Tython (Jedi Renaissance)

"While honoring our ties with the Republic and our new alliance with the Confederacy, the Order will transfer our headquarters and academies to our ancient fortress world of Ossus and our homeworld of Tython to rest, rebuild, meditate, grow and seek guidance from the Force."

- Grand Master Tomac Moorcé announces his plans to reduce the Order's presence on Coruscant.

Tython was a terrestrial planet located within the Tython system of the Deep Core. The ancestral homeworld of the Jedi Order, Tython was host to the first society of Force-users in known history, in 36,453 BBY. Following the Force Wars of 25,783 BBY, the Order abandoned Tython and left several of it continents in ruin. Survivors of the cataclysm cultivated their own civilizations, some of which lasted thousands of years, others ending abruptly in violence. Eventually the Jedi Order returned to Tython at the start of the Jedi Renaissance to recover their heritage and rebuild their Order after suffering greatly during the Clone Wars. Rebuilding their temples and erecting new cities, the future of Tython and the Jedi became forever intertwined.

Description
A wild and primordial world, Tython was rich with the Force and stuck in a constant battle for balance between the light and dark. Because of this constant fight for balance, the world was constantly plagued by Force storms; a violent and naturally-occurring phenomenon which made life difficult on the planet. Across the planet's vastly different continents, unique and mysterious physical and sentient-built features existed. The largest continent of Talss was home the mysterious Old City, which was rumored to house an ancient Gree Hypergate and was one of the oldest structures on the planet. On the curved island continent of Srednata Zemya the eastern half of the continent was home to the ruins of the two Lamps of the Valar, which legends claimed gave first light to the continent; the western half was site of the stumps of the Two Trees of the Valar, which represented the moons Bogan and Ashla with their silver and gold flowers. The continent of Westeros was most notable for the massive Wall which was erected by Human settlers from the neighboring continent of Essos, or Thyr as it was known to the Je'daii, to keep back the White Walkers, a race of Pau'an-Arkanian hybrids originating from Talss. Thyr was a massive continent only rivaled in size by Talss and was known for the large expanse known as the Silent Desert, a mysterious phenomenon which diminished all sound among the rolling dunes. Located just south of Thyr was the continent of Kato Zakar, a largely swamp-covered landmass with highly volcanic southern coast. To the east was the island continent of Masara which was once home to the Temple of Bodhi during the height of the Je'daii Order.

Bestiary
A lush world of breathtaking beauty, Tython's weather was plagued by naturally occurring Force storms which tore through the landscape uprooting forests and shattering mountains. Living among the chaos across six different continents were a series of beasts both docile and fierce, all living in harmony with the planet's bizarre phenomena. Herbivores such as uxibeasts roamed the grassy plains and valleys while manka cats roamed the mountain forests hunting horranths. Deep within the caves the cut through the ridges and mountainous terrain of Talss, Dark Beasts posed a threat to unwary travelers. On the continent of Westeros aurochs could be domesticated for livestock and were distantly related to uxibeasts. Lizard-lions lurked in the swamps while mûmakil and direwolves roamed the northern wastes. The continent of Thyr was home to a great many exotic beasts such as zorses, bloodflies, and the great dragons. One of the oldest beasts which originated from Je'daii alchemy at Akar Kesh, dragons and their offshoots called firewyrms and wyverns soared overhead and left eggs on many continents throughout the planet's history. On the Moon Islands off Kato Zakar basilisks slithered over the sands while manticores could be found off the coast of Masara in the Jade Sea. Myths of centaurs, sphinxes and solocorns entertained younglings while krakens were a true threat in the seas.

Dawn of the Jedi
In the year 36,453 BBY, the Tho Yor—nine great pyramid ships— traversed the hazards of the Deep Core to deliver a massive group of Force-sensitive pilgrims to the volatile planet as a means of settling the world. Guided by the Force, the Tho Yor anchored themselves in different regions of the planet and expelled their passengers so as to begin the settling of the world. These people, consisting of Humans, Cathar, Selkath, Twi'lek, Noghri, Wookiees, Miraluka, Iktotchi, Sith, Arkanian, Sephi, Pau'an and myriad other Forceful individuals became known as the Tythan, one people united by the Force. Gathered together, the pilgrims were considered to be some of the galaxy's brightest and best philosophers, priests, scientists and warriors. Realizing the hazards of Tython, the Tythans quickly discovered why that had been called together; to bring balance to the world through their own inner balance with the Force. Collectively the Tythans began to study the ways of the Force, living their lives in a constant Moving Meditation in order to master the abilities they were gifted with. Through communion with nature, the Tythans learned of the world and the Force's duality, a fact reflected in the night's sky by the astral bodies Ashla and Bogan. As the Tythan's struggled to keep the balance, they began to call themselves the Je'daii Order; a name derived from the Dai Bendu phrase, "mystic center." As they built temples, cities and academies across the planet surrounding the original landing sites of the Tho Yor, Tython reacted to any imbalance through terrible Force storms and groundquakes. While the Je'daii could protect themselves from some of these dangerous events, not all of the descendants of the original colonists possessed the Force connection necessary to learn. Following the destruction of the city of Aurum, the Je'daii deemed the planet too dangerous to the many non-Forceful individuals living on the world. In an event known as the Second Migration, the Je'daii sent all non-Forceful individuals off Tython, beginning the process of colonizing the other planets in the Tython system known collectively as the Settled Worlds.

