a terrible twist. Basically, every seven years, the Skull Heart shows up to grant a wish to a woman. The wish can be HUGE, but the price is always steep. It's notorious for twisting even the most selfless wishes into something brutal. It might end a war by causing more destruction, bring back a loved one as an undead minion, or worse, it takes over the wisher's body and eventually turns them into a Skullgirl. A Skullgirl is this incredibly powerful, murderous woman who's been corrupted by the Skull Heart. They can raise corpses as mindless minions and are driven to bring about destruction, all in the name of ending the world. ## General Information The Skull Heart was actually created by the Trinity, the goddesses of the Skullgirls universe. They sent it crashing down to Earth ages ago with the ultimate goal of ending the world. It's surprisingly fragile – a single gunshot or kick can destroy it. But don't get too comfortable, because it reappears seven years later, ready to grant another wish. Now, women with really strong wills can resist its mental corruption a bit, which stops them from becoming *completely* ruthless. But even then, it'll still make them violent and prone to murder. Peacock even hints that eventually, you'll slip up and become just as bad, if not worse, than those who wronged you. So, resisting it is more like delaying the inevitable. The time it takes to become a Skullgirl really depends on how selfish your wish was. Selfless wishes, like wishing for a war to end (think Queen Nancy), might take years to turn you into a Skullgirl. But the Skull Heart judges your selflessness based on your *reasons* too. If you wished for something good, but for a selfish reason, it'll still get you. Filia's story shows this: she wished for Painwheel to have a normal life, but because she also wished for absolution for her own past guilt, the Skull Heart decided she'd still transform, just more slowly. Black Dahlia's story mode gives us even more insight. Trying to make a benevolent wish on the Skull Heart is almost guaranteed to backfire. The artifact sees such intervention as unnatural and incapable of doing any real good. So, it's pretty much impossible to wish on the Skull Heart without becoming a Skullgirl. The developers even confirmed that no one has ever wished on it without becoming one, because wishes are inherently selfish. Interestingly, it seems to grant Dahlia's wish without much issue on her end, which is an exception. ## History We don't know exactly when the Skull Heart first showed up, but we know the Trinity made it. It crashed onto Earth and has been around for a long, long time. It's often accompanied by Double, a shapeshifting monster who works for the Trinity. Double's job is to offer the Skull Heart to desperate people, maybe since the very beginning. * Annie's Mother: Way back when, Annie's mother used the Skull Heart to wish for her daughter to stay a child forever and never swear. The details are fuzzy, but it definitely affected Annie negatively, hence her anti-Skullgirls propaganda. * Selene Contiello: About fourteen years before the game's events, Double gave the Skull Heart to Selene. This led to the Medici Mafia coming after her. When she saw her family gunned down, Selene wished them back. The Skull Heart twisted this by turning her into a Skullgirl, allowing her to bring them back as undead minions. * Queen Nancy: Seven years later, the Skull Heart was at the center of a huge war. Queen Nancy, ruler of the Canopy Kingdom, wished for the fighting to stop. The Skull Heart granted this by turning her into the most powerful Skullgirl the world had ever seen. The three nations had to team up to fight her before she destroyed everything. * Marie: Just a few months before the game starts, the Skull Heart ended up with Marie, an orphan girl who saw her best friend suffering under slavers. She wished for revenge against those responsible, becoming a Skullgirl. After taking down the slavers, Bloody Marie started targeting anyone connected to the Medici Mafia, who supported the slavers. Thanks to her strong will, Marie managed to resist the Skull Heart's influence and stay focused on her revenge. ### Role in Story Mode Most of the characters you play as are after the Skull Heart for one reason or another – mostly to use it or destroy it. At the end of Story Mode, after you defeat Bloody Marie, each character gets their hands on the Skull Heart and has to decide what to do with it. * Filia: She's chasing the Skull Heart to get her memories back. After remembering her friend Carol and learning about her connection to the Medici family, Filia decides to move on. Instead, she wishes for Painwheel to have a normal life again. The Skull Heart grants it, but warns Filia she'll become the next Skullgirl – slowly, because Filia believes she wronged Carol and seeks absolution for that guilt. * Cerebella: She isn't after the Skull Heart for herself. She uses its location to hunt down and capture Ms. Fortune for Vitale, who was trying to steal the Heart. She succeeds in killing Ms. Fortune, which she later regrets. We don't know what happens to the Skull Heart after this. * Peacock: She knows Marie is struggling with the Skull Heart inside her. Peacock kills Marie to free her from it, vowing to take up her revenge. When she confronts the Skull Heart, she uses her Argus System to destroy it. As the Skull Heart is destroyed...