Tortle

Tortles are a race of anthropomorphic turtles who live simple lives as peaceful farmers on the Savage Coast of Mystara, a region expanded as the mini-setting of Red Steel. Though inoffensive by nature, they will fight to defend their homes and they are naturally very good at tanking. Like their fellow Red-Steel introducees the Aranea, they have never managed to get any semi-official update to later editions, in comparison to Rakasta (who became Catfolk in Races of the Wild) and Lupins (who got a Dragon Magazine article about them in issue #325).

Tortles in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons have a maximum possible value of 18 for all stats; their minimum possible ability score for Strength and Constitution is 6, whilst all others can be as low as 3. When generating their stats, they suffer -2 Dex but gain +1 Con and +1 Wis. For classes, they are restricted to Fighter, Wizard (Mage, Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner or Water Elementalist only), Cleric, Thief, Bard or Psionicist, attaining level 11, 9, 12, 9, 9 and 8 respectively. They can also be multiclassed as Fighter/Clerics. Tortle Thieves suffer a -5% penalty to their Move Silently and Hide in Shadows skills, a -20% penalty to their Climb Walls skill, and can't lift their body weight with just their arms alone.

Tortles are most notable for their powerful shells, which give them a base Armor Class of 3 -- remember, this was the edition of THAC0, so lower is better -- and they can drop it down to 1 by tucking into their shells, which also gives them +4 to all saving throws and immunity to gaze attacks until they come out. Of course, they're going to rely on this; their odd body shape makes it hard to get armor made for them and it really only provides a benefit if it's naturally superior to their shell's AC. Most tortles are going to be looking out for AC-boosting enchanted items like the old standard Ring of AC +1 or Amulet of AC +2, it's just more reliable that way.

They have infravision to a range of 60 feet, automatically proficient in swimming, and can hold their breath for 10 rounds automatically.

Weirdly, tortles die within a year of mating, so only those tortles who abstain from mating live to particularly great ages and children are mostly reared by their aunts and uncles, related or adoptive. Exactly why this is so, nobody frigging knows.