Rancor/Legends

Rancors were five to ten-meter tall reptomammals which originated on the planet of Dathomir. Although found on other worlds such as Ottetha, Corulag, and Rakata Prime (where they were brought on crashed starships), those from Dathomir were said to be stronger and more intelligent than others.



Warm-blooded, rancors fall into the reptomammal category, along with other creatures such as the wampa. It is known that while rancors did care for their young–born usually as twins–they did not suckle. The young rode the mother, one on her back, one on her stomach, until reaching maturity. Rancors walked on two small, stubby legs, with abnormally long arms for catching prey. A rancor's flat face was dominated by a large mouth full of razor sharp teeth. The skin of a rancor was tough enough to deflect blaster bolts, making it an efficient killing machine–and an excellent source of leather for expensive vests and boots. At least on Dathomir, rancors had good night-vision, but their eyesight was not as sharp as a human's in daylight.

Dathomir
Though they were usually considered unintelligent beasts, the rancors of Dathomir at least were semi-sentient, caring creatures who mourned their family members when they died, and who passed on oral histories of the matriarchal herds into which these were organized. Their native way of life seems to have been very primitive, using their strength and size to hunt live prey across the planet's savannas&mdash;with the planet's human population at one point becoming their primary prey species: but in the last centuries of the Old Republic, the rancor was "domesticated" by the Witches of Dathomir, though Force-sensitivity was apparently necessary to accomplish the difficult task, and the symbiosis of rancor sow and female mahout seems to have played a major role in dictating the subsequent structure of Dathomiri society. According to the rancors' own traditions, the symbiosis began when a warrior-woman met and healed an injured female; by mounting the rancor's back, her sharper eyesight enabled it to hunt better prey during the day, so that it grew in size and status to become a mighty herd-mother.

By the time of the New Republic, most of Dathimir's rancor population lived in symbiosis with the planet's human clans, being used as mounts, and learning to make and use armor and bladed weapons with the help of the Witches. In the first years of the New Republic, Tosh the herd leader of the Singing Mountain Clan's rancors, learned to read and write, and began to pass on this skill to other rancors in her group.

Around the years of the Galactic Empire, the last herds of untamed mountain rancors were driven into the plains and destroyed; but a few decades later, a wild herd wandered into the Great Canyon, indicating that a population had survived in the vast tracts of Dathomir's surface area that remained unexplored, beyond the knowledge of the planet's human population.

The Wider Galaxy


The rancor was relatively well-known in the wider Galaxy, having spread through the Galaxy with early spacefaring civilizations even before the rise of the Old Republic; but the rancor's homeworld had been forgotten, and its sapience was rarely recognized. Offworld breeds were generally smaller and perhaps less intelligent than those of Dathomir, and had evolved into distinct species, such as the amphibious Tra'cor of Socorro.

On a few worlds like Ottetha, rancors were used as mounts by warrior clans as they were on Dathomir, and herds of young rancors roamed wild on Rakata Prime, descended from brought by the Infinite Empire; but rancors were perhaps most closely associated with the criminal underworld, where individual creatures were kept as pets, guards and status-symbol. Perhaps the most famous such rancor was the one owned Jabba the Hutt, who kept it in a pit beneath his palace courts, dropping victims who displeased him in some way in to feed it.

While stranded on Taris, the reformed Revan had to get past a rancor in order to infiltrate the Black Vulkar base. He did this by placing a synthetic odor that made the rancor think that its prey was nearby within a corpse pile, where he had placed a grenade. The rancor, grabbing what it thought was food, ate the grenade, which exploded in its mouth and killed the beast. Rancors were occasionally used for gambling matches, pitting one beast against another or unleashing one upon slaves and seeing which one survived the longest. One such gambling ring existed on Nar Kreeta.

The Galactic Empire attempted to exploit the combat potential of the rancor&mdash;perhaps not a great surprise given that a fully grown Dathomiri rancor was capable of single-handedly destroying an entire AT-ST unit. The reborn Emperor Palpatine also kept several alchemically altered Chrysalide rancors at his Citadel on Byss, and Imperial scientists also developed a mutant rancor which could spew out toxic fumes that would kill a human instantly, although its existence was ended by Jedi Knight Jaden Korr during a mission to Taanab.

Prior to the rise of the the Empire, the Jedi Order named the Form VI: Niman style of lightsaber combat after the rancor.

Planets on which rancors were found

 * Byss
 * Carida
 * Corulag
 * Dathomir (Planet of origin)
 * Nar Kreeta
 * Ottetha
 * Rakata Prime
 * Taanab
 * Taris
 * Tatooine
 * Ohma-D'un

Sound
[[Media:Rancor_roar_02.ogg|Hear a rancor]]

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * The Gungan Frontier
 * Star Wars Republic: Infinity's End
 * Star Wars: Zam Wesell
 * Star Wars Republic: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * The Princess Leia Diaries
 * Star Wars: Battlefront
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II
 * Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
 * Star Wars: Empire at War
 * Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Cracken's Threat Dossier
 * The Courtship of Princess Leia
 * Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
 * Dark Empire II
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 * Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
 * Force Heretic III: Reunion
 * Betrayal
 * The Wildlife of Star Wars: A Field Guide
 * Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds