D&D 5E Making tortles interesting

[DammitVictor]

Love the idea, so do you include hammer throwing Kappa and a boom-boom subspecies?
What about wings?

Basically, in Shroompunk, hammers replace swords as the most common noble/civilian weapons for kappa and for humans... because kappa are both kith's second most common enemy. Kappa knights can indeed belong to the Brotherhood of the Hammer, which gives them a soulknife-like ability to spawn and throw a limitless number of hammers. Boom-Boom and the Koopalings wouldn't be represented as a separate subrace, just as expressions of higher-level kappa class options.

Wings are an option, at about the same level everyone else is flying around anyway, but are incompatible with the heavier, spiked shell upgrades most higher-level kappa take.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I played a tortle aberrant mind sorcerer (during the playtest stage) fairly recently. His name is Geode. Basically, a sapphire dragon saved his life, but in so doing, gave him psionic abilities. Now his shell has crystals growing out of it. When he casts magic missile, three crystals launch from his back.

In other words, I took the physical appearance of a tortle, added some psionic flavor, came up with a cool backstory, and instant interesting tortle.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Also, I think playing a tortle cleric with the war domain who tells war stories all the time would be fun. Think of Kup from The Transformers.

I call him Shellshocke.

 

[Weiley31]

Their favorite food is pizza and they can fly via biological rocket propulsion.

 

[Weiley31]

Love the idea, so do you include hammer throwing Kappa and a boom-boom subspecies?
What about wings?

The most important question is: Are there any with Blue Shells?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Basically, what we're saying is that the kind of person who would play a tortle will make the tortle interesting.

 

[Blue Orange]

I have kappa as their own thing, but just, lead into general turtle nonsense with Tortles.

You're a turtle person. So, take from actual turtles. Big ol' gnarly snapping turtle ones who'll bite a dude in half. Desert survivalists who get food from the most unexpected sources, like clay or the like. Ocean-goers who can lazily spend most of their life out at sea. Seemingly slow because they go through life chill but the moment you annoy them they will ruin your stuff.

I also pointedly ignore that whole 'they have short lifespans' thing because, c'mon, they're turtles

Turtles actually have pretty long lifespans for their size--giant turtles can live to be over 100. A lot of the tropes about elves or dwarves and their long lifespans could easily apply to tortles, who presumably would have medicine and cure disease spells in a fantasy world.

"Yep, the Fast Peoples live and die like hummingbirds. When the Creator God made the tortles, he wanted a people who could remember the world gone by. So he made us with hard shells on our back, not like the soft Fast Peoples who die if you poke them with a sharp stick and have to build houses out of wood and straw that go up in a fire. They even say there's a tortle holding up the world, though I doubt that much."

 

[Casimir Liber]

I would personally start with making them awesome turtle people.

And that would be enough for me. Colored bandanas, saids, katana, bo staves and nunchucku optional.

Kowabunga!!! (well...somebody had so say it..... )

 

[Casimir Liber]

here on gmbinder is someone's stab at Kappa as a PC race.

I am not sure how their penchant for wrestling (from older editions not the above page) strikes me as compatible with the liquid head-bowl organ. I guess I'd make the head-bowl fluid a bit more viscous and harder to spill - the fluid contains a unique biological microorganisms from the kappa's pond that lives in harmony with the concave sensory organ that fine-tunes and strengthens its muscles. If spilt, the kappa loses2d6 strength until the bowl is refilled. Kappas can carry replacement fluid but the microorganisms die after (let's say) 2d4+4 days.

Kappa PCs would prefer crossbows and spears as weapons maybe (due to limited movement of upper limbs (?) restricted to stabbing and thrusting weapons (???)

Writing in a stream-of-consciousness fashion here....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

here on gmbinder is someone's stab at Kappa as a PC race.

I am not sure how their penchant for wrestling (from older editions not the above page) strikes me as compatible with the liquid head-bowl organ. I guess I'd make the head-bowl fluid a bit more viscous and harder to spill - the fluid contains a unique biological microorganisms from the kappa's pond that lives in harmony with the concave sensory organ that fine-tunes and strengthens its muscles. If spilt, the kappa loses2d6 strength until the bowl is refilled. Kappas can carry replacement fluid but the microorganisms die after (let's say) 2d4+4 days.

Kappa PCs would prefer crossbows and spears as weapons maybe (due to limited movement of upper limbs (?) restricted to stabbing and thrusting weapons (???)

Writing in a stream-of-consciousness fashion here....

I see what you did there.