Lonto

The Lonto were a sentient humanoid species with a powerful and unique connection to nature. They were culturally worshippers of the light side of the Force who devoted themselves to the good of the natural world. A species of Force-users, the Lonto could use their power to grow and manipulate plants, utilizing them as both weapons and healing aids.

In 382 BBY, Susalee represented the Lonto on the Convocation of the Force—a council of representatives from Force-connected groups that operated on the moon Jedha—in many matters. Those included the petition of the Yacombe, a former dark side group with whom the Lonto had a long history, for membership in the Convocation and the Path of the Open Hand cult's petition for the Convocation to be disbanded.

In 228 BBY, the Lonto Lycos was a member of the Nihil pirates' Jedi hunter group named the Children of the Storm. He controlled plants to fight Jedi in a battle on the planet Ballum, but was defeated and sent to a rehabilitation unit. Lycos's daughter Vila later escaped from a Nihil work camp. After being discovered on the planet Dalna by the Tempest Breakers bounty hunters and monster hunter Ty Yorrick, Vila was sent to be reunited with her father. Vila then returned to Dalna with her father and the pair remained at a sanctuary called the Beacon while they used their Lonto gifts to help revitalize the devastated planet.

Biology and appearance

The Lonto were a sentient humanoid^[1] species^[5] that were tall and lithe. Their skin was gray,^[2] covered in lines,^[1] and bark-like, resembling wood.^[2] They had brown^[1] or black^[3] hair, blue eyes, and pointed ears.^[1] The Lonto were Force-using^[6] plant-mages^[7] who were connected to and able to manipulate nature,^[2] allowing them to grow and manipulate plants through a mystical power. With their power, they could use plants as weapons or protection, heal injuries^[5] with the use of tragia leaves,^[4] and revitalize desolate landscapes.^[8]

Society and culture

The Lonto were spiritual and worshipped the light side of the Force. They had a deep connection to the natural world, of which they were very proud^[5] and were devoted to channeling the power of the Force for the good of nature. They believed that when a person died, they passed into a realm known as the Garden Beyond.^[4] The Lonto wore simple long robes made of pure silk, decorated with ivy that they could manipulate and wield as a weapon if necessary. The robes could be pure white^[2] or light green.^[1]

Lonto in the galaxy

The Convocation

The Lonto had a long history with the Yacombe, a religion that was once affiliated with the dark side of the Force but later denounced it.^[1] In 382 BBY,^[9] Lonto member Susalee^[4] represented them in the Convocation of the Force, a council of various religious groups affiliated with the Force that operated on^[1] the holy moon^[10] Jedha.^[1] In that year,^[9] in the Convocation Chambers in Jedha's Holy City, Susalee restrained Fallanassi representative Sirené Taran from attacking a Yacombe envoy—who was attempting to petition for a seat on the Convocation—by wrapping Taran's body with vines.^[1]

Susalee defended the Yacombe, citing their history with the Lonto, but the Matukai representative Waran Val sliced through Susalee's vines with an axe, upsetting^[1] her,^[4] knocking her off balance, and causing her to cry out. After the envoy retracted their petition, Susalee decided that they should not discuss what had happened and look to the next day for a fresh perspective.^[1] When various artifacts began going missing across the Holy City, Susalee suggested that it was spicerunners using them for collateral in their deals.^[10]

Susalee later helped heal^[4] Jedi Master^[5] Vildar Mac's injuries that^[4] he^[5] sustained from a bombing at the Temple of the Kyber using tragia leaves, which she used the Force to control and wrap around his body. She revealed that Archivist Zumeg had died in the explosion by telling Mac he had "passed into the Garden Beyond." Later, she was present at a meeting of the Convocation with Mac where they discussed the potential perpetrators of the bombing, eventually deciding to present a cover story to the public that claimed a buildup of gas had caused it.^[4]

The Path of the Open Hand

When Werth Plouth, the Herald of the Path of the Open Hand, a cult disapproving of using the Force, petitioned for the Convocation to be disbanded and use of the Force to be temporarily banned, he also accused the Lonto of abusing the Force. Susalee and Val defended the Lonto, insisting they only channeled the Force for the good of the natural world.^[4] Shortly after, during riots incited by Plouth at the beginning of the Battle of Jedha, Susalee was mentally disturbed by the presence of^[11] the Leveler, a Nameless creature used by the Path that preyed on Force-sensitives and caused them to hallucinate.^[12] As a result, Susalee began attacking many citizens with her vines while proclaiming that she was protecting the peace and the light. Jedi Master Leebon attempted to talk her down but failed.^[11]

When a member of the Path, Fel Ix, later explained the cult's motives to stop the Jedi to Padawan Rooper Nitani, the latter asked why they did not target other groups that used the Force like the Lonto. Ix replied that the Path also wanted them to stop using it, but the Jedi were the most powerful and prominent Force-using group.^[6]

Child of the Storm

By 228 BBY,^[14] the Lonto Lycos^[3] was abducted by the Nihil pirate union Minister of Advancement^[7] and scientist Baron Boolan^[13] while Lycos was training his daughter Vila to use her Lonto plant-mage abilities.^[7] Lycos became one of the Nihil's Children of the Storm, Jedi hunters^[3] chosen for their Force-sensitivity who Boolan experimented on^[13] and injected with the blood of the Nameless to prevent them from being attacked by the beasts.^[15] Around that time, Lycos was attacked in the Nihil-controlled Occlusion Zone by Trandoshan Jedi Master Sskeer, who clawed out Lycos's left eye.^[3]

In that year,^[14] Lycos acted as a bodyguard to the Nihil envoy Affanar for a meeting with the Hutt Skarabda on the planet Ballum. Upon their arrival, Lycos led a Nameless on a chain off the envoy's ship to the meeting. There, he was attacked by Skarabda's enforcer, Lourna Dee, who he dueled with a vine-wrapped sword until Dee disarmed him. When Jedi and Republic Defense Coalition forces arrived on the planet, Lycos released the Nameless. The Lonto then attacked the forces himself, using barbed vines grown from his robes to attack Jedi Master Keeve Trennis and Jedi Knight Terec. By leaping to a great height, Lycos caused Terec to crash their Jedi Vector starfighter.^[16] Lycos eventually located Terec and taunted the Jedi after stabbing an RDC soldier through the chest with a vine. Lycos injured and restrained Terec following a duel between the two, but the Lonto was shot through the chest by another RDC soldier. While Terec eased his pain with the Force, Lycos revealed his prior encounter with Sskeer.^[3] Lycos survived and was sent to a Republic rehabilitation unit on^[7] the planet^[15] Coruscant.^[7]

Later, the Sephi wanderer Tey Sirrek explained to Terec and^[13] their bond-twin^[3] Ceret that members of groups strong in the Force, such as the Lonto, were sought out by Boolan to join the Children of the Storm and were subjected to his experiments.^[13] After being placed in Galactic Republic custody, Boolan believed he could still hear the screams of his Children of the Storm, including the Lonto Lycos, believing they were still out there and imagining Lycos and the other Children carrying out his victory and continuing his legacy.^[17]

The lost Lonto

Later that year,^[18] Vila escaped a Nihil work camp alongside the Pantoran Drayos and a Sneevel on a stolen Nihil Stormcruiser. They headed toward the planet Dalna, where they thought they wouldn't be found, but collided with a Galactic Republic EX droid and crashed onto the the planet. Vila and the others were soon discovered in Dalna's caves by the Tempest Breakers, a guild of bounty hunters led by former Nihil commander Lourna Dee. Believing Dee was still a Nihil, Drayos fired at her, beginning a shootout between both groups. Using her Lonto abilities, Vila grew vines that she used to disarm Tey Sirrek, a member of the Tempest Breakers, of his weapon the Hand of Siberus, before breaking the gauntlet with the vines.^[7]

In an attempt to stop the violence, Vila began tying up assailants on both sides with vines, including Sirrek, Dee, Drayos, the Sneevel, Dee's droid Q-4, as well as Force-sensitive monster hunter Ty Yorrick and her apprentice Drewen Qweebjillan, who had recently arrived. Yorrick recognized that the Lonto's vines were not related to the dark side of the Force and thus did not come from^[7] the carnivorous plant-like Drengir species.^[5] Using her lightsaber, Yorrick dueled Dee to stop her from firing on the escapees, angering Vila, who immobilized them with the vines and insisted all fighting stop. Sirrek then realized that Vila was a Lonto plant-mage, having not seen one in a long time.^[7]

