Temple of Kooroo

The Temple of Kooroo was a Shrine of Kooroo located on the Outer Rim Territories planet Vaynai. One of a series of similar ancient stone structures that were believed to have been constructed by an advanced alien species on several worlds throughout known space, the temple on Vaynai was a domed building located on the top surface of Streysel Island.
Early explorers discovered the Kooroo Sundial artifact in the Temple of Kooroo, and eventually both the artifact and the entire Streysel Island, including the temple, came into the possession of the crime lord and art collector Gallo Memm. Although the Temple of Kooroo was situated on the grounds of Memm's estate, the collector allowed groups of pilgrims of the Fellowship of Kooroo, a cult dedicated to the worship of the Kooroo shrines, to visit the sanctuary on his property under armed escort and spend the night meditating inside the shrine.
==Description==
The Temple of Kooroo was a Shrine of Kooroo located on the Outer Rim Territories — Based on corresponding data for Vaynai system planet Vaynai. The temple was situated in one corner of the top surface of the mesa-like Streysel Island in the Vaynai Archipelago. Located at one end of a crushed-stone path that led to the interior of the island's surface, the temple was surrounded by dense underbrush.
Like most of the other Shrines of Kooroo located on several worlds throughout known space,The Essential Atlas the ancient ruin on Vaynai was built from a certain type of native stone. Unlike the other Shrines of Kooroo, however, the Vaynai temple was not a three-level building with an upper level that consisted of a roof raised over a round solid stone structure. Instead, it was a massive round dome topped by a one-meter wide opening that was in turn covered by a small dome-shaped cupola supported by four short pillars. The entire structure was approximately forty-eight meters in diameter.
A small pillared portico and nearly twenty-meter-long stairs made of worn stone steps led into the central domed sanctuary chamber, which was at least twenty-four meters across. The chamber was bare of any furnishing except for a low stone platform running along the perimeter of the room. The upper opening in the sanctuary's dome, which was located seven meters above the chamber floor, permitted light and air to flow into the room, although the vents beneath the cupola were only 0.3 meters wide and the light that filtered through was dim and left the sanctuary's edge in shadow. The domed sanctuary was surrounded by a wide ledge. One narrow stone in the wall facing away from the shrine's entrance was loose, and vines were creeping along the structure's cracked, two-meter-thick outer walls.
==History==
===Evidence of the ancient past===
Although general consensus among scholars by 11 ABY is set "shortly after the re-establishment of the New Republic on Coruscant" following the final death of Galactic Emperor Palpatine, which The New Essential Chronology dates to 11 ABY. was that the Shrines of Kooroo were built by an advanced alien species known as the Kooroo, the purpose of the structures was still unclear by that time, with various theories claiming that the shrines were used by the aliens for interstellar telepathic communication or even teleportation.
Early explorers on Vaynai discovered the Kooroo Sundial in the Temple of Kooroo. The disk-shaped metal artifact featured intricate engravings of symbols, geometric designs, and notations and misleadingly resembled an ancient sundial overall. Eventually, both the Kooroo Sundial and the entire Streysel Island passed into the ownership of the eccentric Nimbanel crime lord and art collector Gallo Memm. Memm maintained an estate that encompassed the entire top surface of the island, including the Temple of Kooroo.
===A pilgrimage site===
Memm allowed members of the Fellowship of Kooroo, a cult worshipping the Shrines of Kooroo,Platt's Starport Guide to visit the Temple of Kooroo as part of a pilgrimage to various sites connected to the organization's supposed spiritual leader, Kooroo. Visiting pilgrims arrived on Memm's estate grounds via a lifttube that connected the island's top surface to the caverns excavated below and, ultimately, to the public landing platforms.
A squad of six armed Weequay guards then escorted the pilgrims along the gravel path connecting the lifttube pavilion at the estate's center to the temple. At sunset, the guards ushered the pilgrims into the temple's interior. There, the pilgrims arranged themselves in a large circle along the stone platform at the edge of the chamber, assumed positions for meditation and continued their previously-initiated chanting. During the night of meditations that followed, the pilgrims inside the shrine rarely communicated with the guards standing outside, four of whom were stationed at the entrance of the temple with the other two wandering the paths near the structure. In the morning, the Weequays escorted the pilgrims back to the lifttube pavilion.
==Behind the scenes==
The Temple of Kooroo appeared in the roleplaying game adventure "Topside Infiltration," which was authored by Peter Schweighofer for use with the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game, illustrated by Carl Critchlow, and published in Star Wars Gamer 8 on December 21, 2001. In the adventure, the player characters are seeking to steal valuables from Gallo Memm's villa. The characters are provided with several ways to get inside the closely-guarded estate, and the most indirect approach involves posing as pilgrims visiting the Temple of Kooroo.
If the characters choose this approach, they are led into the temple along with the other pilgrims and must then devise a way to exit the shrine unnoticed. The scenario suggests four possible means of escaping the structure. The characters can either attempt to exit through the cupola-covered opening in the domed sanctuary's ceiling, or they can remove the loose stone—which the adventure's text erroneously describes as being a part of the structure's dome, as opposed to being situated outside the dome per the map of the temple—in the structure's wall and escape through the resulting passage. Alternatively, the characters can lure the Weequay guards standing outside into the temple by simulating an emergency situation and then disable them. Finally, the player characters can simply assault the sentries outside and attempt to quickly and discreetly disable them in order to be able to freely navigate through Memm's estate.
==Sources==
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==Notes and references==
Category:Shrines of Kooroo
Category:Streysel Island locations