Kla'a-tah

This huge, clever sea turtle wears a vivid upper shell often crusted with uncut gems over a pink, rock-hard underside. Its head and limbs are dark red and plated-looking; the back legs end in broad flippers, the front feet in blade-sharp nails. Large sunken eyes sit above a horned, hooked beak. Left out of the sea for more than a few minutes, it starts a deep, barking cough.

It attacks with claws and bite, but its girth lets only one claw reach any single target each round. Even sea gluttons fear that blow. Its long neck allows startlingly quick snaps across its front arc, and it ignores rear attacks, trusting its nearly impervious shell.

It rarely backs down. If needed, it draws in its legs and partly retracts its head, sealing the leg holes and shielding (not sealing) the head for AC -3. The shell always grants +2 on saving throws, or +4 when withdrawn, against mental attacks too; withdrawn, it even gets a save where none is normally allowed, minus the +4.

Infravision reaches 90 feet above or below water. A natural ballast lets it float or stay submerged as long as it likes, and it can live indefinitely in either water or air.

Never more than one appears at once, yet different individuals have helped the same turtle-folk village, so they wander. They likely dwell in deep trenches and are seen sunning at the surface while eating seaweed or a fresh sea glutton. Solitary like a good dragon, it averts disasters for the turtle-folk, who name it the Turtle-Folk Guardian. It has its own language and has spoken only with turtle-folk shamans, who keep others away. Out of gratitude the turtle-folk collect a curse-warding red metal for it, delivered by the shamans.

Kla'a-tah stop sea gluttons from dominating a western ocean. They can live on seaweed but think it wrong to waste a kill, never overhunt, and are too few to need a predator of their own.

Turtle-folk stories conflict. Some say the gods set the kla'a-tah over them as guardians; others that turtle-folk who master the crimson curse of the frontier coast become kla'a-tah, though the turtles still have curse-born gifts and need the red metal, which muddies that claim. Further tales tie them to ancient seaside monoliths the turtle-folk credit to their ancestors (sages argue the point), where enlightened elders supposedly grew into guardians with help from certain gods.

This darker cousin serves the evil snappers. Slimmer and smaller, it can use both claws and its bite on one foe. It bars other races and large sea beasts such as sea gluttons from snapper waters, sometimes coming ashore to attack snapper enemies, and fights off rival cläu-rin. Its protection is extortion: wanted or not, snappers must throw treasure into the sea for it to carry home, and hand over the red metal that feeds its curse-born gifts. They pay without argument, because a cläu-rin in the curse's deforming final stage is a snapper's worst nightmare.