Jal Shey
Jal Shey
Embedded Files
**Title**Jal Shey
**Small Text / Caption**Supplementary Legends Lore · Directly referenced in SWTOR · Contemporary organization uncertain
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are an ancient Force tradition known for approaching the Force through intellectual study, investigation, and disciplined inquiry rather than primarily through the spiritual frameworks associated with traditions such as the **Jedi Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/jedi-tradition) or **Sith Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/sith-tradition).
Old Republic-era sources portray the Jal Shey as scholars, advisers, teachers, investigators, and accomplished diplomats. Their members traveled in search of knowledge, studied unusual manifestations of the Force, mediated disputes, and developed specialized equipment that combined their understanding of the Force with crafted objects. They were comparatively few and selective about whom they trained.
For roleplay, the Jal Shey offer an alternative to characters whose Force education revolves around formal Jedi service, Sith ambition, or martial training. A Jal Shey character is most strongly defined not by possessing unusual powers, but by what they study, why they seek understanding, how they apply that knowledge, and what responsibilities come with being part of a small and mobile scholarly tradition.
**Image / Photo — Optional**
**Suggested Placement:**Below the introductory text.
**Suggested Subject / Description:**An Old Republic-era Force scholar or diplomat in practical light armor studying a holocron, artifact, ancient inscription, or unusual Force phenomenon. The image should emphasize travel, research, and contemplation rather than presenting the Jal Shey primarily as warriors. An original illustration could draw visual inspiration from the general Jal Shey equipment concept established in Knights of the Old Republic II without reproducing copyrighted artwork directly.
**Heading**Understanding the Force
**Standard Text**The defining feature of Jal Shey teaching is its intellectual approach to the Force.
Knights of the Old Republic II describes Jal Shey practitioners as seeking to understand the Force mentally rather than treating that understanding primarily as a spiritual journey. The later Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide develops this further, describing their approach as intellectual and scientific and presenting the acquisition of knowledge as a central purpose of the tradition.
That distinction should not be exaggerated into a doctrine the sources never establish. The available material does not provide a detailed Jal Shey creed, cosmology, code comparable to the Jedi Code, or comprehensive explanation of how they define every aspect of the light and dark sides.
For StarForgeRP, it is therefore safer to portray Jal Shey study as systematic inquiry rather than inventing a rigid scientific theory of the Force.
A practitioner might compare observations, investigate Force-sensitive locations, preserve accounts from other traditions, examine artifacts, study historical events, or ask why particular Force phenomena occur. Two Jal Shey could reach different conclusions from the same evidence, particularly when the Force resists simple explanation.
Their tradition gives them a method of inquiry. It does not require every member to share an identical philosophy.
**Heading**Scholarship, Investigation & Diplomacy
**Standard Text**Jal Shey scholarship was not limited to private meditation.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide portrays them as nomadic researchers who sought places and subjects that might expand their understanding of the Force. Their interests could include Force nexuses, other Force traditions, and the histories of peoples whose experiences might offer new insight. They were also expected to participate in the societies around them rather than merely observe from a distance.
Diplomacy became one of their most notable strengths.
Jal Shey were regarded as exceptionally capable negotiators and could act as intermediaries in disputes ranging from personal disagreements to much larger political conflicts. Debate, persuasion, investigation, and the ability to understand several competing perspectives fit naturally within a tradition built around careful study.
For roleplay, this creates useful reasons for Jal Shey characters to become involved in stories that do not begin with combat. A practitioner might be asked to mediate between rival communities, investigate a disputed relic, accompany an archaeological expedition, advise a leader confronting an unusual Force phenomenon, interview members of another tradition, or determine why negotiations have repeatedly failed.
Scholarship should create connections to the galaxy rather than becoming an excuse for a character to remain detached from it.
**Heading**Training & Membership
**Standard Text**Published Old Republic material portrays the Jal Shey as relatively few in number and highly selective about recruitment. They accepted Force-sensitive individuals from different worlds and species, but sought candidates considered compatible with their scholarly and diplomatic way of life. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide specifically indicates that individuals already strongly tainted by the dark side or primarily oriented toward combat were not normally preferred recruits.
