"Coordinates... [static] Kaldathi air superiority... [static] no longer safe to land... I repeat: no longer safe to land..."
Intercepted transmission, presumably Republic-era, isolated and extracted by Rebel vox-comm experts
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Even by the timekeeping standards of the Eteldan Empire, whose records date back to the founding days of the ancient Republic and all its myriad root worlds and civilizations, Zortuun is an old planet. It is assumed to have been similar in many ways to normal worlds once, long ago, and that some great cataclysm either pushed or pulled it away from the sun it shares with Artuun and Yatuun. The bleak landscape is a sprawling blanket of ice and snow dominating sparse mountain ranges and half-buried ships.
Foliage is practically nonexistent save for a form of cold-resistant fungus that grows along the rocks of these mountains and deeper within vast cave networks. This is the primary food substance of the strange Urasu creature, a stocky bipedal animal that roams the higher areas of Zortuun and digs deep with shovel-like claws into the soil looking for more of the fungus. Their sharp sense of smell is finely tuned to finding such food sources, often leading them to caves and, therefore, shelter.
The Urasu is a highly intelligent creature that prefers a pack mentality. They are also reliable beasts of burden and mounts, practically essential for those looking to stay on Zortuun for any length of time. Their relatively poor eyesight isn't completely necessary in the already blinding ice storms common to Zortuun, and therefore must be trained with smells or sounds.
In stark contrast to the social Urasu are their lumbering cousins, the Wendasu. It is speculated that they were once different genuses of the same organism, long ago, but over the course of millennia the evolutionary gap has widened to a considerable degree.
Whereas the Urasu are strictly herbivores, the Wendasu are brutal and efficient carnivores. They don't necessarily care what they kill in order to survive, as the lowlands they frequent can include anything from wandering Urasu to fellow Wendasu or humanoids too curious for their own good.
This makes them a cannibalistic species out of necessity, when forced by their environment to do so. However, any common Wendasu is a greedy predator that stockpiles as much food as possible. An Urasu would only last a week as a food supply.
The hulking masses of gnarled fur and raw muscle possess enormous clawed hands that can easily rip limbs from a body or disembowel potential prey. Their jaws are strong enough to easily crunch through even thick Urasu bones and into the soft marrow within. What leads most who encounter these beasts to the conclusion of a common ancestry between these two species are the facial horns, which are used as part of mating rituals in either species.
A Wendasu is not a terribly clever predator outside of the blizzards they use to mask their presence. They are also rather slow given their massive size and comparatively short legs. If one has the stamina, they could potentially outrun a rampaging Wendasu looking for food. Perhaps then, that is the reason why Urasu are so quick on their powerful legs. The muscles in their tails and the heavy club-like nails on the ends of their feet are a last resort if running is not an option.
When Imperial archaeologists arrived in orbit, they fully expected Zortuun to be, as their records stated, an 'uninhabited oceanic world'. Confusion was palpable when they discovered that this was obviously not the case and that two - or more - terrestrial species existed on Zortuun's frigid surface.
It cannot be understated how much knowledge about Zortuun is blatantly missing from Imperial records. The Republic occupied it for almost three-hundred years, albeit in sparse garrisons given its size and weather. The fact that not even documentations from before Chorona's reign mentions anything about Zortuun other than its waterlogged status was taken into consideration by the archaeologists. However, further investigation into the climate and relative history of that climate through testing the various layers of ice soon quieted those concerns.
Geologists attached to these expeditionary forces soon realized that the deeper history of Zortuun was buried within the ice, rather than it being the ice itself. The supposed mountains were notably shorter than what soil samples indicated from deeper within the ice. The sea level had drastically changed at some point, turning Zortuun into what Republic records stated as the mysterious 'ocean world'.
Perhaps that was the same cataclysm that supposedly knocked it out of its initial orbit. None could say. The graves of ancient Republic ships were just more indications of a mystery no one had an answer to, as the spectacular sight of a grounded battleship was unfortunately all too common in the Ghost Stars region of space. Furthermore, the presence of partially-exposed Kaldathi ruins also proposed more questions without answers.
Even though Imperial records were indeed updated at this point in time, nothing concrete could be confirmed. The secrets were perhaps forever lost, locked within countless tons of ice and snow.
Translated from heavily damaged Kaldathi vox-comm recordings found almost 400 miles away from the supposed 'Broken Ridge'
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Zortuun achieves a perfectly parallel orbit with Artuun, virtually making it a shield of sorts when facing the outer limits of the solar system. During the First Kaldathi War, this played into the frigid world's instrumental roles to come. The Republic's overwhelming counteroffensive into the Ghost Stars meant that Zortuun would be the first hit. The defenses were overwhelmed in short order, but this also meant that the Republic was forced to try and garrison the world.
