The Star Wars franchise features a great big galaxy far far away. There are so many planets that barely get a moment of screen time, even if fan-favorite characters happened to be born there. Coruscant, the capital of the galaxy is one of the most common settings in the franchise. A planet like Darth Maul's homeworld of Dathomir is much less popular.
Darth Maul had exactly one line in his debut feature, but like a lot of Star Wars characters, looking cool can completely make up for any lack of interesting details. Maul has a distinct visual appeal that kept him coming back, but rarely inspired interest in his backstory.
What Planet is Darth Maul From?
Dathomir is a desolate place located millions of light years away from the centers of power in the galaxy. Its atmosphere is breathable, its climate is temperate, and its flora was plentiful, but it's not the kind of place anyone would want to live on. The planet is almost always covered by a thick red fog and lit by two suns, making it look extraordinarily evil from a distance. The animals who live on Dathomir are large and dangerous. Giant spiders, massive bipedal primates, and an exclusive apex predator in the form of a gigantic bat-dragon beast call Dathomir home. Most notably, Dathomir is the home planet of the powerful Rancor. The widely-known fighting skill of the rancor gave the planet the nickname "rancor planet." The creatures are broadly horrific, but the native sentient species are considerably more threatening.
The dominant species of Dathomir are called Dathomirian Zabraks. They're a subspecies of Zabraks who vary substantially from the Iridonian variant. Female Dathomirian Zabraks bear almost no resemblance to their male counterparts, they look like completely unrelated humanoid species who happen to share the same planet. Ladies of the subspecies call themselves Nightsisters and practice immensely powerful dark-side magic. Gentlemen train as warriors and serve as breeding stock under the heel of the oppressive matriarch.
Dathomirian Zabrak women tend to have white or gray skin with very limited markings and a variety of hair types. Men tend to be orange or yellow with natural stripes and horns. Maul is an anomaly among his species, one of the rare red Zabraks. Force sensitivity is extremely common among the Dathomirian Zabraks, but the planet has a concentration of dark-side energy that caused them to use their power for evil. Maul is, in many ways, the distillation of the species.
When Does Dathomir Appear in Star Wars Canon?
For those who just watch the movies, Dathomir is only important as the birthplace of Darth Maul. Of course, the planet has a story that only occasionally interacts with the main narrative. One of the first big events on the planet occurred centuries before the events of the films. The Galactic Republic used Dathomir as a convenient location to exile some prisoners. This was presumably a de facto death sentence, but it backfired when a discarded Jedi named Allya arrived. The power of the dark side was already strong on the planet, but Allya gave the Nightsisters the tools they needed to master the Force.
Darth Maul's mom is actually one of the most important figures on the planet. Talzin was the matriarch of Dathomir for many years, and she shared a long rivalry with Darth Sidious. Her powerful mastery of the Force led Sidious to consider taking Talzin as his apprentice. Instead, he kidnaped her son Maul, barely trained him, and sent him to almost certain death in the Duel of the Fates. Talzin swore vengeance, but her schemes never paid off. Talzin orchestrated multiple assassination attempts against Count Dooku, each of which failed. Asajj Ventress and Maul's brother worked together to kill Dooku, but he survived. During the Clone Wars, Sidious grew tired of Talzin's efforts to undermine him. Grievous and his army were sent to Dathomir, wiping out almost every Dathomirian Zabrak. This left the planet largely barren, but it still served a use. Darth Maul, enraged with the constant betrayal of his Sith overlords, joined Ezra Bridger on a journey to Dathomir. Through an ancient ritual, they learned that the Empire would fall at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi and a savior who lived on a planet with two suns.
Dathomir is a planet soaked in violence and bloodshed. The power of the dark side of the Force tainted its soil for generations, but evil beings cannot work well together. Over its brief period of importance, the Sith turned the most evil-looking species in the galaxy against them. Though their efforts weren't particularly effective, the people of Dathomir did their part to try to stop the Empire. They did it entirely for selfish purposes of revenge and domination, but they ended up on the right side of the issue. Darth Maul may be a perfect representative of his home world, but even the darkest places can change.