This makes Jal Shey membership more than simply deciding to study the Force independently.
A believable member should have some connection to the tradition: a mentor who recognized their potential, an encounter during a Jal Shey investigation, family or scholarly connections that brought them into contact with a practitioner, or another plausible route through which the character was evaluated and taught.
The sources identify three principal Jal Shey categories: neophytes, advisors, and mentors.
**Subheading**Neophytes
**Standard Text**Neophytes are students beginning what Knights of the Old Republic II describes as a lifelong effort to understand the Force. Supplementary material describes them studying with mentors before undertaking independent investigative or diplomatic work.
For roleplay, a neophyte does not need to be young. The title is more usefully understood as a stage of Jal Shey training than as an age category.
**Subheading**Advisors
**Standard Text**Advisors possess greater knowledge and independence and are particularly associated with traveling on diplomatic and investigative assignments. Their work makes them one of the most plausible types of Jal Shey for outsiders to encounter.
An advisor character naturally fits stories involving mediation, research expeditions, political consultation, historical investigation, or contact between otherwise disconnected communities.
**Subheading**Mentors
**Standard Text**Mentors are presented as highly knowledgeable teachers and advisers responsible for passing the tradition to others. Knights of the Old Republic II particularly associates them with exceptional intellect and respected teaching or advisory roles.
The surviving material does not establish a detailed central government, council, promotion process, or universal chain of command beyond these categories. StarForgeRP should therefore avoid inventing a large bureaucratic hierarchy unless such details are deliberately introduced as community-created continuity.
**Heading**A Nomadic Tradition
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are described as nomadic rather than as an order centered permanently on a single known homeworld.
They traveled in search of places, communities, traditions, and phenomena that might deepen their understanding of the Force. Their investigations could therefore carry them through Republic space, independent systems, archaeological sites, remote settlements, or regions affected by unusual Force activity.
This mobility is especially useful for roleplay because a Jal Shey character does not require a large local temple or enclave to justify their presence.
A mentor and several students might remain in one place while completing a study and then move on. An advisor might spend years traveling between diplomatic assignments. A practitioner could become separated from the wider tradition because of war, disrupted communications, an unfinished expedition, or a decision to pursue a particular subject independently.
Nomadic should not automatically mean isolated. Jal Shey are specifically described as participating in the societies they encounter and using their knowledge in ways intended to benefit others.
**Heading**Equipment & Force-Imbued Craft
**Standard Text**Jal Shey equipment is one of the tradition's most distinctive surviving elements.
Knights of the Old Republic II includes armor associated with Jal Shey neophytes, advisors, and mentors. These suits were designed so that wearing them did not interfere with the use of Force abilities, and their descriptions reinforce the tradition's emphasis on wisdom, persuasion, and intellectual understanding rather than physical specialization.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide expands this concept. Jal Shey are described as crafting armor, belts, and other objects that could be imbued or attuned through the Force, with their techniques unusual enough that the benefits of some Jal Shey creations could extend beyond the individual who originally crafted them. The source suggests that both Force imbuement and technology may have contributed to their methods.
For StarForgeRP, these objects are best treated as specialized creations rather than ordinary equipment or automatic benefits of membership.
A Jal Shey artifact can create useful story questions: Who made it? How old is it? Does anyone still understand its construction? Was it inherited, recovered, purchased without knowing its origin, or entrusted to the character by a mentor? Is it damaged? Does another scholar, collector, Jedi, Sith, criminal, or institution want it?
The existence of Force-imbued equipment should create history and roleplay rather than functioning as unrestricted character enhancement.
See **Ancient, Alien & Experimental Technology** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/technology/ancient-alien-experimental-technology) for the broader StarForgeRP approach to unusual and exceptional equipment.
**Heading**Combat & Self-Defense
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are not primarily a martial tradition.
