Vratheans were a type of huge, tentacled, deep-sea leviathan with a bioluminescent carapace that lived in the oceans of the planet Pabu, rarely surfacing from the depths. Around 18 BBY, a vrathean attacked the Force-sensitive Asajj Ventress and the clone Omega while the pair were on a Pabu skiff testing Omega's m-count.
The creature capsized the skiff and grabbed Omega, who was rescued when Ventress cut off the vrathean's tentacle with her lightsaber. Omega's allies then opened fire on the creature from the attack shuttle Marauder, but Ventress had them stop and then calmed the vrathean with the Force, causing it to leave.
Vratheans were huge, tentacled leviathans.
The vrathean was a type of carnivorous leviathan found in the oceans of the planet Pabu. Preferring to dwell in the depths, it was rarely seen breaching the ocean's surface. Huge in size, they measured on average 12.5 meters in height and 30.5 meters in length with serpentine bodies and a thick, hardened, shell-plated carapace.
The carapace protruded out above the creature's face, protecting a bony beak with jagged toothed jaws between two large, plate-sized purple eyes with undulating black lines for pupils. The creatures possessed a mass of at least three tentacles made of hard flesh with countless suckers along the underside. A vrathean's skin was brown and bumpy with cyan patches, and the creature's carapace was bioluminescent, shifting between brown, dark purple, and cyan across its surface. They could vocalize by bellowing, growling, and shrieking. Those who encountered a vrathean had to maintain a great sense of calm in order to escape alive.
A vrathean attacked Asajj Ventress and Omega on Pabu.
Around 18 BBY, the Force-sensitive Asajj Ventress took the clone Omega out onto Pabu's ocean in a Pabu skiff in order to test her m-count. To demonstrate the Force, Ventress reached out with it to all the life around the vessel, causing a school of luminescent green rays to start circling the skiff. As Ventress ceased reaching out to them, the rays fled as a vrathean approached, briefly surfacing part of its carapace near the skiff and then surfacing again to jostle the vessel and spin it around as the creature passed.
The vrathean then emerged more fully, its mouth dripping with glowing green flesh as it bellowed while facing the skiff. Not having summoned the creature intentionally, Ventress started the skiff's engine and circled around to try and escape, but the vrathean dived beneath the surface to pursue, raising two of its tentacles into the air and slamming them down behind the skiff, causing waves to flip the vessel over. Thrown into the water, Ventress and Omega quickly surfaced only for the clone to be grabbed by one of the vrathean's tentacles and pulled under. She pounded futilely with her fist on the creature's hard flesh, which was less resistant to the blade of Ventress's lightsaber as she used it to slice off the vrathean's tentacle beneath where it had wrapped around Omega, leaving a bleeding stump.
The Marauder attacking a vrathean
Ventress and Omega then surfaced, with the vrathean doing the same close behind as it roared and waved its tentacles in the air. Before it could attack again, it was hit by blaster fire from the Marauder, an Omicron-class attack shuttle operated by Omega's clone brethren Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair, who had seen the vrathean attacking from the nearby island.
Distracted, the creature turned to try and follow the starship with its waving tentacles but then turned to grab Ventress with a tentacle after the Force-user told Omega that she could handle the creature on her own. Omega told the other clones to stop firing over comlink as Ventress reached out with the Force to calm the vrathean while it pulled her toward its gaping jaws. As she reached the mouth, Ventress placed her hand upon it and the creature stilled, its eyes widening. Cyan light pulsed across its shell as it slowly lowered Ventress back onto her ship before sinking beneath the waves to swim away. Ventress and Omega then safely departed in the Marauder.
Dawn Carlos's vrathean concept art
A vrathean first appeared in "The Harbinger," the ninth episode of the animated television series Star Wars: The Bad Batchs third season, which premiered on March 27, 2024. The creature's name was not spoken in the episode but appeared in its subtitles. Dawn Carlos produced multiple pieces of concept art of the vrathean for the episode, and Molly Denmark created several lighting concepts for the creature. Its appearance was first hinted at in a post by Kiner Music as part of a series of cryptic Tweets that hinted at upcoming Bad Batch episodes.