The Guardians of the Breath, also known as the Kashi Mer Mystics, was an organization of Force-users hailing from the planet Kashi. Possessing a strong connection to the Living Force, they used the Force—known as "the Breath" to the Kashi Mer culture which they served—to aid with growing crops and healing the sick and injured. At some point by 24,500 BBY, the Kashi system was destroyed by a supernova; however, the Guardians survived the disaster, albeit with its members becoming scattered. The organization was still in existence by 990 BBY when it was briefly described in the Jedi trainee guidebook The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force.
The Guardians of the Breath served the Kashi Mer culture of the planet Kashi.
The Guardians of the Breath, also known as the Kashi Mer Mystics, was an organization of Force-users. They drew upon the Force, which was known as "the Breath" to the Kashi Mer culture, to cause significant surges in the cell growth of plants and animals. The Guardians in turn used such effects to provide aid with the growing of crops and the healing of sick and injured individuals. In addition, the group known as the Guardian Elders interpreted visions received via the Breath to inform the Kashi Mer civilization on the path that it should follow. The Guardians also maintained the lore of the Breath as well as its usage methods, passing the knowledge down by oral tradition as recording it in any format was considered to be blasphemous.
Tens of thousands of Kashi Mer, who worshipped the Breath for its life-giving power, applied annually for membership in the hierarchy of the Guardians of the Breath; however, despite the fact that many members of the culture in general possessed the innate ability to access the Breath, frequently less than a handful of the applicants had that ability. The Guardian initiates then progressed through several levels of Attainment and learning about the lore of the Breath and the powers it granted. As most Guardians eventually discovered a limit to their understanding and control over the Breath, fewer and fewer candidates remained at each stage of advancement through the organization's structure. In general, however, the members of the tradition exhibited a strong attunement to the Force aspect known as the Living Force. At least one Guardian of the Breath was Human, and they wore a dark-gray robe with a hood as well as a piece of red-and-gold fabric across their left shoulder.
Over the centuries of their existence, the Guardians of the Breath exiled several members, sentencing them to wandering the galaxy worldless for the rest of their lives. Some of the exiles began using the Breath for self-gain and the destruction of other individuals, and travelers who had encountered such former Guardians subsequently tended to avoid meeting any members of the tradition whatsoever.
The Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn was fascinated by the description of the Force abilities of the Guardians of the Breath.
The Guardians of the Breath hailed from the planet Kashi, originating with its millennia-old Kashi Mer culture. After the organization had existed for years, its members became scattered at some point by 24,500 BBY when the Kashi system was suddenly destroyed by an inexplicable supernova that largely rendered the Kashi Mer extinct.
The Guardians still existed by 990 BBY, when the Jedi Chief Librarian Restelly Quist briefly mentioned them in a section of the Jedi trainee guidebook The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force focusing on Force-using traditions other than those of the Jedi and their antithesis, the Sith. In the passage, Quist characterized the Guardians' connection to the Living Force as a blessing. At some point between 82 BBY and 72 BBY, in his copy of book, the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn—who eventually himself developed a strong attunement to the Living Force—underlined Quist's description of the Guardians' Force abilities and noted in an annotation his fascination with them.
The Guardians of the Breath were introduced in the Tales of the Jedi Companion.
The Guardians of the Breath were first mentioned in the 1996 roleplaying game sourcebook Tales of the Jedi Companion, written by George R. Strayton and published by West End Games for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The 2009 reference book The Essential Atlas, authored by Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, introduced the alternate name "Kashi Mer Mystics" for the organization.
The Tales of the Jedi Companion introduces a contradiction regarding the dating of the Kashi system's destruction—and therefore the fragmentation of the Guardians of the Breath—with Strayton's earlier work, the roleplaying adventure "Relic," which was published in the May 1995 sixth issue of the Star Wars Adventure Journal magazine. Set approximately 4,000 years before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, the former work presents information on the Kashi system, including a description of the Guardians' activities therein, as if it still existed at that time. This conflicts with "Relic" stating that the system had been destroyed shortly after the formation of the Galactic Republic—an event that had already been established by 1996 to have occurred around twenty-five millennia before the events of A New Hope. This article therefore assumes that the information from the Tales of the Jedi Companion regarding the Kashi system instead applies to the time period preceding its destruction.
- Tales of the Jedi Companion
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Atlas
- The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force