Chasmfiend

Chasmfiend
by Ryan M-W
Type	Greatshell
Native to	The Shattered Plains
World of Origin	Roshar
Universe	Cosmere

“I heard that once an entire bridge crew got eaten by a chasmfiend, one at a time, after it backed them into a dead end. It just sat there, picking them off as they tried to run past. ”

—Teft

Chasmfiends are enormous greatshells native to the chasms of the Shattered Plains on Roshar.

Appearance and Biology

by: Ben McSweeneyShallan's sketch of a chasmfiend

Chasmfiends are the largest known land animals on Roshar: at least twenty feet wide, six times the height of an adult man at their peak, and over twice as long. They are long and narrow, with a flattened, split tail reminescent of that of a crayfish. Like most of Rosharan fauna, they're crustaceans, with a carapace exoskeleton covering their entire body. The carapace is dark violet (though it's possible that other colors can also occur), and extremely durable, being able to withstand even a hail of arrows. It covers the beast's back in a series of interlocking, upside-down-V-shaped plates with horn-like protrusions growing on the edges. Beneath it, the chasmfiend's blood and gore is purple, and smells of mold.

Below the armor, a chasmfiend has eighteen legs. Four foreclaws are set into broad shoulders, with two clawed toes on each of them. They serve as the primary means of attack, both smashing and slicing the chasmfiend's prey. Behind them, fourteen smaller limbs provide locomotion. A chasmfiend can move extremely fast when it so desires, and has the agility to turn around in the narrow corridors of the chasms.

A chasmfiend's head is triangular, narrowing down to a point like an arrowhead. Inside the long jaw, its mouth is circular, surrounded by several rings of sharp teeth. Flanking it is a pair of smaller mandibles, which the chasmfiend can use to manipulate objects and pick up food. The mouth allows the chasmfiend to vocalize; it makes roars that sounds like four bellowing trumpets playing at the same time. The chasmfiend's eyes, set above the jaw, are glassy and green. Its nostrils are located slightly behind the eyes; they allow the chasmfiend to smell its prey.

• Images of chasmfiends
• 

  by Ben McSweeney Shallan's sketch
• 

  by Ryan M-W A profile of a chasmfiend beside a spearman for scale
• 

  by Evan Monteiro Dalinar faces off against a chasmfiend
• 

  by Ellie L. Kaladin's encounter with a chasmfiend in the chasms

Gemheart and spren bonds

“Bavamar did the calculations on Reshi greatshells, and found they should be crushed by their own weight. ”

—Shallan

Like every greatshell, chasmfiends have a gemheart growing inside of them. The chasmfiend gemhearts seem to always be emeralds, and are noted as particularly enormous. Those gemhearts are likely what allows the chasmfiends to bond with mandras; a type of spren connected to gravity. The bond is the crucial factor in allowing the chasmfiend to grow to its enormous size. It reduces the chasmfiend's weight, keeping it from crushing itself; as such, from a mathematical standpoint, a chasmfiend flies, or at least floats. Any creature attempting to mimic a chasmfiend, such as a kandra, would require a way to mimic or substitute that bond to survive.

The mandras leave the chamsfiend's body in the hours immediately after its death. They look somewhat unlike themselves as they return to Shadesmar, beint often mistaken for tongues of smoke.

Ecology

by Ellie L. A chasmfiend hunting a human

Life cycle

“They must have an interesting life cycle. They haunt these chasms, but I doubt they actually live here. ”

—Shallan

Very little is known about the early stages of chasmfiend's life. It's highly likely that they don't live on the Shattered Plains for most of their life, but rather migrate there when the time comes for them to breed. Once there, they set up a nest, and continue hunting and scavenging across the chasms. Eventually, prompted by some unknown instinct, they climb up to one of the plateaus and pupate, forming an immobile, rock-colored chrysalis around themselves. The pupation typically happens during the night, with the chrysalis already formed come daytime. From then, the chrysalis awaits a highstorm; what happens once that occurs in unclear, as it is then that people typically harvest them.

Feeding habits

In the natural ecosystem of the Plains, chasmfiends are the apex predators. Their segmented, narrow body makes it easy for them to move through the chasms; even still, they fill all avaiable space, and their passing is often marked by long scratches and scraped flora as the carapace drags across the chasm wall. Their massive bulk could also be a form of protection from the highstorm flooding, as it can lock the chasmfiend in place, stopping the flood water from carrying it off.

Chasmfiends are carnivorous; within their original habitat, they likely hunt wild chulls, using their massive foreclaws to crush their prey's shells and feed on the meat within. As they travel to the Shattered Plains, however, they turn to carrion-eating, eating corpses of creatures that fall or are washed down into the chasms from the pleateaus above.

Exploitation

by Randy Vargas Elhokar hunting a chasmfiend

Both listeners and humans hunt chasmfiends down for their gemhearts, although meat and carapace are also harvested. Most of the time, only the chrysalis is "hunted", as it is then that the chasmfiend is at both its most vulnerable and least aggressive. Once the chrysalis is located, the hunters break it open with mallets and Shardblades and extract the gemheart within, killing the chasmfiend in the process. On such "hunts", the biggest danger are the other armies after the same chrysalis.

Chasmfiend hunts

Though rarely, adult chasmfiends are also hunted, mostly when one wanders into a territory claimed by one of the highprinces. First, the chasmfiend is lured to climb up onto the plateau by hog carcasses, and pouring hog's blood into the chasms, to let the chasmfiend smell it. Once the chasmfiend emerges, which can take up to several hours, a flock of wild hogs is let loose for it to pursue. Archers equipped with Grandbows -- the only bow type capable of harming the chasmfiend -- then pepper the creature with arrows to weaken it. Eventually, Shardbearers approach the beast and cut off its legs with their Blades. Once toppled, the beast is set up for a killing stroke, delivered with a Blade thorugh the spine. The gemheart can then be harvested from the downed beast.

Overhunting

“Animals like the chasmfiends don't normally have predators. Suddenly losing a hundred and fifty or more of their numbers a year could be catastrophic to their population. ”

—Shallan

During the War of Reckoning, the number of chasmfiends that died before they could produce offspring soared, with over fifteen being hunted down every month for their gemhearts, and the wealth and Soulcasting ability they provide. As a result, in the waning years of the war, their numbers began to dwindle, with fewer chrysalises appearing. Shallan Davar theorized that as the species previously lacked any predators, it simply cannot cope with this new influx of losses, and is thus headed towards extinction.

Some solutions have been proposed to mitigate this; primarily, reducing the number of hunts and even breeding chasmfiends in captivity for their gemhearts. However, with the arrival of the Everstorm, those plans, as well as the hunts themselves, have been put on hold as a bigger threat in form of the Voidbringers occupied the attention of the armies that would normally hunt chasmfiends.

Notes

This article is still missing information. Please help The Coppermind by expanding it.