Their surviving descriptions repeatedly contrast their intellectual and diplomatic strengths with less emphasis on physical pursuits. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide also indicates that many Jal Shey learned basic lightsaber techniques for defense while rarely specializing in lightsaber combat to the extent expected of dedicated Jedi or Sith warriors.
This does not establish the Jal Shey as absolute pacifists, nor does it mean that every practitioner is physically helpless.
A traveling investigator entering ruins, unstable territories, or wartime regions may have good reason to understand self-defense. An advisor may have survived dangerous negotiations. A former soldier could theoretically enter the tradition if their later outlook made them an appropriate candidate.
The important distinction is emphasis.
A Jal Shey concept built primarily around becoming an elite duelist or battlefield combatant would need more explanation than one centered on investigation, diplomacy, teaching, research, or defensive use of the Force.
**Heading**The Jedi, Sith & Other Traditions
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey provide a useful reminder that the **Force Traditions** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions) of the Old Republic were never limited entirely to Jedi and Sith.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide describes a period in which the Jedi encountered numerous independent traditions and did not necessarily treat every non-Jedi Force practitioner as an enemy. Relations varied according to doctrine, behavior, and the presence of the dark side, even though Jedi might still regard another tradition as misguided or attempt to bring its members toward Jedi teaching.
The Jal Shey's emphasis on inquiry could create both common ground and disagreement with the **Jedi Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/jedi-tradition). A Jedi scholar and Jal Shey advisor might share an interest in history while disagreeing fundamentally about how knowledge of the Force should be interpreted or used.
Their relationship with the **Sith Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/sith-tradition) requires even greater care. Jal Shey recruitment practices did not normally favor people already tainted by the dark side, while Sith traditions emphasize power, conflict, and mastery in ways that differ substantially from Jal Shey priorities. The available sources, however, do not provide a detailed account of institutional Jal Shey–Sith relations during StarForgeRP's present era.
Individual encounters should therefore depend upon circumstances rather than an invented universal policy.
**Heading**The Jal Shey in the SWTOR Era
**Standard Text**Most detailed information about the Jal Shey comes from Legends material associated with the Knights of the Old Republic period rather than from extensive treatment within Star Wars: The Old Republic.
SWTOR does, however, reference the Jal Shey directly.
During the Jedi Consular's Rishi holocron storyline, Master O'a refers to “Hierophant of the Jal Shey” as one of the possible future titles associated with the Consular. The reference demonstrates that the Jal Shey remain part of the conceptual world used by SWTOR's writers, but the prophetic context provides almost no information about their actual numbers, organization, location, or activities during the game's era.
The title should therefore not automatically be added to the established Jal Shey hierarchy. Earlier sources identify neophytes, advisors, and mentors; SWTOR does not explain whether “Hierophant” represents a formal Jal Shey office, an exceptional title, or simply one possibility within the vision.
For StarForgeRP, active Jal Shey characters are compatible with the setting, but their contemporary circumstances should be handled conservatively.
The **Continuity & Canon** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/continuity-canon) approach is particularly important here: established earlier material can provide the tradition's foundations, while the location of present-day mentors, current membership, recent history, surviving networks, and activities during the SWTOR wars should be identified as StarForgeRP continuity or interpretation unless a stronger source establishes them.
This uncertainty can be useful.
A small tradition disrupted by centuries of conflict does not need to possess a powerful centralized institution to remain relevant. Scattered mentors, traveling advisors, isolated students, inherited archives, forgotten artifacts, or efforts to reconnect separated branches can all provide strong roleplay without requiring the Jal Shey to rival the Jedi or Sith in numbers or galactic influence.
**Heading**Roleplay Considerations
**Standard Text**A Jal Shey character works best when their connection to the tradition shapes what they know, how they learned it, and what draws them into other people's stories.
**List**
* What does the character study?
* Force nexuses, ancient history, another tradition, unusual artifacts, cultures, diplomacy, unexplained phenomena, or a specific historical problem can all give their scholarship direction.
