Mandalorians

Timeline

     Knights of the Old Republic, page 186.

The Mandalorians are not a race, but a movement. They are a society of warriors who embrace a rough, honor-driven, and nomadic lifestyle. Conflict with the Mandalorians is a defining characteristic of the half century that began with the Great Sith War. For the Mandalorians, the period encompasses their movement’s greatest triumph and its near-total end.

     For centuries, Mandalorian Crusaders roam the galaxy, seeking new battles and challlenges. During the Great Sith War, this movement of free agents becomes embroiled in the politics of the galaxy, setting off a chain of events that will include the near-extinction of their own movement.

     Sensing an opportunity in the conflict between the Sith and the Republic, Mandalore the Indomitable directs his forces against the Empress Teta system, expecting to make an easy conquest. But fallen Jedi Ulic Qel‑Droma bests the leader in single combat, an act which has immediate and long-term repercussions. As a term of the duel, the Mandalorian clans are obliged to swear allediance to the Sith, joining them in their war against the Republic.

     Mandalore the Indomitable falls in battle and the Jedi eventually prevail, but for the Mandalorian warriors, the consequences linger long after the Sith War ends. Warriors are scattered across they galaxy, endangering the continuation of their traditions. Worse, many warriors are embarrassed and fell betrayed. Uninterested in the differences between Jedi and Sith, they only see their people in servitude to beings with powers betond their understanding. Wherever clans gather, there is talk of retribution against the Jedi and against the Republic they protected.

The Restoration (3,995-3,966 BBY)

Soon, another leader rises with the name and mask of Mandalore. He calls upon the talents of advisors whose knowledge goes beyond the battlefield—Cassus Fett, Demagol, and others—to help him reshape Mandalorian identity. When an extremist cult calls for the reestablishment of the Crusader tradition, this Mandalore, “The Ultimate,” uses that group as the foundation to reinvent the Mandalorian movement as a more disciplined, organized fighting force.

     The spread of the “Neo-Crusader” subculture bears fruit in the Mandalorians’ successful conquests of nonaligned worlds. By the time the Mandalorians launch the “Onslaught”—their full-scale attack on the Republic—a system has been established to assimilate the new conquests. Factories that might have been pillaged before are now made to serve as War Forges. Captured ships are quickly refitted for immediate service. And many of the conquered peoples are efficiently transformed into Mandalorians, undergoing speedy indoctrination by Neo-Crusader “rally masters” and receiving Neo-Crusader armor.

     Some see the cultivation of the “Neo-Crusaders” as a crass ploy, sacrificing Mandalorian tenets in the name of a larger goal. But dissidents are effectively silenced. When Rohlan Dyre risks his life to question the movement, Mandalore uses the warrior’s fate as an example for not bucking authority. So it is that the Mandalorians who nearly conquer the galaxy bear little resemblance to the Crusaders of just a generation before.

The Mandalorian Wars (3,965-3,960 BBY)

After decades of rebuilding, the Mandalorians are ready to strike. For some years they test the Republic’s defenses, engaging in small skirmishes along the Outer Rim, seeing how strongly the damaged Republic can resist their efforts. When at last the Mandalorians have amassed large enough resources and numbers, they launch an all-out invasion of Republic worlds, seeking to claim those planets for their own. Under the direction of Mandalore the Ultimate with the aid of Cassus Fett, the Mandalorians are successful in seizing countless worlds before a real defense can be mounted.

     For years the Mandalorians engage the Republic in a devastating war of attrition. Each world they conquer provides the Mandalorians with thousands of new troops, while the Republic’s resources begin to fee l strained. With only a few Jedi engaged in the opposition, the Mandalorians are able to take advantage of the bureuacratic weakness displayed by the Republic military and their superior warrior’s training earns them victory in many battles. When they finally fall to the Jedi Revan and his Republic forces at Malachor V, Mandalorians feel a new kind of shame. The hurt of being defeated and dispersed again pales before the knowledge that, in their eagerness to defeat the Republic, they had given up the traits that had made them Mandalorians.

