Padawan Menace
fig 1. The Temple Steps
- Intent: Update a Silver Jedi Concord academy location into a refugee shelter in light of the recent invasion season and subsequent board lore.
- Image Credit:
- Foggy Temple by Bill Zhang
- The Puppeteer's Village by Eddie Mendoza
- Ancient Village by Masashi Kageyama
- Temples of Melchezidek (cover art) by Brian T. Collins
- Canon: Jedi Temple (Alaris Prime)
- Permissions: N/A
- Links:
- City Name: The Alaris Temple
- Classification: Religious Commune
- Location: Alaris Prime
- Affiliation: Silver Jedi Concord; Witches of Dathomir (Mistwalker Clan)
- Population: Heavy. The addition of the Mistwalker refugees from Talay has swelled the temple to capacity, spilling out into the surrounding forest to create a commune or village that has hastily come together while these Dathomirians create a new home for themselves.
- Demographics:
- Dathomirian (majority, refugee settlers)
- Wookies (miners or inspectors from Kashyyyk)
- Human/Near-Human (typically Antarian Rangers)
- Various transients, typically associated with the Silver Jedi Concord
- Wealth: Low. The Mistwalker Clan lives according to traditional Dathomirian custom, conducting themselves as subsistence farmers and fishermen while maintaining their shamanistic rituals, animism, and ancestor worship. They eschew technology or most modern conveniences and reject the accumulation of wealth as the driving force of society, instead operating as a shared commune. Bartering remains the dominant means of economy, though Galactic Credits are not unheard of (though less useful to these people).
- Stability: High. The Mistwalkers are led by the Shaol'maka, who is vested with both religious authority and political power to direct the members of the commune. For both religious and secular members of the Mistwalker Clan, this form of governance is central to their cultural identity and, thus, for so long as the Shaol'maka is there to guide them and interpret for the spirits, the Mistwalkers have a recognizable connection and a functional society to latch onto. Tribal disputes are handled among the families in large part, with the Shaol'maka addressing any dispute that cannot be mediated otherwise. Any major crimes or external diplomatic relations are handled by the Wookiees, as Alaris Prime falls under the jurisdiction of Kashyyyk.
- Freedom & Oppression: The Dathomirians of the Mistwalker Clan practice their religion openly and without prejudice or imposition by the Silver Jedi. Use of the Dark Side may draw the attention of the Jedi, but it also draws the attention of the clan elders for the same reasons. Reliance by a witch on either the Fanged God (Dark Side) or Winged Goddess (Light) alone is discouraged, with balance and harmony of the spirit realm being the focus of this Grey Force Cult, enabling them to coexist peacefully within the greater Jedi community surrounding them.
- Description: At the center of this refugee village is the namesake Jedi Temple that is the hallmark and center of the relief effort that brought the Mistwalkers to Alaris Prime. Re-purposing an abandoned Jedi Academy training facility into a shelter for the Talay refugees, the Alaris Temple has taken on new life that has expanded upon the existing facility and exceeded its support mechanisms. Temporary habitats and rustic huts have been erected inside the temple grounds and along the exterior of the temple, forming a shantytown and creating a village radiating out from the temple proper. It is no longer a singular structure, but has become the center of a rural commune.
fig 2. The Mistwalker Commune
- THE TEMPLE STEPS. The approach to the temple from the ground is easily missed, with the ancient stone steps well covered by moss and vegetation. Winding up to the first gate, as one passed through the entry it is as though the world suddenly opens up. And there, before them, is a temple they had no idea they'd been passing by.
- THE ALARIS TEMPLE. A Jedi Academy training facility during the Clone Wars, which had been abandoned since before the Galactic Civil War, the structure is primarily in ruins that had only begun to be the subject of reconstruction. Originally a Jedi Temple, today the temple houses a Nightsister skull and the Talay Grimoire, serving as the religious seat for the Shaol'maka who oversees the rituals of the Mistwalker Clan.
- LANDING FIELD/HANGAR BAYS. The temple complex is more easily recognized from the air, with an open landing pad atop which two bunker-like hangars are available for stowage of starfighters or other small patrol craft. There is typically a shuttle is available for use traveling the Alaris Expanse or commuting back to the Jedi Temple on Kashyyyk. An attached Antarian Ranger detachment monitors and provides embarkation and debarkation control for the air field.
