Chasmfiend

Chasmfiends (Listener: Ulo mas vara, lit. Beast of the Chasms) are enormous greatshells native to the flatlands southeast of the Shattered Plains on Roshar.
== Appearance and Anatomy ==
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 reminiscent of that of a crayfish. Like most Rosharan fauna, they're crustaceans, with a carapace exoskeleton covering their entire body. Said 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. The meat is edible for both humans and native fauna.
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.
The chasmfiend's head is triangular, narrowing down to a point like an arrowhead, with facial plating that appears like “chunks of broken rock.” Inside the long jaw, it has a circular mouth, surrounded by several rings of teeth. There are several types of teeth present, from sharp fangs and flat molars to small mandibles that shove the food further down the throat. Flanking the mouth is a pair of long, jointed foreclaws --"as thick as a singer’s arms"--which the chasmfiend can use to manipulate objects, pick up food, and even carry passengers over obstacles.
The eyes, set above the jaw and peering out through gaps in their armor, are glassy and green. They also have apparently thick eyelids that close sideways, possibly a nictitating membrane. The nostrils are located at the very end of the maw, while the ears are bare holes slightly behind the eyes.
== Behavior ==
Chasmfiends possess a high level of intelligence. They can communicate with one another by projecting images or impressions into each other’s minds, and are able to share these impressions with singers. They do not communicate via spoken language, instead expressing ideas through mental or emotional “songs.” In addition, they are capable of vocalizing. Their roars, which sound like four bellowing trumpets--matching the four tones of Roshar--overlap and harmonize with one another, and can be heard over a highstorm. According to Wit, chasmfiends have difficulty "tuning their tonic chords and maintaining just intonation".
They exhibit cooperative behavior during highstorms, forming an inward-facing ring and lifting their carapaces to create sheltered pockets where smaller chasmfiends--or allied listeners--can wait out a storm. Their large size and thick plating allow them to stand firm against the winds and debris, effectively shielding those gathered in the center. Chasmfiends in these rings will roar in unison, seemingly in challenge at the passing Stormstriders.
Chasmfiends typically have little interest in smaller creatures. Before the War of Reckoning, they only encountered people when traveling to the Shattered Plains for their final pupation, and did not consider their presence noteworthy unless provoked. Once confronted and killed by humans for the first time, chasmfiends began viewing humans and listeners as rivals in a contest of dominance.
They challenge or steal prey to prove strength, often testing other chasmfiends in non-lethal displays. Smaller or younger chasmfiends typically yield to larger ones after a demonstration of boldness. On rare occasions, two equally matched chasmfiends may fight, but such battles seldom end in death, as the loser usually retreats.
Chasmfiends are known to play with things that act like prey, even if they aren't hungry.
When they are not hunting or challenging one another, chasmfiends spend much of their time lounging or sleeping.
== Ecology ==
=== Life Cycle ===
The life-cycle of a chasmfiend is split into at least three stages, including the pupation stage. The majority of their life cycle is spent in the flatlands southeast of the Shattered Plains.
Little is known about the reproduction methods of chasmfiends though it is similar to that of chulls; and they likely lay eggs. It involves a spren in some way. Thude theorizes that part of the reason they fight each other for dominance is to look strong in order to attract a mate. Rlain notes that chasmfiends migrate towards far eastern side of the Shattered Plains after breeding or pupating.
Young chasmfiends can be at least as small as an axehound, and throughout their life cycle they pupate many times in order to grow. The highstorm is relevant for pupating chasmfiends, and they can use it for interim growth cycles throughout their native range until they are ready for their final pupation, which must take place at the Shattered Plains.
They are led to the Shattered Plains by the tone of Odium's Perpendicularity, the Well of Control, and attempts to undergo a complete pupation elsewhere are apparently unsuccessful. During this final pupation they take in a large amount of Investiture, likely acquired from the passing highstorm and the perpendicularity underneath the Shattered Plains. This Investiture is vital to their growth to the sizes they can attain.
Once at the Shattered Plains, 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. This pupation typically happens during the night, with the chrysalis already formed come daytime. From then, the chrysalis awaits a highstorm; what happens anatomically once that occurs in unclear, as it is at this point that people typically harvest them.