The Jedi Civil War and The Dark Wars (3,959-3,951 BBY)

The remaining Mandalorians, scattered and lacking in identity, face the Jedi Civil War and the tough years to follow. Some turn to crime. Others, such as Canderous Ordo, attempt to restore the Mandalorian movement to its original principles. The Mandalorian Wars are over, but the story of the Mandalorian people will go on. Many Mandalorians become mercenaries, particularly those who bought into the Neo-Crusader movement, as they quickly find themselves falling out of favor with the remaining Mandalorian traditionalists. Honorable Mandalorians continue to carry on their traditions throughout the galaxy, awaiting a leader to reunite them and help restore the clans to their former glory. While the scattered Mandalorians weather the Jedi Civil War and the Dark Wars that follow, they cease to be a major faction in the galactic scene following two devastating defeats in the Great Sith War and the Mandalorian Wars.

     Yet all hope is not lost for the Mandalorians. Near the end of the Dark Wars, an honorable Mandalorian warrior named Canderous Ordo takes up the mantle of Mandalore and reunites the Mandalorians clans into one people again. Under his leadership, the clans restore much of their honor in help ing defeat the last remaining Sith and begin establish ing their place in the galaxy once more.

Using the Mandalorians

Even though the Mandalorians’ belief system has existed for centuries before the Great Sith War, the years leading up to and including the Mandalorian Wars bring major changes to Mandalorian organization and behavior.

     The two distinct varieties—the Crusader, or traditional culture, and the Neo-Crusader movement—coexist uneasily in the years between the Great Sith War and the defeat at Malachor V. The numbers of each vary depending on the time. Early on, Neo-Crusaders are few, but during the heat of the war with the Republic, when their ranks have ballooned from conquered peoples, the majority of Mandalorians are Neo-Crusaders.

     Mandalorians from the period after the Mandalorian Wars are a mix of former members of the two groups.

Crusaders

Following the traditions of old, Mandalorian Crusaders are a community of individuals who adopt and respect the same warrior tradition. They value abilities more than possessions, understanding that, even though they do settle in places from time to time, there will always be another call to battle beyond the horizon.

     Traditional Mandalorians are unafraid of technology, using what they learn to help augment their personal arsenals. Thus, warriors’ armor and weaponry can be very different. Many wear personal jet packs as tools for opening new avenues of attack rather than for escape, because they are honor-bound to stand and fight. Mandalorian armors also have internal environmental systems. In addition to allowing warriors to wear them for long durations, they provide protection against poison gas and permit activity in the vacuum of space.

Joining Up

The way to become a Mandalorian is simple. You are a Mandalorian because you choose to be a Mandalorian and because you act like a Mandalorian.

     Of course, it helps to have other Mandalorians—known collectively in their language as the Mando’—around, because much of acting like a Mandalorian involves the community. Mandalorian society has no written laws and few norms, but the few that exist are sacred. Chief among these are the Resal’Nare, or the Six Actions:

     Ba’jur, beskar’gam,
     Ara’nov, aliit,
     Mando’a bal Mand’alor—
     An vencuyan mhi.

     Education and armor,
     Self-defense, our tribe,
     Our language, our leader—
     All help us survive.

A few words, for a people of few words. Raising younglings as Mandalorians; wearing armor; defending one’s self and family; helping the clan flourish; speaking Manda’a; and rallying to Mandalore’s side when needed. It is a simple creed that translates well, given the variety of non-Human species represented among the Mandalorians. It is vital to keep to these tenets, because someone ignorant of Mandalorian culture is regarded as dar’mandaseen as the equivalent of living without a soul. Just as no individual authority figure declares you a Mandalorian, no one figure decides when someone has been unworthy. In both cases, that decision comes organically from the community, accepting or shunning the newcomer.