The Kaldathi had achieved some sort of symbiosis with the intense cold, and their vast networks of fortifications and temples were impressive enough to warrant concentrated firepower into conquering the Zortuun. The Republic, however, believed the Kaldathi to be vanquished following their first encounter with the species, and so set up only basic fortresses and barracks for later colonization efforts. Soon, the weather became so unbearably intense that the Republic soldiers simply left most of their stations.
Over the course of the three-hundred year silence, the generational gap in apathy about Zortuun was met with a violent spike in activity. The Kaldathi leaped at the throat of the undermanned garrisons and slaughtered hundreds of Republic troops, virtually all of the regiments left there in the first place. Strangely, it was an overwhelming amount of Kaldathi ground forces and naval command. Even more bizarre, they didn't leave Zortuun. Tahzlak himself had ordered them to stay and defend it, to build up trenches and refurbish the various fortresses with guns.
This was not a completely unfounded strategy, as Zortuun had fallen before and the Kaldathi perhaps wanted to be better prepared for an invasion. Zortuun, after all, had a large number of temple-cities and relics presumably important to the Kaldathi. Over the course of the ensuing Second Kaldathi War, Tahzlak continued to keep the forces assembled around Zortuun away from the fighting. This struck the Republic commanders as odd, but speculation began to arise that Tahzlak Uhr was planning for a retreat at some point in order to rearm for an attack on the Galactic Center.
When Tahzlak was defeated at the Void Gate, the battle that scarred the galaxy, this assumption proved very much correct. Tahzlak retreated back towards the Ghost Stars, and with that retreat came his pursuers in the form of the Veritas Order, their specialized Slayer Squads, along with an entire grand army of the Republic. Their first target was Zortuun.
As expected, fighting both in space and on the ground proved to be extremely fierce across the ice world. To the Republic, this was a campaign of annihilation. Not a single Kaldathi was sanctioned to leave Zortuun alive. Temples were smashed apart, fortresses unceremoniously burned.
The Battle of Zortuun, in the grand scheme of the actual war, didn't last all that long. Only about two months after the Republic fleet pulled out of hyperspace, and the Kaldathi were on their last leg. Granted, no fight against the Kaldathi was an easy one, and they made the Republic pay for every inch.
The cost had been exuberantly high, even for a campaign carried out effectively by the Slayers - who were hellbent on committing genocide on the Kaldathi. It seemed bizarre that the Veritas assigned to them allowed such bloodshed to continue. News from further into the Ghost Stars seemed to confirm what a few of the senior Veritas members were wondering themselves.
Yatuun was a sacred planet to the Kaldathi, a home for their dead. Their pseudo-religious beliefs were centered around various aspects of death and passion, the most forward of which was wrath. When compared in a cosmic sense, Zortuun may have been a conduit for that same uncompromising hunt for vengeance. The Slayers' unbending hunt for Tahzlak was a dark mirror to all of this, something the Republic had to hold up to itself in this time of crisis.
Zortuun, by this logic, wasn't a fortress world. It was a sacrificial altar, and the blood spent paying for it was all part of Tahzlak's plan.
The Veritas were sundered completely in half. Their more violent Slayer brethren wanted Zortuun to be obliterated at all costs, burying what Tahzlak was hiding under the ice in plasma fire. Those who were more grounded, however, denied the Slayers their bloody prize. Too much had gone into Zortuun already, and they settled on a compromise.
Zortuun would be evacuated of Republic personnel, and bombarded from space to cover their retreat. Then the plasma bombs would be set off, but not in the apocalyptic quantities that the Slayers desired. When they were set off, the melted ice resulted in massive flash floods and hurricanes that covered the planet as the conflicting temperatures created global windstorms. The Kaldathi were trapped between the orbital bombardments and the rising sea level that would turn Zortuun into an oceanic world for a time, lending to the myth that it continued to do so into the Imperial Era.
The Veritas who condemned the Slayers had good reason to do so. The weapon Tahzlak wanted to unleash was a spiritual one, a mobile mind-bomb that would continuously explode throughout the bruised Republic as it gained momentum towards the Galactic Center. It fed off emotions of hatred and violence, as well as drained the psionic prowess of those sensitive to the Fifth Force who were not familiar with it like the Kaldathi were. If it were to have been successfully primed and launched, there would be little in the way of a Third Kaldathi War - the Second would never have ended.
But they were also wrong in other ways. The weapon, for all intents and purposes, still exists deep within the ice, possibly lost forever. The potential for vast destruction still exists, and it is perhaps the fate of the Fifth Force itself that a certain Veritas never returned to Zortuun. Its roiling oceans would have proved impossible to swim through, after all. He was the first to protest the use of the plasma bombs to wipe Zortuun off the galactic map, and his curiosity for Kaldathi culture would invariably prove to be his downfall.
If you want to destroy something, why you destroying stuff that's already destroyed? lol
Yes they are Sith Pureblood mostly, but variations in their biology exist. I might expand on that later. So as long as you have a red character you should be fine.
I'm not done with this by a longshot, but I don't want to lose what I have so far.
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