- INFIRMARY. A small medical facility within the temple proper is capable of rendering urgent care, but lacking the full trauma or emergency medicine resources of a hospital, being intended to primarily serve as an aid station. The infirmary can stabilize a patient while awaiting evac to a hospital ship or ambulance shuttle to more robust medical facilities on Kashyyyk, and is augmented by a 2-1B surgical droid and a GH-7 medical analysis unit.
- COMMUNICATIONS CENTER. Contained beneath the Jedi Academy complex is a communications hub accessed through the temple basement, which serves as a situation room and control center for the planetary defense grid. The systems here feed off the Silver Jedi Temple on Kashyyyk, but are limited in the data that they receive. Only that data or information relevant or cleared for public release is supplied Alaris Temple, and even then the information is typically limited to items of concern within the Alaris Expanse. Primarily, this afford the Dathomirians the opportunity to maintain ties to Kashyyyk and provide for their own defense in the event that the forest moon of Alaris Prime were threatened.
- THE MISTWALKER COMMUNE. The main avenue of thoroughfare which now paves the way from the temple steps toward the temple at the center of the village, the commune is where the heart of the community. It is a bustling market where bartering and trade takes place during the day, where debates take shape, and where the people gather and congregate to conduct business.
- THE ALARIS RIVER. The temple complex and village are bordered to one side by a river flowing down from the mountains, and which supplies the principle means of subsistence for the fishermen of the Mistwalker Clan.
fig 3. The Alaris River and Mistwalker Village
Low. There is little in the way of technology and the Dathomirians provide for their own home defense using energy bows and zhaboka. There is a detachment of Antarian Rangers, but only a handful and these are dedicated to Aerospace Traffic Control rather than guard duty or planetary defense. There are a few of Jedi Architect Droids that can provide physical security if required, but are intended for use in maintaining and repairing the temple ruins that comprise the lynchpin of the commune's facilities and shelter. An external shield generator can supply a ray shield against orbital bombardment, along with a singular ion cannon. However, these thin defenses are merely intended to be temporary measures against any serious aggressor with the belief that aid would be arriving from Kashyyyk in the event of an actual attack or emergency.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Constructed during the days of the Old Republic, the Jedi Temple on Alaris Prime served the Jedi for many generations. The location fell out of use by the Jedi and had been forgotten about by the time of the Stark Hyperspace War, at which time the ruins of the temple were re-discovered by Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was used by Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Alaris Prime colonial war fought between the Wookiees and the Trade Federation between 39 and 36 BBY, during which time Kenobi recovered a Jedi holocron from out of the ruins.
Jedi Researchers from Coruscant planned a scholarly study of the ruins, but the expedition was put on hold by the onset of the Clone Wars. With the Great Jedi Purge, the location of the temple once again fell into obscurity. For nearly a thousand years, the ruins remained uncharted. When the Order of the Silver Jedi migrated to the Kashyyyk System in 851 ABY, they discovered the Alaris Expanse at the edge of Wookiee space. Antarian Rangers located the ruins of a Jedi Temple on the forest moon of Alaris Prime during a survey mission. Later that year, the Alaric Explanse was designated as a training area for a group of Silver Jedi trainees -- a program dubbed the Padawans Initiative.
The Padawan Initiative was replaced in 853 ABY by new approaches to training, which moved the focus of training back to the Jedi Temple on Kashyyyk. The subsequent move by the SIlver Jedi to Commenor further eclipsed any training value or purpose that the Alaris Temple might have served. That is, until 859 ABY, when the Mistwalker Clan arrived in Silver Jedi space fleeing the planetary assaults on Talay by the Vegemite Jedi Enclave and Agents of Chaos, largely in response to a military base that the Confederacy of Independent Systems had begun construction on -- rendering their longtime home a target of the many proxy wars taking place across the galaxy.
Owing to the fact that the Wookies tribal structure closely mirrored the Clan dynamics of the Mistwalkers, the Silver Jedi arrived at the idea of using Alaris Prime as a home for these asylum seekers. Kashyyyk would handle the external diplomatic affairs on their behalf, as well as manage intra-system law enforcement responsibilities, while the Mistwalker Clan would see to its own maintenance. The Silver Jedi Concord supplied food, medical care, and resources, helping the Mistwalkers to establish their farms and adapt their methods of subsistence that they had developed on Talay to the ecosystem present on Alaris Prime.
There is much work that remains to be done, but the refugees have started to establish themselves in a new home and as a unique part of the Silver Jedi Concord.
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