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| {{Organization infobox | | {{eras|exd}} |
| |name=Clan Naga Sadow | | {{Historic|Naga Sadow}} |
| |image=[[Image:CNS.jpeg|250px]]<br> | | {{Organization |
| [[Image:ClanNagaSadow_AB.gif|250px]]
| | |image=[[File:CNS.jpeg|250px]] |
| |imageBG=
| | |name=Naga Sadow |
| |BG1=
| | |founder=[[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Tron Sadow]] <small>(as [[Overlord (Naga Sadow)|Overlord]])</small> |
| |BG2=
| | |leader=*{{NagaCON}} <small>(as [[Consul]])</small> |
| |founder=[[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Astronicus Sadow]] {{C|as [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Overlord]]}} | | *{{NagaPCON}} <small>(as [[Proconsul]])</small> |
| |leader=*[[Robert Sadow]] {{C|as [[Consul]]}} | | |members=* [[Sadow dynasty|Sadow Dynasty]] |
| *[[Ashura Isradia|Ashura Sadow]] {{C|as [[Proconsul]]}} | | ** [[Sons of Sadow]] |
| |members=*[[Inner Circle (Clan Naga Sadow)|Inner Circle]] | | * Sadow Council |
| **[[Clan Summit]] | | ** [[Clan Summit]] |
| **[[House Summit|House Summits]]
| | ** [[Naga Sadow Conclave|Inner Circle]] |
| **[[Sons of Sadow]] | | * [[Disciples of Sadow]] |
| **[[Order of the Black Guard|Black Guard]] | | ** [[Shar Dakhan|Disciples of Dakhan]] |
| **[[Inner Order (Clan Naga Sadow)|Inner Order]] | | ** [[Marka Ragnos|Disciples of Ragnos]] |
| *[[Disciples of Sadow]] | | |headquarters=[[Sepros]], [[Orian System]] |
| **[[Disciples of Ragnos]] | | |formed=[[Disciples of Sadow]] |
| **[[House Ludo Kressh|Disciples of Kressh]] | | |founded=[[11 ABY to 19 ABY|14 ABY]] <small>(as House Naga Sadow)</small> |
| |headquarters=[[New Sadow Palace|Sadow Palace]] | | |reorganized=* [[11 ABY to 19 ABY|17 ABY]] <small>(into [[Clan Naga Sadow]])</small> |
| |locations=*[[Orian system|Orian system]]
| | * [[30 ABY to 39 ABY|33 ABY]] <small>(as House Naga Sadow)</small> |
| *[[Phare System|Phare system]] {{C|formerly}}
| | * [[30 ABY to 39 ABY#35_ABY|35 ABY]] <small>(as Clan Naga Sadow)</small> |
| |formed=*[[House Naga Sadow]] | | |affiliation=* [[Dark Brotherhood]] |
| *[[Dlarit Corporation]]
| | ** [[Star Chamber]] |
| |founded=[[11 ABY to 19 ABY|14 ABY]] {{C|as House Naga Sadow}} | | ** [[Dark Council]] |
| |reorganized=[[11 ABY to 19 ABY|15 ABY]] {{C|into Clan Naga Sadow}} | | * [[starwars:Sith_Empire|Sith Empire]] |
| |fragmented= | | |era=[[Exodus era]] |
| |dissolved= | |
| |restored=
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| |affiliation=*[[Dark Brotherhood]] | |
| *[[starwars:Sith_Empire|Sith Empire]] | |
| |era=[[Dark Jedi Brotherhood Era]] | |
| }} | | }} |
| {{quote|... As long as I draw breath, Naga Sadow lives. As long as I hold this sword, Naga Sadow's strength endures. As long as '''we''' remain ever vigilant, Clan Naga Sadow will never fall! Long live the '''Heirs to the Empire'''...|[[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow]]}} | | {{Quote|... As long as I draw breath, Naga Sadow lives. As long as I hold this sword, Naga Sadow's strength endures. As long as '''we''' remain ever vigilant, Clan Naga Sadow will never fall! Long live the '''Heirs to the Empire'''...|[[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow]]}} |
| '''Clan Naga Sadow''' is one of the six [[Clan|Great Clans]] of the [[Dark Brotherhood]]. It currently has two constituent [[House|Houses]]: [[Ludo Kressh]] and [[House Marka Ragnos|Marka Ragnos]]. The current [[Consul]] of Clan Naga Sadow is [[Sith Warlord]] [[Robert Sadow]], and the current [[Proconsul]] is [[Sith Battlelord]] [[Ashura Isradia]]. [[House Marka Ragnos]] is currently led by [[Grand Master]] [[Jedgar Octavius Paladin]], [[House Ludo Kressh]] is currently led by [[Sith Battlemaster]] [[Tsingtao Ming]].
