Rattataki

The Rattataki are a near-Human species originating on the remote Outer Rim world of Rattatak. Recognizable by their pale skin, bald heads, and often elaborate dark markings, they developed for thousands of years in relative isolation from the wider galaxy.

Life on Rattatak was exceptionally harsh. SWTOR describes the early Rattataki as surviving beneath the planet's surface while violent storms and dangerous creatures made much of the surface nearly uninhabitable. Scarce resources contributed to repeated conflict between tribes, and warfare eventually became deeply embedded in Rattataki society.

By the SWTOR era, Rattataki are no longer confined to their homeworld. Contact with the greater galaxy led many to leave Rattatak, where their reputation for combat helped them find work as mercenaries, bodyguards, bounty hunters, soldiers, criminals, and other dangerous professions.

That reputation should provide context rather than a required personality.

A Rattataki character may be competitive, martial, proud, or comfortable with violence because of their upbringing. Another may deliberately reject those values, have been raised entirely offworld, or know Rattatak only through family stories.

For roleplay, the important question is not simply whether a Rattataki can fight.

It is what relationship the character has with the culture that taught generations of their people to value survival and strength.

Rattatak & Isolation

SWTOR places the Rattataki deep in the Outer Rim and describes their people as having developed in isolation for thousands of years. Their ancestors survived in extensive underground caverns after severe storms and dangerous surface predators forced them away from much of the planet's surface. Competition over limited resources contributed to near-constant fighting between tribes.

According to the SWTOR Holonet, the warlord Rattatak eventually united enough of these tribes to wage a successful campaign against the creatures dominating the surface. His forces established fortified settlements in Rattatak's mountainous terrain, although the unity he created did not survive him. The tribes eventually returned to their rivalries.

What changed permanently was their access to the surface—and eventually to the wider galaxy.

Once contact with other civilizations became possible, some Rattataki left their homeworld. Their fighting ability made them attractive as mercenaries, guards, and bounty hunters, creating an offworld Rattataki population well before the events experienced by player characters in SWTOR.

Roleplay Note

A Rattataki does not need to have been born on Rattatak.

An offworld character might descend from mercenaries, refugees, slaves, Imperial conscripts, criminals, or families that left the planet generations earlier. Such a character could have a very different relationship with traditional Rattataki culture from someone raised among the tribes of Rattatak.

When creating a Rattataki character, decide whether Rattatak is their home, their ancestral homeland, or simply a place other people associate with them.

Rattataki are near-Human in appearance. Broader Legends material describes them as having chalk-white or pale skin and characteristically bald heads, while SWTOR consistently depicts the species with extremely pale complexions and a humanoid body structure.

Dark facial and cranial markings are also strongly associated with the species. SWTOR's character customization specifically identifies tattoos as a Rattataki customization feature, and official promotional material regularly depicts Rattataki with bold dark markings across the face and scalp.

The precise cultural meanings of individual Rattataki tattoo patterns are not thoroughly explained in SWTOR lore.

For StarForgeRP, they can therefore be treated as an area where players have room for interpretation. Tattoos might represent clan identity, personal history, achievement, affiliation, mourning, intimidation, religious belief, or simply aesthetic preference depending on the character's background—but specific meanings should be presented as character, family, or community traditions unless supported by an established source.

Scars may also fit naturally into many Rattataki backgrounds, particularly characters raised around warfare or gladiatorial combat, but neither scars nor tattoos should be used as shorthand for personality.

SWTOR's official Rattataki material does not establish a clear average biological lifespan for the species.

Some unofficial and secondary roleplaying references provide specific figures, but these are not sufficiently well established to treat as definitive SWTOR lore.

For StarForgeRP, the safest approach is to treat Rattataki aging as broadly near-Human unless a reliable Legends source establishes otherwise.

Roleplay Note

Avoid making a character's age depend on an exact species lifespan unless the story requires it.

For most characters, upbringing and life experience will matter much more than whether the biological maximum for a Rattataki is somewhat longer or shorter than that of a Human.

