Teneniel Djo

Born into the Singing Mountain Clan, a group of Dathomiri Witches, Teneniel Djo was the daughter of Allaya Djo, who served as the clan's warleader. Allaya Djo's demise in battle occurred when Teneniel was still young, leading to Teneniel being raised by her grandmother, Augwynne Djo, the clan's leader.

Augwynne imparted to Teneniel the fundamental principles of Allyan Magic, and Teneniel eventually became skilled at using an ability known as the Spell of Storm. The strength of this ability could vary, resulting in either significant windstorms or gentle breezes, depending on its application.

At approximately sixteen years of age, Teneniel discovered two of her Initiate sisters employing spells derived from the prohibited Book of Shadows. Incensed by her fellow Initiates' attempts to master the Dark Spells, she unleashed the Spell of Storm upon them. Despite their survival, Teneniel was condemned to a four-year exile in the desert as penance for her outburst of anger.

This exile was not absolute, as she was permitted to return to the clan for visits lasting no more than a week. During her four years of isolation, she felt drawn to the wreckage of the Chu'unthor and made numerous attempts to gain access to the ancient vessel. After a vision revealed that she would find a husband at the crash site, she established a temporary residence nearby and awaited her destiny.

In 8 ABY, while tending to a garden she had cultivated a short distance away, Teneniel detected an anomaly near the Chu'unthor. Upon investigation, she encountered Luke Skywalker and Prince Isolder of Hapes, who had journeyed to Dathomir in search of Han Solo and Leia Organa. She promptly captured both men as potential spouses, and while she found Isolder more physically appealing, she was intrigued by Luke's ability to cast spells without verbal incantations, considering him a valuable acquisition. After the two men explained their predicament to Teneniel, she consented to escort them to her grandmother's village in the Singing Mountain region.

En route to her village, she and Luke were ambushed by the Nightsister Ocheron. Teneniel narrowly avoided death when Ocheron unleashed Force lightning, but Luke intervened by decapitating Ocheron and healing her injuries. As Luke had saved Teneniel's life, Dathomiri tradition dictated that she no longer had a claim to him as her husband.

Upon returning to the Singing Mountain clan village with Isolder and Luke, she was greeted by her grandmother, Augwynne. After introducing Luke and Isolder to the clan, Teneniel declared Isolder as her husband in front of the entire village, surprising him. Leia Organa (who, along with Han Solo, was a guest of the clan villagers) offered to purchase him from Teneniel, but Teneniel stated that he was not yet for sale. Shortly afterward, recognizing that the other clan sisters would claim him if she released him outright, Teneniel granted Isolder his freedom in all but name.

Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon, was a functional vessel that the Nightsisters coveted, intending to use it in their plan to escape Dathomir. To thwart their scheme, Isolder, Teneniel, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and Luke sought out Barukka, a former Nightsister and Teneniel's aunt, to acquire information on how to infiltrate the Nightsister-controlled Imperial prison and retrieve spare parts to repair the ship and depart Dathomir. After obtaining the necessary information from the mentally unstable former Nightsister, the group infiltrated the Imperial prison.

After locating a suitable ship from which to salvage parts, the group was attacked by Nightsisters, and Teneniel was nearly killed by Baritha. Following her rescue by Luke, Teneniel succumbed to her anger towards Gethzerion and the Nightsisters, unleashing the Spell of Storm. Luke intervened before she could kill the Nightsisters, and the group escaped the prison.

The Battle of Dathomir commenced upon the group's return to the Singing Mountain clan village. During the battle, Teneniel once again employed the Spell of Storm, this time successfully eliminating her adversaries. As a consequence of unleashing her power in anger, she developed a burst blood vessel on her face, a characteristic trait of a Nightsister. In an attempt to atone for her rage, Teneniel shared a portion of her life force with a severely wounded Nightsister.

After the Battle of Dathomir concluded, all nine of the Dathomiri Witch clans convened at the Singing Mountain clan village for a celebratory feast. During the festivities, Teneniel was recognized as the de facto Princess of Dathomir, as her grandmother had been granted ownership of Dathomir by Han Solo. Isolder then announced his intention to marry Teneniel, with whom he had fallen in love. Isolder's mother, Ta'a Chume, objected to the union, but Teneniel used the Force to intimidate her, causing the elder woman to relent and permit the marriage.

Around the time of the birth of her daughter Tenel Ka in 10 ABY, Teneniel assumed the role of Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium following Ta'a Chume's abdication. As Queen Mother, Teneniel largely kept the Hapes Consortium out of galactic affairs and consistently rejected any assistance or guidance from Ta'a Chume. Additionally, due to Teneniel's status as the princess of Dathomir, Dathomir was recognized as the unofficial 64th member planet of the Hapes Consortium.

Isolder and Teneniel often disagreed on how Tenel Ka should be raised. Isolder wanted Tenel Ka to be raised as a typical Hapan princess, but Teneniel insisted that Tenel Ka should be allowed to choose her own path. Both parents agreed, however, that Tenel Ka was to be enrolled at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 as soon as she was old enough.

In 22 ABY, Teneniel embarked on a diplomatic mission with Isolder to another system to negotiate trade agreements. Yfra, an underling of Ta'a Chume, as part of her scheme to seize the Hapan throne, had placed assassins within their entourage to eliminate them both. Isolder and Teneniel survived the assassination attempt and returned to Hapes, only to discover that Tenel Ka had lost part of her arm in a lightsaber accident. Teneniel supported Tenel Ka's decision not to wear a prosthetic arm and encouraged her to continue her studies at the Praxeum if she so desired. Two years later, Teneniel, Isolder, and Augwynne Djo attended Tenel Ka's knighting ceremony.

