Shrine of Kooroo (Gelgelar)

The Shrine of Kooroo located on the Outer Rim Territories planet Gelgelar was one of a series of similar structures found on several worlds throughout known space. An ancient building made out of the same type of stone as the other Shrines of Kooroo, the shrine on Gelgelar was considered especially unusual due to the extreme scarcity of naturally available stone on that world. The Shrine of Kooroo was a three-level structure overgrown by plants and fungi, and was flanked by at least two stone obelisks.

When a group of settlers arrived on Gelgelar 250 years before the Galactic Civil War, the arrivals camped near the Shrine of Kooroo, which was the only existing structure on the planet at the time and was located on the only hill for kilometers around. Eventually, the spaceport settlement known as the Gelgelar Free Port formed around the shrine, and at some point the Force-sensitive hermit known as the Wise Man of Kooroo came to reside inside the structure.

By the time of the Galactic Civil War, the Wise Man of Kooroo was occasionally visited at the shrine by spacers as well as members of the cult known as the Fellowship of Kooroo. The latter engaged on a pilgrimage to the various Shrines of Kooroo, which they believed were connected to the Fellowship's spiritual leader, Kooroo. Such visitors provided the Wise Man, who was never seen leaving the shrine, with offerings of food, and the pilgrims would meditate and converse with the hermit during their visits to the sanctuary. On one occasion, Professor Reina Solov hired a group of individuals to visit the Wise Man of Kooroo at the shrine and determine facts about the structure's origin. By 11 ABY, it was believed by scholars that the Shrines of Kooroo had been built by an advanced alien species known as the Kooroo, and it was thought the structures may have served to facilitate interstellar telepathic communication or even teleportation.

Text and facts from the “Shrine of Kooroo (Gelgelar)” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.