* Who trained them?
* A mentor, traveling advisor, surviving group, or other believable connection should explain access to specialized Jal Shey knowledge.
* Why were they accepted?
* The Jal Shey were selective. Consider what intellectual curiosity, temperament, diplomatic ability, discipline, or perspective caused a teacher to consider the character worth training.
* What have they actually learned?
* Membership should not provide automatic mastery of every Force discipline. Decide where the character's expertise ends.
* How do they test what they believe?
* A tradition centered on inquiry becomes more interesting when evidence forces the character to reconsider an assumption.
* How do they handle disagreement?
* Debate and diplomacy do not require passivity. Consider whether the character is patient, argumentative, methodical, empathetic, skeptical, idealistic, or occasionally too convinced of their own reasoning.
* What is their relationship with violence?
* Do they regard combat as a last resort, an unfortunate necessity, a useful skill they personally lack, or an area in which their previous life conflicts with Jal Shey expectations?
* What does travel mean to them?
* Constant movement can create contacts, unfinished research, old allies, debts, rivals, former students, and places to which the character has reasons to return.
* Do they possess Jal Shey equipment?
* If so, give it provenance. A significant artifact should have a history rather than existing solely because the character belongs to the tradition.
* How do they respond to Jedi and Sith?
* Curiosity, cooperation, philosophical disagreement, caution, resentment, respect, or fear may all be reasonable depending on the character's experiences.
* What happened to their branch of the tradition?
* Because contemporary Jal Shey organization is poorly documented, this is one of the strongest places for carefully labeled StarForgeRP continuity: a lost mentor, scattered circle, damaged archive, unfinished expedition, or attempt to recover contact with other practitioners can create continuing RP hooks.
**Heading**Common Misconceptions
**Subheading**“The Jal Shey are just Gray Jedi.”
**Standard Text**No. The Jal Shey are presented as their own Force tradition with their own priorities, training, and history. Describing them only as Jedi who reject Jedi rules removes what makes the tradition distinctive.
**Subheading**“They are neutral between the light and dark sides.”
**Standard Text**The available material does not justify treating moral neutrality as a defining Jal Shey doctrine. Supplementary Legends material specifically indicates that candidates strongly tainted by the dark side were not normally considered suitable recruits.
A Jal Shey character should therefore not use the tradition merely as justification for unrestricted movement between light- and dark-side practices.
**Subheading**“They are scientists, so they do not believe in anything spiritual.”
**Standard Text**The sources describe an intellectual or scientific approach to studying the Force, but they do not provide enough detail to define the Jal Shey as materialists, atheists, or opponents of every spiritual interpretation.
Their distinctive feature is how they pursue understanding, not a fully documented rejection of spirituality.
**Subheading**“They are pacifists.”
**Standard Text**Not as an established universal rule. Jal Shey place less emphasis on physical pursuits, and supplementary material associates them with limited defensive lightsaber training, but this is not the same as establishing an absolute prohibition against violence.
**Subheading**“SWTOR confirms a large active Jal Shey order.”
**Standard Text**It does not.
SWTOR's brief Jal Shey reference is valuable evidence that the tradition was not forgotten by the setting, but it does not establish contemporary population, headquarters, leadership, institutional power, or even the exact meaning of the title used in the Consular's vision.
**Heading**Sources
**List**
* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords — Jal Shey Neophyte, Advisor, and Mentor armor descriptions; primary Old Republic-era source for their intellectual emphasis, diplomatic reputation, and named stages of training.* Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide — supplementary Legends reference expanding the Jal Shey's nomadic scholarship, recruitment, diplomacy, equipment, Force study, and defensive training. Published by Wizards of the Coast in 2008.* Star Wars: The Old Republic — Jedi Consular Rishi holocron sequence, containing a brief direct Jal Shey reference through a possible future title.