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| For a summary of the Clan, see the [[Clan Naga Sadow Prospectus]].
| | [[Clan Naga Sadow]] was a [[Clan]] within the [[Dark Brotherhood]] of Jedi which has undergone a series of transformations over the years by adapting and surviving to the changing ecosystems of the Brotherhood and Galaxy at large. Founded in [[11 ABY to 19 ABY#14_ABY|14 ABY]] as an [[House|Independent House]], the unit nearly burst with growth before ascending to its own Clan status and spawning three [[Houses]] known as [[House Ludo Kressh]], [[House Primus Goluud]] and [[House Marka Ragnos]]. In [[30 ABY to 39 ABY#33_ABY|33 ABY]], several years after the unit's ascension to Clan Status the [[Dark Council]], at the behest of [[Grand Master]] [[Muz Ashen]], determined that all of the Great Clans of the Brotherhood needed to be reformed into Houses. This resulted in seeing the surviving Houses of Kressh and Ragnos dissolved into House Naga Sadow. In [[30 ABY to 39 ABY#35_ABY|35 ABY]] on the Anniversary of the [[Exodus]], Naga Sadow was once more restored to its status as a Clan of the Brotherhood. |
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| For details of the Clan's public front, see the [[Dlarit Corporation]]. | | For a summary of the Clan please see the [[Naga Sadow Prospectus]] or for details on the Clan's public front see the [[Orian Assembly]]. |
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| ===The Golden Age of the Sith (5,100 BBY—5,000 BBY)=== | | == History == |
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| {{quote|Once we were mighty Jedi of the Republic, brothers in the Force, but the [[starwars:Hundred-Year_Darkness|Great Schism]] between the dark side and the light turned Jedi against Jedi. Our ancestors were defeated, driven off, cast out! But we turned our exile into victory, here on the far side of the galaxy. In these unblemished worlds we found the Sith people treated us as Gods! After many centuries some of us have interbred with the Sith while others still bear true Jedi blood. Our Sith Empire is great, rich, and powerful. This is our Golden Age.|Marka Ragnos, Dark Lord of the Sith}} | | {{:Clan Naga Sadow/Origins/Page One}}{{:Clan Naga Sadow/Origins/Page Two}} |
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| The history of the present day [[Disciples of Sadow|disciples]] of the current [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Lord Sadow]], [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow]], [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Prince Regent]] of the [[starwars:Sith_Empire|Sith Empire]], begins more than five thousand years ago. In [[starwars:5100_BBY|5,100 BBY]], after the death of the previous ruler, [[starwars:Marka_Ragnos|Marka Ragnos]], a halfbreed [[starwars:Sith_Lord|Sith Lord]] of mixed [[starwars:Jedi|Jedi]] and [[starwars:Red_Sith|Sith]] descent, defeated his chief rival, [[starwars:Simus|Simus]], earning the right to be crowned the next [[starwars:Dark_Lord_of_the_Sith|Dark Lord of the Sith]]. Following his defeat, Simus became a mentor to [[starwars:Naga_Sadow|Naga Sadow]], nurturing the young Sith Lord’s desire for conquest.
| | {{:Clan Naga Sadow/Vong War/Part One}}{{:Clan Naga Sadow/Vong War/Part Two}} |
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| ====The Immortal and the Infinite Empire==== | | === New Beginnings (31 ABY–35 ABY)=== |
| | With the [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_War|war]] that had waged for half a decade finally over, Clan Naga Sadow was now faced with the challenge of rebuilding. On [[Tarthos]], with the city of [[Kar Alabrek]] rendered inhospitable, the families of the [[Dlarit Security Force]] had been left homeless. The clean-up operation by the [[Dlarit Special Operations Group|Special Operations Group]] was likely to take years. Elsewhere, around the system at the refugee camps on [[Aeotheran]], [[Amphor]] and [[Tarthos]], the refugee populations were nearing breaking point, with resources running scarce. A problem not helped by the economic recession unfolding right across the galaxy, or the high cost of repairing the damage dealt to [[Seng Karash]] and [[San Korinar]] by the last attack by [[Varesh Shai]]'s Vong remnants. As a result, the [[Dlarit Corporation]] was eager to return the refugees to their native homeworlds as fast as possible; however, like the [[starwars:Old_Republic|Old Republic]] before it, the new [[starwars:Galactic_Alliance|Galactic Alliance]] was weighed down by bureaucracy, with underhanded contractors like [[starwars:RePlanetHab|RePlanetHab]] running circles around the [[starwars:Reconstruction_Authority|Reconstruction Authority]] to steal habitable new worlds from the refugees. With no other choices, the Corporation was simply forced to maintain the system-wide quarantine that had been in place since [[Dlarit Corporation Ranks and Titles#Governor General|Governor]] [[Trevarus Caerick|Caerick]] enacted it in [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|28 ABY]], and accelerate the construction of the [[Markosian City|new city]] on Tarthos that had been begun by Governor [[Derev Niroth|Niroth]] in [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|29 ABY]]. For the lucky ones, a few refugees were offered spots in the security forces to replace those lost during the sacking of Orian. However, the new city was revised not as a home for the refugees, but for the displaced military families; a decision that would have lasting repercussions for years in the years to come, and become the cause of much civil unrest. |
