Skeleton scrappers are garbed in brownish-orange tunics with a green and gold collar along with a belt with a green jewel around their waists, green leggings, as well as brown leather gloves and boots. Compared to the others in its family, these skeletons fight with hand-to-hand, giving them their English name, and can mend their bones with a simple healing spell. However in some spinoff appearances, they wield swords in battle. According to their description in Monster Parade, skeleton scrappers are said to appear to those on death's door as an envoy to the land of the dead. The scrappers have not appeared as frequently in other games compared to the other skeletons.
Skeleton scrappers make their first reappearance 27 years after the release of the original Dragon Quest. One can be faced as the boss of the Snag a Speedy Sword DLC Tablet.
Skeleton scrapper appears as a C-rank monster of the Undead family during the first part of the limited True Dragon Quest I event. It can be recruited from the Damdara Desert 2 stage of Adventure in the DQ I World: Majellan and it can be fully awakened by repeating the stage at any difficulty. The skeleton scrapper can participate in the Death scorpion's Battle Road as a party member.