The Nightsisters are not soldiers and they are not a syndicate — they are a coven. The Witches of Dathomir draw their power from the planet itself, the green ichor that runs through its soil and its spirits, and they wield it as "magick": curses, veils, summonings, and the raising of the dead. To fight a Nightsister is to fight something older and stranger than a blaster line, and a GM running them should lean all the way into the dread. They do not advance in formation. They appear, they hex, and they are gone — and the bodies you left behind stand back up.
For most of galactic history the Nightsisters kept to Dathomir, selling their services as mercenaries and curse-for- hire only when it suited the Great Mother and her clan mothers. The Clone Wars dragged them into the open — Mother Talzin's bargains with Count Dooku, the unleashing of Savage Opress, and finally the Massacre that all but exterminated them. A campaign can meet the coven at its height, hunting on its own marshes, or in its bitter aftermath, where a handful of survivors carry a clan's worth of grudges across the Outer Rim.
What Counts as "Nightsisters"?
The faction spans the coven's roles, from foot-witch to matriarch, plus the things they make:
- Warriors & Hunters: ichor-imbued fighters and energy-bow hunters who close the distance the casters can't.
- Casters: clan mothers, spellweavers, and the Great Mother — the witches who hex, veil, heal with spirit ichor, and raise the dead.
- Specialists: beastwardens who drive Dathomir's monsters, and shadow assassins who strike from the veil.
- The Risen: Nightsister zombies — reanimated dead bound to the will of the witch who raised them.
How Nightsisters Fight
A coven fights as a single instrument, with the casters at its heart. The clan mother hexes the party's most dangerous member, veils her sisters so they strike unseen, and raises the dead to keep the fight going long after it should have ended; the warriors and hunters screen her while she works. Their magick bites through armor and resistance where a blaster would glance off, and their willingness to spend the dead — their own included — means a drawn-out fight only grows worse for the living. Kill the warriors and you face an angry caster; kill the matriarch and the coven's coordination, and its risen dead, collapse with her.
Nightsister Encounter Themes (GM Gold)
- Strike From the Veil: the witches are rarely where you saw them last — concealment, misdirection, and ambush from the shadows of Dathomir's marshes.
- The Dead Don't Stay Down: raise-the-dead turns every fallen body, friend or foe, into the coven's next minion. Drawn-out fights favor the witches.
- Curse and Consequence: a Nightsister grudge follows the party off-world. A hex laid in the marsh comes due three systems later.
- The Massacre's Shadow: survivors of a slaughtered coven, hunting the ones responsible — or simply trying to rebuild, by any means and any bodies.
Threat Rating (TR) in Nightsister Encounters
Nightsisters punch above their TR through force-multiplication: the matriarch's hexes, veils, and reanimations make every other witch on the field more dangerous, and the risen dead add bodies for free. Use TR for the baseline, then remember that the caster is the fight — everything else is there to keep her casting.
TR Bands (Nightsister Examples)
- TR 0.25–1 — Nightsister zombies and lesser risen dead: cheap, expendable, endless.
- TR 2–4 — warriors, hunters, beastwardens, and shadow assassins who carry the melee.
- TR 5–6 — clan mothers and spellweavers: the casters who hex, veil, heal, and raise.
- TR 7+ — the Great Mother and matriarch-tier witches: "this is now the main plot" threats.
Current roster breakdown: 0.5: 1 | 1-2: 2 | 3-5: 5 | 6+: 1