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| [[Image:TheImmortal.jpg|thumb|right|[[Sith Lord|Lord]] [[Urias Orian|Orian]] the Immortal]]As Ragnos grew in power, pitting his adversaries against each other and ensuring that there were no threats to his throne, another Sith Lord, [[Urias Orian]], one of few remaining pureblood descendants of the original [[starwars:Dark_Jedi|Dark Jedi]] [[starwars:Exiles|Exiles]], isolated himself in the [[Orian system|Sepros system]] in pursuit of immortality. There Orian mutated the native [[Ekind|Ombi]] into his [[starwars:Sithspawn|Sithspawn]] slaves, who renamed their race the [[Ekind]]—meaning ''the cursed'' in Ombian. With his new slave workforce, Orian constructed [[Temples of Orian|a network of temples]] to restore an ancient [[starwars:Rakata|Rakatan]] [[starwars:Star_Map|Star Map]] he had discovered on [[Sepros]]; leading him to [[starwars:Lehon|Lehon]], where he found the knowledge of [[starwars:Thought_bomb|thought bombs]]. He sacrificed the Ombi on [[Aeotheran]], the ritual incinerating a large area of the forest, forming the [[Seng Karash|Karash Crater]]. With the Ombi’s essence trapped in the Star of Ombus, he constructed the [[Amulet of Orian]]—but before he could use it, the Ombi-turned-Ekind [[starwars:Princess|Princess]] [[Hafa Chun|Hafalia Chunasca]] betrayed him, sabotaging the ritual and destroying Orian’s spirit in the process. After the ritual, she took Orian’s scepter—which doubled as the keystone for the Star Map—to [[Kangaras]], hoping to prevent others from ever repeating his crimes, and to offer the souls he had trapped in it a measure of peace. | | The social unrest left behind from the war was not invisible to the [[Disciples of Sadow]], and the [[Overlord (Naga Sadow)|Overlord]] himself left for [[Antei]] to seek the counsel of his old mentor, [[Dark Jedi Master|Master]] [[Yoni]], whom he believed might be able to help stave off the collapse that [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Astronicus]] had foreseen. Back in Orian, [[Kharon Daragon]] set about training a new generation of [[Order of the Black Guard|Black Guardsmen]] to protect the Clan's leaders from possible threats. Indeed, though the rest of the Clan had put the past behind them, Daragon still feared the return of the two Apostates and set about training the Black Guard for the battle he knew would one day come. However, not all the [[Sons of Sadow]] fell victim to their doubts and the new [[Consul]], [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow|Tsainetomo]], set about forging alliances beyond the Clan, reaching out to their old adversaries [[Clan Taldryan]]. Instead of a burden, Sai saw the refugee crisis as an opportunity and in exchange for Taldryan's services the Consul welcomed his new allies into Orian, granting them the freedom to take any of the refugees whom they felt could be of service to them. Being a Dark Jedi, Sai had had no quarrel with trading sentient beings as if they were no different than livestock. |
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| ====The Okemi Uprising==== | | ====Drugs, Refuge, Blah, blah (32 ABY)==== |
| | [Pictured of Refuge, I think?] |
| | The Underworld took advantage of the social collapse. Illegal narcotics were smuggled in from Refugee Criminal Space City by unknown organisation, which further caused problems making things worse for the Voice of Justice. |
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| With Orian dead, Lady Hafalia sought revenge on the Sith Lords who had enslaved her people and transformed them into twisted monsters. She rallied those she could find to her banner and left the—now renamed—[[Orian system]] to lead her forces to the heart of the Sith Empire. The Dark Lady of the Ekind joined forces with the [[Okemi Uprising|uprising]] currently being led by [[Okemi]], a [[starwars:Massassi|Massassi]] [[starwars:Warlord|warlord]], one of the few pure [[starwars:Red_Sith|Red Sith]] who had risen to the ranks of the [[starwars:Sith_Council|Sith Council]], but now, like her, grown tired with the rule of the Dark Jedi. The rebels rallied many of the Empire’s slave races—Massassi, [[starwars:Kissai|Kissai]], Ekind, and other alien species—to challenge Marka Ragnos and the rule of the halfbreed dominated Council. However, their rebellion was ultimate quashed, and Okemi exiled to [[Antei]] outside the borders of the Empire. Hafalia fell in the fighting, her followers entombing her on Kangaras where she had hidden Orian’s scepter.