Conflict arose on Tython during the Despot War, when Queen Hadiya of Shikaakwa led an army against the Jedi and the Force itself. Deeming her will to be superior to that of the Force, Hadiya's army marched against Tython and several bloody battles were fought. Eventually during the final stand at Kaleth, Hadiya was killed and her armies routed, thus bringing an end to the war. For over ten thousand years the Je'daii contemplated the Force in the nine Great Temples, studying the sciences, histories and martial arts in quiet reflection; always careful to maintain inner balance. Those Je'daii who leaned too far to one side of the Force, creating imbalance, were exiled to one of the planet's moons until a time when balance was restored. Peace was shattered, however, circa 25,783 BBY when a schism in the Order's belief system pitted those who favored the Ashla philosophy against those who adhered more to the Bogan schools of thought. Wielding katana, metal swords imbued with the Force, the Je'daii were pitted in a bloody civil war known as the Force Wars. The Ashla philosophers organized themselves as the Order of Jedi Knights and were led by a High Council comprised of the greatest and wisest of their number. One of the High Councilors, the great Master Rajivari, was corrupted by the dark side of the Force and led a faction of dissidents in another savage attack against the Jedi he had helped to create. Calling themselves the True Dark Sons of Tython and aided by an army of savages known as Flesh Raiders, Rajivari's camp fortified itself at the Temple of Knowledge, called Kaleth by the Order. While the Bogan philosophers held off the Jedi for several weeks the Flesh Raider army disappeared, as did Master Rajivari himself, leaving his disciples in disarray. Weakened and taking heavy casualties, the True Dark Sons were defeated and the Jedi Order ended the uprising. As the Force Wars came to a close, the Jedi realized the gorrible damage they had caused on their homeworld and abandoned the planet in favor of Ossus, a lush planet on the edge of the Tion Cluster deep in the Outer Rim.

The diminishing Force
Despite the Jedi Order's abandonment of the planet, the world continued to host a population of Force-sensitives who craved peace. A dominant group of Noldorians and a group of other Force-sensitives moved to the continent of Srednata Zemya; shaped like a thick-armed crescent, the Belegar Sea was locked in the continent's embrace. On the Eastern Shores of the east-side of the continent, the Forceful beings known as the Valar created two lamps to illuminate the land known as Illuin and Ormal. These eternal Force-lights were placed atop the towers of Helcar in the furthest north and Ringil in the deepest south respectively. Between the two lights the Valar chose to dwell at the island of Almaren in the midst of a Great Lake. In fighting eventually caused the Force-lights to diminish in 22,333 BBY and the Great Lake to flood the shores of Almaren, forcing the Valar to relocate with the Noldorians to the Western side of the continent across Belegar and the Grinding Ice in the north which connected both sides of the continent. Calling their new home Valinor, the Valar raised five major mountain ranges to keep out their enemies and protect their people from the encroaching darkness. Working against any dark side forces which wished to upset the balance, the Valar and the Noldorians used their combined knowledge to drastically change Tython. Stripping the surviving Humans among them of their connection to the Force, the Valar saw a decrease in the number of Force storms which had long plagued the world and prevented non-Forceful civilizations from thriving. Despite this, the Valar vowed to protect the Humans which they sent over to the Eastern half of the continent from these horrible storms should one arise again. As Humans irked out a living in the Eastern lands, the Noldorian races waged war among themselves, dividing into many factions as they attempted to rout all dark side users. The Human-dominated island of Númenor which lay in the middle of Belegarwas drowned and eventually its remaining people moved to the Eastern lands to attempt to survive. Not only Humans dwelt in these parts at the time, Noldorians thrived in certain lands as well as a colony of Neti which had begun to fall asleep in the great swaths of forests by 16,762 BBY.

