#killik

☕️ Reward Refined Sketch – Admiral Thuavein for @sandstone2223

There are spirits in everything, but these are some of the major ones. Anything based on Star Wars canon will be marked by an asterisk (*).

Masterlist

Ka: Spirit of the mountains, it looks like a snow leopard because the mountains are beautiful and graceful, but dangerous in ways you can't always see. Kathou* is the spirit of the mountain with the same name and the patron spirit of Aldera*.

Siw: Spirit of glaciers. It takes the form of a vorn tiger*, usually only worshiped by people who live near glaciers or study them, sometimes also people who live in glacier valleys.

Utouaa: Spirit of dangerous snowstorms, takes the form of a white manka-cat*, worshipped by just about every practitioner in a snowable area

Karish: Spirit of the sun, takes the form of a snow owl, elder sister of Ka, worshipped by most practitioners (unless they're trying to be edgy)

Saba: Spirits of thickets and saplings. It takes the form of a small, white bird

Kolkar: Spirit of medium-sized trees. It takes the form of a gorak*

Alftoa: Spirit of large trees. It takes the form of a large black bird

Oro: Spirit of grandmother stumps. It takes the form of an Orobird*, not widely worshiped, but commonly appreciated, patron spirit of orphanages

Breema: Spirit of lakes, takes the form of a giant tadpole, will sometimes lure bad people into the rocks with their siren song during misty mornings, but is generally good natured, widely used as a good luck charm, even outside of practitioners

Liibichii: Spirit of streams and rivers, no concrete form but is kind of thought of as the hivemind of the glimmerfish*, particularly associated with snowmelt floods

Unediin: The spirit of the ocean, looks like a squid but with snakes instead of tentacles, fisherman give it offerings of fruit in exchange for their safety at sea, and pissing it off could result in a tsunami

Sargaam: Spirit of Summer and grapes, takes the form of a giant wooly moth, widely worshiped by people in ag careers

Walking Barnacles: Evil spirits of the ocean, feared by fisherman, bad luck to eat anything with walking barnacles as they could be a sign of infection

Diit: Spirits of beaches, lagoons, sandbars, and other shallow ocean waters. It takes the form of a sea-mouse, mostly worshiped by children near the coasts

Saihaam: Spirit of volcanoes. It takes the form of a giant ash-bat, practitioners near volcanoes do just about anything they can to appease it

Muur: Spirit of caves, takes the form of a giant rat, will drag naughty children into caves but can also show miners to valuable minerals

Baamda: Spirit of the plains. It takes the form of a wolf-cat*

Bolda: Spirit of tornadoes, takes the form of a bolraida*, not actually widely worshiped, mostly acknowledged and promptly ignored

Killik*: Giant spirits of the foothills

Elai: Spirit of flowers/spring, takes the form of a white skin-bat which were not discovered until just before Alderaan's destruction, presumably seen by an early Alderaanian and then hardly ever seen again

Beach Snails*: Deceased spirits of fish who got too adventurous

Akadou: Spirit of the wind and sky, takes the form of a giant thranta*, king of the sky, regarded as cousins of the purgil* who are worshiped by spacefarers

Gonahou: Anteater looking spirit of storms

Flare-Wings*: Servants of Gonahu who follow it around after a rainstorm to make rainbows

Thinking about this line of Cara’s, because I have subtitles on when I work on ACCPOV and noticed they chose to emphasize the word “joiner” as above.  Now it could just be a choice to visually show emphasis, BUT I also play Star Wars The Old Republic, so it made me think of Killik Joiners.

On Alderaan there is an insectoid species called Killiks who are capable of “joining” others to their hive mind by using pheromones to alter the corpus callosum.  The victim does not have to be willing for this to occur either.  The Alderaanians had no qualms about fighting against the Killiks when needed to protect themselves.  A quick Wookieepedia check seems to say they were extinct by Cara’s time (about 3000 years after SWTOR), but somehow I doubt that “terrifying giant bugs that will mindwipe you” left the collective Alderaanian consciousness, or only survived via moss paintings like Killik Twilight.  Maybe little Cara was terrorized by an older friend or cousin the way kids do by tales of the scary giant insects that come in the night, snatch up misbehaving children, and force them to join their hive.

That makes me wonder if “joining” has certain connotations for Alderaanians in certain contexts.  In the scene where Cara says she’s “not a joiner” she doesn’t seem to have a very positive view of rejoining New Republic forces.  So maybe it’s not just “I don’t want to join” but “I don’t want to join because I feel I would just be a drone in a hive/a cog in a machine, instead of the real good I’ve been doing here on Nevarro with Greef as an independent thinker/valued teammate.”  Adds an interesting flavor to it and makes me want to know even more what made her change her mind?  Because a few episodes later she has joined the New Republic.  (Even if she drops that immediately as soon as Din asks lol.)

The Castle Lands were a region on Alderaan defined by the strange hive mounds left there by the mysterious Killik species. In ancient times, the insectoid species lived on Alderaan, building a series of interconnected mounds before vanishing from the planet.

Source: The Illustrated Star Wars Universe (Art: Ralph McQuarrie; 1995)