Night of Sorrow

In 382 BBY, the planets Eiram and E'ronoh held a summit on the holy moon Jedha to sign a peace treaty and end the years long war that had been raging between their planets. At the same time, the Path of the Open Hand cult, who hated Jedi and Force-sensitives began machinations to exacerbate the conflict and tensions that had been rising on the moon once known as a monolith of peace. Their leader, The Mother, through Tilson Graf of the Graf family, had the Brotherhood of the Ninth Door conduct a series of bombings and attacks. Beyond Graf giving the forces of Eiram enforcer droids, Graf also supplied the Mother with a shipment of enforcer droids. Meanwhile, the Path's other leader, the Herald petitioned the Convocation of the Force, a council of Force-affiliated groups, for the council's disbandment and for all use of the Force to be banned.

After their petition was rejected, the Herald incited a riot in the Square of the Supplicants outside the Convocation Chambers against the Convocation, the Jedi, and Force-sensitives in general. This was exacerbated by him having Path member Yana Ro send the Path's living weapon named the Leveler into the crowd using the Force artifact known as the Rod of Seasons. The Leveler affected the Force-sensitives in the crowd, causing them to hallucinate and lash out. Jedi Master Silandra Sho was affected by the creature in the riot, and noticed that she had felt the same feeling when she had visited the Path's healing house on Jedha earlier. The riot eventually made its way to the Second Spire, where the summit was being held, which along with a well-timed attack by the Brotherhood caused the forces of Eiram and E'ronoh to begin fighting each other. This quickly erupted into a large scale battle in the streets of Jedha's Holy City.

In the aftermath, the Herald was arrested and the Mother claimed that he had acted alone and did not represent the Path. She and the rest of the cult then left Jedha in their flagship, the Gaze Electric, and returned to their compound on their planet of origin, Dalna. However, the battle had also in part been a ruse by the Path and the Herald to steal the Rod of Daybreak, which could combine with Rod of Seasons and allow them to control the Leveler to greater degree. They were successful, but when the Herald was arrested the Rod of Daybreak was also taken. Utilizing an operative the Path had within the Temple of the Kyber, Archvist Feric Oranalli, Yana Ro stole back the Rod of Daybreak for the Mother and freed the Herald from prison.

After the Battle of Jedha, many different contingents of Jedi traveled to Dalna to investigate the Path at their compound. Jedi Master Creighton Sun and Jedi Knight Aida Forte, who had been on the ground on Jedha during the battle, traveled to Coruscant and received permission from Grand Master Yoda and Supreme Chancellor Kyong Greylark to investigate the Path of the Open Hand due to their suspicions and concerns about them initiating the Battle of Jedha. They were also particularly curious about the weapon that Master Sho had encountered that the Path seemed to be in possession of. When they arrived in the system, they were joined by Jedi Master Yaddle, who had misunderstood directions from Yoda due to poor connection and thus joined Sun and Forte for their mission. Yaddle was accompanied by Cippa Tarko, a Jedi Initiate who she was tutoring. Chancellor Greylark also sent two of her guards with them, Lu Sweet and Priv Ittik.

After Yaddle procured Path disguises for all of them on the planet, Creighton and Aida traveled into the caves of the compound to investigate while Yaddle and Cippa investigated the buildings on the surface. Creighton and Aida stumbled upon a Teevan man seemingly being fed to a creature, and in turn were overcome with awful visions and inescapable fear. The man's body was thrown in a room where they were hiding, which quickly turned to dust. They also discovered that the Path had large stockpiles of klytobacter, a bioweapon that could be used to devastate the planet Eiram. Meanwhile, Yaddle and Tarko discovered that the elderly were staying above ground in their homes while the rest of the Path retreated underground. They also had an experience where a Path member attempted to urge Tarko to fight, demonstrating their radicalization of their children. After returning to their ship, they found that Sweet and Ittik had been attacked by Path members, and Yaddle fought them back.

After hearing of the Battle of Jedha, Jedi Wayseeker Gella Nattai and Jedi Master Orin Darhga traveled to a Republic Correctional Facility on the planet Pipyyr to speak with prisoner, criminal, and son of Chancellor Greylark Axel Greylark. Nattai had long suspected that Greylark, who had been arrested for sabotaging peace negotiations between Eiram and E'ronoh by means of espionage, murder, and terrorism, had been working for the Path of the Open Hand and the Mother. When they interrogated him, however, Greylark did not seem to have any knowledge of what had happened on Jedha, but seemingly confirmed he had been working for the Path. After Greylark seemed to fall ill, Nattai and Dargha stayed on Pipyyr for days until the warden, Zoleh Prin, received a message seemingly from Chancellors Greylark and Mollo ordering Axel Greylark's transfer to a different facility.

