IWHBYD skull (Halo 3)

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"I would have been your daddy, but a dog beat me over the fence."

— Sergeant Johnson

The Seven Rings the player must jump through for the skull.

John-117 with IWHBYD skull.

The Halo 3 IWHBYD (I Would Have Been Your Daddy) skull is located on the campaign level The Covenant. This skull has no actual gameplay effects, but reverses the frequency of the dialogue spoken by non-playable characters, allowing several humorous lines to be heard where otherwise such humorous lines would be very rare.

Origins

The name of the skull is based on a statement, occasionally uttered by both Sergeant Johnson and Sergeant Stacker in Halo: Combat Evolved: "I would have been your daddy, but a dog beat me over the fence!" The quote was originally spoken by Pete Stacker.

It is also the name of the first chapter of the campaign level Assault on the Control Room in Halo: Combat Evolved. Not only is the skull's name a reference to this line, but the skull's description reads "But a dog beat me over the fence" The exception of this is in Halo 3: ODST and Halo 4, where the description reads, "Rare dialog is common and vice versa".

Walkthrough

The IWHBYD skull is located on the level The Covenant. To obtain the skull, the player must start the level from the very beginning, and not from a Rally Point, and on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.

When you reach the final scene, where the Prophet of Truth is planning on lighting the seven rings, proceed as you would normally: kill the Covenant, kill Truth, and kill the Flood, but do not jump down the elevator shaft once you have finished that.

Once the bridge is devoid of enemies, you will have to jump through the seven holograms of the Halos in a specific order.

You should jump through the rings after Truth dies. The skull will still appear if you are playing in co-op (2-4 players).

Note: you can restart jumping through the rings without restarting the level over as long as you start from the beginning.

The 7-ring sequence is as follows. Each number corresponds to the ring you must jump through; the ring at the elevator is 1, and the ring next to Truth is 7. The ring with red on it is 4.

Sequence order:

• 4 6 5 4 5 3 4

Once you have completed the sequence, the skull will appear at the beginning of the light bridge leading to Truth's podium. If you are not sure you got it, then look at the rings when you complete the sequence; they will be blinking in sequence. The Halo theme will play as you get the skull. You must then finish the level, or the skull will not be saved to your profile and you will have to do it all over again.

Effect

The IWHBYD skull causes rare dialogue in the game to become commonplace, and normally frequent dialogue to become rare. These lines are can be heard spoken by all talking non-player characters; both enemies and allies.

For example, if a Jiralhanae is killed, one of the surviving Brutes might say, "He was my lover!" or "Every pack-brother for himself!" These lines can be heard without the skull on, but it becomes much more likely to be spoken with it on.

Trivia

Check out our collection of quotes related to IWHBYD skull (Halo 3) on its quotes page.

• The skull was intended to be the hardest skull to find, and was in fact the last one to be discovered. However, it was discovered very quickly after the game's release when hackers looked in the game's scripts.
• The further the skull is carried from the control panel, the brighter the rings will glow until the lights become blinding. It is assumed that the holograms would have also behaved in this manner if they were all activated.
• Each of the holographic rings sound a different tone of the E Dorian mode when the player stand near it. The sequence, if one pays attention, plays the final 7 notes of the Halo theme song.
• Once the player grabs the skull and the new music begins, the eerie Flood music fades, and when the player finishes the level, there will be no music while Master Chief is following Cortana, although the Halo theme will play as scripted as the ring rises out of the Ark.
• The task to complete this skull was most likely intended to be a humorously literal allusion to the phrase "jumping through hoops". This phrase refers to the process of completing seemingly meaningless, but nonetheless required, tasks to achieve a desirable end result.