Tortle (4e Race)

Tortle

By Frank Brunner

Under the notion of houses on their backs, these turtle-like humanoids have a wanderlust and rarely feel the need to settle down.

Racial Traits

Average Height: 5'0"-6'0"

Average Weight: 450-500 lb.

Ability Scores: +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom or Strength

Size: Medium

Speed: 6 squares squares

Vision: Low-light

Languages: Common, Draconic

Skill Bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Nature

Enduring Constitution: You have a +1 racial bonus to Fortitude saves.

Reptile: You are considered a reptile for the purpose of effects that relate to the reptile keyword.

Withdraw: You have the withdraw racial power.

Withdraw	Tortle Racial Power
You hastily retreat into your shell, gaining immense protection from your carapace, so long as you remain where you stand.
Daily
Immediate Interrupt	Personal
Trigger: You are hit by a melee attack.
Effect: You gain a +4 to all defenses until the end of your next turn. You cannot move until this power effect ends.

The tortle are a resilient and well-traveled people originating from the southern area of Chult. Their relatively inconspicuous presence in the world was due to seclusion formed after world-changing events isolated them geographically. It is only in more recent times that they had begun to interact once more with the rest of the world. Eager to learn, tortle are hardly one to shy away from new and foreign cultures. They aim to learn and consume all knowledge they can while they yet live, so that they may pass on this wealth to the next generation.

Play a tortle character if you want...

• To wander the world in search of new experiences.
• To be someone who never settles in a single place for too long.
• To carry your sturdy shield of a home on your back.

Physical Qualities

Tortle are often referred to as turtlefolk. They are reptilian humanoids with a prominent shell on their back. This shell is often thick and textured with patterns like hexagons and even studded with minor spikes. Tortle's skin is thick and leathery-scaled. Their skins range in colors from greens, browns, and even yellowish colors. Their heads are usually rounded with a slight beak instead of lips and teeth. Some tortles might have pointed skulls. Tortle eyes are slightly side-facing. Their hands and feet are tipped with thick claws that function as human fingers do. Tortle do not usually have long tails that stick out from their shells, though this is a variable trait.

Attitudes and Beliefs

The tortle are not a long-living race, though they can certainly appear so. Tortle usually die after about 50 years of age, by then which they are already elderly. As such, they try to travel as much as they can to learn whatever they can. Their voracious appetite for knowledge and life itself is why they left their homeland and became largely a race of travelers. Tortle do not get homesick because they believe their home is their shell. So, it goes everywhere with them. This is also a metaphorical sense since tortle shells can sometimes carry markings or paraphernalia accrued from their many travels, and thus it represents their life and everything they have done.

Tortle typically reproduced near the latter half of their lifespans, which is the only time they abandon their lives of travel in favor of rearing the future. This usually left only a small window of time for them to teach their young all they knew. Tortles were heavily reliant on their children to carry on their knowledge and traditions and this teaching phase is extremely important for that reason. These young tortles will be orphaned once their parent passes away, after which they are expected to use all they had been taught to continue traveling and surviving, carrying on their parent's legacy. This makes tortles unfortunately vulnerable to cultural loss since many of their traditions are not written, though some are turning to pen and paper as well as imprinting on their children.

Tortle Communities

Tortles do not have beginning nor ending communities. Their lives begin within their starter family and they hope to die with families of their own at the end of their lives of wanderlust. The nonexistence of the desire to settle makes it hard for permanent tortle settlements to form. However, some tortles do manage stopovers that they know others will frequent, like a shop in a popular town transit hub. One may find many tortles in cities where roads converge and many different people from all walks of life gather. As such, tortles and their desire to wander are no secrets to anyone. People find tortles sensical adventurers, given their wanderlust. Tortles are still a very small minority when it comes to the many creatures that walk the realm, making them a bit of a sight in many places outside of the jungles.