     The traditional Crusaders do not proselytize’ rather, they attract others to their cause through the examples they set. Veterans see the later Neo-Crusader movement, which actively converts outsiders in its hurry to conquer the galaxy, as a perversion.

Life in the Clans

A harsh life awaits newcomers to the Mandalorian ways—particularly those who have spent their lives in the Republic, which the Mandalorians see as soft and decadent. Even though Mandalorians help each other—directing a promising convert to old or spare armor and weapons for an initial outfit—self- sufficiency is a necessity. Meals, weapons, and starship fuel: all are where you find them.

     Fortunately, traditional Mandalorians are not unduly burdened with a respect for the property rights of outsiders. Craftspeople within the Crusader clans use industrial skills as necessary, but no static infrastructure for formal manufacturing exists for long anywhere other than the planet Mandalore. Thus, much of the Mandalorians’ arsenal—from the Basilisk war droids they ride to the ships they fly—has traditionally come from somewhere else. The galaxy’s greatest flouters of the Republic’s patent laws, Mandalorians happily adopt technologies found elsewhere for their own purposes.

     Mandalorians place great emphasis on the family, prizing chastity before marriage and fidelity thereafter. Children are trained from a young age, and all members of the family share an equal role in its preservation against enemies.

     Trade within Mandalorian communities is based on barter, with jewelry and precious metals used as portable commodities alongside weapons and armor. However, Mandalorians understand the currencies used in the galaxy around them, and many have been known to amass fortunes for reinvestment in their gear or ships.

Crusader Organization

Throughout most of their history, “Mandalorian” and “organization” are contradictory terms. Such is the case with the Crusaders of the Great Sith War. They recognize no official ranks; they do not divide into formal units; they use no command structure of any kind. Respect for Mandalore—their sole leader—and filial obligation to their clans are the Mandalorians’ only responsibilities to others.

     Mandalorian forces—a term more accurate than “armies”—are amorphous, with information spreading t hrough the warrior mass by sight and sound. Keeping one eye on their comrades enables Mandalorians to respond quickly when the direction of battle changes. Mass movements, too, appear to follow a sort of hive behavior. When respected warriors head to another ridge—or star system—others follow.

Mandalorian Crusader Personnel

Mandalorian Crusader

The Neo-Crusaders

The Resol’Nare have nothing to say when it comes to bureaucracy, payrolls, or the other feat ures found in regular militaries. Of course, nothing in the creed forbids those features from developing, either. Thus, the first Neo-Crusaders are able to argue for a change in the ideal Mandalorian without seeming to offend the Mandalorian ideals.

     The Neo-Crusader movement springs from Sith War veterans who are discontent about how the Crusaders performed against the Republic and its Jedi. They are excellent at pillaging and destroying Republic installations, but the Mandalorians are not efficient at exploiting their conquests. With the Crusader ethic focused on fighting the next battle, the brief Sith War provides the Mandalorians with little time to digest their gains. As such, huge conquered industrial complexes sit idle rather than rearming the Mando’ade, and untold millions of beings who might have been brought into the fold are not. The Crusaders are talented at invading but not at occupying or, for that matter, at creating new Crusaders—at least, not at a pace necessary to hold a galaxy.

     Ascribing this deficit to the lack of order arising from their nomadic lifestyle, a small group of zealots calling themselves Neo-Crusaders take residence on the planet Mandalore. They wear identical suits of armor, a practice others see as bizarre. Further, they adopt their own rudimentary chain of command and division of labor—again, a feature not found in the traditional culture. Many Mandalorians find this freakish, but a few take interest in what the Neo-Crusaders have to say. And when the Mandalorians again reach out to raid nonaligned worlds, the Neo-Crusaders—with their discipline and willingness to rely more on their helmet transceivers—are winning more than their share of battles.