| | CARE formed as a civilian protest movement within the city. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| ===Fall of the Sith Empire (5,000 BBY—4,990 BBY)=== | | ====Invasion of Salas V (32 ABY)==== |
| [[Image:MarkaRagnos.gif|thumb|right|The spirit of Marka Ragnos.]] | | [Used to be a picture of Muz here] |
| ====Death of Marka Ragnos====
| | Killiks found. DC wants help. Salas V purged. Lots of troops and Dark Jedi die. Dlarit and Sadow resources stretched even further. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| {{quote|The chains of the grave cannot hold a Dark Lord of the Sith…|Marka Ragnos}}
| | ====Markosian Finished (32 ABY)==== |
| | [Sparkly new city picture?] |
| | Markosian finished. Refugees truly hacked off. Military base been added to Derev's original plans. Kar Alabrek still not cleaned up. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| For one hundred years, Marka Ragnos presided over [[starwars:Golden_Age_of_the_Sith|an unrivalled period of stability]] for the Sith Empire. However, the Jedi bloodlines were fast disappearing, and many—like Naga Sadow—feared it wouldn’t be long before the pureblood Red Sith dominated the Council of Sith Lords. The uprising by Okemi had not helped matters, but while Ragnos was still alive none dared question the iron fisted rule upheld by his [[Disciples of Ragnos|disciples]]—a cult of warriors, mages and priests fanatically devoted to him. It was they who enabled him to maintain his grip over the Sith Empire, unchallenged by further rebellions.
| | ====Ragnos Reborn Crisis and Stuff (32 ABY)==== |
| | Anti-HMR Ragnos-people infiltrate Mucenic and cause trouble. Fremoc looks good. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| Following his death, while the surviving members of the Sith Council deliberated on his successor, several of his disciples left [[starwars:Korriban|Korriban]], unwilling to accept their lord’s demise. They wandered across [[starwars:The_Galaxy|the Galaxy]] for a number of years, their movements masked by [[starwars:Great_Hyperspace_War|the war]] that Naga Sadow would soon unleash upon the [[starwars:Old_Republic|Republic]]. However, when the [[starwars:Great_Hyperspace_War|Great Hyperspace War]] drew to a close, they at last settled on [[Karana system|Karana III]], all but forgetting the worlds of the first Sith Empire. There they would remain for the next five thousand years, patiently awaiting a Chosen One who they believed would arise to bring about the revival of the Sith Empire and the return of their true lord, Marka Ragnos.
| | ====Voice of Justice uprising (32 ABY)==== |
| | Refugees were placed in camps on Aeotheran rebel. A superhuman called Deliverance lead the fighting, funded by corrupt Seng Karash financier. All of this was orchestrated by an unknown organisation. A clone of Bob escapes a forgotten Exodus-era facility. Kano and his squad derail a civilian train as opposed to a cargo train. Anti-Dlarit sentiments are exacerbated even further. Attempts to frame the Voice of Justice by sabotaging the city power supply goes wrong when Generation 2 explodes instead. An alien Anti-Force experiment called "Firak" is released on Aeotheran causing even more problems. Firak kills the clones as a result. Illegal arms smugglers and refugees run in-and-out of Seng Karash. During this Deliverance discovers she's nothing but an experiment and subsequently loses her sanity and wants revenge. The Voice of Justice becomes the very thing Sadow was trying to frame them as. Deliverance sets up a bomb on Isle of Lor Zatean to kill everyone housed there, but is killed by Sadow in the process. Dlarit capitalises on deaths caused by the explosion by maneuvering itself to appear as a Hero. |
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| ====Kressh-Sadow Civil War==== | | ====Ekind Uprising (33 ABY)==== |
| | While everyone was distracted on Aeotheran, the Lost Tribe of Ekind takes over the Kar Alabrek ruins. From the ruins they launched an attack on Mucenic. Members of Sadow were forced to rush to Tarthos in order to defend Mucenic. This was an ellaborate ploy. Their real army assaults Markosian City during the confusion. Sadow forces rushed to Markosian in retaliation. Fremoc ordered Simonetti to destroy the Green Sector to try and kill Shan Long. This attempt failed. In the aftermath Muz chooses to let Shan Long live. The entire House falls into rage as chaos reigns within. Members of Marka Ragnos blamed Kressh for wasting their time on Aeotheran. Meanwhile, Tron returns from Antei and speaks with Yoni. Tron agrees with Muz's decision and Naga Sadow undergoes the Reformation. Clan Naga Sadow is dissolved until they are calm once more and have regained their former strength. There had been too much death already. Ekind tries to resurrect Hafa Chun in the old Ragnos Cathedral ruins. This plan is a success. Muz arrives in response to deal with the threat. A great conflict ensues with the arrival of the former Naga Sadow. Both Hafa Chun and Ekind die in the chaos with no chance of Hafa's return. |