Tortle Adventurers

Tortles are naturally adventurous! They want to go and travel shortly after just being born, and their inherent wanderlust drives them to do so throughout the rest of their lives. It's not about the money or fame for tortles, but more so about satiating their wandering desires and experiencing new things. Tortles therefore usually have a bit of fearlessness to themselves, but they are not fools. They know they need a bit of robust training to prepare themselves for their anticipated journeys ahead. As a result, many tortles are defenders.

Fighter: One of the most innate tenets for tortles is that defense is an excellent offense. The ability to withstand damage and keep going is crucial to any adventurer. You can't let some scrapes take you out of your journey. As such, fighter tortles are very common, utilizing their natural defenses with fortified training to brave through any obstacle in their way.

Runepriest: The search across the world for new and exciting things can sometimes mean finding divine powers that belonged to gods in the old times, when the deities roamed the land. Runepriest tortles are not exactly common, but they do exist and thrive off a combination of wanderlust and desire to learn. Rune language is a lost art that has many parts scattered across the land. Runepriest tortles seek these fragments of ancient power.

Warden: This class is not exactly the most intuitive choice for tortles. Wardens are typically stalwart defenders of the natural world against encroaching influences. Tortles are not strictly forest dwellers, but they are sympathetic to the natural world. Warden tortles wander the world as sort of patrol, monitoring the health of forests and other natural environments.

Three sample tortle adventurers are described below.

Sorgrol is a tortle fighter looking to cross over mountain ranges and reach the wide open sea by foot. Her father was such an adventurer and she had listened avidly to his stories whilst he raised her. She seeks to surpass his experiences with her own two feet. Her step is steady and her shell is hard to weather the cold alps and dangerous highlands.

Enthugg is a tortle runepriest that is seeking the words of power to cure a dangerous plague back home. He has only a few rune terms under his belt and he is eager to find more, no matter how dangerous it gets. Those back home are not only ill family but also innocents that he cannot fathom succumbing to this plague. Having joined a group of like-minded adventurers, Enthugg is eager not to let more life fade before his eyes.

Barga is a tortle warden that wanders the world as a sort of last hurrah. She had already had children and raised them all she could before leaving on her new journey. Seeing the destruction of many scenic and beautiful lands, she devotes herself to protecting these lands and finding out the source of their destruction. For her, it is important to preserve these lands for others after her to see, like her children when they go and inevitably adventure as well.

Roleplaying a Tortle

When creating a tortle adventurer, here are a few points to consider.

Wanderer. Above all, tortles are worldly wanderers in search of new experiences to tuck under their belts. Tortles aren't the most comfortable with settling down in a single place for so long. This sometimes lends itself to over-curiosity and even impatience to keep moving.

Carrying On Memories. Traditions are important to tortles and they carry these with them in the forms of trinkets that decorate their shells. Their travels are documented so that they have proof and can show these to others, thus sharing their experiences and having them live beyond their own lives. This is part of the main motivation for them to have children at the end of their lives.

Home is Where the Heart, or Shell, is. Tortles carry their home on their backs. In that same way, they acclimate well to new places so long as they have something to anchor them. A roof over their heads is secondary to good company and stories around a fire.

Tortle Characteristics: Adaptive, wandering, adventurous, curious, open-minded, eager

Tortle Male Names: Grosol, Nogo, Sagmaw, Abalo, Eloro

Tortle Female Names: Enso, Nagra, Hawhaw, Balan, Palo

Tortle Utility Powers

When your tortle character gains a class utility power after 1st level, you can forgo taking a power granted to you by your class. Instead you gain a tortle utility power of the same level or lower.

Tuck N'Go	Tortle Racial Power
You've learned to fight even with your head tucked into your shell, granting you greater defensiveness in the face of peril.
Encounter
Move Action	Personal
Target: Self
Effect: You gain a +1 to your AC until the start of your next turn.
Level 11: +2 to your AC Level 21: +3 to your AC
Sustain Move: You remain in your shell, maintaining your AC bonus.

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