**Button / Link Text**
**Button Name:** Explore Force Traditions**Link Page Name:** Force Traditions**Page URL:** https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions
**Small Text / Caption**Supplementary Legends Lore · Directly referenced in SWTOR · Contemporary organization uncertain
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are an ancient Force tradition known for approaching the Force through intellectual study, investigation, and disciplined inquiry rather than primarily through the spiritual frameworks associated with traditions such as the **Jedi Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/jedi-tradition) or **Sith Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/sith-tradition).
Old Republic-era sources portray the Jal Shey as scholars, advisers, teachers, investigators, and accomplished diplomats. Their members traveled in search of knowledge, studied unusual manifestations of the Force, mediated disputes, and developed specialized equipment that combined their understanding of the Force with crafted objects. They were comparatively few and selective about whom they trained.
For roleplay, the Jal Shey offer an alternative to characters whose Force education revolves around formal Jedi service, Sith ambition, or martial training. A Jal Shey character is most strongly defined not by possessing unusual powers, but by what they study, why they seek understanding, how they apply that knowledge, and what responsibilities come with being part of a small and mobile scholarly tradition.
**Image / Photo — Optional**
**Suggested Placement:**Below the introductory text.
**Suggested Subject / Description:**An Old Republic-era Force scholar or diplomat in practical light armor studying a holocron, artifact, ancient inscription, or unusual Force phenomenon. The image should emphasize travel, research, and contemplation rather than presenting the Jal Shey primarily as warriors. An original illustration could draw visual inspiration from the general Jal Shey equipment concept established in Knights of the Old Republic II without reproducing copyrighted artwork directly.
**Heading**Understanding the Force
**Standard Text**The defining feature of Jal Shey teaching is its intellectual approach to the Force.
Knights of the Old Republic II describes Jal Shey practitioners as seeking to understand the Force mentally rather than treating that understanding primarily as a spiritual journey. The later Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide develops this further, describing their approach as intellectual and scientific and presenting the acquisition of knowledge as a central purpose of the tradition.
That distinction should not be exaggerated into a doctrine the sources never establish. The available material does not provide a detailed Jal Shey creed, cosmology, code comparable to the Jedi Code, or comprehensive explanation of how they define every aspect of the light and dark sides.
For StarForgeRP, it is therefore safer to portray Jal Shey study as systematic inquiry rather than inventing a rigid scientific theory of the Force.
A practitioner might compare observations, investigate Force-sensitive locations, preserve accounts from other traditions, examine artifacts, study historical events, or ask why particular Force phenomena occur. Two Jal Shey could reach different conclusions from the same evidence, particularly when the Force resists simple explanation.
Their tradition gives them a method of inquiry. It does not require every member to share an identical philosophy.
**Heading**Scholarship, Investigation & Diplomacy
**Standard Text**Jal Shey scholarship was not limited to private meditation.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide portrays them as nomadic researchers who sought places and subjects that might expand their understanding of the Force. Their interests could include Force nexuses, other Force traditions, and the histories of peoples whose experiences might offer new insight. They were also expected to participate in the societies around them rather than merely observe from a distance.
Diplomacy became one of their most notable strengths.
Jal Shey were regarded as exceptionally capable negotiators and could act as intermediaries in disputes ranging from personal disagreements to much larger political conflicts. Debate, persuasion, investigation, and the ability to understand several competing perspectives fit naturally within a tradition built around careful study.
For roleplay, this creates useful reasons for Jal Shey characters to become involved in stories that do not begin with combat. A practitioner might be asked to mediate between rival communities, investigate a disputed relic, accompany an archaeological expedition, advise a leader confronting an unusual Force phenomenon, interview members of another tradition, or determine why negotiations have repeatedly failed.
Scholarship should create connections to the galaxy rather than becoming an excuse for a character to remain detached from it.
**Heading**Training & Membership
**Standard Text**Published Old Republic material portrays the Jal Shey as relatively few in number and highly selective about recruitment. They accepted Force-sensitive individuals from different worlds and species, but sought candidates considered compatible with their scholarly and diplomatic way of life. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide specifically indicates that individuals already strongly tainted by the dark side or primarily oriented toward combat were not normally preferred recruits.