Nattai, who cared for Greylark and was concerned that the atmosphere of Pipyyr was making him ill, agreed to perform the transfer themselves. She and Dargha left with Greylark in her ship, the Eventide which had once been Greylark's. However, the message from the Chancellors had been fabricated by the Path, and a group of pirates working with the Path and lead by Greylark's friend Binnot Ullo attacked the ship. They successfully liberated Greylark, who went with them willingly. They also stole one of Nattai's lightsabers. After utilizing the help of a Republic Pathfinder team to fake their deaths, Nattai and Dargha, following Nattai's lightsaber's crystal in the Force, tracked Ullo and Greylark to Jedha. There, they stowed away on the Path members' ship among crates that appeared to be filled with grain.

The ship traveled to Dalna, where Nattai and Dargha attempted to locate, get through to, and stop Greylark in a building called . However, they were discovered by Ullo, who killed Dargha with a poison glove and locked Nattai up underground.

Jedi Knight Oliviah Zeveron had been stationed on Jedha during the battle and had briefly encountered the Mother during it, which poked at her memories and stirred a bad feeling in her. After the Convocation of the Force received a formal recorded apology from the Mother for the Herald's actions and one million zukkels from her and the Path. Zeveron brought her concerns about the Path after everything they had done in the battle, and relayed the bad feeling she had about the Mother, to Convocation members Tey Sirrek and Jedi Vildar Mac. They all decided to use Zeveron's planned return to Coruscant for additional treatments for the injuries she had received during the battle as a cover for her going on a secret off-the-record investigative mission. Mac also sent his Padawan, Matthea Cathley, with Zeveron.

Once on Dalna, Zeveron and Cathley met with Athul Taran, a Gormak who disliked the Path as many Dalnans had started to, and Xander Cran, a member of the Path. They learned from the two that two Jedi, a master and an apprentice, had come to Dalna in search of something and had ended up helping the Path when their compound flooded. Taran also expressed his concern at the large shipments of grain that the Path was receiving which he thought was unusual, though Cran insisted that they just needed food because their crops were spoiled. The two Jedi then snuck onto one of the carts carrying the grain and watched as it was deposited down a hidden lift in a barn at the Path compound.

The area of the compound they arrived at then appeared to be completely abandoned, until they found Zeltron journalist Ric Farazi in one of the huts, who was investigating the Path and explained her belief that the Mother was using the Path as a cover for a black market operation of antiquities and treasures. Three Path children, Tromak, Naddie, and Boolan then appeared at Farazi's door. The Jedi tried to speak with them, but they saw Farazi collapse from an illness she was dealing with and ran through the compound claiming that the Jedi were killing her. As members of the Path arrived and berated them, so did the Mother with the Leveler, the creature causing the Jedi to feel sick. Though the Mother wanted to bring the Jedi and Farazi down to the caves, a Path member named Yana Ro stepped in and offered to take them to a doctor named Nindle in the city Ferdan.

With Cathley and Zeveron still reeling from the encounter with the Leveler, and Cathley believing Zeveron was hiding something about the Mother from her, they brought Farazi before Nindle, who said that they had seen another case of the same ailment that day and believed Farazi had been poisoned. Suspecting the Path, Cathley went to track down Ro and found the woman speaking with the Herald. After hearing Ro and the Herald speak about exposing the Mother to the Path's elders, Cathley's comm went off, revealing her presence. Cathley disarmed and took down both of them. Ro and the Herald revealed that the Mother was a much greater threat than them and that they were investigating her too, Cathley agreeing to a tentative alliance with them to take her down together.

Cathley brought the two back to Nindle's and explained what was going on to Zeveron. Ro explained that the Mother had sent the Children of the Open Hand out to steal weapons but when she no longer thought they were useful had killed them all, including the Herald's daughter Kor Plouth, except for Ro, who had survived. They corroborated each other's stories that the Mother was then selling the artifacts as part of a smuggling ring. Nindle and the Jedi then revealed their belief that the Mother was poisoning the people of Dalna via a food kitchen in Ferdan. The Jedi hoped to confront the Mother and get her to stand down while Ro and the Herald appealed to the Path. Just as Ro was about to explain what the Leveler was, a large Jedi ship landed in the city, causing the Herald to believe that the Jedi had planned this or had been stalling and did not actually want an alliance or peaceful solution.

