Umbaran (Jedi Renaissance)

"Known as Shadow People by many in the Ghost Nebula, the Umbarans were long associated with the Sith and other dark side cults because of the Sith academy on Umbara. Those who have served our Order are often aloof, dedicated Shadows who thrive on solo missions and long journey missions."

- Jedi Knight Horen Hote, writing about Umbarans in the Jedi Order.

Umbarans were a race of Near-Humans from the shadow world of Umbara in the in the galaxy's Expansion Region. Joining the the Galactic Republic during the Great Manifest Period as the galaxy-spanning government began to spread and gain influence beyond the Core, the Umbarans always haunted the Senate on Coruscant but were not often seen about the throngs of citizens that packed Republic worlds. Sending representatives of their people to Ossus for training in the ways of the Force with the Jedi Order, Umbaran Jedi were uncommon and rarely served in highly visible roles. Umbarans were more largely associated with the Sith Empire and smaller dark side cults, as the Sith established an assassin academy on the dark world of Umbara. Serving as spies, assassins, and inquisitors, the Umbarans gained a reputation of being shadowy wizards capable of using mind control on those they worked with for nefarious ends.

Biology and appearance
A race of Humanity, Umbarans were a sentient species that belonged to the simians, a subgroup of the primate order of mammals. Umbarans were bipedal beings with a bilateral symmetry, having a front and a back end, as well as an upside and downside. Their body was comprised of a head, neck, torso, and four limbs. The upper limbs, called arms, ended in hands which had five fingers each; the lower ones, called legs, ended in feet with also five digits. Umbaran fingers had multiple points of articulation; one on each hand was an opposable thumb that allowed for fine manipulation. Finally, they had one head perched atop a torso comprised of a face; two forward-facing eyes allowed for binocular vision, a nose, a mouth filled with sharp teeth for the tearing of flesh, and an ear on either side of their heads. Their eyes were sunken and calculating, adjusted to the dark and capable of seeing into the ultraviolet spectrum. Pale and cold, their corneas were white or a very pale violet in color. They had only a light covering of body hair, most of which was concentrated on the head. Umbaran hair was grown, cut, and styled for aesthetic or ritualistic reasons&mdash; both males and females wore their hair close cropped or shaved. Their hair was fine and translucent, appearing white or grey when grown thick. Gradiation of skin tone was not seen among Umbarans, with all members having very pale or translucent skin due to their homeworld's sun. Umbarans were warm-blooded mammals, meaning they maintained a constant body temperature independent of the environment using the energy from their food. Umbarans were fungivorous and carnivorous, subsisting on animal-based foods and fungi found in the dark hollows of their world. Umbarans had two sexes: male and female, with the latter being distinguished by their pronounced breasts, overall smaller stature and lesser quantity of body hair. Members of the Umbaran race could interbreed naturally with many other near-Human races. Despite overall physiological uniformity, Umbarans varied greatly in appearance, and no two individuals looked exactly alike. One of the diversity factors was height; Umbarans averaged 1.8 meters in height; males stood between 1.7 and 2.0 meters, while females averaged between 1.5 and 1.8 meters.

Umbarans were sexually-reproduced animals, requiring the mating of an opposite sex couple to produce offspring. While developing in their mother's womb, the child gave her a distinctive "baby bump" accompanied by a significant weight gain. Being mammals, Umbaran females gave birth to live young, either one or several at a time. The delivery itself normally took place after nine months of pregnancy when a woman would take up residence within a medcenter where professional doctors would attend her every need. It was a painful process that could take as much as ten hours; in some circumstances, women could die during childbirth. During their first months of existence, Umbaran babies were usually fed with milk from their mother's breasts. The period during which a young Umbaran developed from a child into an adult was known as adolescence. According to the Rites of Umbara, the legal transition from childhood to adulthood was only attained after sixteen standard years of life. Umbarans had an average lifespan of 80 standard years. Those who were keenly attuned to the Force could live up to 200. At any rate, individuals past the age of 90 were considered to have reached an age worthy of veneration. Natural signs of aging in Umbarans included the fall of the hair, the loss of teeth, appearance of deep lines, wrinkles and dark blemishes on the skin. Old Umbarans would experience a decline in many cognitive processes, frequently losing track of time, misidentifying people or places and, in extreme cases, momentarily forgetting about their own identity or state.

