Dathomir was an obscure planet in the Outer
Rim Territories, located in the Quelii sector. It was somewhat smaller than Coruscant in size, and had slightly-below-standard gravity, but the planetary day was close to standard,
and the planetary year was long, lasting 491 days. Dathomir had four moons.
Dathomir was considered a temperate and beautiful planet by Human standards, with a varied terrain that
included coastal lakes and tar-pits, thick forests and snow-capped mountain
peaks, powerful rivers and broad savannas, small icecaps and dramatic rift
valleys. Even under the New Republic, however, nine-tenths of the planet
remained unexplored and uninhabited, with the population limited to a relatively small area along the edge of one of the three main continents, a zone of uplands and river plains bounded on one side by the unsailed ocean and on the other by vast expanses of desert.
Although the two cultures most closely associated with Dathomir were the
ancient spacefaring Kwa and the Human group known as the Witches
of Dathomir, it should not be overlooked that the semi-sentient species at the apex of Dathomir's native food-chain was in fact the mighty rancor.
The fact that the rancors were semi-sentient often came as a surprise to
unsuspecting offworlders. It is not clear whether they had made any independent progress towards basic tokens of civilization like kindled fire or shaped tools, and their social system and lifestyle were little different from those of many nonsentient animals: matriarchal herds led by herd-mothers roamed the landscape, hunting live prey for food. But they passed on their clan histories from generation to generation, and when they formed a symbiont circle with the planet's Human population in the last centuries of the Galactic Republic, they adopted basic armor and weapons. Under the New Republic, Tosh, herd-mother of the rancor group, associated with the Human Singing Mountain Clan, learned to read and write, and began to pass on this skill to the other rancors of her herd.
Dathomiri rancors were also larger than off-world specimens, with full-grown
adults in the range of eight to ten meters tall. This extreme size can in part
be attributed to the planet's low gravity, which allowed native trees to rise up
to eighty meters tall, but it may also reflect a more general effect of the
sheer vibrancy of the planet's biosphere. The temperate climate and varied
terrain had given rise to a dramatically diverse ecosystem, thriving with so
much life that the air almost seemed to sparkle in the Force. Other native fauna included the rancor's major prey species, the drebbin and ssurrians, as well as the burra fish, the simian pack-hunting purbole and the acid-jawed, insectile shear mite.
However, several of Dathomir's most important species, notably Humans, had arrived on Dathomir over the millennia as the result of off-world contacts.
Rim Territories, located in the Quelii sector. It was somewhat smaller than Coruscant in size, and had slightly-below-standard gravity, but the planetary day was close to standard,
and the planetary year was long, lasting 491 days. Dathomir had four moons.
Dathomir was considered a temperate and beautiful planet by Human standards, with a varied terrain that
included coastal lakes and tar-pits, thick forests and snow-capped mountain
peaks, powerful rivers and broad savannas, small icecaps and dramatic rift
valleys. Even under the New Republic, however, nine-tenths of the planet
remained unexplored and uninhabited, with the population limited to a relatively small area along the edge of one of the three main continents, a zone of uplands and river plains bounded on one side by the unsailed ocean and on the other by vast expanses of desert.
Although the two cultures most closely associated with Dathomir were the
ancient spacefaring Kwa and the Human group known as the Witches
of Dathomir, it should not be overlooked that the semi-sentient species at the apex of Dathomir's native food-chain was in fact the mighty rancor.
The fact that the rancors were semi-sentient often came as a surprise to
unsuspecting offworlders. It is not clear whether they had made any independent progress towards basic tokens of civilization like kindled fire or shaped tools, and their social system and lifestyle were little different from those of many nonsentient animals: matriarchal herds led by herd-mothers roamed the landscape, hunting live prey for food. But they passed on their clan histories from generation to generation, and when they formed a symbiont circle with the planet's Human population in the last centuries of the Galactic Republic, they adopted basic armor and weapons. Under the New Republic, Tosh, herd-mother of the rancor group, associated with the Human Singing Mountain Clan, learned to read and write, and began to pass on this skill to the other rancors of her herd.
Dathomiri rancors were also larger than off-world specimens, with full-grown
adults in the range of eight to ten meters tall. This extreme size can in part
be attributed to the planet's low gravity, which allowed native trees to rise up
to eighty meters tall, but it may also reflect a more general effect of the
sheer vibrancy of the planet's biosphere. The temperate climate and varied
terrain had given rise to a dramatically diverse ecosystem, thriving with so
much life that the air almost seemed to sparkle in the Force. Other native fauna included the rancor's major prey species, the drebbin and ssurrians, as well as the burra fish, the simian pack-hunting purbole and the acid-jawed, insectile shear mite.
However, several of Dathomir's most important species, notably Humans, had arrived on Dathomir over the millennia as the result of off-world contacts.
