Eventually, the Nautolan Kor Plouth, daughter of the former Path leader Werth Plouth, became Ro's girlfriend. When Ro reached the Path's age of choosing, fifteen years old, she began discussing with Kor her desire to leave Dalna and the Path. The couple also became part a group called the Children of the Open Hand, which "liberated" Force artifacts for the Path's spiritual leader, the Mother, via theft; other members of the Path believed the Children were proselytizing off-world. During the Jedi Order's mission to Dalna, Ro lost Kor when the Mother tried to arrange for the deaths of the Children. Werth and Ro agreed to work together to bring down the Mother. Ro also became the "champion" of the Leveler because she happened to hold its control rod, the Rod of Seasons, near it, thereby keeping her valuable to the Path and leaving the Mother unable to move against her.
Ro later accompanied the Path to Jedha, and she went with Werth and Radicaz Dobbs to address the Convocation of the Force. After the Convocation rejected Plouth's demands that the council disband, and then his option of prohibiting the use of the Force until he could provide proof of the Path's beliefs about the misuse of the Force, the trio exited the Convocation Building. As Werth began to speak with the citizens of the Holy City about the incident and other recent events, Ro left with the Rod of Seasons in her hands.
At a very young age, Yana Ro and her cousin Marda were taught the Evereni art of saying or avoiding goodbyes by their mothers. To help Yana deal with pain, Yana's mother taught her how to bury deep any miseries by taking deep breaths and letting go. Throughout her life, Yana became well aware of how others negatively perceived the Evereni people. One lesson Yana took to heart was how being Evereni meant learning how trust was weakness.
On their last night on the planet Genetia, the Ro family was attacked by Genetian townsfolk when Yana and Marda were only children, after the family was blamed for crop failure. During the attack, Marda Ro's sire had fought viciously for the family's escape, whereas the cousins' grandparents were killed along with Yana's sire. The rest of the Ro family managed to escape Genetia after Yana's mother and Marda's mother had killed a family of Theelins and had stolen their ship.
After fleeing Genetia, the Ro family had spent days going hungry and cold after the ship's life support systems began to fail. Eventually, their ship was towed by a Hutt Clan trawler to Nar Shaddaa, where the Hutts attempted to force the family into slavery. The Path of the Open Hand intervened and paid for the Ro family's release.
Marda and Yana's mothers decided to leave their daughters to the Path of the Open Hand. Marda believed their mothers would have wanted the two cousins to stay together. While Marda coped with the bloodshed and trauma of their escape from Genetia through assimilation, Yana kept everyone at distance as she acknowledged the weakness in trusting others. She did her best to avoid drawing attention to herself and to remain unnoticed—and thus untargeted. For years after their initial arrival on Dalna, Yana and Marda lived as members of the Path, with Yana ultimately entering the ranks of the Children of the Open Hand. While Yana would always remember the tempestuous time when she and her cousin came to join the Path, Marda would forget much of her life before the cult. Some of the few things she had remembered as an adult were the lessons her mother and Marda's had taught them long ago.
Yana Ro first appeared in the 2022 young-adult novel The High Republic: Path of Deceit, written by Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland for the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project. Her concept art was first revealed on an episode of The High Republic Show, which premiered on March 8, 2023.
- "Launchpad" — Star Wars Insider 218
- Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia