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Vrant Tarnum

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"The object they seek is in a cave on the outskirts of the Kharvashark Ruins, on the southern hemisphere of Vrant Tarnum, in the far reaches of the Stygmarn system."
―Tromak[3]

Vrant Tarnum was a terrestrial moon in the far reaches of the Stygmarn system. The Kharvashark Ruins were located in its southern hemisphere. Long before the High Republic Era, the Elders of the Path hid half of an ancient relic on Vrant Tarnum in a cave on the outskirts of the ruins, with the hopes that it would never be retrieved. Elder Tromak later divulged the location of the relic to Krix Kamerat in order to keep the information safe from the Nihil.

However, Kamerat betrayed Tromak and shared the information with Eye of the Nihil Marchion Ro. Tromak managed to escape the Nihil, and approached Jedi Grand Master Yoda for assistance retrieving the relic from Vrant Tarnum before the Nihil could get it. However, Ro and Kamerat got there first, leading to Yoda and Tromak's starship being shot down. The Grand Master was rescued from the crash site on the moon by Jedi Initiates Kai Brightstar, Lys Solay, and Nubs, alongside pilot Nash Durango, all escaping an erupting volcano on the moon, but Yoda soon went missing as he continued his mission. Ro set up a Nihil base at the ruins, which was later investigated by a Jedi team shortly before the Nihil attacked Valo.

Description

"It's a rough place. Mostly empty desert, strong winds, and lots of volcanoes."
―Nash Durango on Vrant Tarnum[5]

Vrant Tarnum was a volcanic terrestrial moon[2] located in the far reaches of the Stygmarn system.[3] The moon[6] featured a Type I atmosphere[4] breathable to several humans,[6] though smelled strongly of smoke in heavily volcanic areas.[5] When viewed from space, Vrant Tarnum was light orange in color.[6] When viewed from the surface, the moon's sky was orange. The moon had a primarily desert surface[5] that was rocky, mottled, and broken with jagged canyons that snaked across it.[7] It also had many mountains and volcanoes alongside other large rock formations. Trenches filled with lava also cut through the surface. It had strong atmospheric winds that could make landing a starship treacherous.[5]

History

A relic hidden

"Elder Tromak was with me in the old days of our tradition. He carries with him knowledge that most don't even know to look for."
"What knowledge?"
"The location of a very powerful weapon. Something that could change the galaxy forever."
―Barbatash and Lula Talisola about the Rod of Seasons, half of which was hidden on Vrant Tarnum[7]
Rodofseasons

Following the dissolution of the Path of the Open Hand cult[8] in 382 BBY,[9] a descendant splinter faction of the organization—the Elders of the Path—formed.[8] The Elders of the Path acquired a Nameless control rod—the Rod of Seasons—formerly in the Path's possession, and after the group realized its destructive capability[7] to control Great Leveler, a creature designed to attack Force-sensitives,[10] they hid one half of it in the Kharvashark Ruins on Vrant Tarnum and the other piece elsewhere.[3]

The group's leaders, the Council of Elders, kept the locations of the two pieces as a highly-guarded secret, only passing on the information to the next in line for their leadership positions.[3] Two of the individuals tasked with keeping the knowledge of Vrant Tarnum and the other location secret were the Elders Barbatash and Tromak.[7] However, one part of the rod came into the possession of the leader of the Nihil marauders—Marchion Ro[6]—who then sought to find the other piece, unaware it was stored on Vrant Tarnum.[3]

A kept and spilled secret

The Nihil learned about the Elders of the Path settling on the Outer Rim planet Trymant IV and rescued Tromak from the world before it was struck by hyperspace debris in the Great Hyperspace Disaster[11] of 232 BBY,[9] intending to coerce him to give up the location of the control rod's other half.[11] Though Tromak refused to tell Ro the sacred knowledge, he instead entrusted the secret to a young Disciple of the Elders of the Path who had been rescued with him—Krix Kamerat. Kamerat betrayed the Elder and reported to Ro that the relic he sought was in Vrant Tarnum's Kharvashark Ruins.[3]

