The crew
Tilly, Fenn, Sergeant Abelard, Grete and Pip. The four people and one cat who keep Old Marta firing.
Old Marta is too much gun for one person. You command her, and four others ride the siding with you: a loader, a radio man, a driver and a cat. Shellfall tells its story through Letters, the radio and this crew, never through cutscenes that take you away from the gun. They are your company through a long war, and they are how the game teaches you its craft.
Who rides with Marta
Ottilie "Tilly" Brandt. You. A retired gunnery instructor, called back to command Old Marta, a huge railway gun that spent twenty years rusting in a museum depot. Tilly reads the map table, works out the solution and decides where on the rails to be.
Fenn. The young, nervous loader. He loads the shell and the powder bags, and turns a spotter's correction into turns of the wheel. While a shell is in the air, Fenn counts the seconds.
Sergeant Abelard. The radio, and your link to the spotters, with a dry sense of humour. Every correction from the front reaches you through his handset.
Grete. The driver of the little tank locomotive Pudding. When it is time to move, Grete gets steam up and takes Marta to the next siding. See The rail network.
Pip. The cat who rides on the ammo wagon. Pip watches the sky.
Add 50, left 20.
Fenn: that's one turn up and a notch left, ma'am.
Known by voice, colour and initial
The crew have no faces. Each one is a round clay token with an initial on their own colour: T, F, A and G. Pip's token holds a small cat. The colours come from the same paints as the clay gun yard, so the tokens match the people standing by the fire.
In the gun yard, what they say appears in a speech bubble above them; on the map table, the same line goes to the radio log (see The map table and the gun yard). Every line is subtitled. A short crew list says what each of them is doing right now: "Working out the solution", "On the radio to Spotter 2".
Crew moments
Between salvos the game makes room for small, cozy beats: teaching Fenn to read the firing table, fixing the radio, feeding Pip. They double as soft tutorials. Early in the campaign the spotter suggests the fix and Fenn turns it into turns of the wheel for you. As you learn, those hints fade and you work it out yourself. See Ballistics and the firing table.
The longest pause is the shell's flight: 25 to 60 seconds of quiet while the music drops. Grete pours the tea, Fenn counts, Pip watches the sky. Crew moments also fill the journey when you move the gun. Only one appears at a time, and never during an alert: "Grete has the kettle on." "Abelard is humming into the handset again." See The shot.
When the gun is hit
Enemy guns that have found Old Marta can hurt her crew. A hit damages a part: the barrel traverses more slowly, loading slows down, or a crew member goes to the aid tent. The crew list then says when they will be back, in war time: "At the aid tent · back in 2 h". Repeated hits send Marta back to the railhead for two to three minutes of repairs. A single hit is never the end. See Exposure and moving the gun.