Mouth Clackers

Ra-ka-tata-kak-atat!

Clap clap, tap tap, rakatata kakatat. Whisperlings have their own bards, with their own cultures of how they play the wetwork of the spy business, but they have one giant responsibility above all - using their pack to entertain those of other packs. While singing for a pack becomes more akin to the chorus of the reader's realm, it is their highly controlled mouth glands, thick tongue and sharp beaklike mouth that becomes most important for this discusssion.

A mouth clacker is a pair of balls of compressed material with a highly basic shell to resist the residual stomach acid of their mouths as they play. Held just above the tongue, the whisperling players use tongue and cland to clack the balls against each other and against the front of their beak.

Ra-ka-tata-kak-atat!

Manufacturing process

The balls themselves are made from crushing ore adjacent rocks, mixing in the mucus and then easing them into molds, compressing them for days, adding layers upon layer of new material, each layer inwards becoming more compressed, more dense, before the chemical basic layer is added last, the balls set within for another week.

Significance

Ra-ka-tata-kak-atat!

Can you imagine the sounds of two bard packs singing a 'duet', full of life and soul, as they swim up and over each other, mouth clackers keeping a rolling thunder of time, so that even the ocean rejoices as the packs attending this family reunion hear the song of their people dance like rolling thunder upon the waves.

The greatest honour is not singing alone in these meetings, but being the one with the clackers who is setting the pace that the others are designing around, for this job requires precision, for creativity and experimentation requires a steady standard to work against. This role is called the Aran'th.

Ra-ka-tata-kak-atat!

Folk within Natare know the stories of the Foliad foolish enough to try and replicate the clackers with a pair of seed-nuts in their mouth, who had played in the city upon the streets, trying to drum up enough trade to make a name for themselves. Who was found strung up by his feet on the 8th day of their stay, mouth full of seed with a sign around their neck on paperbark that said "Do not take what is not offered to you."

Item type

Musical Instrument