As memory of the mysterious Valar passed into legend and myth, the Humans of the Eastern lands developed thriving kingdoms which rose and fell as wars were raged across several ages. Memories of the Force and its application were lost among all but the Noldorians who still recalled the ways of the high arts once taught at Bodhi and a respect for all things living. Other applications of the Force which transcended tending plants and animals was viewed as magic and a cause for alarm, especially in the time of war surrounding the acquisition of magic rings by the Dark Lord Sauron. To defeat this fallen Noldorian, the Valar dispatched five Forceful beings known as Istari which posed as old men to assist in the overthrow of this tyrannical being. After Sauron's defeat at the hands of a diminutive race of Near-Humans, the remaining Noldorians living in the Eastern lands were recalled to Valinor and were ordered to allow the Humans to survive without the Force and those who use it. Over the centuries Valinor thrived as the Valar and the Noldorians had long since developed a Force technique which preserved their life-force granting them near-immortality. Meanwhile the men of the Eastern lands eventually died out circa 13,000 BBY and their cities were left abandoned.

Seasons which last a lifetime
Many millennia after the fall of the Je'daii, Force storms had ceased and the Force was present in only a few races. While Neti survived in the southern regions of Westeros, a band of Arkanian-Pau'an hybrids thrived in the northern wastes and eschewed a primitive society entrenched in dark side magics and necromancy. With the end of the Force storms, a new weather anomaly arose; winters lasted a generation and summers seemed to never end. With an odd pattern of seasons, the Neti and the Zamprazeni of the north constantly waged a battle for territorial superiority. When the First Men arrived on the continent, they forged a pact with the Neti in 18,793 BBY and helped to entrap the Zamprazeni beyond a massive Wall in the north two millennia later.

Meanwhile on neighboring Thyr, now known as Essos, the men known as the Andals develop a religion based on the perceived seven aspects of the Force as personified by gods. Led to believe their gods demand an invasion of Westeros, the Andals cross the sea and lay siege to the neighboring continent c. 16,700 BBY. After a major upheaval in Westeros, the Andals are successful in routing the Neti and the first Men and taking control of the continent. By 13,700 a series of seven kingdoms have come to dominate the continent and are eventually consolidated into a single government following a dragon-won conquest in 10,234 BBY. Dragons eventually die out in all civilized areas of the world and all practices of Force magics are diminished until the return of dragons on Essos in 9,934 BBY and the coming the Great Winter after a decade-long Summer.

Jedi recolonization
During the Old Sith Wars terrific beasts called terentateks, the product of Sith alchemy, were loosed on Tython and were deemed monstrous abominations that posed as an affront to the Force by the Jedi High Councilon Ossus. Charging members of the Jedi Order to hunt down the creatures and execute them with extreme prejudice, the High Council initiated the Great Hunt, allowing any who wished to join in the purge to participate. Among other worlds Tython was cleansed in 3,994 BBY, ridding the ancient Jedi homeworld of the terentatek threat. Soon after the Great Hunt ended, hyperlanes to the planet collapsed and the world was left abandoned for several centuries. Tython had not been forgotten, however; new hyperlanes into the Deep Core were paved in 3,651 BBY by Jedi Knight Satele Shan in the wake of the Sacking of Coruscant by the resurgent Sith Empire. Leading Jedi scouts to reclaim the world, Shan reestablished a Jedi presence on the world's largest continent, making Tython the Order's fortress world during the Cold War between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic. In the same time period, a group of Twi'lek Pilgrims landed on the world and established a small settlement near to the Jedi headquarters. Constructing their Temple near the ruins of Kaleth, the Jedi kept their distance from the illegal Twi'lek settlement despite pleas from the Matriarch to assist in warding off Flesh Raiders.

Return to obscurity
Following the end of the Cold War the hyperlanes to Tython had become unstable once more and forgotten and the Temple there abandoned, though the coordinates of the planet remained recorded in the Jedi Temple Archives on Coruscant. At some point after 1,289 BBY during the New Sith Wars, the Sith Lord Belia Darzu built a massive temple that she used as one of her barracks for her army of technobeasts on the continent of Essos deep within the Shadowlands near the abandoned city of Asshai. Corrupting the Force which permeated the planet, Darzu perverted nature through the creation of her army; she recorded her knowledge within a Sith holocron which she kept deep within the fortress. In 1,230 BBY Lord Darzu was poisoned on Tython by the Mecrosa Order at the behest of her fellow Sith Lords and died. Following her death her technobeasts remained in the temple, waiting for the next order from their master who never returned. In the greater galaxy, the Sith Empire foundered without leadership until Dark Lord of the Sith Skere Kaan reorganized the Empire into the Brotherhood of Darkness. Warring for a decade, Kaan and the Sith were eventually purged from the galaxy in the wake of a great military campaign on the planet Ruusan.

