Cult Of M'dweshuu

The Cult of M'dweshuu was a brutal religious sect originating on the Nikto homeworld of Kintan.

This Cult, which predated the Republic, worshiped the nearby star M'dweshuu, whose radiation caused a high Nikto mutation rate. Followers of the Cult sought to appease the star through blood sacrifices. As such, its followers were common among violent or dangerous professions. The Hutts put down the M'dweshuu Cult "on numerous occasions", but never quite succeeded in eradicating it. The Cult once ruled Kintan, which necessitated the planet's brutal annexation by the Hutts centuries before the Clone Wars.

Practices and beliefs

The Cult of M'dweshuu was considered bizarre by those who studied the records of it. Cultists performed blood sacrifices on those they deemed impure, hoping to appease the spirit of the M'dweshuu Nova.

Origins

M'dweshuu was a volatile star located in the heart of the Si'klaata Cluster in the Outer Rim Territories. Millions of years before even the rise of the Republic, the dying star hurled massive amounts of radiation emanating from its death throes, which reached the nearest star system, home to the nondescript, blue-green world of Kintan. After making its way into the planet's biosphere, the radiation wiped out most of Kintan's native inhabitants. Some species survived, but the radiation caused great mutations in them. During a sped-up process that lasted thousands of years instead of millions, giant, fearsome monsters, similar to the likes of the feared rancor of Dathomir, were formed. Creatures such as spine dragons, tuskbeasts, and horned trogwhales made the world a dangerous place. However, the radiation affected different species in different ways, and it caused a diminutive, non-sentient quadrupeds to evolve into an intelligent, sentient species: the Nikto.

Living in such a dangerous environment made the Nikto a hardened, warlike species, and after many technological advancements, they conquered the world, using atomic weapons to clear their homeworld of some of its more vicious predators, but turning it into a desert wasteland in the process. The Nikto's scientific advancement eventually led to the discovery of the M'dweshuu Nova, and the source of the creatures they had ruined their planet to annihilate. Word of the radiation and its effects on the planet spread quickly, and from it a death cult known as the Cult of M'dweshuu arose.