     Sensing an opportunity, Mandalore and aide-de-camp Cassus Fett encourage the movement. Cassus refines the one-time cult’s organizational strategies for use on a larger scale-the big time, as it were. And it becomes big, indeed. The Mandalorians who first tested the Repub lic in the so-called “False War” find that they are at a distinct advantage with Neo-Crusaders as their vanguard. By the time the wider Mandalorian Wars with the Republic break out, Mandalore has Neo-Crusaders present in every unit, boosting morale and spreading the new ideals of conformity and discipline.

     When the Mandalorians take Republic worlds, they immediately locate likely recruits. Shipped to training centers (another concept alien to Mandalorians). The new recruits are taught by Neo-Crusaders to become NeoCrusaders. Traditional Mandalorians are encouraged to adopt the system, too—although some are distressed by the changes. The Mandalorians of the past are voluntarily committed to the cause, but Neo-Crusaders increasingly include warriors of poor quality who join to escape occupation or to share in the pillaging.

     Having transformed from a grassroots movement to a weapon that nearly conquers a galaxy, the Neo-Crusader dream ends with their final defeat in the Mandalorian Wars.

Joining the Neo-Crusaders

During the early years of the movement the Neo-Crusaders are ideologically pure. Coming from the ranks of existing Mandalorians, members tend to be young, often children of Crusaders lost in the Great Sith War.

     Later, after victories against nonaligned worlds, the Neo-Crusaders gain official blessing and begin targeting existing Mandalorian warriors for conversion. Intellectual agreement with the Neo-Crusader approach remains important, and new members who buck authority or show excessive individualism risk being cast out.

     Finally, during the Mandalorian Wars when the entire Mandalorian movement is organized according along Neo-Crusader lines, standards quickly begin to collapse. On Taris, as on other worlds, Cassus Fett gives citizens a choice: join the Mandalorians as warriors, or sit quietly and work as manufacturers for the clans as de facto slaves. Many—including a host of criminals from the prisons the Mandalorians empty—go with the recruiters to planetary staging centers. There they receive whirlwind indoctrination in the Resoi’Nare from Mandalorian “Rally Masters” before being issued blue Neo-Crusader armor, fresh from the on-site War Forges.

     As the size of the conquered population explodes during the Mandalorian Wars, Neo-Crusader training devolves to “put on a helmet and go,” as one dissident puts it. The average Neo-Crusader warrior in the Battle of Malachor is “average,” indeed.

Life as a Neo-Crusader

In the beginning, Neo-Crusaders are looked upon as weird cultists. Their uniforms and structured approach are as much an offense to Mandalorian senses of style as anything. Many warriors laugh at or avoid them.

     When they gain Mandalore’s imprimatur in the years leading up to the war on the Republic, they rise quickly in standing. They fashion themselves as “model Mandalorians,"”setting examples to be followed by others. Neo-Crusaders initially receive preferential treatment when it comes to receiving armor and weaponry from the new War Forges. Eventually, all new equipment is designed for Neo-Crusaders, leaving the holdouts to fend for themselves.

     Neo-Crusaders use their helmet comm systems constantly, and warriors are expected to keep them on to hear any orders coming through.

Neo-Crusader Organization

Under the structure decreed by Manda lore the Ultimate and implemented by Cassus Fett, the Neo-Crusaders recognize four levels of authority. The gulf between ranks is wide and the ratios of underling to superior soon grow huge, but this organization is far more structured than traditional Mandalorians are accustomed to.

     Neo-Crusader: The basic warrior, Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders wear identical blue armor. The color-coding, Cassus Fett contends, makes it easier for new recruits to recognize authority even when they do not speak Mando’a. A transponder signal is later implemented to help color-blind species in this regard.

     Neo-Crusader Rally Master: Where the Crusaders had formed up around whatever warriors seemed to be most lethai—Rohlan was one—the Rally Masters are Mandalore the Ultimate’s trusted lieutenants on the ground. They are called upon for many duties: part drill sergeant, part political officer, part battlefield commander. Wearing crimson Neo-Crusader armor, they are instantly recognizable in the field—and blue Neos are expected to find and heed them. Formal units do not exist at the outbreak of the Mandalorian Wars, so warriors are expected to obey the Rally Master nearest them. Since they all presumably speak with Mandalore’s voice, this division of command is enough.