As Vila's vines started to constrict her prisoners' airflow, Drayos and Yorrick tried to talk Vila down, but she was too frustrated by the constant fighting she had faced throughout the galaxy to relent. Upon remembering that Drayos began the firefight, Vila lashed out with her powers and accidentally further choked Drayos, causing them to pass out. Noticing Vila's shock, Yorrick warned her that she was just afraid and lashing out, but this only angered Vila more, leading her to completely entomb all of the people there in vines. As Vila collapsed to her knees and cried, Yorrick escaped from her vines using the Force. Fearing Yorrick would hurt her, Vila started to release the others from the vines, but Yorrick promised she would not be harmed and instead comforted and cradled Vila as she cried.^[7]

Reunion and recovery

Yorrick brought Vila from Dalna to the Republic Stormwall Defense Fleet ship Gios. After Archivist OrbaLin located Vila's father, Lycos, in his Coruscant rehabilitation facility, the Republic promised to reunite the two Lonto. As Jedi Master Elzar Mann then explained the circumstances of the Lonto pair's separation to Yorrick, Vila spoke to her father via hologram.^[7] Vila eventually returned to Dalna with Lycos and together used their Lonto powers to begin reviving the world, which had been devastated by the Nihil, returning plants to its surface.^[8]

Four months after the defeat of the Nihil at the Battle of Eriadu, Lycos and Vila were on Dalna and living at the Beacon, a sanctuary for those displaced by the Nihil, while it was preparing for a visit from Republic Chancellor Lina Soh and a contingent of Jedi. While Lycos and Vila used their powers to grow vines and an arch of flowers as part of their revitalization efforts, journalist Rhil Dairo asked the Beacon's funder, Lourna Dee, if she could record the pair at work, suggesting that seeing their efforts to revive Dalna would help assure the galactic public that the threat of the Blight, a recently-vanquished^[8] galaxy-spanning scourge,^[15] was over. Tey Sirrek stepped in, telling Dairo that former Children of the Storm like Lycos needed space to recover from their trauma without being recorded. After the Jedi and the Chancellor arrived, Vila continued helping others around the Beacon plant new plants. She and her father then participated in the celebratory feast held soon after, and personally said farewell to the Jedi and Dairo once it was over.^[8]

Behind the scenes

The Lonto species were conceived by Cavan Scott and designed by Andrea Broccardo for the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia initiative.^[2] They first appeared in Scott's comic story "Peace and Unity," which was illustrated by Broccardo and published in the first issue of the 2022 comic series Star Wars: The High Republic^[1] on October 12, 2022^[19] as part of the initiative's Phase II.^[20] Scott created the Lonto and Susalee, with their new application of Force-sensitivity based on a connection to nature, as a way to prove that he liked plants^[2] after creating the malicious and villainous plant-like Drengir species for the initiative.^[21]

Although "Peace and Unity" originally implied that all member organizations of the Convocation of the Force were religious groups,^[1] on October 1, 2023, Scott clarified that the Lonto were a species,^[22] which was later confirmed by Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia,^[5] a reference book written by Amy Richau and Megan Crouse and released on November 9, 2023.^[23]

Appearances

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• "Peace and Unity" — The High Republic (2022) 1 (First appearance)
• The High Republic (2022) 1 (Mentioned only)
• The High Republic (2022) 4
• The High Republic (2022) 5
• The High Republic: Path of Vengeance (and audiobook) (Indirect mention only)
• The High Republic: Quest for Planet X (and audiobook) (Mentioned only)
• The High Republic (2023) 1
• The High Republic (2023) 2
• The High Republic (2023) 3 (In flashback(s))
• The High Republic (2023) 6 (Mentioned only)
• "Brothers and Sisters" — The High Republic Adventures Phase III Annual (In flashback(s))
• The High Republic Adventures – Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone 4
• The High Republic – The Finale 1

Sources

• Star Wars: The High Republic Show: High Republic Phase II Deep Dive, Star Wars Celebration, and More! on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link) (Posted on StarWars.com)
• SDCC 2023: 10 Reveals from the Lucasfilm Publishing Panel on StarWars.com (backup link) (Picture only)
• Dark Droids Meets a Terrifying End in Marvel's December 2023 Star Wars Comics – Exclusive Preview on StarWars.com (backup link) (Picture only)
• Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia
• The Art of Star Wars: The High Republic: Volume II

Notes and references