The Parshendi - who call themselves the listeners – are the native inhabitants of the Shattered Plains on Roshar. They are a race of beings who can bond with spren to assume different physical and mental forms, a process they call attunement. Before the events of The Stormlight Archive, the listeners assassinated the Alethi king Gavilar Kholin, triggering the War of Reckoning that drives much of the early plot. Their reasons for the assassination are far more complex than the Alethi understand - the listeners acted to prevent Gavilar from bringing back the ancient gods whose return would enslave their entire species. The Parshendi are closely related to the parshmen, a seemingly docile servant race found across Roshar, and the connection between the two peoples is one of the series' central revelations.