Jelph Marrian

"It's a shame there isn't some kind of path for you to get back in.''" "I never was'' in, and what would I do in Tahv? I'd hardly fit in with your beautiful people."

- Orielle Kitai and Jelph Marrian

Jelph Marrian was a Human male Jedi Knight who served in the Jedi Covenant as a Shadow, an agent whose records of existence had been erased and was notably familiar with the planet Taris.

Biography
After the end of the Great Sith War&mdash;a war fought between the Galactic Republic and the Sith&mdash;in 3,996 BBY, the male Human Jelph Marrian was born on Toprawa where, upon seeing the devastation the Sith had brought to his homeworld, he devoted his life to preventing the Sith from returning. He became a Knight of the Jedi Order but was dismissed after alienating the Jedi Council. In 3,967 BBY, Marrian joined a splinter faction of the Order, the Jedi Covenant, which worked towards preventing the return of the Sith. For four years, Marrian worked as a Covenant Shadow and gained a particular knowledge of the planet Taris. However, in 3,963 BBY, the Human learned of the dissolution of the Covenant while on an assignment in a remote region of the galaxy. Afraid that his status within the Jedi Order was in doubt, Marrian fled to the Unknown Regions in his Aurek-class tactical strikefighter. Arriving at the planet Kesh, the former Covenant Shadow's craft was caught in one of the planet's heavy meteor showers and crashed in a remote jungle on the planet. As the planet's unusual magnetic field made a distress call impossible, Marrian headed to a nearby settlement that he had spotted earlier.

Marrian assumed the persona of a slave and eventually ended up working as a horticulturist on an isolated smallholding by the banks of the Marisota river, from which he took the name of "Jelph of Marisota". He produced fertilized soil from Kesh's black mud, mixed with uvak manure and clay from the river, and would trade it with gardeners of the native Keshiri inhabitants. Aside from the fertilizer, Marrian also cultivated dalsa flowers on hejarbo-shoot trellises behind his house. Eight months and one day before Donellan's Day in 3,960 BBY, a Sith Saber of the historically-immigrant Lost Tribe of Sith, Orielle Kitai, was indirectly led to Marrian after stalking a Keshiri florist whom she suspected had lied about the authenticity of their stock. The florist met with Marrian to collect some of the horticulturist's fertilizer, a transaction that Kitai oversaw and that led her to Marrian. Over the next eight months, the Saber visited Marrian many times to collect flowers for various occasions and, on these visits, built a rapport with the slave. On the day before Donellan's Day, Kitai paid another visit to Marrian to collect dalsa flowers. After the pair discussed the history of Donellan's Day while Marrian had been gathering the flowers, the slave presented Kitai with a gift of a yoke mated to a saddle for an uvak beast of burden. Marrian placed the saddle onto Kitai's uvak and then the flowers into the yoke. Laden with flowers, Kitai bid farewell to Marrian and departed.

Behind the scenes
Jelph Marrian was first mentioned in the twenty-seventh issue of the Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, published in 2008 and written by John Jackson Miller. His first appearance came two years later as one of the main characters of the eBook, Lost Tribe of the Sith: Purgatory, also written by Miller.

On his personal blog, Miller also pointed out that there is a possibility a younger version of Jelph could be seen in a computer shot, next to Celeste Morne in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 25.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 25: Vector, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 27: Vector, Part 3
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Purgatory
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sentinel
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pandemonium