This makes Jal Shey membership more than simply deciding to study the Force independently.
A believable member should have some connection to the tradition: a mentor who recognized their potential, an encounter during a Jal Shey investigation, family or scholarly connections that brought them into contact with a practitioner, or another plausible route through which the character was evaluated and taught.
The sources identify three principal Jal Shey categories: neophytes, advisors, and mentors.
**Subheading**Neophytes
**Standard Text**Neophytes are students beginning what Knights of the Old Republic II describes as a lifelong effort to understand the Force. Supplementary material describes them studying with mentors before undertaking independent investigative or diplomatic work.
For roleplay, a neophyte does not need to be young. The title is more usefully understood as a stage of Jal Shey training than as an age category.
**Subheading**Advisors
**Standard Text**Advisors possess greater knowledge and independence and are particularly associated with traveling on diplomatic and investigative assignments. Their work makes them one of the most plausible types of Jal Shey for outsiders to encounter.
An advisor character naturally fits stories involving mediation, research expeditions, political consultation, historical investigation, or contact between otherwise disconnected communities.
**Subheading**Mentors
**Standard Text**Mentors are presented as highly knowledgeable teachers and advisers responsible for passing the tradition to others. Knights of the Old Republic II particularly associates them with exceptional intellect and respected teaching or advisory roles.
The surviving material does not establish a detailed central government, council, promotion process, or universal chain of command beyond these categories. StarForgeRP should therefore avoid inventing a large bureaucratic hierarchy unless such details are deliberately introduced as community-created continuity.
**Heading**A Nomadic Tradition
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are described as nomadic rather than as an order centered permanently on a single known homeworld.
They traveled in search of places, communities, traditions, and phenomena that might deepen their understanding of the Force. Their investigations could therefore carry them through Republic space, independent systems, archaeological sites, remote settlements, or regions affected by unusual Force activity.
This mobility is especially useful for roleplay because a Jal Shey character does not require a large local temple or enclave to justify their presence.
A mentor and several students might remain in one place while completing a study and then move on. An advisor might spend years traveling between diplomatic assignments. A practitioner could become separated from the wider tradition because of war, disrupted communications, an unfinished expedition, or a decision to pursue a particular subject independently.
Nomadic should not automatically mean isolated. Jal Shey are specifically described as participating in the societies they encounter and using their knowledge in ways intended to benefit others.
**Heading**Equipment & Force-Imbued Craft
**Standard Text**Jal Shey equipment is one of the tradition's most distinctive surviving elements.
Knights of the Old Republic II includes armor associated with Jal Shey neophytes, advisors, and mentors. These suits were designed so that wearing them did not interfere with the use of Force abilities, and their descriptions reinforce the tradition's emphasis on wisdom, persuasion, and intellectual understanding rather than physical specialization.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide expands this concept. Jal Shey are described as crafting armor, belts, and other objects that could be imbued or attuned through the Force, with their techniques unusual enough that the benefits of some Jal Shey creations could extend beyond the individual who originally crafted them. The source suggests that both Force imbuement and technology may have contributed to their methods.
For StarForgeRP, these objects are best treated as specialized creations rather than ordinary equipment or automatic benefits of membership.
A Jal Shey artifact can create useful story questions: Who made it? How old is it? Does anyone still understand its construction? Was it inherited, recovered, purchased without knowing its origin, or entrusted to the character by a mentor? Is it damaged? Does another scholar, collector, Jedi, Sith, criminal, or institution want it?
The existence of Force-imbued equipment should create history and roleplay rather than functioning as unrestricted character enhancement.
See **Ancient, Alien & Experimental Technology** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/technology/ancient-alien-experimental-technology) for the broader StarForgeRP approach to unusual and exceptional equipment.
**Heading**Combat & Self-Defense
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey are not primarily a martial tradition.
