A torturin is a travel book or scroll with a variety of languages or symbols written in them. Unlike a dictionary or 1:1 language translator, torturins are guides to impartial, ancient, or dead languages. Some torturins may have a dozen dead languages within them, all the known vocabulary of those dead languages in them. Modern equivalents may be known for one or two words or symbols within the torturin, and the rest may be unknown or speculative at best.

Most torturins are used to log new symbols or help build up languages, or for simple translations of what is known about the ancient languages.