Mara has never been prouder when Asyr settles early. He shifts into the form of a night felinx when Mara is thirteen, a whole year early. It’s a good body for stealth, her trainers tell her, and praise them for it.
Luke is the last of his friends to have his dæmon settle. Speculation drifts through his childhood. What sort of animal do you think your dæmon will choose? asked by adults with indulgent smiles and between children as their dæmons flit from form to from in impromptu races across the desert sand.
Not all species do. Wookiees don’t either, and yet Chewbacca doesn’t seem concerned that he doesn’t have a physical embodiment of his soul to keep him company. He gets on perfectly well on his own.
Luke had found it strange—and maybe, if he was being totally honest, a bit unnerving—when he’d first met the Wookiee. The empire had used the lack of a visible dæmon to claim that Wookiees were an inferior, soulless race, only suited for hard labor. If anyone has a soul, it’s Chewbacca, even if his dæmon isn’t visible to the human eye.
There are other laws and regulations restricting species whose dæmons are different from human dæmons. Before leaving Tatooine, Luke hadn’t realized the breadth of the Empire’s cruelties against those who don’t fit in with Imperial standards.
Back on Tatooine he’d seen a few aliens who didn’t have dæmons like humans do, but they’d kept to themselves, and he didn’t think he’d ever actually had a conversation with one. Most of his time was spent around human moisture farmers anyway, and the wide variety of cultures and races in the wider galaxy had been a bit of a culture shock. Since then he’s met Mon Calamari who carry their small aquatic dæmons in transparisteel bubbles, Rodians with amphibian dæmons who all look exactly the same except for the vibrant color of their skin, and Verpine whose dæmons manifest as a small cloud of insects. Yoda tells him that dæmons are born from the Force itself, luminous creatures made of the pure energy that binds the galaxy together.
But why stop at only choosing daemons for characters in my fic? I ended up picking dæmons for a number of star wars characters (with a little help from a friend), regardless of whether those characters actually appear in any of my stories.
Some of these dæmons may show up in future installments of the Animalis series, others are just my personal headcanons. If you’d like to use any of these choices in your own story, I would be delighted.
The dæmons that do appear in the series can be found in here (x) (x) (x) and (x)
Canon and Legends characters below the cut:
Lando’s daemon Celeste is a starling; I picked an African starling because they match!
Although most Togrutas have secretary bird dæmons, Ahsoka’s dæmon is the convor Morai
Dæmon notes for Luminous Creatures, chapters four and five, with pictures!
(pictures below the cut)
Vornskr and ysalamiri are unique animals to native Myrkr. Ysalsmiri alter a Force user’s perception of the Force, creating a Force-null “bubble.” Vornskr can sense Force users and, unless domesticated, will hunt and kill them.
The illustrations for vornskrs vary, but this one is my favorite (and hard to find):
Illustrations for ysalamiri never follow the descriptions in the book! I guess that everyone looked at the idea of “unable to move from a branch”--a major plot point in the books!--and said “nah that’s dumb and I’m going to ignore it.” They’re also supposed to have fur! They’re not supposed to look like this! No!
Sofonisba, C’baoth’s daemon, is a tusk cat.
Annowiskri’s dæmon is a shaupaut.
Thrawn has a Csilla frost viper, a type of snake I just made up.
I also made up Chandrilan chameleon snakes. They sound cool, don’t they? Mood ring snakes!
For Trivia Tues I’m posting the notes that appear at the end of Chapter One of Luminous Creatures, discussing the daemons that appear in the chapter. This time with pictures!
(below the cut for pictures)
The dæmons in this fic are a mix of animals that have appeared in various Star Wars media as well as slight variations on Earth animals that are inventions of my own (in the SW tradition of taking an Earth animal and giving it weird feet and an extra x in its name). Obi-Wan’s Basi river egret, for instance, is just an egret with fancy feathers and extra eyes.
In Greek myth Penelope waits for decades for her husband to return. A loose connection to Obi-Wan's wait in the desert. Make what you will of the "husband" thing.
I like the idea of Padmé's dæmon giving Luke's dæmon a traditional Naboo name that ended in -é. I came up with Miré, a variation on Mira. "Mira" or its variants can be found in many cultures with a number of meanings, including "wonder," "goodness." Miré and Nimué are traditional feminine names from Naboo, connecting Palpatine to his home planet and Luke to his birth mother. I found all name "meanings" via quick google searches, so take all meanings with a grain of salt.
Many of these creatures come from “The Wildlife of Star Wars,” a beautiful book of animal designs I recommend checking out. You can also check out the Creatures of Tatooine category on Wook for the various animals the children’s dæmons use for their forms.
Some of the animals that appear in the Tatooine section:
Dewback
Anooba
Urusai
Felinxes are basically space cats. I’ve invented the particulars for night felinxes, basing them off wild cats like caracals and black servals. Asyr is a name I made up and googled after the fact. It's not common, but apparently it's an Arabic name meaning "captivating." In my head, I pronounce it uh-seer.
Breu’s dæmon is a vixcha, which I based on the South American rodent called a viscachas. Owen has an eopie dæmon (those space camels from the Prequels).
