Thyrsian

The Near-Human Thyrsians were an Echani offshoot originated from the Inner Rim world Thyrsus. The Sun Guard arose out of the people.

History
During the Bengali Uprising, the Echani on the sun-baked planet of Thyrsus, even called the Thyrsians, revolted against the female council that ruled the Six Sisters, a confederation of six worlds dominated by the Echani, seceding their world from the others. The Thyrsian military units bore the emblems of the red suns of Thyrsus, and their elite special-missions division evolved into the Sun Guard.

At first, the Sun Guards commanded armies against the Echani fellows. The group later turned its attention to the Mandalorians, alarmed by their expansionist tactics.

As the centuries passed, the Sun Guard largely abandoned Thyrsus and became a group of seminomadic mercenaries similar in organization to the Mandalorians and eventually a cult under the influence of the Order of the Sith Lords, before the confusions of the Clone Wars decimated the warriors. Spared ones joined Emperor's Royal Guard. Force-sensitive members became candidates for the Shadow Guard.

Biology and appearance
In comparison to their Echani conspecifics the Thyrsians shared only few physical traits. Their look equated the exact opposite: the skin was dark and not chalk-pale, the hair also dark and not silvery.

It was believed that the Echani were a result of Arkanian experimentation with the Human genome, an assumption applied also to the Thyrsians as a subspecies.

Society and culture
The Thyrsians were a diametrical contrast to the rest of the Echani: dominated by men, prefering heavy armor, relying on bladed weapons instead of unarmed combat and drawing spiritual lore from the sun rather than the moon.

In at least one way, though the Thyrsians retained a traditional element of Echani arts: the uncanny ability to read the body language of others and to predict their next move.

More than hundred years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, Thyrsians became fixated on Force lore, particularly the prophecy that the galaxy's savior would be known as "the son of suns". The Order of the Sith Lords, still in hiding after the Battle of Ruusan, exploited the Thyrsian belief that the Sith were the subjects of this prophecy and encouraged the Sun Guards to follow Sith interpretations of Jedi orthodoxy, emerging as a Sith cult.

Darth Sidious later employed its members as mercenaries and assassins, ordered Asajj Ventress to crush them, whereupon the few survivors were considered for cloning templates, Emperor's Royal Guard and the Shadow Guard.