Not long before the Battle of Jedha, Jedi Knight Azlin Rell had traveled to Dalna to check up on Jedi Master Zallah Macri and her Padawan Kevmo Zink, who had gone to Dalna in search of the Rod of Seasons Force artifact, which they suspected was stolen by the Path. In the caves of the planet, Rell found the remains of the two, who were killed and turned into husks by the Leveler. Terrified, Rell reached out to Jedi Master Rinn, the marshal of the Jedi outpost on Elphrona, and presented him with his findings. Rinn and Rell then personally took the discovery to the Jedi High Council at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. This information, plus worrying rumors they were already hearing about Dalna, contributed to their decision to approve Creighton Sun and Aida Forte's mission to Dalna and investigation of the Path.

However, Jedi Council members Ela Sutan and Gluth Andoi eventually began to feel that the Force was calling them to Dalna personally. They decided to go with a contingent of Jedi including Rinn and Rell. Taking a large ship emblazoned with the Jedi symbol they landed in the Dalnan city Ferdan, thus inadvertently disturbing negotiations between Jedi Zeveron and Cathley with former Path leader the Herald and Yana Ro, the two Path members fleeing. Zeveron and Cathley greeted the council members, before Ferdan Sheriff Jinx Pickwick angrily approached the ship and urged all the Jedi to leave. After everyone finished introducing themselves, the Council members invited everyone aboard their ship to discuss what had been happening. After they assuaged Pickwick's concerns and all explained why they were there, Zeveron and Cathley notably recognizing the dead Jedi from Rell's story as the ones Xander Cran had mentioned to them, they all decided to head into the Path compound peacefully and diplomatically in the hopes of reaching an understanding.

After a ship crashed and caused an explosion on Eirie, the moon between Eiram and E'ronoh, Captain Plana Van of Eiram investigated and discovered that it was carrying a bioweapon called klytobacter, which could destroy and devastate ocean planets like Eiram. Van and her commanding officer Ailee reported this to the Queen of Eiram, Adrialla, who blames E'ronoh. When news arrived that the peace talks on Jedha failed, it compounded with the klytobacter discovery caused both planets to return to a state of war. A clash between starfighters from both worlds destroyed both planets' ability to communicate with the rest of the galaxy. Meanwhile, Jedi Master Char-Ryl-Roy and his Padawan Enya Keen traveled to the Eiram system per Yoda's instructions. They heard of the situation from Chancellor Orlen Mollo on Eiram, deciding to investigate it themselves. Alongside married couple Princess Xiri A'lbaran of E'ronoh and Prince Phan-tu Zenn of Eiram, both of whom did not want the war to continue, the two Jedi went to Eirie to speak with the two people from the crashed ship ship brought into custody by Van: Goi Ganok and Binnot Ullo.

Not believing Binnot and Ganok's story, the four toured them around the waystation on the moon, during which it became clear that the two were weary of the Jedi, before Ganok let it slip that they were from Dalna. Suspecting they were part of the Path of the Open Hand, the Jedi grilled them more until they admitted it, before realizing that the klytobacter was the Path's backup plan for restarting the war. As they returned to their cell, Ullo and Ganok fake da fight and then threw poison they secretly retrieved from their ship on A'lbaran and Zenn when they approached, though Zenn then threw down and seemingly knocked out Ullo. Ganok accidentally exploded a vial of poison all over himself, screaming "Long live the Mother," and "The Force will be free," the Path's creed, as he died. Ullo, who faked being unconscious, tried to stab A'lbaran, but Zenn jumped in front of the blade for her and was stabbed instead. After Ullo claimed that he had planted gaseous canisters of poison all throughout The Rook, E'ronoh's capital city, and said that they would explode if he did not return, they all decided to let him flee.

