Character from Mage Errant by John Bierce
A Great Power-tier sentient artifact — a book and ritual that devours languages whole, stolen from Havath by Alustin, growing increasingly jealous and possessive of its wielder.
The Tongue Eater is not a being in any conventional sense — it is a weapon, a library, and a graveyard of languages compressed into a single artifact. Havath used it for linguistic warfare: devouring the native languages of conquered peoples to erase their cultural identity and force adoption of Havathi speech. Each language consumed adds to its power and its collection of voices. Alustin stole it as part of his long vendetta against Havath, but possessing the Tongue Eater is not the same as controlling it. The artifact communicates through the languages it has consumed, assembling meaning from dead tongues in ways that are unsettling and increasingly demanding. It grows jealous of attention given to other magical tools, possessive of its wielder, and resentful of being stored rather than used. It is classified as Great Power-tier not because it has consciousness comparable to Kanderon or Ilinia, but because its destructive potential — the ability to erase an entire language from existence — operates at that scale.
A large, ancient book bound in dark leather that seems to absorb light. Its pages are covered in scripts from dozens of devoured languages, the text shifting and crawling across the surface as if alive. Faint whispers emanate from its pages — fragments of consumed tongues murmuring in languages that no living speaker remains to understand. The book pulses with contained power that makes nearby magical constructs shudder.
Also known as: The Tongue Eater, Tongue Eater, the Language Devourer