Mirialan Sith
Born on the planet Umbara in 50 BBY, Diard Vads was born into a wealthy family which unhappily relinquished custody of their child to the Jedi Order. Growing up in the Coruscant Jedi Temple, Vads studied the culture of his homeworld and found their mistreatment of the wraiths to be unacceptable hoped to one day see this practice ended. Selected by Master Indot Sheni to train as a Padawan, Vads frequently talked with Sheni's former student, Jedi Tomac Moorcé on policy within the Republic and the Order regarding mistreatment of sentients. Constructing a rare, white-bladed lightsaber on Ilum, Vads convinced his master and Jedi Moorcé to embark on a mission to Umbara to investigate the treatment of the native wraiths. Meeting with Senator Hrelli in the capital, Vads was shocked by the lies and propaganda the Senator fed the Jedi. Seeking their own answers, the Jedi trekked into the wilds of Umbara and found the wraiths to live an impoverished and malnourished existence, clothed only in rags and horribly malnourished. Enraged by the clear ethics violations, Vads and his mentor returned to the city and were shocked to witness an attack by the starving wraiths. Not interfering in the attack as Umbaran military forces attempted to repel the attacking wraiths, the executive building was compromised as the flying wraiths swarmed in a relentless attack on those oppressing them. Feeding on the Umbaran politicians by draining their life energies, the Jedi protected nearby civilians as a wraith swooped down and drained the soul of Senator Hrelli. Helpless to intervene against the numerous attackers, the Jedi were led to safety by the young Mee Deechi who advised them to leave as soon as possible. Deechi assured the Jedi that he would do his best to see that the wraiths were not harmed and received the proper assistance from the government if the hostilities could be brought to an end. On their way to their ship, a weak wraith female approached the Jedi and handed Jedi Moorcé a bundled infant, before withdrawing into the shadows. Detecting the child to be Force-sensitive and healthy, the Jedi rushed back to Coruscant to debrief the High Council and turn the infant over to the Acquisitions Division. [edit]Jedi Knight and the Clone Wars In 28 BBY Vads passed his Trials of Knighthood and was made a Jedi Knight. Conducting himself as a proper Jedi, Vads traveled to Purpilia to study at Jedi Moorcé's Sentinel Academy as a Shadow. The satellite facility allowed Vads access to resources that heightened his abilities as a Shadow of the Jedi Order. Dressed in the violet garb necessary to survive on the planet's surface, he customized it to produce the traditional Shadowcloak of the Umbarans which he draped around his traditional Jedi robes. Remaining on Purpilia for many years, Vads befriended Headmaster Maladi Guidicelli, the young Devaronian placed in charge of the Academy there. Stationed at the Purpilia Royal Palace, Vads was serving His Royal Highness Steiv Moorcé when the leader of the planet announced that elections would be held to elect the first democratically elected President and Prime Minister. As Jedi diplomats worked in the capital to oversee the changes, Vads worked in the city to root out opposition movements forming to ensure that the monarchy was not abolished. Responsible for arresting twenty terrorists from the neighboring planet of Tenga, Vads was commended by the newly elected Prime Minister Chaner and President Kli for his dedicated work in the capital. When the Clone Wars erupted between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Vads was appointed as a General in the Grand Army of the Republic and took to the battlefield to defend the Republic. Remaining close to Purpilia, Vads was disappointed with the Purpilians' decision to refrain from using their nearly indestructible ships in the war, keeping their sizable fleet in system to defend their planet should the war go ill. While the Confederacy stayed out the system for this reason, Vads knew that the Purpilian fleet had the potential to wipe out the Confederate Navy with superior weaponry and crystal-hard. In 19 BBY, Vads strolled through the Purpilian Academy's entry hall when the academy's emergency broadcast system played a message from Master Mace Windu warning all Jedi of a possible threat from their clone troopers and that all Jedi should return to Coruscant immediately. Overseeing the shutdown of the academy as Master Guidicelli sent a message to the President to explain their departure, Vads ordered all clone and Republic personnel off planet before making for Coruscant with the other Jedi. [edit]Jedi Renaissance On Coruscant, Vads was pleased that Tomac Moorcé had been appointed as Grand Master and that the Order would be divorcing itself from politics as it relocated back to Ossus. Following the Conclave ended, Vads approached Chief Shadow Orgus Thomle and volunteered to assist in the rebuilding of the Order's Shadow network as the Jedi strove to rebuild their numbers in the wake of war. Travelling to Ossus for the first time, Vads assisted Thomle in the construction of a Shadow command center just south of the Great Library. A squat, three-story structure, the command center would act as a place for Shadows to gather and coordinate their concentrated efforts to eradicate the dark side as cells of adepts or adherents formed across the galaxy. When Tholme departed Ossus to found a Shadow Academy on Anzat, Vads was placed in command of the Shadow command center and given a direct line to the Council of First Knowledge. Coordinating the Shadow's efforts from Ossus, Vads welcomed new recruits to join in the groups mission to wipe out dark side-aligned groups throughout the Republic and the Confederacy. Traveling to Almas during a massive uprising by the Wyrd and the Believers, Vads was key in wiping out both groups, driving practitioners of both groups to extinction. Returning to Ossus, Vads was given a seat on the Jedi High Council to provide the insights of a Shadow and help lead the Order through the hurdles of the build-up to the Hutt Offensive and was key in dispatching Shadows into Hutt Space to begin the necessary steps to bringing about the end of the Hutt Empire. Following the Battle of Yavin, Vads retired from the Council in order to go deep undercover as a slave on Nal Hutta in order to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Hutt government. Vads believed that the Hutts were in collusion with a dark side group known as the Kirrest Arsk and was determined to root them out and destroy them so that the Order could lead the Republic and the Confederacy into Hutt Space and dismantle the Empire. In the service of Gorga the Hutt, Vads was able to observe secret meetings between the Hutt Grand Council with the dark side adept Namman Cha a Human priest of the Kirrest Arsk. Personally infiltrating Cha's cloister, Vads dueled him to the death, killing Cha on the balcony of the Human's apartment. Remaining undercover, Vads served alongside Gorga's other slaves right up until the day that the Jedi forces pushed into the Hutt's palace on Nal Hutta in 11 ABY. Escorting the other slaves to safety, Vads returned to find Gorga dead and the Jedi victorious. As the Hutt Offensive concluded, Vads traveled to Anzat to take up a position as instructor at the Shadow Academy where he would remain for the next thirty years. In 45 ABY Vads retired to Ossus where he took up residence in a small hovel in the darkest regions of the Ossan jungle. Vads decided to take on his final Padawan Bandy Geffer along with him into the forests where he trained the Human to live in the near dark of the deep forest. While Geffer had no interest in becoming a Shadow, Vads taught him how to focus his mind in the darkness and eventually saw him become a strong Jedi Knight. In 58 ABY, Vads became one with the Force, his body cremated on the pyre in Knossa.