VrantTarnum-THRA5

Afterward, Tromak managed to escape the Nihil's attempt to feed him to bogaranth creatures and convinced the Jedi Master Yoda to help retrieve the artifact from Vrant Tarnum, fervently believing in the endeavor's urgency after learning from the Jedi that the Nihil already had the other half. At Tromak's request, Yoda left his comlink behind and did not tell his fellow Jedi where he was going. When they reached the Stygmarn system, they encountered a network of drone satellite traps[6] set up by Marchion Ro[2] which detonated their ship[6] and caused them to crash land onto the surface.[12]

At the same time, Ro and Kamerat traveled to Vrant Tarnum, acquiring the control rod half from the Kharvashark Ruins. Kamerat, however, had told Ro where the artifact was hidden, and the Nihil reached Vrant Tarnum first. When Yoda and Tromak arrived, their ship was shot down by security drones left in orbit. Ro, meanwhile, entered the Kharvashark Ruins with Kamerat and retrieved the artifact, which he declared the "missing piece" he had been searching for. Telling Kamerat that he reminded him of himself, Ro put him in charge of the Nihil outpost he subsequently established at the ruins.[6] Still possessing some care for his former friends, however, Kamerat sent a message to the Elders on Trymant, telling them the Nihil had a base in the Stygmarn system and asking after Mrala's location. As the Force-sensitive Mikkian had gone with the Jedi, the Elders had no answers.[7]

Rescuing Yoda

"By the way, Master Yoda, what were you doing all the way out here?"
"On a mission, I am. Continue it soon, I must."
―Kai Brightstar and Yoda[5]
LavaBeetle-YJA-YodaRescue

After crashing on the moon and injuring his foot in the process, Yoda sent out a distress signal that was picked up by pilot Nash Durango and three Jedi Initiates—Kai Brightstar, Lys Solay, and Nubs—while they were in a nearby asteroid field in the ship the Crimson Firehawk watching a pod of Purrgil. Durango pulled up a hologram of the moon and warned that she considered it to be a rough place due to its volcanoes and other features, but knowing that it was possible no one else was nearby, the group decided to rescue Yoda anyway. After traveling to Vrant Tarnum and flying over its surface, they tracked Yoda's signal to the top of a volcano on the surface. However, Durango was forced to land away from the volcano as the moon's strong winds prevented them from getting close. On the surface, Solay noticed bite marks in the rock indicating the presence of Lava beetles.[5]

While tracking the Jedi Master's distress signal, the three initiates hiked over the treacherous, lava covered terrain to Yoda's location, while groundquakes rocked the surface and indicated that the volcano's eruption was imminent. The three moved massive boulders into a lava stream so they could cross it, but inadvertently awakened Lava beetles nestled beneath it. After reaching the smoke-covered top of the mountain after feeling more groundquakes, the three initiates found Yoda next to the site of his crashed ship, at a communications console the Jedi Master had set up to send out his distress call. Nubs helped wrap and treat Yoda's hurt foot so that he could walk. Before they could leave, however, noticeably stronger groundquakes rocked the surface and a plume of smoke was released from the volcano's spout.[5]

After receiving a hologram message from Durango revealing that lava beetles had found the ship and had damaged it, the four hurried down the mountain back to the Crimson Firehawk, finding Lava beetles trying to eat its hull that Solay noted were especially large. While Durango repaired the ship, the Jedi fended off the beetles using the Force. However, the volcano erupted before the Durango could finish fixing the ship, sending a massive flow of lava in the ship's direction. Yoda stood on a rock and telekinetically held the flow back to buy Durango time, but because he was hindered by his hurt foot, Yoda requested Brightstar to join him on the surface and help him push it back. Once Durango finished repairs and started the ship, Yoda and Brightstar jumped inside the ship as it lifted off, successfully escaping the lava and the moon. Afterward, Yoda explained that he had been on the moon for an important mission that he would need to continue soon.[5]

Search for answers

Some months later, Mrala, Talisola, and Sy returned to Trymant for answers about why the Nihil had wanted Tromak. Speaking to Barbatash, they learned about Kamerat's message and where it had been sent from, deciding to check Vrant Tarnum because its remoteness meant Nihil activity could go unnoticed. Linking up with Jedi Knight Vernestra Rwoh and her Padawan Imri Cantaros, the group went to the Stygmarn system in two starships, the Star Hopper and the Varonchagger. While Sy, Mrala, and Cantaros stayed onboard the larger ship to monitor activity on the surface, Rwoh and Talisola took the Varonchagger up close over Vrant Tarnum in search. With Talisola piloting, she and Rwoh flew the Varonchagger over the many canyons that slashed across the surface, passing through a natural rock loop.[7]

The two young women dropped low when their sensors picked up a burst of activity, and Talisola hid the Varonchagger behind a rock formation before gliding. Taking a closer look, they saw that the enemy starships were flying in some kind of formation and realized that the Nihil were on the move. Rwoh alerted the Star Hopper, and they saw that the ships were emerging from the Nihil's hidden base. After watching the ships depart[7] on their mounted Path-jumper engines,[10] Talisola and Rwoh received a message forwarded through the Starlight Beacon which revealed that the Nihil intended to attack Valo, site of the Valo Republic Fair. The Varonchagger and Star Hopper departed Vrant Tarnum for Valo immediately.[7]

Further investigations

In the aftermath of the attack, several captured raiders who had been stationed on Vrant Tarnum spoke of the Nihil base there with a certain reverence upon being questioned. In combination with Rwoh and Sy's report on what they had seen there, after the Battle of Grizal, Master Stellan Gios asked Jedi investigator Emerick Caphtor to investigate Vrant Tarnum with a squad of Galactic Republic troopers while looking into the cause of Master Loden Greatstorm's mysterious death on Grizal. When Caphtor and his team arrived, they fought Nihil who remained at the Kharvashark Ruins, killing some and causing others to flee. Inspecting the ruins, Caphtor and his droid Q-2 found the entrance to the cave where the Leveler's control rod had previously been located, and Q-2 discovered that the opening line of an old nursery rhyme which Caphtor suspected to be connected to the events was carved around it.[12]

The significant losses sustained by Kamerat's forces during the Republic and Jedi incursion led him to incur some displeasure from Ro. When Kamerat later expressed interest in the artifact Ro had taken from the ruins, hoping to use it against the Jedi, the Eye tasked him with regaining favor with him. Kamerat chose to do this by attacking the planet Takodana.[13]

Locations

The Kharvashark Ruins, the hiding place of part of the rod[3] that controlled the Great Leveler,[10] were located in Vrant Tarnum's southern hemisphere.[3]

Behind the scenes

TheHighRepublicAdventures-3

Vrant Tarnum was first mentioned in the third issue of the 2021 comic series Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, released as part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project's[3] Phase I.[14] The issue was written by Daniel José Older and released by IDW Publishing on April 7, 2021.[15] It made its first full appearance in the fifth issue of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, which was written by Older, illustrated by Harvey Tolibao, Pow Rodrix, and Manuel Bracchi, and released by IDW Publishing[6] on June 16 of the same year.[16]

The third issue indicates collectively refers to Vrant Tarnum and one other location when indicating Tromak hid "the names of the planets" an artifact was hidden on.[3] Older's middle-grade novel The High Republic: Race to Crashpoint Tower[7]—which was released on June 29, 2021, as part of Star Wars: The High Republic's Phase I[14]—refers to Vrant Tarnum singularly as a moon, which this article assumes is correct.[7]

Appearances

Sources

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Star Wars: The High Republic: Chronicles of the Jedi — Based on corresponding data for Occlusion Zone.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 The High Republic Adventures – Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone 3
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 The High Republic Adventures (2021) 3
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The High Republic Adventures (2021) 3 establishes that Vrant Tarnum had a breathable atmosphere that Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon 43 Secrets of Spaceflight: Types of Atmosphere classifies as Type I.
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures — "Yoda Rescue"
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 The High Republic Adventures (2021) 5
  7. ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 The High Republic: Race to Crashpoint Tower
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Star Wars: The High Republic: Chronicles of the Jedi
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 The High Republic: The Rising Storm
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 The High Republic Adventures (2021) 2
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 The High Republic: Trail of Shadows 1
  13. ↑ The High Republic Adventures (2021) 8
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 StarWars.com Star Wars: The High Republic Chronological Reader's Guide on StarWars.com (article) (backup link)
  15. ↑ Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #3 on official comiXology website (backup link)
  16. ↑ Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #5 on official comiXology website (backup link)
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