Recognizing the gravity of the Path's actions, Master Roy and Padawan Keen decided to perform a diplomatic mission to Dalna to investigate and hopefully come to an agreement with the Path, A'lbaran agreeing to go with them to represent Eiram and E'ronoh while Zenn recovers in The Rook. When they arrived above the planet, A'lbaran sent a message to the Path announcing their arrival, receiving a response from Path Elder Yulon Onning, who refused to open a dialogue unless they presented them with a gift. Eventually, Keen offered up her lightsaber's kyber crystal, which Onning accepted, allowing them to land. After they did, Enya gave up her crystal to Onning, and the two Jedi sensed that there might have been other Jedi on Dalna. The Path refusing take them inside the compound to speak, an insulted A'lbaran explained that two individuals associated with the Path had traveled through the Eiram system with a powerful bioweapon. Onning refused to answer any questions about Ullo and Ganok, nor if they suspected sects of the Path perhaps led by the Herald could have done this.

Onning instead became increasingly agitated, especially when he mistook Keen's droid 4VO-TG for an assassin droid, and when Zenn surprisingly commed A'lbaran telling her to watch her back. They all stood up after hearing a sharp cry, which the Path guards took as a threat, pointing their weapons towards them. The scene erupted into chaos as it began to rain, and Roy noticed Path members running in the distance from a cave entrance. A message was then passed to Onning about Jedi in the compound, confusing him. Some of those Jedi were Forte and Master Sun, who in an attempt to flee from the Path's caves caught the attention of the Path and were forced to fight them. Sun and Forte then deliberately caused a massive explosion that sent many Path members flying and allowed to escape, which Roy, Keen, and A'lbaran saw, before also spotting Sun and Forte emerging from the cave entrance. Onning decided that the Jedi were conducting an ambush and ordered his guards to kill them.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Jedha, Marda Ro, Yana Ro's cousin and a member of the Path who served as their Guide, was blamed for the Path's losses and failures on Jedha because she had initially led them there. She found comfort and support in Bokana Koss, a member of the Path whose life she had saved during the battle using Kevmo Zink's lightsaber, which she had kept after the Padawan was killed by the Leveler. She developed romantic feelings for Koss, but lamented seemingly falling out of favor with the Mother. Wanting to prove herself, Ro joined a mission ordered by Zeveron and conducted by Prospector Radicaz Dobbs, though she was not sanctioned to do so. The mission was to travel to the mysterious Planet X, where Dobbs had originally found the Leveler's egg, and retrieve more of the Nameless. Koss joined her on the journey aboard Dobbs's ship the Scupper, and the two became a romantic couple on the journey.

After the Scupper navigated through the The Veil, the planet's living defensive atmospheric layer that destroyed one of the other two ships accompanying them, it crash landed on the surface of the planet. Ro went with Koss and the others to the planet's cave. They all quickly realized that the planet was a paradise and that seemingly every part of it was alive in some way. The Force also seemed to be incredibly strong there, with Path member Shea Ganandra even developing Force powers and using them to repair the Silverstreak, a ship left behind by Dobbs the last time he visited. As they journeyed deep into the caves, Koss also seemed to develop Force-sensitivity and used it to lead them to where the eggs were. This unnerved Ro greatly because of her belief in the Path's teaching that using the Force was wrong. Ro and the others eventually made it to the eggs and began loading them up on Repulsorcarts to take back to the ship. However, Koss then sensed another creature in the Force that he called the Under-Dweller, which emerged from a deeper part of the caves and began to pursue them.

Because the creature was slow to traverse through the caves, vines in the cavern seemed to be actively and consciously holding it back, and it did not like the sunlight when it reached the surface, Ro and the others were able to bring back many eggs to the Silverstreak before it could reach them. The Under-Dweller was then attacked and stopped by another being Koss called the protector, but as they started to leave in the Silverstreak the beast seemingly became enraged by them taking the eggs and grabbed onto and attacked the ship. Koss fought back against the creature, eventually sacrificing his life to knock it off the ship and back to the surface. Ro was left heartbroken and blamed his death on his use of the Force, becoming even more convinced that using it was evil and that the Jedi needed to be taken down and stopped.

