Over the years, Star Wars fans have learned more and more about the way of the Jedi, from how Force sensitivity works to how Force projection can be used. But the Sith are much more mysterious, and there are multiple sectors and groups who use the Dark Side in their own ways. For example, we saw the Dathomiri Nightsisters in Ahsoka as they helped Thrawn by reviving an entire dead army, and the Knights of Ren appeared in The Rise of Skywalker.
But of all these groups, one little-known group sets itself apart from all the rest with a fascinating philosophy that’s perfectly suited to Star Wars’ next chapter.
Lost Legends is an Inverse series about the forgotten lore of our favorite stories.
In the 2008 non-canon Legends book Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover, set immediately after the events of the original trilogy, Luke chases a new threat known as “Shadowspawn,” a Dark Side prophet who wielded a terrifying power. He was Palpatine’s “monster maker,” using Sith alchemy to create “Sithspawn,” horrifying mutants corrupted by the Dark Side.
But Shadowspawn is also known as Cronal or Perek, and before he was Palpatine’s henchman, he was a member of the Sorcerers of Rhand, an Unknown Regions Dark Side cult unlike any other Dark Side cult. While most Dark Side sorcerers focus on the power the Dark Side of the Force wields, the Sorcerers of Rhand don’t even really mention the Force at all. Instead, they worship something even greater than the Force, known as the Dark.
While there wasn’t much explained about the Sorcerers of Rhand in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, the Star Wars RPG supplement The Unknown Regions was able to expand on this group a little more. In author Daniel Wallace’s endnotes, he includes the philosophy of the Sorcerers: “Only power is real, and the only real power is the power to destroy. Existence is fleeting. Destruction is eternal.”
Even more was revealed in the in-universe sourcebook Secrets of the Sith, where Nightsister Mother Talzin says, “They claim a kinship with the dark, which they view as the embodiment of decay and death.” Wallace’s characterization makes this very literal. “One Sorcerer lacked skin and oozed bodily fluids with every step, one was merely a blackened skeleton, one appeared to have been turned inside out with clean white teeth poking jaggedly from a raw mass of a head, and one existed as a long ribbon of flesh that swirled and coiled throughout the receiving chamber,” he wrote.
With a terrifyingly macabre description like that, these beings are wasted in an RPG supplement. Star Wars is moving more and more toward the metaphysical aspects of the Force, especially in Ahsoka, which ended with Force-using mercenary Baylan Skoll seeking out “the beginning.”
Perhaps this beginning is something even grander than the Force, but this mystical “Dark” the Sorcerers worship. Considering the book they first appeared in is set right around the time of Ahsoka, we could see the Sorcerers appear in a possible Season 2 and change Star Wars forever, completely undermining the Force — the power long considered to be the final word in Star Wars metaphysics.
Bringing in the Sorcerers of the Rhand could also open up canon to Shadowspawn, who would make a perfect Mandalorian villain: imagine Moff Gideon, but more of a mad scientist. Both of these elements feel tailor-made to Star Wars TV: a way to expand the world without getting rid of what already makes it great.
