Mortal Shell Items and Familiarity Guide

There are almost 75 different items scattered across Mortal Shell, including consumables, upgrades, key items, and equipment. Many of these items also come with a Familiarity score, a 10-dot meter that increases as you use them more and more.

High Familiarity changes an item’s effect permanently, and always increases the benefits an item offers in some way. That might be as simple as improving the speed at which a healing item works to reducing its cost. No matter what Familiarity does, you will see increased value for finding and using items when you find them.

This guide lists every item in the game and describes its usage. If the item changes based on Familiarity, that info is listed as well. The categories we won’t talk about are Glimpses and Upgrade Key Items. We covered the former in our complete guide to Glimpses.

Key Items like Sacred Glands and Upgrade Items are coming in their own guides, as you’ll want to know where to find them and what they do (though we do have a general upgrade guide to get you started).

Also, note that we aren’t going into strategies to use any particular item. That’s a whole series of other guides. 

Consumable Items

Consumable items are just that: consumable. Once you use one of them, you have one less of that item in your inventory. Use them all, and the item symbol will grey out in the menu and on your shortcut bar.

Some consumables tend to respawn after about every five minutes: mostly things like weltcaps, tarspores, and other plants. Others can be found in the frog chests only unlockable during the Mist.

• Baguette: Offers a small boost to health
  • Familiarity 2: Gain more health on use
• Boiled Frog: Increases stamina regeneration speed for three minutes 
  • Familiarity 4: Buff lasts for 5 minutes
• Bronze Bell: Grants a 10% bonus to all Tar gains for six minutes
  • Familiarity 2: Adds a 10% chance for enemies to drop a Glimpse for six minutes
• Effigy of [Shell Name]: Transforms you into the item’s named Shell at a heavy cost of health
  • Familiarity 4: You lose less health on transformation
• Ethereal Diapason: Restores the ability to reclaim your Shell upon death
  • Familiarity 2: Restores all Resolve when used
• Golden Bell: Ringing increases resolve gains for three minutes
  • Familiarity 2: Increases the effect’s duration
• Inferior Moonshine: Grants a small amount of Resolve, but you take damage
  • Familiarity 4: Grants the same Resolve but you take less damage
• Mango: Offers a small boost to health
  • Familiarity 2: It tastes even better. Too bad you can’t actually taste it.
• Mortal Token: The next hit you take while Hardened restores health
  • Familiarity 3: Harden returns more health
• Ornate Token: Being struck while Harden is active reduces the next damage taken
  • Familiarity 10: Negates the next damage completely
• Roasted Rat: Heal 30 HP over 40 seconds at the cost of Resolve
  • Familiarity 8: Heal 40 HP instead
• Rotten Food: Restores a small amount of health at a heavy cost to your Resolve
  • Familiarity 4: You take less Resolve damage, but you’re still eating disgusting garbage, you disgusting person.
• Scripture of Ardor: Your next successful parry poisons the target
  • Familiarity 3: Strengthens the poison damage
• Scripture of Defiance: The next successful parry refunds resolve
  • Familiarity 3: Grants 2 bars of Resolve
• Scripture of Despair: Your next successful parry does additional damage
  • Familiarity 3: Magnifies the damage further
• Scripture of Euphoria: Next parry grants health on success
  • Familiarity 3: Gain more health on a successful parry
• Scripture of Repent: Your next successful parry sets the target on fire
  • Familiarity 3: Increases the duration and damage of the fire
• Simple Lute: Sit down a lure nearby enemies with a jaunty tune
  • Familiarity 10: Playing your lute with such grace extends the radius of the enemy lure—the audacity of it all.
• Spectral Token: Being struck while Harden is active boosts damage for your next attack
  • Familiarity 10: Damage increases further
• Superior Moonshine: Grants a large amount of Resolve
  • Familiarity 3: Grants 4 bars of Resolve
• Tainted Nectar: Ejects you from your current Shell without expending a regain token
  • Familiarity 2: Gain a single drop of Tar
• Tarspore: Deals 40 poison damage over 16 seconds
  • Familiarity 2: Gain immunity to poison for two minutes
• Untarnished Mask: Recall back to Sester Genessa without expending Glimpses
  • Familiarity 2: Gain one bar of Resolve on use
• Weltcap: Regenerates 40 health over 60 seconds
  • Familiarity 10: You heal the same amount of health in a much shorter span.

Tar Items

Technically a type of consumable, Tar items give Tar, Mortal Shell’s version of souls. Basically, it’s the catch-all currency for upgrading Shells and abilities, as well as for trading. You’ll need lots of it for the late game upgrades, too, so get as many of these as you can.

• Remnant of Tar: Grants 80 Tar
  • Familiarity 6: Grants 100 Tar
• Congealed Tar: Grants 150 Tar
  • Familiarity 5: Gain 200 Tar
• Bag of Tar: Grants 300 Tar
  • Familiarity 4: Extract 375 Tar
• Slurry of Tar: Gain 500 Tar when used
  • Familiarity 3: Grants 600 Tar
• Unguent Tar: Gain 750 Tar when used
  • Familiarity 3: Extract 850 Tar
• Extracted Tar: Gain 1,300 Tar. 
  • No Familiarity bonus.
• Nascent Tar: Gain 2,500 Tar
  • No Familiarity bonus.

Unlimited Use Items

As with other examples, Unlimted Use items never expire. Use them as many times as you want without cost or caution. Unless you want to lose Glimpses. Then exercise caution.

• Disciple’s Rag: Switch your weapon to the Smouldering Mace, as long as it’s not currently equipped
  • No Familiarity bonus
• Impervious Lute: Lute is life, and you can play it forever. Never stop playing lute. It is everything.
  • Familiarity 10: You are the best musician. Keep playing lute.
• Martyr’s Shawl: Summon the Martyr’s Blade to your hands, so long as you aren’t using it.
  • No Familiarity bonus
• Ornate Mask: Allows travel between instances of Sester Genessa
  • Familiarity 4: Increases Tar gains for one minute
• Sester’s Blessing: Summon the Hammer and Chisel, as long as it isn’t currently in your hands
  • No Familiarity bonus
• Tarnished Mask: Return to the last Sester Genessa you awakened at the cost of all of your Glimpses.
  • Familiarity 2: Lose only half of your Glimpses per use
• Tattered Vestment: Summon the Hallowed Sword to your hands, so long as you aren’t currently using it
  • No Familiarity bonus

Those are the majority of the items in Mortal Shell and what Familiarity will do for them. For more tips, head over to our Mortal Shell guides page. Oh, and play the lute. Never stop.