Their surviving descriptions repeatedly contrast their intellectual and diplomatic strengths with less emphasis on physical pursuits. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide also indicates that many Jal Shey learned basic lightsaber techniques for defense while rarely specializing in lightsaber combat to the extent expected of dedicated Jedi or Sith warriors.
This does not establish the Jal Shey as absolute pacifists, nor does it mean that every practitioner is physically helpless.
A traveling investigator entering ruins, unstable territories, or wartime regions may have good reason to understand self-defense. An advisor may have survived dangerous negotiations. A former soldier could theoretically enter the tradition if their later outlook made them an appropriate candidate.
The important distinction is emphasis.
A Jal Shey concept built primarily around becoming an elite duelist or battlefield combatant would need more explanation than one centered on investigation, diplomacy, teaching, research, or defensive use of the Force.
**Heading**The Jedi, Sith & Other Traditions
**Standard Text**The Jal Shey provide a useful reminder that the **Force Traditions** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions) of the Old Republic were never limited entirely to Jedi and Sith.
The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide describes a period in which the Jedi encountered numerous independent traditions and did not necessarily treat every non-Jedi Force practitioner as an enemy. Relations varied according to doctrine, behavior, and the presence of the dark side, even though Jedi might still regard another tradition as misguided or attempt to bring its members toward Jedi teaching.
The Jal Shey's emphasis on inquiry could create both common ground and disagreement with the **Jedi Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/jedi-tradition). A Jedi scholar and Jal Shey advisor might share an interest in history while disagreeing fundamentally about how knowledge of the Force should be interpreted or used.
Their relationship with the **Sith Tradition** (https://www.starforgerp.com/lore/force-traditions/sith-tradition) requires even greater care. Jal Shey recruitment practices did not normally favor people already tainted by the dark side, while Sith traditions emphasize power, conflict, and mastery in ways that differ substantially from Jal Shey priorities. The available sources, however, do not provide a detailed account of institutional Jal Shey–Sith relations during StarForgeRP's present era.
Individual encounters should therefore depend upon circumstances rather than an invented universal policy.
**Heading**The Jal Shey in the SWTOR Era
**Standard Text**Most detailed information about the Jal Shey comes from Legends material associated with the Knights of the Old Republic period rather than from extensive treatment within Star Wars: The Old Republic.
SWTOR does, however, reference the Jal Shey directly.
During the Jedi Consular's Rishi holocron storyline, Master O'a refers to “Hierophant of the Jal Shey” as one of the possible future titles associated with the Consular. The reference demonstrates that the Jal Shey remain part of the conceptual world used by SWTOR's writers, but the prophetic context provides almost no information about their actual numbers, organization, location, or activities during the game's era.
The title should therefore not automatically be added to the established Jal Shey hierarchy. Earlier sources identify neophytes, advisors, and mentors; SWTOR does not explain whether “Hierophant” represents a formal Jal Shey office, an exceptional title, or simply one possibility within the vision.
For StarForgeRP, active Jal Shey characters are compatible with the setting, but their contemporary circumstances should be handled conservatively.
The **Continuity & Canon** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/continuity-canon) approach is particularly important here: established earlier material can provide the tradition's foundations, while the location of present-day mentors, current membership, recent history, surviving networks, and activities during the SWTOR wars should be identified as StarForgeRP continuity or interpretation unless a stronger source establishes them.
This uncertainty can be useful.
A small tradition disrupted by centuries of conflict does not need to possess a powerful centralized institution to remain relevant. Scattered mentors, traveling advisors, isolated students, inherited archives, forgotten artifacts, or efforts to reconnect separated branches can all provide strong roleplay without requiring the Jal Shey to rival the Jedi or Sith in numbers or galactic influence.
**Heading**Roleplay Considerations
**Standard Text**A Jal Shey character works best when their connection to the tradition shapes what they know, how they learned it, and what draws them into other people's stories.
**List**
* What does the character study?