With Tenel Ka choosing the path of a Jedi Knight and largely abandoning her status as the heir of the Hapes Consortium, the issue of succession became a contentious matter between Isolder and Teneniel, straining their marriage. To resolve the issue, they conceived another child to serve as the heir near the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong War.

During the Yuuzhan Vong War, Leia Organa Solo traveled to Hapes to seek the assistance of the Consortium and its navy against the invaders. After listening to Organa Solo's speech, Teneniel instructed all of the planetary representatives to vote on whether or not to ally with the New Republic in their fight. The result was a tie, and the deciding vote rested on whether Beed Thane or Isolder won a Hapan honor duel. When Isolder proved victorious, the Navy was sent to Fondor to participate in the Battle of Fondor.

However, tragedy struck when a beam from Centerpoint Station annihilated a significant portion of the Hapan fleet. Due to the Force backlash she experienced from the mass deaths, Teneniel miscarried her heir and entered a semi-catatonic state. Sometime later, she decreed that Hapes would welcome refugees from planets that the Yuuzhan Vong had conquered. This decision proved unwise, as it made Hapes, with its navy still weakened from the Battle of Fondor, a target of the Yuuzhan Vong.

Ta'a Chume, who had never had a positive relationship with her daughter-in-law, determined that Teneniel's catatonia was detrimental to the Hapan people and devised a plan to replace her with Jaina Solo, whom Ta'a Chume believed could be controlled. She urged Isolder to divorce Teneniel and marry Jaina, or she would reclaim the throne. Although Isolder promised to consider the proposal, Ta'a Chume secretly collaborated with the Ni'Korish to assassinate Teneniel, but their attempts repeatedly failed.

By 27 ABY, Isolder and Teneniel's marriage was on the verge of collapse, with discussions of Teneniel returning to Dathomir. Shortly after Tenel Ka and the rest of the Myrkr strike team had retreated to Hapes, Tenel Ka visited her mother to pay her respects. Teneniel knew that her time on the throne was limited and gave her daughter an emerald ring, instructing her to ensure that the next Queen Mother received it. Tenel Ka accepted the ring and promised her mother that she would fulfill her request.

Shortly afterward, Teneniel was visited by Leia Organa Solo, who was shocked by Teneniel's physical and mental condition. In her only semi-coherent moment, Teneniel assumed that Isolder had chosen Leia as his new bride and told her that Tenel Ka had the ring. Unaware of what Teneniel was referring to, Leia played along until Teneniel sat at her bedroom window and became unresponsive.

Ta'a Chume, seizing an opportunity to eliminate her despised daughter-in-law, arranged for the Ni'Korish to poison Teneniel and replace her with Jaina. Shortly before the Battle of Hapes, the plan to poison Teneniel was successfully executed. However, Ta'a Chume's plan to install Jaina on the throne backfired when, to everyone's surprise, Tenel Ka assumed her mother's crown.

The ring that Teneniel had given her daughter was actually a holochip containing the location of a rebuilt Hapan fleet, commissioned by Teneniel to replace the fleet lost at Fondor. Tenel Ka placed this fleet under the command of Jagged Fel, and the Hapans successfully repelled the invaders.

Growing up in a village dominated by Force using women, Teneniel was trained in the use of Allyan Magic, the Dathomiri version of the Force, by her grandmother Augwynne Djo. Although she knew a great variety of spells, she showed a particular talent for the Spell of Storm. She was also trained in physical combat, and enjoyed mountain climbing as a pastime.

Teneniel was compassionate, as shown when she secretly gave Isolder his freedom to keep him from being claimed by the other clan sisters. She could also be quite persistent, as she still stubbornly tried to get Luke Skywalker to become her mate even though she had no claim to him after he saved her life. She also did not hesitate to use the Force to prove a point, such as using the Force to destroy the blasters of Ta'a Chume's bodyguards before they could shoot her for threatening the Queen Mother.

Prone to anger, she had unleashed the Spell of Storm at least three separate times in anger, with the last time giving her a burst blood vessel on her face characteristic of a Nightsister. In an effort to atone for lashing out with her gift yet again, she gave part of her life force to a Nightsister who was wounded by the exhaust of the escaping Millennium Falcon. Teneniel also used the Force to cause the exhaust to flow around her and the injured Isolder.

After the fallout from the Battle of Fondor, Teneniel became a shell of her former self. She sat alone in her room for long periods of time, neglected most of her duties as Queen Mother, and offered no resistance to Ta'a Chume's plots. However, she was of sound enough mind to order a new Hapan fleet to be built to counter the threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed.

Teneniel Djo was created by Dave Wolverton and first appeared in the 1994 novel The Courtship of Princess Leia.

There is some disparity over the name of Teneniel's mother. The Star Wars Encyclopedia gives Allaya Djo as her mother, while Cracken's Threat Dossier implies that her mother's name may be Kara'Teel. In the novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, it is implied that Teneniel's mother is named Allya with the statement "I am Teneniel Djo, a daughter of Allya, and you are my slave!". This may or may not be a variant of Allaya Djo. This could however be interpreted to mean 'follower of Allya', making the Dathomir Witches 'the Daughters of Allya', as would be common in many primitive societies where a direct connection to an important figure provides prestige and tradition.

Teneniel's "Spell of Storm" ability was described as a "Force Storm" in The Courtship of Princess Leia, although it bears no resemblance to the existing Force power with that name. Her ability is more in line with the Force power Force Whirlwind. The term "Spell of Storm" comes from her bio in Cracken's Threat Dossier.

The exact date of Ta'a Chume's abdication and Teneniel's ascent to the throne is unknown; the placement in this article is conjecture based on the novel Dark Journey and the New Essential Chronology.