Salt Hollows fauna – Page 8 – Faylinn Defence Group

The Shells That Speak
Filed under: Salt Hollows Fauna | Linguistic Faebeasts | Harbingers and Mimics
Contributor: FDG Field Archivist No. 5
Last updated: May 2025

Overview

Babel Crabs are small, sentient crustaceans found scuttling through the detritus zones of the Salt Hollows, particularly in areas littered with wreckage, drowned texts, or sites of forgotten worship. Their most distinctive trait is their living shells, which are covered in fragments of language: paint flaked from ship names, rusted etchings from bells, script peeled from drowned paper, and carved prayers never heard.

They collect language like barnacles.
They repeat it like broken hymnals.
And sometimes—when the sea is quiet—they speak truths no one asked to hear.

Appearance

Size: Palm-sized; largest recorded was 9 inches across
Colour: Shells vary by scavenged material—pewter, oxidised copper, driftwood, salt-stained vellum
Body: Crabs are dark, blue-black with long, twitching antennae
Shell Surface: Decorated with scraps of script, sigils, or carved letters. Often glows faintly in dreamlight
Eyes: Pearlescent, unmoving. Seem to observe but not track
Movement: Skittish, fast. Tend to vanish under planks, in crevices, or within the mouths of half-submerged statues

Behaviour and Abilities

Linguistic Mimicry and Playback

Babel Crabs recite fragments of language:
- Final words before drowning
- Sunken sermons
- Scattered letters and unread confessions
They do not understand these phrases—but when two or more crabs converge, the phrases often align into new meaning.

Prophetic Assemblies

In rare cases, a swarm of Babel Crabs has been witnessed reciting coherent prophecy or repeating names of people not present.
These events are unpredictable and classified as Harbinger Events by FDG protocol.

Memory-Splice Speech

Some crabs have been heard speaking with the voices of the long-dead.
When their shells glow red, the crab may be channelling a soul echo—a residual imprint from a drowned mind.
These utterances are considered contagious and should not be answered.

Folklore and Signs

The Crabs That Called My Name

A common trenchfolk legend: if a Babel Crab scuttles across your boot and speaks your name in your mother’s voice, you will die in water within a month. This belief persists in isolated sea-border communities.

The Drowned Bible

In 1867, a sunken missionary ship was found swarmed with Babel Crabs. The creatures whispered broken Latin verses and names not on the manifest. The ship was resealed and declared a “verbal hazard zone.”

The Crawling Sermon

Once every decade, a preacher crab is sighted—its shell lined with glyphs resembling a cathedral frieze. When it speaks, seawater thickens and listeners report hearing a sermon from a forgotten god. The Institute has issued three separate silence orders after such sightings.

Effect on Earth and Human Minds

Mild Exposure

Auditory confusion or word-looping
Mild déjà vu, especially in religious or historical sites
Transient headaches tied to language comprehension
Sense of being addressed by unseen entities

Prolonged Exposure

Linguistic disassociation (speaking in unknown languages, or words arriving out of order)
Prophetic speech syndrome: sudden pronouncement of cryptic statements with unknown origin
Compulsive writing of phrases or sigils seen on crab shells
In extreme cases, verbal identity drift—loss of ability to name oneself or others correctly

Summary for Field Operatives

Trait	Detail
Threat Level	Low physical. Medium cognitive-linguistic risk. High if swarm converges.
Signs of Presence	Recited phrases with no speaker. Crabs crawling from abandoned fonts, bibles, or bells. Shells with glowing script.
Containment Risk	High. Crabs are small, mobile, and self-replicating in fae-coastal ecosystems. Swarms may initiate language storms.
Engagement Advice	Do not speak back to the crab. Avoid repeating anything it says aloud. If a crab speaks your full name, initiate auditory quarantine protocol and report to Archives. During swarm events, write down all speech phonetically but do not attempt translation without supervision. Never wear engraved jewellery or script near them—crabs will scrape it off while you sleep.

“It said my name in my daughter’s voice. Then my husband’s. Then my own. Then it began reciting my wedding vows.
But not the way I said them.
The way I wanted to say them. The way I didn’t.”
—Transcript, FDG Incident Report 142-C, Babel Cluster Event, Seven Cranes Chapel (Submerged)