User:Nightstar The Bright

Hello everyone, I am Nightstar The Bright. I really enjoy reading Brandon Sanderson’s books, sometime after I read them all I began editing the Coppermind.

Notable pages I created or heavily edited.

• Court of Gods
• The Iridescent Tones
• Hanald
• Duladel
• Pahn Kahl
• Fjorden
• T'Telir
• Hallandren
• Idris
• Final Empire

! The following part is a rework of the Listener page !

The listeners, called the Parshendi by the Alethi, are a group of singers on Roshar.

Prior to the True Desolation, they lived on eastern Roshar, near the Shattered Plains. During the War of Reckoning, they inhabited the city of Narak. After the arrival of the Everstorm and the start of the True Desolation the remaining Listeners left Narak, roaming around on the Shattered plains.

Geography and Agriculture

Geography

The Listeners lived in the Unclaimed Hills, very close to the Shattered Plains. Some Listener families occupied the circular craters near the western edge of the plains, while others spent their lives living in the wilderness around these craters.

by Connor Chamberlain

Narak, the home of the Listeners during the War of Reckoning

After the assassination of King Gavilar Kholin the Listeners fled to the Shattered Plains, after this event they began inhabiting the city of Narak. After the end of the war and the Battle of Narak the remaining Listeners roamed around the Shattered Plains for a while.

Agriculture and Animal Husbandry

The Listeners cultivate multiple plant species. Some of these species are rockbuds, while others are trees. They use the dried pulp from a species of rockbud to make paper.

They also practice animal husbandry and hunting. They have at times hunted chasmfiends, although the amount differs heavily through time. They have access to leather, although it is unknown what creature this leather comes from.

Politics

The composition of the Five has changed over time as more forms are discovered. At first, the Five were all in dullform, and later, after the discovery of workform, the members of the council were all in workform. When nimbleform was discovered, the Council changed to being made up of one member of each form. The Council had pondered whether to add another representative for each newly discovered form, but the discovery of stormform and the subsequent Battle of Narak meant that there was never an opportunity to do so.

Composition

For a full list of those in the group, see Category: Council of Five.

Form	Name
Dullform	Zuln
Mateform	Abronai
Nimbleform	Chivi
Warform	Eshonai
Workform	Davim

Culture

Families

Prior to the War of Reckoning, the listeners were organized in tribe-like families that would vie for control of the ten cities along the western border of the Shattered Plains. Some notable listener families include:

First-Rhythm

The family of Eshonai, Venli, Thude, Bila, and likely also Rlain. They were thousands strong around the time Eshonai first met with King Gavilar's expedition and boasted a noble heritage, though it had been many years since they had controlled one of the ten cities.

Living-Songs

The second family approached by the First-Rhythm family after the discovery of warform in their attempt at unification of the listener tribes.

Pure-Song

Known to have raided the Fourth-Movement family out in the wilderness, away from any city, in an attempt to steal their weapons. This action earned them the scorn of other families.

Fourth-Movement

Once raided by the Pure-Song family in an attempt to seize their weapons.

Songs

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In order to remember their history and important skills the listeners remembered them via songs, each to the beat of a different rhythm of Roshar. The known songs are as follows:

• Song of Histories
• Song of Listing
• Song of Making Paper
• Song of Mornings
• Song of Revision
• Song of Secrets
• Song of Spren
• Song of the Fallen
• Song of Wars
• Song of Winds

Language

Terms in the listener language

• essai -- human-lover (literally "hairy")
• narak -- exile
• neshua kadal -- Knight Radiant
• ulo mas vara -- monster of the chasms/chasmfiend

Listener Concepts translated into Alethi

• long sleep -- the long span spent in dullform
• lull -- the time the Alethi call "The Weeping"
• Rider of Storms -- the Stormfather
• stormpause -- the span between two highstorms

Phrases and Idioms

See Curses and Phrases

Military

Armament

Listener soldiers use Warform, this grants them strong carapace armor as well as increased strength. Though not as strong or resilient as someone with Shardplate, warform listeners are a real threat to regular human soldiers. Their strength allows them to use heavy weapons like battleaxes, hammers, and sometimes clubs and swords. They are also capable of jumping far enough to cross the chasms on the Shattered Plains. The Listeners are also fond of bows and two-handed slings.

The Listeners had multiple sets of Shardplate and Shardblades, they gradually lost all of them during the War of Reckoning however. Regular soldiers often wear simple garments that are tailored around their warform carapace. Some of them also wear long coates, although these aren’t worn into battle. The Listener general wears a cap on their skullplate and a tight red cloth as a cape.

Tactics

A notable aspect of the listeners' combat strategy is their use of warpairs, pairs of warriors who fight side by side as partners. These listener warpairs move around the battlefield in coordinated maneuvers and attack enemy troops with heavy weapons from multiple directions.

Listeners also use two-handed slings to hurl head-sized rocks at Shardbearers, these rocks can quickly damage Shardplate, with a single blow being enough to make cracks in an unharmed section of Plate. The Listeners also use shortbows to harry and weaken their enemies.

Organisation and Hierarchy

The Listener army is divided into multiple divisions, each a hundred and twenty-eight in number. These divisions have their own name, and may sometimes be made up of of different forms entirely, an example of this is the Storm division, a division made entirely of Stormforms. During wartime the Listeners also have many warpair scouts, usually from a single division, roaming around, searching for any sign of their enemies. Near the end of the War of Reckoning the entire army was around seventeen thousand Listeners, or 133 divisions, strong.

The Listener military is commanded by a general, also called a warleader, who is also the warform representative in the Council of Five. During the War of Reckoning Eshonai served as general. Beneath the general are a number of lieutenants, it is likely that these lieutenants control a division each.

Architecture

Prior to the True Desolation the Listeners were technologically behind the rest of Roshar. They lived in huts made from hardened crem over frames of shell, which were huddled on the leeward side of lumps of stone to protect from highstorms. These buildings were fragile and would often be destroyed by highstorms, although the Listeners would simply rebuild them. Before the start of the War of Reckoning some of the Listener families occupied the 10 circular craters near the western edge of the plains, but they were eventually forced to move to the center of the Shattered Plains.

People

Fashion

Malen Listeners often have uncut gemstones woven into their beards.

Some singers hate trapping spren, instead preferring going out into the highstorms and attracting the proper spren. Measure time by the rhythms, movements and half movements. During the war of reckoning many listeners no longer cared about their origins. Forms couldn’t be commanded, everyone was free to choose. They sometimes tie their hair in braids, binding them together with ribbons. The Listeners grow and prune Shalebark, although they do it for decoration. They have stories of the Unmade. When a highstorm is close the people prepare their homes, this includes stuffing rags under their doors, shoving bracing boards into position and pounding large wooden blocks into their open windows.

every half year the Listeners do an accounting of the population, counting their numbers and determining if the forms are balanced. They have roughly 37 thousand people.

Crafts

Paper

The Listeners have their own unique way of making paper. They make the paper from dried rockbud pulp following a harvest. These rockbuds are native to the unclaimed hills and shattered plains. Their paper is much rougher then human paper and varies in Color. Their paper is also textured and full instead of neat and sterile. They also have a song describing the process. This ensures that the Listeners never forget how to make it.

The listeners learned how to capture spren in gemstones by watching humans, then working out the process for themselves. This allowed them to change forms much more reliably. Before capturing the spren they wanted for the form, there was a chance a listener would end up in a form they did not want.

The listener language is descended from the Dawnchant and is related to the Shin and Unkalaki languages.

Listeners are considered an adult by age 10.