Method Description, Instructions and Tips for Success

General Description

Warped tortoises are one of the most underrated drop monsters in all of RuneScape. They are hated by many players for one simple reason: the need to use crystal chimes on them to make them vulnerable to attack. But for that small inconvenience you get the ability to fight a monster that is easy to get to, is much easier to kill than its level would indicate, and has superb drops. They already had pretty good loot before the introduction of the Summoning skill, but the creation of that skill has caused the value of tortoise shells to shoot up to 8,000 to 10,000 each, due to the very high utility of the war tortoise familiar they are used to make. Warped tortoises are the best source of these shells, along with noted coal and mithril ore, swamp tar, law runes and lots of other stuff.

In addition to their random drops, warped tortoises also provide big bones on each kill. Most players leave these behind, but with the value of all types of bones so high these days, it is definitely worthwhile to bank these. Since that means your inventory fills up rapidly, a beast of burden can help immensely -- including the use of a war tortoise until you have level 96 Summoning for a pack yak. :)

Access to these monsters requires you to complete The Path of Glouphrie, which unlocks both the poison waste sewers where they are found and a handy spirit tree teleport to that dungeon.

Note that while fighting these tortoises you may get drops of 1 to 3 "perfect shells". These cannot be sold, but you can trade them to Barlak in Dorgesh-Kaan for 600 gp and 500 Crafting XP! Save them up and then trade them in when you have a bunch.

Specific Method Details

Start at Edgeville or the Grand Exchange, putting on standard melee gear, but with a (charged) amulet of glory instead of an amulet of fury. You don't need the defence here -- the tortoises are wimps -- and the glory is used to let you quickly bank in Edgeville. Take out from the bank your crystal chime, a war tortoise pouch, 2 sets of alching runes, a 2-dose super set and 7 salmon (or other cheap food).

If coming from Edgeville, run northeast, cross the bridge, go under the tunnel and head due east to the spirit tree; if starting at the GE, just go a bit to the northeast. Right-click the spirit tree and travel to the poison wastes. Click southwest to run to the entrance, then go up the ladder and you'll be in a room with two tortoises, which is all you need, since they respawn quickly.

Take your first dose of super set, chime a tortoise and have at it. As you go, pick up pretty much everything, as all of the drops either stack or are valuable in their own right. Alch items like mithril and rune warhammers, mithril platebodies and other armor or weapons that don't sell for more than their alch value; if you get more than 2 just carry them to the bank and alch there. Also pick up big bones as mentioned earlier, and store them. The tortoises also drop tangled toads' legs, but I don't recommend eating them, since they sell for over 1k each. Summon the war tortoise when you need more inventory space; it will also help out with combat, though not any amount that is really significant. Continue until your inventory is full, taking the rest of your super set about half-way through, and eating or dropping the food. Also drop any unused fire runes to make more inventory space. Each trip should take about 13 minutes or so in combat; when done, use the amulet to teleport to Edgeville, then bank there and repeat. Note that even though you can't take familiars into the center of the GE, you can take them across the northern edge of the GE area if you stick near the wall.