"The memory-keeper traced the carvings on her shell and told me the day our village was founded: the smell of the tide, the first fire, the names of people dead three hundred years. I'll never live to see half that much. But I'll remember it all the same." — a young tortle of Uminari
Tortles were among the last species added to Nova, made by the Kami of Ezogashima. They have squat, cat-like faces, scaled skin and a great shell that's different on every tortle, as unique as a fingerprint. Tortles have a faint psychic sense of others' feelings, an empathy that goes a little beyond reading faces, so they often know how someone feels before a word is spoken. They live only about fifty years, so they treasure memory above almost anything. Every village keeps a memory-keeper, who hears the stories its elders tell before they die and carves them into patterns on their own shell, so a tortle village remembers centuries that no single tortle lives to see.
Player note: Tortles have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks made to tell how someone is feeling.
Names
Tortles follow Ezogashima's naming customs, and they're often drawn to names of the sea, the shore and memory. Examples:
- Kamekichi ("lucky turtle")
- Shiomi ("tide watcher")
- Isohama ("rocky beach")
- Kioku ("memory"), a name often given to memory-keepers
Tortles by Homeland
Ezogashima
Most tortles live in shore villages on the fishing isle of Uminari and along the coast of Tsukishima, where many feel a quiet kinship with the island's dragon turtle Mistspirit.
Aetheria
A few have wandered far from Ezogashima and live as reclusive sages along the shores of Aetheria.