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| {{quote|You have held us back long enough, keeping the Sith Empire from its great destiny."<br>"I fight for the Sith Empire, Naga Sadow... you fight for yourself!|Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh challenge each other over the future direction of the Sith Empire}}
| | ====Fremoc the Errand Boy (33 ABY)==== |
| | Fremoc does stuff for Shan Long. Aleho returns and goes crazy. Sunei returns. Agents from Revan return from spying on rumours about reborn Sarin for Muz. Cloning facility blown up. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| [[Image:LudovsSadow.jpg|thumb|right|The duel of the two future Dark Lords.]]When Marka Ragnos finally expired in [[starwars:5000_BBY|5,000 BBY]], the Sith Empire was left in a power vacuum—and the tensions between rival bloodlines finally boiled to the surface. The Dark Lord had hardly been laid to rest when two Sith Lords emerged to vie for the right to be crowned the next [[starwars:Dark_Lord_of_the_Sith|Emperor]] of the Sith Empire: Naga Sadow, a halfbreed of almost pure Jedi descent, and [[starwars:Ludo_Kressh|Ludo Kressh]], another hybrid, but who identified no less with his Sith blood than his far weaker Jedi ancestry compared to Sadow. Sadow, eager to replenish the fading Jedi bloodlines, was ready to take on the Republic and expand the Empire’s borders; Kressh, freely embracing his mixed blood, wanted to preserve the stability of the Empire—even if it meant the pure bloodlines dying out—and opposed Sadow’s hunger for war. The arrival of two Republic explorers played right into Sadow’s hand, and he used them to urge the Sith Council into action to prevent a Republic invasion—a position supported by his old mentor, [[starwars:Simus|Simus]]. Shockingly, Sadow murdered Simus, framing the explorers to stir the Council into action.
| | ====Rite of Supremacy: Disorder (33 ABY)==== |
| | Mike Halcyon messes up holocrons. Orders go mad. Big fight. Lasts 3 days. Not sure anymore exactly "when" this slots in; need to double check. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| Kressh rallied his allies on the Council to prevent Sadow taking the Empire to war. With [[starwars:Horak-Mul|Horak-Mul]] and [[starwars:Dol_Gal-ram|Dol Gal-ram]], he launched [[starwars:Battle_of_Khar_Delba|an assault]] on Sadow’s citadel on [[starwars:Khar_Delba|Khar Delba]]. However, Sadow had double-crossed Kressh, his true base being in an identical fortress on the planet’s moon, [[starwars:Khar_Shian|Khar Shian]]. Horak-Mul and Dol Gal-ram were assassinated by their own Massassi warriors, loyal to Naga Sadow, and Kressh’s flagship destroyed—the Sith Lord being presumed dead. With the competition dealt with, the Sith Council at last crowned Sadow the new Dark Lord and Emperor.
| | ====Clones, Curwen Sunei, Other Stuff (34 ABY)==== |
| | Following the Ekind Uprising on [[Tarthos]], it was made official that [[Clan Naga Sadow]] would become House Naga Sadow; dissolving all the houses into Battle Teams and leaving [[Macron Goura Sadow]] and [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow|Tsainetomo '''Keibatsu''' Sadow]] as the [[Quaestor]] and [[Aedile]] of the newly reformed house. The leaders chose [[Malisane Sadow]] as their House Rollmaster, as well as forming [[Battleteam Marka Ragnos]] led by [[Fremoc Pepoi]], [[Disciples of Kressh|Battleteam Ludo Kressh]] led by [[Dyrra Skye]], [[Primus Goluud Battleteam|Battleteam Primus Goluud]] led by [[Teu Pepoi]], and keeping the [[Night Hawks]] with their leader [[Sarconn]]. Fremoc eventually left for his exile, causing [[Methyas Pepoi L'eonheart]] to assume command of Battleteam Marka Ragnos in his stead. Life was peaceful for Naga Sadow until late in 33 ABY when the house's [[Dark Jedi Orders|Orders]] were sent to [[Antei]] to fight against each other. Despite the battle lasting only a few days, it saw Tsainetomo become the new [[Quaestor]] of Naga Sadow. The members of the house returned, finding that [[Ashura Isradia Sadow]] had been murdered by his apprentice Aleho. Macron, who had stayed behind during the Order War, began an investigation while Sai pondered his replacement for [[Aedile]] of Naga Sadow. Finding out that [[Trevarus Caerick]] had released Fremoc Pepoi from his exile, Sai called upon Fremoc to become Aedile. Fremoc accepted and returned immediately, helping Sai decide that there were too many battleteams for the house and that only one was needed. The two chose that [[Kano Tor Pepoi]] was fit for the job and from him they created [[The Regulators]]. His time as [[Praetor]] to the [[Fist of the Brotherhood]] had allowed him access to special training regiments, but also having become a member of the [[Marked of the Wanderer|Marked]] he was learning to control the Mark, causing him to spend much of his time at the [[Temple of Blood]]. |