     Neo-Crusader Marshal: Cassus Fett is among the first of Mandalore’s top advisors to accept the gold-colored Neo-Crusader armor as an example that even those at the top should give up individualism. But the gold armor’s value as a status symbol quickly deteriorates. Some, such as science advisor Demagol, refuse to take on the new appearance’and Mandalore the Ultimate soon distributes the golden armor as rewards to everyone from his personal vanguard to anyone who desires differentiation from the Rally Masters- all the way down to Demagol’s own aides.

     Admitting defeat on this one point, Fett later argues for unique armors for the truly special—including himself. But on the battlefield, the shining armor continues to designate the operation’s field marshal.

     As the population of Nee-Crusaders increases, Mandalore the Ultimate approves new armor packages for special purposes. Neo-Crusader shock troopers are the first of several kinds of Neo-Crusader, all with look-alike armor geared toward their tactical specialty.

Neo-Crusader Personnel

The Mandalorians are a diverse group with members of many species represented throughout its forces. The following characters can be used to create exciting encounters with Mandalorians during most of the major conflicts of this time period.

Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader, Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader Rally Master, Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader Marshal, Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader Shock Trooper

The Scattering

During the years following the Mandalorian Wars, the Mandalorians scatter to the galactic winds. Many of those remaining in the Republic stop wearing armor and blend in with the crowd. Others, in more remote areas, attempt to keep quietly to their traditions, but the going is difficult. Many turn to smuggling, bounty hunting, and piracy, plying their battle-hardened skills as best they can. However, not everyone using Mandalorian weapons or armor is Mandalorian. After the Wars, Mandalorian artifacts are so plentiful that they are frequently used in other contexts.

Mandalorian Personalities

Individuals within the ranks of the Mand alorians are frequently raised up as exemplars of Mandalorian culture, and just as many are reviled for betraying the unique code of honor held by their people. The following individuals are among the most influential Mandalorians found in the galaxy throughout this era.

Bendak Starkiller, Demagol, Rohlan Dyre, Cassus Fett, Mandalore the Indomitable, Mandalore the Ultimate, Canderous Ordo, Mandalore the Preserver

Gear

Armor

Neo‑Crusader Light Armor, Mandalorian Combat Suit, Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader Batttle Armor, Mandalorian Neo‑Crusader Assault Armor

Weapons

Mythosaur Axe, Stunning Gauntlets

Droids

The Basilisk war droid, one of the most unique weapons of war in the galaxy, is frequently seen in skirmishes throughout the Great Sith War and the Mandalorian Wars.

Basilisk War Droid

Starships

Mandalorians are technological mimics, able to replicate and improve upon the technologies of conquered peoples. Mandalorian ship designs are based on pirated vessels, augmented beyond recognition by Mandalorians looking for an extra technological edge.

     The ships of traditional Mandalorians are, therefore, as highly personalized as their suits of armor. Most known “types” are vague categorizations, named by Republic observers for their convenience. (Use the junker template from Starships of the Galaxy on any of the ships presented in th is section to represent modified designs from before the Mandalorian Wars.) Under the Neo-Crusaders, more designs are routed to War Forges for mass production, creating somewhat more recognizable classes of vehicles.

     Manufacturing during the Mandalorian Wars is all for the Crusade, without such Republic niceties as patents or corporate entities. In later times, with the Mandalorians scattered, their technologies resurface in more traditional corporate bodies such as Mandai Motors.

Starfighters: Davaab‑type Starfighter

Space Trtansports: Shaadlar‑type Troopship, Teroch‑type_Fast_Attack_Gunship

Capital Ships: Jehavey’ir‑type Assault Ship, Kyramud‑type Battleship

 

Footnotes and References
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