The Tirrith was a unique empathic gaseous sentient creature native to the planet Beheboth. A hive-based culture, the Tirrith was composed of individual energy wisps that shared sensations and intelligence, and could feel what the entire hive felt. Together, Tirrith hives had the ability to alter the composition of Beheboth's atmosphere, creating new weather systems or producing gases that could render other sentients unconscious. The Tirrith was reclusive and pacifistic, and its difficult-to-detect nature meant that it was years before Beheboth's Human settlers discerned the organism's intelligence and ability. However, its unique strengths caused several malefactors to attempt to exploit the Tirrith for their own ends once its power was revealed.
The Tirrith were a gaseous sentient species that lacked any solid physical form, instead appearing as wisps of energy formed into softly glowing green clouds of vapor. An empathic culture, any one Tirrith was psychically linked to the other Tirrith in its family group, sharing sensations such as pain—although individual Tirrith could survive on its own, if it died while away from its hive, the nature of the empathic bond meant that the other Tirrith it was linked to could die as well. However, that bond also served to grant larger hives of Tirrith great strength. Tirrith had the ability to alter the chemical composition of their homeworld Beheboth's atmosphere, including even creating entire weather systems with great effort.
A group of Tirrith disrupting a game of cards between two of Gideon Longspar's brigands.
Although its lack of a solid form meant that the Tirrith was invulnerable to most threats, it was still weak to hard vacuum, strong winds or electrical currents. It also almost completely lacked methods of defending itself—its only defense was to alter the composition of the air around it to create a non-lethal gas that rendered threats unconscious. However, during the New Republic era, a small subgroup of mutated Tirrith was produced that had the ability to produce deadly toxins, and eliminate individual targets by compressing the air around their skin with a thick poison that would kill them in an extraordinarily painful fashion.
Tirrith communicated telepathically, and while they were unable to physically vocalize messages, they could still communicate with any being in the galaxy—beings that received telepathic sendings from the Tirrith would perceive them mentally in their own language. Despite this, the Tirrith remained mysterious—by 8 ABY, scientists were still unsure whether the species was a single colonial organism comprised of 17 million individuals, or several thousand smaller colonies. Individual Tirrith could live to be over 1,000 years old.
A Tirrith hive renders Luke Skywalker unconscious.
Tirrith society was hive-based—the empathic bond shared among hives of Tirrith made them stronger, but also exposed them to pain and hardship experienced by others within its group. Tirrith society was extremely reclusive and strongly pacifistic, and the Tirrith struggled to even conceive of the idea of causing harm to another being. However, the welfare of its hive was paramount, and a group of Tirrith could be manipulated by malefactors in order to protect individuals in its hive. In more extreme cases, under long enough captivity and torture, isolated Tirrith hives could be forced to forsake their nonviolent ways and become savage killers. The Tirrith had no spoken language and little that could be perceived of as a civilization, instead communicating solely through telepathy.
The Tirrith was the only sentient species native to the planet Beheboth, a sparsely settled desert world located in the Outer Rim's Sanbra sector. Beheboth was colonized by Bothan and later Human moisture farmers during the Republic era, but as they had no physical form and no true "civilization," their existence was not perceived until 3 ABY—until that point, the Tirrith was only observed in passing, and believed to be merely chemicals in the atmosphere producing unusual colors.
A Tirrith hive joins Darial Anglethorn and Luke Skywalker in fighting Gideon Longspar's brigands.
The Tirrith's isolation ended in 3 ABY, when Gideon Longspar, the leader of a gang of brigands on Beheboth, discerned the truth of the organism's existence and captured a hive in order to force it to aid in a scheme targeting local moisture farms. Holding part of the hive under threat of torture, Longspar compelled the rest of the hive to help his gang raid nearby farms for every drop of water they could steal. Longspar's raids gravely threatened Beheboth's Human colonies, until Longspar raided the farm of Darial Anglethorn, who had taken a leadership role in organizing the farmers' defense. Taking Anglethorn captive, Longspar earned the ire of Anglethorn's friend Luke Skywalker, who came to her rescue—the Tirrith helped Anglethorn and Skywalker defeat Longspar's crew, washing them away in a torrent of stolen water. In thanks for their aid, the Tirrith caused a major downpour of rain, ending centuries of drought.
The rainfall produced by the Tirrith caused a small ecological and economic revival for Beheboth, but it quickly returned to its reclusive ways, ignoring numerous entreaties to provide more rain. By 8 ABY, Beheboth was once again under threat of extended drought, and the Tirrith was once again under threat of manipulation, when a disgraced former Imperial admiral named Mils Giel captured a Tirrith hive and began experimenting upon it to create a killing machine that could help restore his old status. Posing as a moisture farmer, Giel and Quarren doctor Kimp Minmirn went through several generations of the captive Tirrith before producing a suitable hive, one capable of killing efficiently and at command. Giel tested his mutated Tirrith on unsuspecting Behebothans, including wiping out an entire New Republic outpost in Longspar's old fortress, before Anglethorn—now elected peacekeeper of the town of Prosperity—uncovered the plot while investigating the murder of a local man caused by the Tirrith. With the help of Skywalker, now a Jedi Knight, Anglethorn chased Giel off the planet, although the fallen admiral managed to escape with one tank of his captive Tirrith.
The Tirrith first appeared in Star Wars (1977) 66, written by David Michelinie, illustrated by Walt Simonson and released in 1982. Significant additional information on the Tirrith and its physiology was later given in Alien Anthology Addendum, an article appearing in 2001's Star Wars Gamer 7.