the listeners
also known as listener, listeners
The name the wilderness-dwelling singer peoples around the Shattered Plains call themselves before the Everstorm — descendants of ancestors who turned their faces to the storm, abandoned their gods, and walked away from the Fused war to live as scattered families fighting over the perimeter's ten ancient cities. Their forms are limited to mateform, workform and dullform; they preserve their history in long memorised songs of stanzas. SA:RoW:Ch 45
Known facts
- ancestors-walked-away-from-their-godsEshonai reflects that her ancestors did not fight one another but turned their faces to the storm and marched away from their very gods in the name of freedom — that the modern listener families' squabbling over the ten cities at the rim of the Shattered Plains is a much smaller dream than the one she inherited.SA:RoW:Ch 45
- salvaged-ancient-weapons-from-plains-ruinsEshonai's good hunting knife — beautiful patterned metal, carved hilt — is one of the weapons her ancestors recovered from ruins at the centre of the Shattered Plains; her family does not own listener Shardblades, which she privately considers far more marvellous. The listeners cannot forge their own metal, and pass these salvaged weapons down through generations. The find suggests the weapons may be two thousand years old, dating back to the False Desolation.SA:RoW:Ch 48
- first-rhythm-family-claims-a-city-after-finding-humansEmboldened by the discovery of humans and the metal weapons they bring back from the first contact, the First-Rhythm family of listeners march on the Shattered Plains and take a place among the ten ancient ruined cities by defeating the family that held it.SA:RoW:Ch 52
- human-king-proposes-to-formalise-relationsThe human king's scribes deliver a written message to the rebuilt stone trading-post fort: an offer to "formalise relations" with Eshonai's people, whom the humans have begun calling Parshendi. The Five must decide how to respond as a people who are not, in their own minds, a nation at all.SA:RoW:Ch 62
- eight-shards-distributed-across-familiesAmong all the listeners of the Shattered Plains there are only eight sets of Shards, held by whichever eight listener families currently control the eight strongest of the perimeter cities; by long tradition the Blades are wielded only in joint hunts of greatshells to harvest a gemheart, and never against another listener family.SA:RoW:Ch 68
- chasm-rebels-survived-as-parshendi-on-eastern-plainsThe listeners who refused stormform — rebels along with the children and the elderly — fled into the chasms before the new storm met the highstorm and the floodwaters came. A human flyer's report along the eastern Shattered Plains places a group of a few thousand, with many children, alive on the plateaus and previously misidentified as Natan migrants.SA:RoW:Ch 92
- alliance-with-chasmfiendsAfter their flight from the Shattered Plains, the surviving listeners settled with a band of some fifty chasmfiends who offered a truce in the listeners' wake. The beasts shelter the camp from highstorms, accept grooming and small offerings of food, and consider their old hunters rivals worthy of cohabitation rather than prey.SA:WaT:Ch 56
- listeners-origin-was-toathans-walk-away-from-mishramRlain's vision reveals the moment the listeners became a distinct people: his ancestor Toathan walks out of Mishram's warcamp the day she begins handing out forms of power, refusing to swap one war for another. Others follow, Mishram lets them go, and together they enter the storm and abandon their forms — surviving on the few songs that can persist without form.SA:WaT:Ch 121
Backreferences
- summarySA:OB:Ch 109
- factNeshua Kadal
- summarySA:OB:Ch 121
- summarySA:OB:Ch 122
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 45
- factVenli
- factJaxlim
- factJaxlim
- factthe First-Rhythm Family
- factthe listeners
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 48
- factthe listeners
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 51
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 52
- factJaxlim
- factthe listeners
- factAxindweth
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 56
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 57
- factThude
- factStormwagon
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 60
- factVenli
- factEssai
- factVenli
- factHusal
- factKeeper of Songs
- factKeeper of Forms
- factSong of Stones
- factthe listeners
- factSharefel
- factMelu
- factDianil
- factthe Living-Songs Family
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 77
- factVenli
- factNalan'Elin
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 79
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 81
- factVenli
- factTusa
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 83
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 86
- factVenli
- factVenli
- factDenshil
- factMikaim
- factSong of Mornings
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 88
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 91
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 92
- factthe listeners
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 95
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 96
- factVenli
- factVenli
- factThude
- factHarel
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 109
- factTumi
- factLeshwi
- factThude
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 117
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 12
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 55
- factVenli
- factKo
- factZumble
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 56
- factLeshwi
- factthe listeners
- factThude
- factBila
- factThe Song of the Beasts
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 58
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 62
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 63
- factAdolin Kholin
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 65
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 67
- factElsegate
- factWeiss
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 72
- factKunona
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 78
- factLeshwi
- factEshonai
- factHarvo
- factEstel
- factKivor
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 91
- factEl
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 112
- factVenli
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 118
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 121
- factBa-Ado-Mishram
- factthe listeners
- factRenarin Kholin
- factToathan
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 137
- factThe Five