Witches of Dathomir

The exact origins of the **Witches of Dathomir** has been disputed due to multiple accounting of the collected linguistic evidence. In one recurring story is that hundreds of years before the fall of the Galactic Republic, a Jedi Knight named Allya arrived on the wilderness planet Dathomir, apparently a rogue exiled by the Jedi Council to meditate on the Force in enforced solitude. On her arrival, Allya encountered an immigrated population, which evidence suggests that elements of the planet's population had been largely isolated from the wider galaxy since the time of the Old Republic, although it is not clear from available evidence whether the earlier settlers had arrived in a single group long before Allya's time, or if in fact Dathomir had been used more continuously as a penal colony over the millennia. What is clear is that by the time of Allya's arrival, the population had become prey for the dominant Rancors of Dathomir's native food-chain. But when Allya assumed leadership of the population, events were set in motion that would lead to the development of a unique culture on Dathomir, founded on the enslavement of the male population to Force-Sensitive female warriors, the transformation of the Rancors from predators to allies, and the authorship of books with contained "spells". The females of Dathomir came to be known by some as the **Daughters of Allya** in honor of the wayward Knight of the Jedi Order.

This account claims that Dathomiri society was forged in a single generation, and traces the ancestry of every being on the planet to a single mother and her daughters. Nevertheless, it is likely that the key event in the forging of Dathomiri society was Allya's discovery that she could tame the Rancors using the Force, with the resulting symbiosis between female rider and mount dictating subsequent social patterns. A factor in Dathomir's past that may be relevant, but seems to have been forgotten to future generations, is the existence of a Sith Academy on the planet in the final years of the Jedi–Sith War. This was one of the more prestigious training establishments of the final large-scale Sith Order, ranked with the Iridonia Academy second only to the newly-founded center on the ancient capital of Moraband, and trained the Sith equivalent of Jedi Knights, but it is not known how long it had lasted, or if it left any permanent legacy on the planet. Native accounts sometimes attributed the shaping of Dathomiri society to Allya, presenting her as one woman among helpless men, who were mere snacks for hungry beasts until they became her slaves. These traditions insinuated that Allya reduced the population to willing subjugation in one lifetime, among her followers, favored slaves were offered the chance to become mates, The males were raised to be slaves, whereas females trained in the ways of the Force.

## Clans of Dathomir

Over time, the Dathomiri divided into a number of distinct clans, a process sometimes framed in retrospect as a power struggle between Allya's elder daughters. Although these clans shared a common tradition, every clan developed their own set of laws about Force usage around the common core of inherited teachings. The clans raided each other to claim mates, with low-level conflict being entered into cheerfully by the warrior women. The number of clans had fluctuated in the course of time. Each Dathomiri clan was based in a fortified village at or near its eponymous landmark. The women served as warriors and leaders, with leadership typically held by the eldest in a clan. Matriarchs aging a century or more were not uncommon, and in exceptional cases they could be close to three hundred years old. Men were used only for breeding and slave labor, clad in nothing more than leather aprons or scanty tunics, and neither they nor women seem to have realized that they retained latent Force potential. As a warrior society, the females trained in the art of war, and used their muscles and the Force to aid them. The only way a male could go free was if he saved the life of a female in a clan.

Typically, warriors were expected to find mates by capturing runaways or slaves from other clans, but the leading clan of sisters could purchase men from each other, and if a mate could not be persuaded to love his owner, the equivalent of an amicable divorce could be enacted by selling him to another woman. They wore their hair in elaborate braids (sometimes with a helmet decorated with mementos) and lizard skin armor. Over time, the Force powers of the Witches came to be largely defined in the form of "spells", where they chanted a specific set of words and the desired effect was produced. If a warrior wished to return to the clan, she had to undergo a period of exile for purification purposes before she would be allowed back, often extending to several years; but some, known as Nightsisters, remained in exile, and these exiles did sometimes band together to form a clan of their own, or occasionally took over an existing clan, always opposed by the rest of Dathomir. The Witches lacked space technology but off-worlders would visit Dathomir in order to select suitable individuals as assassins or enforcers, such as when Mother Talzin sold her sisters' services to the galaxy's wealthiest.

### Nightsisters' Clan

After using her powers to subjugate the other exiles, the Jedi Allya showed the first Dathomirian women how to use the Force, managing to create her own sect of all-female Force users. Concerned with regulating her new community’s social life, Allya wrote laws based on the Jedi Code. Over the ensuing centuries, the Witches of Dathomir divided into different clans or sisterhoods. However, some of the Sisters let themselves drown in the Dark Side, just like Allya herself before she was redeemed. As a consequence, the Witches of Dathomir instated a tradition of exiling wielders of the Dark Side and others who broke their ancient code to live outside their clans in solitude and contemplation. However, at some point the exiles banded together with the other outcasts to form a new clan, which became known as the Nightsisters, named for their study into "night spells". Over time they resembled the traditional clans and started to expand, raising children to obey the Dark Side. As years went by, this group used their connection to the untamed wilds to terrorize their fellow clans and fight for dominance over the planet, competing for food, land domination, male slaves and their magical supremacy.

### Nightbrother's Clan

Many years ago, the Dathomiri Human females discovered they could interbreed with the Dathomiri Zabraks, leading to the creation of the hybrid species known as the Dathomirians. The witches isolated their new slaves to a small area of the planet where they could draw from them at whim. While the Nightsisters had always kept "malelings" as labor units or mating partners, Talzin of the Nightsisters restricted the use of males to the Zabrak Nightbrothers after she became the leader of all Nightsisters. She also thought it was best to keep them separated from the females.