Quote Originally Posted by Muz View Post
As someone who really only knows of Mandalorians through KOTOR & KOTOR2, is Traviss's and Clone Wars portrayal roughly the same? Granted, KOTOR is a 4000 BBY, so there's a lot of room for drift...

Just curious.
It's actually quite different, in certain ways. The Legends continuity history of Mandalorians is complex, and involves multiple different cultural groups claiming the title over time. The Mandalorians you fight in KOTOR and KOTOR II are primarily 'Neo-Crusaders,' part of a mass-movement to drastically expand the Mandalorian ranks through essentially limitless recruitment for a campaign of endless conquest. This movement may or may not have been a natural development among the Mandalorians, depending on how much behind-the-scenes manipulation and mind whammy you're willing to credit a small group of high-powered Sith. In KOTOR II Canderous Ordo takes the position of Mandalore the Preserver and moves away from the Neo-Crusader approach and back towards the classic culture.

The actual hard-core Mandalorian culture that was greatly expanded by Traviss' works would be the Mandalorian Crusaders, who fought alongside the Sith in the Great Sith War (as told in the very old Legends Tales of the Jedi comics). A version of this culture is also portrayed in SWTOR, which includes both a group of Mandalorians fighting as mercenaries on behalf of the Sith and the surviving Mandalorian clans later allying with the Outlander under Mandalore the Avenger (aka Shae Visla). Mandalore's Revenge, a chapter in that game's Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion is probably the purest distillation of Mandalorian culture that is widely available (finding a playthrough on youtube should not be particularly difficult).

The Mandalorians in TCW are split into multiple factions. The larger faction is the New Mandalorians under Duchess Satine, who have rejected the old warrior codes and are nominally pacifists. Smaller splinter groups and independent clans retained the warrior approach however, but these in turn split into competing factions known as Death Watch and the True Mandalorians. Jango Fett was a true Mandalorian and at points their leader in the struggle against Death Watch. Kal Skirata and the other clone trainers who appear in the Republic Commando novels were also True Mandalorians and they imparted the older cultural mores and warrior code into many of the clones.

Later in TCW Darth Maul managed to briefly take control of the New Mandalorians and murdered Duchess Satine. The majority of the surviving Death Watch members were killed but Bo Katan (voiced by notable science fiction actress Katee Sackhoff) and a group of loyalists broke with the Death Watch, formed a truce with Obi-Wan, and took her loyalists back to following the old ways again. There is considerable fan speculation regarding an appearance by Bo Katan at some point during the show, the character would be older (probably in her fifties) but as she might very well retain the nominal position of Mandalore, potentially very important.

Mandalorians also feature in Star Wars Rebels. Bo-Katan appears as the leader of the surviving clans and, alongside Sabine Wren - one of the principle Rebels leads - is involved in a rebellion by the surviving Mandalorians against the Empire. This was well before Endor, but Rebels ends without any further resolution of what happened to surviving Mandalorians during the Rebellion Era. Sabine Wren's personal story is also unresolved, and she could hypothetically appear in the show as well.