By the year 990 BBY, no one had traveled to Tython in some time because of its location in the Deep Core. However, rebel leader and aspiring Sith Hetton had located navigational charts to Tython. He later passed these charts onto Darth Zannah, in return for a promise for apprenticeship. Zannah later betrayed Hetton, and gave the charts to her master, Darth Bane. While Zannah left for the Coruscant Temple Archives, he traveled to Tython to access information on how to construct a Sith holocron from Darzu's holocron. Upon discovering Darzu's temple he located her holocron, though it was surrounded by her technobeasts, still awaiting their master. After destroying the beasts Bane got ahold of the holocron he sought and spent the next few days studying its many secrets. After Zannah fled from the Jedi Archives on Coruscant, Jedi Masters Valenthyne Farfalla, Raskta Lsu, and Worror Dowmat, along with Jedi Knights Johun Othone and Sarro Xaj, pursued her to Tython. When they arrived, they fought Bane and Zannah in a violent battle to the death. The two Sith Lords defeated their Jedi adversaries, killing them all to ensure that the continued existence of the Sith remained a secret. Despite the victory, Bane was seriously injured and his apprentice was forced to flee to the planet Ambria in hopes of finding the healer Caleb.

Following the Ruusan Reformation which restructured both the Galactic Senate and the Jedi Order and the mysterious deaths of the Jedi task force sent to investigate the Sith on Tython, the old Cold War-era academy was reopened on the planet and served as a place for deeper immersion in the Force, similar to another academy on Alpheridies, before being closed once more in 456 BBY.

Jedi Renaissance
InhabitantsEdit The planet of Tython has had a long history of colonization which began long before the formation of the Galactic Republic. As of 36,453 BBY, the Tythonian Old City had long since been abandoned; a series of crumbling stone structures surrounding a large acropolis was all that remained of the mysterious civilization which built it.Several millennium later saw the arrival of the monks and philosophers who would form the Je'daii Order, constructing several Great Temples across the planet. Following the Force Wars between the fledgling Jedi Order and the True Dark Sons of Tython, the world was left ruined and largely abandoned. Despite the Order's departure from the world, several communities continued to eke out a living on the planet, with several different civilizations making use of the ruined Temple of Knowledge at Kaleth. These civilizations would succumb to war and disaster, eventually dying out by the time the Jedi Order returned circa 3,653 BBY. When the Order reestablished themselves on the world, a group of Twi'lek Pilgrims followed them and set up a small settlement on the world. During this era Flesh Raiders, a species of sentient barbarians which were remnants of the armies of fallen Jedi Master Rajivari's dark side army, plagued both the Jedi and the Twi'leks.

After the Order moved off Tython once more, only small remnants of civilization remained. Dark Lord of the Sith Belia Darzu set-up a small fortress in a desolate region on the planet, creating a small army of technobeasts to guard over her treasure horde long after her death.

Locations
Masara/Ulthos - Bodhi island continent large Thyr/Essos - Qiyong Kesh Silent Desert northwest of Masara stark forests Talss - Old City largest, Anil Kesh Kato Zakar/Sothoryos Westeros Srednata Zemya Over the millennia many cultures established several major structures on the planet. During the height of the Je'daii Order's time on Tython, nine Great Temples were constructed across the planet to serve as academies, meditative retreats, research centers, and seats of power. These temples were erected around naturally occurring Force wellsprings as well as the original landing points of the nine Tho Yor. The Je'daii temples were Akar Kesh, the Temple of Balance; Anil Kesh, the Temple of Science; Mahara Kesh, the Temple of Healing; Kaleth, the Temple of Knowledge; Bodhi, the Temple of the Arts; Vur Tepe, the Forge; Qigong Kesh, the Temple of Force Skills; Stav Kesh, the Temple of Martial Arts; and Padawan Kesh, the Je'daii Academy of Padawans. Following the Jedi Order's resettlement of the planet, a massive Temple was erected near the site of the ruined city-temple of Kaleth. The Temple served as a base for all Jedi operations on the planet for several years; the Jedi also occupied a structure known as the Masters' Retreat located in the Tythonian Gnarls, while the Twi'lek Kalikori Village was found on a ridge just above the Temple complex.