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| ====The Great Hyperspace War====
| | Meanwhile, Sai and Macron found Ashura's body and gave their fellow [[Sons of Sadow|Son of Sadow]] a proper Sith burial, where the body was burnt. Macron, Jade, and Aisha found Aleho and began to torture the young woman in order to find that a man named Sunei had possessed her to kill Ashura. Aleho, along with Macron, told the collected Dark Jedi that Sunei was hiding in the Nifokalija mountains. Macron returned to the new Sadow Palace with the body of Ashura, leaving Sai and his apprentice Lan there with the House's [[Overlord (Naga Sadow)|Overlord]], grieving for Ashura. During this time, Sai received a message from [[Muz Ashen]] informing the '''Keibatsu''' that Fremoc Pepoi was to become the [[Fist of the Brotherhood]]. Macron called upon Kano and his Regulators to help him kill Sunei on Aeotheran. Fremoc intercepted Macron's transmission to Kano and sensed that it was a bad idea for Macron to kill Sunei. He used his influence as Fist of the Brotherhood to countermand Macron's orders and to make the Regulators capture Sunei and bring him back to Camp Havoc and the [[Temple of Fire]] instead. Sai intercepted that transmission and informed Macron that the Regulators were not going to be his back up as he expected. The events which followed led Fremoc to discover this exchange through the Mark, in turn warning his brother of the change; although not before the Raptor team had made landfall. The remaining Regulators made a low-atmosphere drop from the [[M/CRV Reaper's Call]] into the mountain range to alert their out-of-contact comrades and capture the mad Adept. |
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| {{quote|The Sith Empire will burn brightly, like a supernova, dwarfing the complacent Republic. We shall hold the entire galaxy in our grasp.|Naga Sadow}}
| | The capture of [[Curwen Sunei]] went off without a hitch, on the ground at least. While en route to [[Sepros]], the crazed Adept, used his grasp of the Force to subdue the Regulators and disable the Corvette; thus creating an army of "possessed" crew members to assault anyone that tried to stop his plans. Due to a [[starwars:Voodoo|Voodoo]] curse accidentally placed upon himself, Kano was unaffected when Sunei had taken control of the ship. Waking each member of his team before going after Sunei, they weren't the only ones preparing to assault the crippled Corvette. On Sepros, Fremoc and Sai had received the [[Soul Ripper|Soul Rippers]] from the House's new Rollmaster, [[Teu Pepoi]], after a discovery that Sunei had a connection to [[Darth Vexatus|the deceiver]]. Also en route to the vessel was Macron with [[Jade Sadow]] and his apprentice in a bid to rescue the Regulators. Aboard the vessel, conflict was rising between the Regulators as those with a greater connection to the Force found themselves being "possessed" by whatever Sunei had been channeling. A brief standoff between Methyas and [[Mirado Pepoi L'eonheart|Venator]] saw both Miraluka injured greatly before the connection had been severed. Shortly afterwards Kano had been possessed as well and bent on slaying his team. Before things could go from bad to worse, Fremoc had arrived with Sai and entered mortal combat with his brother to save his cousin. While Kano and Fremoc engaged each other, Methyas and Venator led the Regulators to the bridge of the corvette to challenge Sunei. In an attempt to strengthen themselves, Methyas initiated a [[Telepathy#Force_Meld|Force Meld]] to give them each an edge before they entered. |
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| [[Image:NagaSadowSorcery.jpg|thumb|left|Naga Sadow, Dark Lord of the Sith.]]The invasion of the Republic by the new Dark Lord saw the Sith Empire take it by surprise. From his hidden base at [[starwars:Primus_Goluud|Primus Goluud]], Naga Sadow directed his Dark Jedi, fleets, sorcerers and legions of Massassi shocktroopers against the Jedi and their Republic—bolstered by armies of [[starwars:Force_Phantom|Force phantoms]] and [[starwars:Force_Illusion|illusions]]. Battles unfolded throughout the known Galaxy at [[starwars:Battle_of_Koros_Major_(Great_Hyperspace_War)|Koros Major]], [[starwars:Battle_of_Kirrek_(Great_Hyperspace_War)|Kirrek]], and elsewhere, finally culminating in the [[starwars:Battle_of_Corucant_(Great_Hyperspace_War)|Battle of Coruscant]] itself. However, just as Sadow had victory in his grasp, he was betrayed by [[starwars:Gav_Daragon|Gav Daragon]]—one of the two Republic explorers who he had seduced to the dark side and made one of his commanders—who led the [[starwars:Republic_Navy|Republic Navy]] to [[starwars:Goluud_system|Goluud]], giving them the coordinates of the Sith Empire. His [[starwars:Battle_Meditation|battle meditation]] broken, Sadow had to abandon Goluud, rushing back to Korriban to stop the Republic counter invasion.