Back on Dalna, the Mother, with the Leveler at her side and the complete Rod of Power in her possession, stood with Ro in front of the entire Path gathered in a cavern beneath the Path compound. The Herald then suddenly reappeared, declaring that the Jedi were there and coming after them and making a play for control of the Path. As the infighting between the Mother and the Herald quickly reached a boiling point, Ro screamed "silence" and rose Zink's saber in the air. She said that infighting was what the Jedi wanted and declared that if the Jedi were there on Dalna that it was their chance to act as true liberators of the Force and defeat them. Declaring that the Jedi would pay the price for not listening to their warnings or doing what they said, Ro declared that the Path would become the Path of the Closed Fist and would take the Jedi down. The entire cavern then chanted in allegiance and support to Ro, and both the Herald and the Mother stood behind and supported her. Her cousin Yana attempted to stop her, warning her that there would be a bloodbath and that the Mother and the Herald were using her, but Marda just cut off her hand with Zink's lightsaber and abandoned Yana, rejoining the others in front of the crowd where the Nameless eggs were displayed. Claiming the Rod of Power from the Mother, she activated it and raised it above her head, causing the eggs to hatch.

As the Path attacked the diplomatic group from Eiram and E'ronoh, Master Roy ordered Padawan Keen to protect Princess A'lbaran and get to their ship, the Andesine as they both furiously defended against the Path guards, who wielded pikes and knives. As more Path members emerged from beneath the surface of the world, Roy, Keen, and A'lbaran met up with Master Sun and Jedi Forte, both groups explaining why they were there. After Sun and Forte revealed they discovered klytobacter and a powerful monster in the compound, the group began to suspect the Path was planning to escalate the fight into a war against the Jedi and decided to flee.

Meanwhile, Master Ela Sutan and her group wandered through the surface of the Path compound, discovering it to be empty and sensing no one with the Force. Sutan yelled to announce who they were and what they wanted, but Path members, who were watching them via cameras, were ordered by the Mother to activate the trap waiting for the Jedi in the compound: enforcer droids. Though the droids emerged from the ground all around them and surrounded them, the Jedi pressed on, making their way forward to enter the caves. Seeing this, Marda Ro decided to send the Leveler and its brethren out into the caves to hunt the Jedi. Knowing her cousin was fleeing and now believing her to be in league with the Jedi, Marda also decided to pursue her.

As Roy and his group pressed on, Sun expressed his wish to warn Master Yaddle and Cippa Tarko about what was happening, but knew they would have to reach them in person because comms were down. Before the group could get near the ship, enforcer droids rose out of the fields and marched toward them. More Path members arrived as well, blocking their way to the Andesine and forcing the Jedi and A'lbaran to physically take them down while deflecting the droids' blaster bolts. A Path member nearly killed A'lbaran, but she was saved by Prince Zenn, who revealed he stowed away in the Andesine. As the Jedi, wielding their lightsabers, finally took down enough Path members to reach the Andesine, the Path fired ground missiles into it, destroying it. Sun decided that they should flee to locate Yaddle and use his and Forte's ship the Lazuli to escape, all knowing that staying trapped on Dalna could doom them.

After defeating the Path members already at the Lazuli, Yaddle and the Chancellor's guards readied to defend against Path members. Eventually spotting the group of Jedi running toward them, Yaddle instructed the guards to use the ship's guns to take down people attacking them. When the group arrived and they tried to flee, the Lazuli was attacked by a Path ship, though still managed to fly. Sun tried to send a message out requesting help, only receiving a response from Master Sutan, who had made it into the caves of the compound with her group and was fighting the Path there. After Sutan said that she could not help them, Sun sent the message out again. Knowing the Lazuli was damaged and failing, Yaddle tried to spot her ship, but soon saw it get destroyed. Realizing that they were going to crash with no way out in the heart of the Path compound, Yaddle ordered them to immediately start fighting and to split up when they crashed so that they could not be pinned in and overwhelmed. The ship then crashed and they split into groups of two consisting of Yaddle and Tarko, Sun and Forte, Roy and Keen, and A'lbaran and Zenn.

Over the following century, the Dalnans constantly trained for war.

The Night of Sorrow was created for the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project. It was first directly mentioned in the 2021 young-adult novel The High Republic: Out of the Shadows, written by Justina Ireland, where it was identified as the massacre on Dalna. It was later identified as the Night of Sorrow in the 2022 junior novel The High Republic: Mission to Disaster, also written by Ireland. It first appeared in the 2023 novel The High Republic: Cataclysm by Lydia Kang.

• "Launchpad" — Star Wars Insider 213
• Star Wars: The High Republic: Chronicles of the Jedi
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• "Star Wars: The High Republic Companion — Phase II: Quest Of The Jedi" — Star Wars Insider 221
• Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia
• "Who's the Boss?" — Star Wars Insider 224