Broader Legends material identifies a distinct Rattataki language, associated with the inhabitants of Rattatak. SWTOR itself does not provide an extensive vocabulary, writing system, or grammatical description for players to reproduce.

Offworld Rattataki may also speak Galactic Basic and other languages appropriate to their lives in the wider galaxy.

A mercenary who has worked throughout Hutt Space might know Huttese. An Imperial-raised Rattataki might be most comfortable using Basic and Imperial terminology. Someone raised within an isolated community on Rattatak might instead regard the Rattataki language as an important connection to tribe or ancestry.

Roleplay Note

Because the established Rattataki language is largely undefined, players should avoid inventing extensive vocabulary and presenting it as official Star Wars language material.

Small pieces of community-created terminology can work well when clearly treated as StarForgeRP expansion rather than established canon.

Traditional Rattataki society was shaped by an unusually hostile environment.

SWTOR describes generations of tribal warfare over scarce resources, survival beneath the surface of Rattatak, and a period in which some tribes resorted to cannibalism during extreme conditions. Even after the Rattataki reclaimed the surface, conflict between tribes resumed.

Combat eventually became more than a method of survival.

Gladiatorial fighting developed into one of Rattatak's most famous forms of entertainment, and SWTOR characterizes the planet's fighting pits as among the most brutal in the galaxy. Official material repeatedly associates traditional Rattataki culture with competition, pride, strength, and martial ability.

Kaliyo Djannis provides one SWTOR-era example of these cultural influences. BioWare describes her as having been raised on Rattatak to admire power, strength, and glory before eventually leaving the planet for a life among criminals, bounty hunters, and other underworld figures.

This does not mean every Rattataki values the same things.

A culture shaped by strength can produce warriors, but it can also produce healers who are tired of watching people die, diplomats attempting to end old rivalries, intellectuals trying to understand their people's history, former slaves fiercely protective of personal freedom, or parents determined that their children will have a different life.

For roleplay, culture should create pressures and expectations for the character to respond to, not dictate their personality.

SWTOR does not establish a comprehensive Rattataki naming system.

Known Rattataki demonstrate that ordinary personal and family names can exist; Kaliyo Djannis is the most prominent SWTOR example. Secondary examinations of SWTOR NPC names suggest considerable variation rather than a rigid naming formula.

For StarForgeRP, names should therefore sound appropriate to Star Wars without requiring players to follow an invented linguistic rule.

A character raised on Rattatak may carry a traditional personal, family, or tribal name. Someone raised elsewhere could possess a name influenced by Imperial, Republic, Hutt, criminal, military, or adopted culture.

Aliases may also be particularly appropriate for mercenaries, gladiators, bounty hunters, slaves, and underworld characters.

Naming Recommendation

Avoid presenting fan-created rules such as mandatory syllable structures or specific prefixes as established Rattataki tradition.

If a family, tribe, or StarForgeRP organization develops its own naming convention, identify that convention as community-created culture.

The Rattataki entered wider galactic society comparatively late and carried with them a formidable martial reputation.

Their skills created opportunities for some Rattataki as mercenaries, bodyguards, and bounty hunters, but contact with galactic powers also exposed them to exploitation and slavery.

SWTOR even notes a complicated prejudice among Rattataki themselves: despite the oppression experienced by many of their people, official promotional material states that many Rattataki looked down upon other enslaved species.

This is particularly useful as cultural tension, rather than a mandatory character belief.

A Rattataki former slave might develop tremendous solidarity with other oppressed peoples. Another might cling to ideas of superiority as a way of preserving pride. Someone raised offworld might find the entire attitude archaic or offensive.

Rattataki characters can therefore explore questions of pride, assimilation, prejudice, cultural survival, and what happens when a people accustomed to measuring status through strength encounters much larger galactic institutions.

Galactic Republic

The Rattataki do not have the same deeply established historical relationship with the Galactic Republic as species from long-standing Republic member worlds.

Rattatak's isolation meant that much of traditional Rattataki history developed beyond Republic institutions, and SWTOR places considerable emphasis instead on mercenary contact and later Imperial involvement.

