Silooth/Legends

Silooth
Biological classification
Designation	Non-sentient
Classification	Beetle
Physical characteristics
Skin color	Brown carapace
Distinctions	Chitin-plated armor Large mandibles

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"The silooth are mutated from beetles. Long ago, the Sith scattered them across the world of Kalsunor. The click of their mandible became a dire drumbeat. These tank-sized scavengers can still be found on the planet, melting its ruined cities with sprays of acid. The Sith keep swarms of them in reserve for another campaign."

―Sorzus Syn, Chronicle of Sorzus Syn

The silooth was a large Sithspawn beetle bred by the Sith Empire for use as a warbeast. Silooths were ferocious creatures, which would relentlessly attack anyone or anything that strayed into the paths, spraying acid and using their powerful mandibles to crush their victims. The only deployment of the silooths in combat en masse was during the Battle of Kalsunor, when the Sith released the creatures on the planet Kalsunor and subsequently laid waste to the world. Afterward, the Sith continued to use the beetles on a smaller scale, and descendants of silooths transported to Kalsunor continued to inhabit the world thousands of years later.

Biology and appearance

The silooth was a large, armored Sithspawn beetle that was bred by the Sith Empire, an interstellar fiefdom located within the Stygian Caldera. In their natural state, the silooth were no bigger than a womp rat, but as a result of their mutation via Sith alchemy, they were enlarged to the size of a bantha, a common desert herd beast. A silooth had six legs and the body of the creature was covered in a set of brown-colored segmented chitin plates that served as a form of armor and which were artificially thickened by the manipulations of the Sith. The carapace was covered by a set of chitinous points and the creature's head was situated at the front of the carapace, which featured 2 yellow eyes and a large jaw containing a set of yellowish, jagged teeth, with mandibles strong enough to crush most sentient beings.

The silooth was adapted for battle and each leg of the creature ended in a set of razor-sharp claws. The beetle was also capable of spewing acid from its mouth, spraying the substance at targets up to 10 meters away. The acid was produced by a series of sacs contained within the creature's maw; when the creature felt enraged or threatened, the silooth would flex its muscles to empty the contents of two internal sacs containing inert liquids into a third sac where the two liquids would combine to form a powerful acid. The third sac then contracted to spray the acid, and the beetle then could not spew the substance again for a short time until the sacs re-fueled. While they possessed excellent low-light vision, a silooth was not capable of seeing further than 10 meters in front of itself, even during daytime.

Behavior

A Silooth

The Silooth were non-sentient creatures. Though in their natural state they were docile swamp beetles, the silooth were altered by the Sith to make them predatory and ferocious, with their rage fueled by the dark side of the Force. A silooth would relentlessly attack anyone and anything that crossed its path and would not stop until whatever it was that had disturbed it was dead or destroyed. The creatures clacked their mandibles loudly before attacking and commonly fought by spraying acid and crushing enemies with their jaws. Silooth were difficult to control and even their Sith creators found it hard to restrain the giant beetles.

History

"During the same war that birthed the silooth, the Sith introduced the warbird and the war behemoth."

―Sorzus Syn, Chronicle of Sorzus Syn

Created from a smaller species of beetle via the means of Sith alchemy, the silooth were bred by the Kissai Ninûshwodzakut—a group of Sith tasked with the creation of warbeasts—for use during a conflict in which the Empire had became embroiled. The silooth subsequently received their combat debut during Battle of Kalsunor, when they were released en-mass on the planet Kalsunor, to breech the defenses of the world's cities and to wreak havoc and destruction. The plan was a success, with the silooth causing chaos and laying waste to the planet, allowing a force of Sith warriors sent in behind them to bring the battle to a conclusion and complete the victory for the Sith. However, in the aftermath of the battle the Sith forces struggled to control the marauding silooth and the Sith abandoned the world, leaving the beetles behind.

By the time of the arrival of the Dark Jedi Exiles to the Empire in around 6900 BBY, swarms of silooth were held in reserve by the Sith, in case they were needed during a future conflict, and the creatures were mentioned by the Dark Jedi alchemist Sorzus Syn in her chronicle of her encounters with the Sith. However, the creatures ultimately ceased to see mainstream use by the Sith military and the Battle of Kalsunor remained their only mass deployment. Records of the secret of silooth manipulation were kept within certain Sith holocrons and for the remainder of the history of the Sith Empire, it was not uncommon for one or two silooth to be in existence at any one time.

Silooths in the galaxy

An army of silooth was left behind on the planet Kalsunor following the battle on the world and for millennia afterward their descendants continued to prey upon whatever other creatures and beings they encountered on the world. Kalsunor was not on the databases of the Galactic Republic and exact location of the planet was unknown to the majority of the population of the galaxy, though rumors circulated among fringers of a world overrun by creatures that matched the description of the silooth. During the reign of the Galactic Empire, a Star Destroyer named Silooth saw service within the Imperial Navy, under the command of Grand Admiral Peccati Syn.

Behind the scenes

The silooth was first mentioned in the 2001 roleplaying supplement The Dark Side Sourcebook, by Bill Slavicsek and J.D. Wiker, and it later received an entry within the compendium The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia in 2008. The creature was subsequently expanded upon in the 2009 sourcebook the Jedi Academy Training Manual, which became the first source to visual depict the beetle, in an image by the artist Adam Gillespie, and the following year, the creature was mentioned in the reference book Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side.

The silooth was originally set to be mentioned within the 2003 Star Wars Insider article Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals by Abel G. Peña and Daniel Wallace, however the article was condensed prior to publication and the reference to the silooth did not make the final cut. In the original draft of the article, it was revealed that Grand Admiral Syn symbolically named his flagship after the silooth following his conversion to the Church of the Dark Side—a phoney religion established shortly after the Battle of Endor, in honor of his new faith. The naming of Syn's Star Destroyer as the Silooth was later canonized by the 2012 reference work The Essential Guide to Warfare.

A conflict exists regarding the number of limbs that the silooth possessed and while The Dark Side Sourcebook states that the creatures had eight legs, the images of silooths that appear in the Jedi Academy Training Manual and Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side depict them as having just six. This article assumes that the beetles had six legs, because the latter two sources are the most recently published of the three books.

Sources

• The Dark Side Sourcebook (First mentioned)
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Jedi Academy Training Manual (First pictured)
• Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side

Notes and references

In other languages

• Deutsch