=== Feeding Habits ===
In their original habitat--the wide flatlands southeast of the Shattered Plains--chasmfiends are the apex predators, hunting large herbivores such as zumbles and likely wild chulls. They operate as “burst predators,” expending tremendous energy to catch their prey, then using their enormous foreclaws to crush shells and carapaces. These bursts of activity are followed by extended periods of rest.
Since allying with the listeners, they have been happy to share their kills in exchange for people to groom and scratch their carapace. Despite their formidable predatory instincts, they do not universally view singers or humans as food; rather, many chasmfiends initially regarded both species as rivals during their first encounters at the Shattered Plains. Over time, some chasmfiends have accepted that humans and listeners are not prey, particularly among the group of listeners who escaped the Shattered Plains with Thude.
While traveling to or dwelling in the Shattered Plains, chasmfiends turn to carrion-eating, devouring the corpses of creatures washed into the chasms from the plateaus above. They will opportunistically eat dead humans or singers if not discouraged, though they find humans less desirable than larger game such as chulls, and do not think humans have enough fat to be "truly delicious." Some chasmfiends can be persuaded by certain singers not to eat humans at all, though this confuses them given their natural inclination toward scavenging.
=== Gemheart and Spren Bonds ===
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 chasmfiends to bond with mandras, a type of spren connected to gravity. The bond is a 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, chasmfiends fly, or at least float. Any creature attempting to mimic a chasmfiend, such as a kandra, would require a way to create or substitute that bond to survive.
The mandras leave the chasmfiend's body in the hours immediately after its death. They look somewhat unlike themselves as they return to Shadesmar, being often mistaken for tongues of smoke.
== Economy ==
During the War of Reckoning, chasmfiend gemhearts--harvested from pupating young on the Shattered Plains--served as the primary catalyst for Alethkar's economic growth, prompting an aggressive expansion onto the plateaus. Each gemheart could cover a highprince’s wartime expenses for months, with larger specimens proving vital for Soulcasting because they were less likely to shatter during repeated use. By the time of the re-discovery of Urithiru, much of the Alethi royal emerald reserve consisted of large emeralds likely cut from chasmfiend gemhearts.
Chasmfiend gemhearts also proved pivotal to the listeners’ economy during their protracted conflict with the Alethi--not for currency or Soulcasting, but as an energy source to grow food on the barren plains.
After the re-discovery of Urithiru, the city’s early population remained dependent on plateau runs to claim chasmfiend gemhearts. However, as the chasmfiend population dwindled, the humans became increasingly reliant on farming and lumber from the warcamps to sustain their armies.
== History ==
=== Ancient History ===
Perhaps the earliest known reference to a chasmfiend is an illustration that is believed to have been created two or three generations after Aharietiam. The illustration is distorted to look more menacing so as to show what the author believed a Voidbringer must look like, however it is clearly a depiction of a chasmfiend. It is unknown if chasmfiends inhabited the Shattered Plains and its surrounding lands prior to their shattering, or if they only moved there after the departure of humankind from the area. After the departure of humans from the Shattered Plains chasmfiends faded in memory and were completely forgotten by most of human kind by the time of king gavilar's reign. The listeners eventually began to hunt chasmfiends, and knew the season and location in which to perform these hunts. Humans re-discovered the chasmfiends alongside the rediscovery of the listeners, and were shocked to discover where the gemstones worn in listener beards came from.
=== War of Reckoning ===
Throughout the War of Reckoning, 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 and Overharvesting ====
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 stringing out hog carcasses and pouring hog blood into the chasms, to let the beast 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 chasmfiend is set up for a killing stroke, delivered with a Blade through the spine. The gemheart can then be harvested from the downed beast.
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 provided. 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 couldn't cope with this new influx of losses, and was 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.
==== Chasmfiends' Perspective ====
Prior to the War of Reckoning, chasmfiends rarely considered smaller creatures at all, only encountering humans or listeners when visiting the Shattered Plains for their final pupation. However, the day that humans first fought and killed a chasmfiend became a pivotal moment etched in the chasmfiends’ collective memory, marking a shift toward viewing humans and listeners as 'rivals' to be challenged.
In response, chasmfiends fought, stole prey, and individually challenged both humans and listeners, seeing them as contenders in a competition of dominance rather than food sources. Initially, the chasmfiends did not realize humans and listeners were hunting their pupating young. Upon discovering this they decided that the smaller creatures must actually be dominant.
=== Post War of Reckoning ===
By the end of the War of Reckoning, chasmfiend numbers had dwindled to around one hundred individuals. After the Everstorm, when a group of listeners led by Thude abandoned the Shattered Plains, roughly fifty chasmfiends, led by one called Thundercloud, chose to offer a truce and ally with them. The chasmfiends shared their kills and offered protection from the storms in exchange for grooming, an arrangement seemingly preferable to fighting.
This alliance persisted through the final ten days and the conflict over the Shattered Plains. When Venli led an expedition to Narak, five chasmfiends insisted on accompanying them, and proved pivotal in assisting the singers to navigate the chasms. The chasmfiends assisted in the lisners' deception during the Second Battle of Narak, even carrying listeners into battle on their backs. Though they participated in skirmishes against humans, they refrained from devouring them unless allowed to by the listeners. By the time of the contest of champions, Venli and the other listeners secured a truce with the humans, and the chasmfiends remained content living alongside their new allies, with more chasmfiends arriving and carrying listeners in from the edge of the plateaus.
== Cultural References ==
Chasmfiends are deservedly said to be the deadliest predators on Roshar by the Alethi. Prior to the War of Reckoning, they were considered legendary, with people rarely venturing out into the Plains to hunt them. Back then, to kill a chasmfiend was extremely uncommon; king Gavilar had never slain one, and not for lack of trying. As the war progressed, however, much of the mystique surrounding them was stripped away, though they are still understood to be extremely dangerous.
=== Religion ===
Prior to and during the War of Reckoning, it was a common belief among the Alethi that the listeners considered the chasmfiends their gods. This was a misinterpretation made by early explorers based on linguistic barriers, and one that was never thoroughly investigated; as such, near the end of the war, people like Shallan came to doubt it. In fact, even prior to his death, Gavilar was aware that the listeners did not, in fact, worship the chasmfiends; however, with the assassination and the subsequent conflict, there was never the time for that to become common knowledge, and so the misconception persisted.
Chasmfiends have also had their place in the Vorin religion. Ancient depictions of Voidbringers were often based on chasmfiends, leading some to believe that chasmfiends were either Voidbringers or part of Voidbringer forces. However, Jasnah Kholin's research suggested that it was far more likely that the artists who originally depicted Voidbringers, who lived generations after the last Desolation, did not know what said Voidbringers looked like, and so used the most terrifying creature they knew of -- the chasmfiend -- to approximate.
With the arrival of the True Desolation, it became apparent that chasmfiends being depicted as Voidbringers came from historians conflating them with thunderclasts -- another type of massive creatures, which actually serve Odium. Thunderclasts and chasmfiends share very few physical characteristics; most notably, their enormous size and the shape of the head. However, they are killed in very similar way, by slicing at their legs with Shardblades.
=== Sayings and Idioms ===
There are numerous saying involving chasmfiends; likely, those developed during the War. They include:
* Even a chasmfiend stops fighting when it's been decapitated
* Trying to choose which claw of the chasmfiend would crush you
* Fight like chasmfiends
* Acting like a chasmfiend ate their mother
* As if they had turned into a chasmfiend
* Like three children attacking a chasmfiend with sticks
* I'd sooner flirt with a chasmfiend
* Rats have a better chance fighting a chasmfiend
* Usually Radiant is as lighthearted as a chasmfiend
* The humans fought like a great-shelled beast--a winding, relentless chasmfiend, all armor and teeth
== Notable Chasmfiends ==
* Thundercloud
* Skyblue
== Trivia ==
* The inspiration for chasmfiends was a concept sketch that Ben McSweeney created when Brandon was brainstorming Roshar with him. The sketch contained a picture of a crustacean hiding in a narrow passage based on a coral; the creature eventually became the chasmfiend. That same sketch led to the Shattered Plains -- originally part of Dragonsteel Prime -- to be moved to Roshar.
* The chasmfiend is Brandon's favorite fictional creature from his own works.
* A chasmfiend could be Awakened as a Lifeless. However, this would require multiple Breaths, and would result in the Lifeless collapsing under its own weight.
* If there were to be a Lego set from Brandon Sanderson's books, a Lego Technic chasmfiend would be Adam Horne's first pick.
== Notes ==