That does not prevent individual Rattataki from becoming Republic citizens, soldiers, contractors, criminals, Jedi, refugees, or residents of Republic-aligned worlds.

For roleplay, a Republic Rattataki benefits from answering how they entered Republic society.

Were they born there? Did their parents leave Rattatak? Did they defect from Imperial territory? Were they liberated from slavery? Did a mercenary contract gradually become genuine loyalty?

Republic affiliation should come from the character's history rather than being assumed from species.

Sith Empire

The Rattataki have a far more troubled documented relationship with the Sith Empire.

Shortly after the Empire returned to Republic space, the Sith Lord Darth Vich traveled to Rattatak and recruited approximately one hundred Rattataki tribes into his personal military force, breaking with a long Imperial tradition of hostility toward alien species. Their effectiveness made them useful soldiers, while dozens of Force-sensitive Rattataki became Vich's personal acolytes.

Vich eventually attempted to use that power against his rivals within the Empire and failed.

The Dark Council responded by killing or enslaving the Rattataki who had followed him. SWTOR also records unconfirmed rumors that some Rattataki acolytes helped betray Vich and were subsequently accepted for formal Sith training.

This history creates several strong Imperial character backgrounds.

A Rattataki might descend from Vich's soldiers, from enslaved survivors, from later immigrants, or from people who entered Imperial service voluntarily. They may view the Empire as an oppressor, an opportunity, an unavoidable reality, or the society in which they were born.

Most importantly, an Imperial Rattataki should not be treated exactly like an Imperial Human. The Empire's history of anti-alien hierarchy gives them a different social context even when they are personally loyal to Imperial rule.

Rattataki can be Force-sensitive.

SWTOR establishes this directly through Darth Vich's recruitment of the species. Among the tribes he brought into his army were dozens of Force-sensitive Rattataki whom he trained as personal Sith acolytes.

Force sensitivity therefore requires no unusual biological explanation for a Rattataki character.

What matters is who discovered it.

An Imperial Rattataki might be identified and sent into the Sith training system, perhaps carrying the additional burden of Imperial prejudice or a family history connected to Darth Vich's failed uprising. A Rattataki raised within Republic space could instead come to the attention of the Jedi Order.

Other possibilities may exist when supported by character history, but SWTOR does not establish a major indigenous Rattataki Force tradition comparable to the Jedi or Sith.

For roleplay, Force sensitivity should therefore be part of the individual's circumstances rather than treated as a defining trait of the species.

When creating a Rattataki character, the most useful questions are:

• Were they raised on Rattatak or elsewhere?

  • A native upbringing can create very different assumptions from life in an Imperial city, Republic colony, Hutt-controlled settlement, or wandering mercenary family.

• What relationship do they have with traditional Rattataki values?

  • Do they admire strength and competition, reinterpret those values, or reject them?

• What does strength mean to them?

  • Physical power, endurance, independence, intelligence, loyalty, survival, political influence, or something else?

• How important are tribe and family?

  • Are those relationships central to their identity, lost to them, deliberately abandoned, or replaced by another community?

• What do their tattoos or markings mean?

  • Established lore leaves enough room for personal or community traditions, but those meanings should not automatically be presented as universal Rattataki canon.

• How has violence affected them?

  • Familiarity with violence does not require enjoyment of it. A character may embrace combat, treat it pragmatically, fear it, or be exhausted by it.

• How do they view slavery and oppression?

  • Rattataki history provides reasons for anger, solidarity, prejudice, ambition, or complicated attitudes toward social hierarchy.

• What is their relationship with the Empire?

  • Darth Vich's recruitment and the Dark Council's retaliation provide particularly strong historical hooks for Imperial families.

• Are they comfortable being stereotyped as a warrior?

  • Other characters may expect aggression or martial ability from them regardless of whether those assumptions are accurate.

• Is the Force part of their life?

  • If so, consider who discovered their sensitivity, who trained them, and whether species prejudice affected that path.

• Who are they beyond being Rattataki?

  • Their species provides history and context. Profession, relationships, convictions, failures, ambitions, and personal experiences should determine who the character actually becomes.