Heraldic Epochs

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The Heraldic Epochs is a period of history of Roshar that preceded the Era of Solitude.

History

The Heraldic Epochs began with the conflict between humans and Singers, when the latter decided to ally with Odium. To combat this, Honor chose ten Heralds, thus forming the Oathpact. In short, the Oathpact stated that as long as the Heralds were on Braize, Odium could not start another Desolation; to combat this, he tortured the Heralds until at least one of them broke. A single such cycle - a period of peace punctuated by a Desolation - was a single Heraldic Epoch. As each time, the Heralds broke faster, the Epochs grew shorter and shorter, with the intial ones being centuries apart, with the initial ones separated by over a century, while the very last were only years apart.

Though initially only the Heralds had the access to Surgebinding, eventually the spren sought to mimic those powers and began bonding humans. Initially, those new Surgebinders were unorganized and uncoordinated, with some even turning on fellow men. Sometime during the reign of Nohadon, the Herald Ishar imposed order on them, leading to the formation of Knights Radiant. Henceforth, the Knights would battle the Desolations alongside the Heralds.

The city of Stormseat was destroyed by unknown means during one of the Desolations, leading to the formation of the Shattered Plains. Sometime after, a legion of Singers was sent there for unknown reasons and chose to defect, becoming the Listeners.

The Heraldic Epochs came to an end with the Last Desolation, or the Aharietiam. At the end of that Desolation, only the Herald Taln was dead. The other Heralds decided to leave the Oathpact, theorizing that one of them would be enough to keep it functioning, and abandoned their Honorblades, then told mankind that this day marked the final victory over the Voidbringers. With them vanishing - supposedly to battle in the Tranquiline Halls, while in fact they simply went into hiding - Roshar entered the Era of Solitude.

Culture

Humanity had very little technology during most of the Heraldic Epochs, they did not even know how to forge steel. If they had not been granted Shardblades by the Nahel bond with spren, they would have had to fight the Voidbringers with simple weapons, such as clubs.

According to legend, the Heraldic Epochs were a golden time for Roshar. The Silver Kingdoms were built and led by the Heralds, and men were bound by honor.

Contrary the Era of Solitude, during the Heraldic Epochs writing and reading wasn't restricted to women as literate wordsmen existed.

In Vorinism

The Vorin religion is based on the lie that at the end of the Heraldic Epochs, the Heralds had pushed the Voidbringers back to the Tranquiline Halls and were fighting to force them out of there as well. According to Vorinism, there were one hundred Desolations, including Aharietiam; however, the real number was somewhere between fifteen and fifty.

Notes

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