* Force nexuses, ancient history, another tradition, unusual artifacts, cultures, diplomacy, unexplained phenomena, or a specific historical problem can all give their scholarship direction.
* Who trained them?
* A mentor, traveling advisor, surviving group, or other believable connection should explain access to specialized Jal Shey knowledge.
* Why were they accepted?
* The Jal Shey were selective. Consider what intellectual curiosity, temperament, diplomatic ability, discipline, or perspective caused a teacher to consider the character worth training.
* What have they actually learned?
* Membership should not provide automatic mastery of every Force discipline. Decide where the character's expertise ends.
* How do they test what they believe?
* A tradition centered on inquiry becomes more interesting when evidence forces the character to reconsider an assumption.
* How do they handle disagreement?
* Debate and diplomacy do not require passivity. Consider whether the character is patient, argumentative, methodical, empathetic, skeptical, idealistic, or occasionally too convinced of their own reasoning.
* What is their relationship with violence?
* Do they regard combat as a last resort, an unfortunate necessity, a useful skill they personally lack, or an area in which their previous life conflicts with Jal Shey expectations?
* What does travel mean to them?
* Constant movement can create contacts, unfinished research, old allies, debts, rivals, former students, and places to which the character has reasons to return.
* Do they possess Jal Shey equipment?
* If so, give it provenance. A significant artifact should have a history rather than existing solely because the character belongs to the tradition.
* How do they respond to Jedi and Sith?
* Curiosity, cooperation, philosophical disagreement, caution, resentment, respect, or fear may all be reasonable depending on the character's experiences.
* What happened to their branch of the tradition?
* Because contemporary Jal Shey organization is poorly documented, this is one of the strongest places for carefully labeled StarForgeRP continuity: a lost mentor, scattered circle, damaged archive, unfinished expedition, or attempt to recover contact with other practitioners can create continuing RP hooks.
**Heading**Common Misconceptions
**Subheading**“The Jal Shey are just Gray Jedi.”
**Standard Text**No. The Jal Shey are presented as their own Force tradition with their own priorities, training, and history. Describing them only as Jedi who reject Jedi rules removes what makes the tradition distinctive.
**Subheading**“They are neutral between the light and dark sides.”
**Standard Text**The available material does not justify treating moral neutrality as a defining Jal Shey doctrine. Supplementary Legends material specifically indicates that candidates strongly tainted by the dark side were not normally considered suitable recruits.
A Jal Shey character should therefore not use the tradition merely as justification for unrestricted movement between light- and dark-side practices.
**Subheading**“They are scientists, so they do not believe in anything spiritual.”
**Standard Text**The sources describe an intellectual or scientific approach to studying the Force, but they do not provide enough detail to define the Jal Shey as materialists, atheists, or opponents of every spiritual interpretation.
Their distinctive feature is how they pursue understanding, not a fully documented rejection of spirituality.
**Subheading**“They are pacifists.”
**Standard Text**Not as an established universal rule. Jal Shey place less emphasis on physical pursuits, and supplementary material associates them with limited defensive lightsaber training, but this is not the same as establishing an absolute prohibition against violence.
**Subheading**“SWTOR confirms a large active Jal Shey order.”
**Standard Text**It does not.
SWTOR's brief Jal Shey reference is valuable evidence that the tradition was not forgotten by the setting, but it does not establish contemporary population, headquarters, leadership, institutional power, or even the exact meaning of the title used in the Consular's vision.
**Heading**Sources
**List**
* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords — Jal Shey Neophyte, Advisor, and Mentor armor descriptions; primary Old Republic-era source for their intellectual emphasis, diplomatic reputation, and named stages of training.* Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide — supplementary Legends reference expanding the Jal Shey's nomadic scholarship, recruitment, diplomacy, equipment, Force study, and defensive training. Published by Wizards of the Coast in 2008.* Star Wars: The Old Republic — Jedi Consular Rishi holocron sequence, containing a brief direct Jal Shey reference through a possible future title.
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