The Truth About The Ancient Tortles' Frightening Secret
by Bruce Heard>>The SC timeline suggests
the tortles had their own civilisation at one point, before they
were scattered and assimilated/exploited by other, more aggressive
races.<<
The idea I was playing with was that the tortles had been created
by the Immortals to help them *work the land*. Basically, these
*construction workers* had been originally created so that they
could call upon Mystara's elemental powers to control and modify
the land, saving Immortals from having to use their own power. The
more tortles, the more elemental power they had. The idea was that
the Immortals used them as a pool of manual labour to move
mountains around, change rivers, pull in soil or water from the
elemental planes, in order to shape the lands way back before the
other races came into existence. After some centuries of playing
around with their planetary sandbox, the Immortal moved on to other
more important affairs, leaving behind a bunch of unemployed
tortles. Without a sense of purpose and not being *designed* to
compete against other races, the kind and peaceful tortles almost
disappeared from Mystara. (The monoliths were used to focus the
elemental powers when masses of tortles would gather around them.)
Since then, a revival of the tortle is unveiling this amazing past,
revealing how tortles could once again control earth and seas.
Naturally, this is a frightening thought for the rulers of other
races and nations who shiver at the idea of a few thousand tortles
lifting mountains up in the air, and dropping them on top of their
capital -- quickly forgetting tortles *are* peaceful and
well-intentioned. So the other races became more aggressive against
the tortles, with the intent of preventing *any* sort of tortle
gathering. As a result, the tortles are closing ranks to defend
themselves, thereby precisely creating the situation where tortles
can indeed pool their powers and become a real threat.
>>Might there be a tortle enclave in the Hollow World, where
this lost tortle society continues to exist,
unchanged?<<
Quite certainly a society of water and earth elementalists. Perhaps
it's because the OW tortles found their HW brethren that their
ancient secret has returned to the surface...
>>If so, I can picture the SC tortles finding out about its
existence from various HW-explorers' stories, and sending the
Company of the Shell to make contact with their long-lost cousins
(especially if they're so serious about rediscovering their
roots).<<
Something like that! :o)