Difference between revisions of "Listener"

The listeners speak to Rhythms. These Rhythms are underlying tunes that seem to exist independently from their actual use. Also, Rhythms are "playing" constantly. For example, Rhythms can be used to measure time.{{book ref|sa2|i|4}} Rhythms represent a certain state of mind, the feelings of the person using it. When not paying attention, Parshendi will attune to the Rhythm that corresponds to their mood, but they can attune to another Rhythm in order to fit with their message. The Rhythms are also used for timekeeping.{{book ref|sa2|i|4}} Dullforms and "Slave forms" don't use Rhythms. The rhythms connect the listeners.{{qa ref|836|51|Are Parshendi like a hive mind sort of culture?|date=Sep 22nd, 2012}}

After the Desolations, not all listeners were the unintelligent parshmen; there were several tribes of the dullform listeners, having thrown off the forms of their gods. Raids and assassinations were commonplace, and this later created norms as to how assassinations should have been carried out.{{qa ref|968|2|Parshendi once dis-unified|date=2013-02-22}} These disparate listener tribes eventually unified, and moved near the [[Shattered Plains]] and became known as the [[Parshendi]].

The [[Alethi]] discovered this tribe of listeners, shocked that there existed sapient versions of the parshmen. They named the listeners [[Parshendi]]. Eventually Alethkar formed a treaty with these Parshendi, but on the eve of the treaty, [[Gavilar|King Gavilar]] was assassinated, in an attempt to prevent the listener gods from returning. This led to the Alethi forming the [[Vengeance Pact]], and the [[War of Reckoning]] to destroy the assassins.

During the war, these listeners moved their population to [[Narak]] from the western edge of the Shattered Plains, where the Alethi warcamps are now situated, though hundreds of thousands of listeners had lived scattered across the entirety of the Plains.{{book Butref|sa2|i|1}}{{book eventuallyref|sa2|i|4}} Eventually, [[Venli]] persuaded [[Eshonai]] that they would die unless they did something drastic. Venli had discovered stormform, one of their old gods' forms, and Eshonai took the form and forcedwas controlled by the form, forcing many other listeners to adopt it as well in order to stop the Alethi and the destruction of their species.