Who Are the Characters in Mortal Shell II?

What counts as a character in Mortal Shell II?

When guides and reviews talk about characters in Mortal Shell II, they mean the playable Shells. Fextralife's wiki describes them as the remains of defeated warriors that players discover throughout the world; once awakened, each Shell lets you inhabit its body with unique stats, abilities, and combat styles. The Shells are the game's class system — there is no class pick at the start.

That is also why this page is not an NPC encyclopedia. Mortal Shell II does have non-player characters — guides like Ruk, the Shell Keeper Zhirelle, the blacksmith Franz, and merchants — but the 'characters' people search for are the playable roster covered below, with a brief note on NPCs at the end.

There is also no traditional character creation. Game8's guide states that Mortal Shell 2 'does not have a traditional character creation system' — you play a preset character called the Harbinger, and appearance is handled by cosmetic skins (Obsidian and Skeletal were pre-order rewards, Flayed was a beta reward; all are cosmetic only and do not affect stats).

The playable roster: Harros and the eight Shells

All eight Shells and their mottos come from Fextralife's Shells (Classes) page, and the same eight names appear in the official Devout Edition Upgrade's Obsidian Skin Pack. The official Gameplay Reveal first showed three of them — Tiel, Eredrim, and Proxima. Two of the eight, Eredrim and Sester Genessa, return from the first game; the other six are new.

• Eredrim the Venerable: 'Peace has a price.'
• Genessa the Wayward: 'Nothing is so broken it can't be made whole again'
• Gragu the Insatiable: 'The heart speaks no lies.'
• Lazlo the Justiciar: 'Justice is not given, it is exacted.'
• Proxima the Broodseeker: 'Purpose gives the soul its shape.'
• Sariel the Endless: 'That path to perfection is paved with blood.'
• Smert the Apostate: 'Truth is the final revelation before death.'
• Tiel the Acolyte: 'Once you have nothing, you're free to take everything.'

Where to find each character

Each Shell is unlocked differently, and most are found by exploring the world rather than chosen at the start. Game8's acquisition table summarizes the routes:

Rock Paper Shotgun adds process details for several of these — taking Smert's shell after interrupting a ritual, and switching over to Sester Genessa as a separate character rather than inhabiting the Harbinger (see the warning above).

Harros — the prologue character

Harros is the exception in the roster: he is the vassal who helps you during the game's prologue, and although he can be obtained early on, players lose this shell and cannot keep it for the rest of the game (Fextralife). GameSpot and Game8 count him in their nine-shell totals; Rock Paper Shotgun counts the eight Shells 'not counting Harros, the vassal who helps you during the game's Prologue'.

A pre-release preview (KhrazeGaming) described Harros as having the petrify mechanic from the previous game, turning enemies to stone — a description that predates launch and is not otherwise verified in the research materials.

Returning characters: Eredrim and Sester Genessa

IGN's review of Mortal Shell II described the cast as 'only a couple of returning faces' joining 'a mostly new roster'. The research identifies those returning characters as Eredrim the Venerable and Sester Genessa.

Eredrim returns under the same name as the first game, keeping his identity as a heavy: he has the second-highest HP of any Shell, and his executioner passive stacks slaughter from ripostes, letting him execute enemies at lower health thresholds. Sester Genessa returns in a special form: playable as the Shell Genessa the Wayward, she is not handled like the other Shells.

How the characters grow: bond, skill trees, and glimpses

Each Shell has its own progression. KhrazeGaming's preview described the class system: you find and inhabit the bodies of different archetypes, deepen your bond with them, and gain access to unique upgrades that boost their battle prowess; IGN's review noted the side stories of these individual characters are learned by increasing your bond with them (per the research materials).

FightinCowboy's guide adds the practical detail: glimpses are a limited resource used to fully unlock Shells, so most players pick one or two Shells to take all the way, while shell points themselves can be freely refunded and shifted between unlocked Shells.

Weapon choice is also free-form: a pre-release preview noted there is no restriction when it comes to weapon loadouts, so any Shell can equip any main weapon or sidearm of your choice — the character defines your playstyle, and the weapon fills the gaps.

Shells also have a separate HP pool from your core character. When you are knocked out of a Shell you keep fighting as the Harbinger — you just cannot use that Shell's abilities until you return to it — and you can rebuild the connection by performing melee hits on the enemies that took you down (KhrazeGaming, pre-release preview).

What about the NPCs?

NPCs are a separate category in Mortal Shell II. Fextralife's NPCs page lists the characters you interact with for lore, quests, and services — Ruk (the Harbinger's guide, who teaches how to serve Undermether), Zhirelle (Shell Keeper), Franz (the blacksmith), Merrick (a merchant), plus quest characters like Gorf and Hilga across locations such as Marrow Keep, the One-Legged Wolf Tavern, and Widow's Overlook. Game8's wiki separately tracks NPC questlines and a large boss list, but none of those are playable characters. For the playable roster, the eight Shells above plus prologue-only Harros are the characters of Mortal Shell II.