| | The ensuing battle was as catastrophic to the members of the Regulators as the Pepoi brothers battle was to the corvette's interior. The arrival of Macron and his team, now including [[Kalei Basai]], created a welcome repreive for the tired combatants and ended the battle swiftly when Macron withdrew the [[Sith Sword of Shar Dakhan]] and slew Sunei with it. Although he collapsed in a coma as a result of this. Jade acted swiftly, knowing the sword drew on a being's energies, with the help of those present to stabilize the Warlord as he fought a battle within against the mad Adept. Meanwhile, Fremoc and Kano continued their battle resulting in Kano's death at the hands of his brother, a small standoff between the Fist of the Brotherhood and Sai followed before resulting in Fremoc leaving Orian space for Antei and the Iron Throne. Aboard the bridge, Macron won his battle against Sunei, the mad Adept's soul getting captured within the sword as Macron rose in a bit of pain though he'd survive. Following the restoration of control for the corvette, the Regulators returned to [[Tarthos]] for the burial and memorial of Kano before Venator took the reigns of the Regulators. |
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| Unknown to Sadow, Kressh had been one step ahead and had faked his own death. While Sadow was off fighting the Great Hyperspace War, Kressh had been rebuilding his powerbase, convincing the Sith Council they needed to stop Sadow before the Empire was destroyed. In Sadow’s absence, the dissenting voices threw their support behind Kressh, declaring ''him'' Dark Lord instead. However, by the time Sadow returned to Korriban, it was too late. Caught in a three way battle, the tensions between Sadow’s warmongers and Kressh’s supporters reached boiling point and the two factions tore themselves apart even as the Republic fleets arrived to deliver the final blow. Kressh was slain in the [[starwars:First_Battle_of_Korriban_(Great_Hyperspace_War)|Battle of Korriban]], Sadow ordering his ships on kamikaze runs while he himself fled, and the Sith Empire itself finally collapsing altogether in [[starwars:4990_BBY|4,990 BBY]].
| | ====Rakghoul Prague (34 ABY)==== |
| | Burden, Distrust and Loathing events. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| |
|
| ==== Guardians of the Sith==== | | ====Various rebuilding things (34 ABY–35 ABY)==== |
| | People doing different stuff. Need to check what. Refugee restrictions finally lifted. People allowed to go home. Calm starting to return but bad people remain on San Korinar. Galactic Alliance getting too close for comfort. Fremoc's son killed. Mike Halcyon et al. cause other problems. Jeric et al. turn pirate to keep GA away. Need to see when 34-35 happened in respect of different stories. Jedi-who-aren't-Jedi on "GA" ships. Turns out to be set-up. Unknown organisation maybe behind it again. Tow ruined cruisers back to Aeotheran to help use in building Kel Rasha. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
| | ====San Korinar Uprising (35 ABY)==== |
| | Criminals, pirates and assorted lowlifes stuck on Sky City as refugees stay behind as there is no home to deport them to. Problems happen. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
| | ====Invasion of New Tython (35 ABY)==== |
| | Great Jedi War X. |
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| [[Image:LudoKressh.gif|thumb|right|Ludo Kressh, Dark Lord of the Sith.]]Though Ludo Kressh had no direct heir to continue his line, his strong Sith blood meant many who survived the Republic invasion stayed loyal to the fallen Dark Lord. The [[House Ludo Kressh|Disciples of Kressh]] recovered their liege’s body and entombed him in the [[starwars:Valley_of_the_Dark_Lords|Valley of the Dark Lords]] on Korriban, returning to his homeworld of [[starwars:Rhelg|Rhelg]] before they could be captured or slain by the Republic forces. However, straying too near a [[starwars:Gravity_mine|gravity mine]] probably left by Sadow or his Massassi spies, their ship, the [[starwars:Derriphan-class_battleship|''Derriphan''-class battleship]] ''Saarai'', was yanked out of [[starwars:Hyperspace|hyperspace]] and crash landed on a planet in a system several light years out from Rhelg itself.
| | ====Horizons (36 ABY)==== |
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| Unlike the Jedi blooded Naga Sadow, Kressh was more Sith than not, and his followers reflected this. Though a number of hybrid Dark Jedi [[acolyte]]s survived the crash, their numbers were too few to support a sustainable population, and so the Disciples of Kressh survived—but as a true Sith colony, ruled not solely by the Dark Jedi hybrids, but by the Red Sith as well—Massassi and Kissai—who had inherited the [[starwars:Jen'jidai|''Jen’jidai'']]’s knowledge. The Disciples of Kressh took the name ''Jentarali'', the hidden guardians of the legacy of the true Sith. Their leaders, those ones who had wrestled control back from the misguided [[starwars:Jen'ari|''Jen’ari'']] who had cost them their homeworlds, now made up a Circle of Elders, and came to be hailed as [[starwars:Sith_language|''Taral’ari'']], the Overlords of the Guardians of the Sith.
| | '''Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.''' |
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| ==== Heirs of the Empire==== | | [[image:Macron Sadow Horizons.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Macron battles aboard the Wreck of the Miner's Brother]] |
| | [[image:Orian attacked by Zoraan.png|thumb|250px|right|Platform Onyx 2 is bombarded by one of Zoraan's Task Forces]] |
| | {{Clear}} |
| | == Historical Roll of the Summit == |
| | === Clan === |
| | <center> |
| | <table width="750" align="center" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="fancy fancy-green"> |
| | <tr><td colspan="4" class="head"> '''History of the Summit of the Reformed Clan''' |
| | </td></tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Consul''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Proconsul''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>04.13.2011 - 06.24.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Methyas Pepoi L'eonheart]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>04.13.2011 - 06.24.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Methyas Pepoi L'eonheart]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">06.24.2011 - 11.11.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Robert Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">08.22.2011 - 10.27.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Macron Goura Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>11.11.2011 - 03.28.2012 |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Locke Sonjie]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>11.14.2011 - 03.28.2012 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Locke Sonjie]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">03.28.2012 - 06.06.2013 |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Teu Pepoi]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">03.28.2012 - 10.23.2012 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Atra Ventus]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>10.23.2012 - 05.11.2013 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Korras]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">06.08.2013 - 09.27.2013 |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Malik Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">05.24.2013 - 09.27.2013 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Malik Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>09.27.2013 - 02.13.2015 |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Darth Vexatus]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>10.01.2013 - 05.26.2014 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Macron Goura Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">05.26.2014 - 02.21.2015 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Locke Sonjie]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>02.21.2015 - 02.25.2017 |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Cethgus Tiberius Entar Arconae|Cethgus Tiberius Entar]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>02.21.2015 - 02.21.2016 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Sanguinius Tsucyra]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">03.02.2016 - 03.08.2017 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Sanguinius Tsucyra]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>03.08.2017 - 05.12.2018 |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Marcus Kiriyu]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>03.13.2017 - 04.10.2017 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">[[Bentre Stahoes]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt">04.11.2017 - 05.13.2018 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td>[[Bentre Stahoes]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>05.13.2018 - incumbent |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[Ashia Kagan Keibatsu|Ashia Keibatsu]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>05.01.2018 - 03.02.2020 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td>[[DarkHawk]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td>04.15.2020 - incumbent |
| | </td> |
|
| |
|
| Following the disastrous [[starwars:Second_Battle_of_Korriban_(Great_Hyperspace_War)|Second Battle of Korriban]], Sadow fled to [[starwars:Yavin|Yavin]] where he encased himself in a suspended animation chamber to await the day the Empire could be rebuilt. In hibernation, the Dark Lord left his son, Sadow the Younger, to rule in his absence. However, cut off from civilisation, the Massassi on [[starwars:Yavin_4|Yavin 4]] began to devolve into primitives. In [[starwars:4400_BBY|4,400 BBY]], Sadow was reawakened by the prodigal [[starwars:Jedi_Knight|Jedi]] [[starwars:Freedon_Nadd|Freedon Nadd]], only to be slain when his new apprentice betrayed him. However, at some point during the four centuries in between, a single member of the Sadow line had escaped aboard one of the last hyperspace capable ships, and thus the bloodline continued—fulfilling Naga Sadow’s original goal of breeding back into his original [[starwars:Human|Human]] roots, such that by the rise of the [[starwars:Galactic_Empire|Galactic Empire]] in [[starwars:18_BBY|19 BBY]], Sadow’s last surviving descendant, Anubis Sadow, was all but Human.
| |
|
| |
|
| ===Restoration (14 ABY—16 ABY)===
| |
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| |
|
| ====The last heir to a forgotten empire==== | | <tr><td colspan="4" class="foot"> |
|
| |
|
| [[Image:TheLostHeir.jpg|right|thumb|[[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow]], the lost [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|heir]] of the [[Sadow dynasty]].]]Born [[24 BBY to 1 BBY|21 BBY]], [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Astronicus Dlarit]] grew up in a foster family oblivious to his [[Sadow dynasty|true heritage]]. He enlisted in the [[starwars:Imperial_Navy|Imperial Navy]] and eventually became [[starwars:Governor|governor]] of a remote farming colony on [[Sif]] in the [[Phare system]]. His [[starwars:Force-sensitivty|Force-sensitivity]] was first discovered by a [[Dark Jedi Master]] by the name of [[Yoni]] and he was recruited into the [[Dark Brotherhood|Brotherhood]]. As Dlarit slowly unlocked his potential, he began having visions of a Dark Man and found himself driven to create a [[House Naga Sadow|House]] dedicated to Naga Sadow, and secretly began training [[apprentice]]s at his governor’s mansion, which became known as [[Old Sadow Palace|Sadow Palace]]—thus, after more than five millennia, the [[Disciples of Sadow]] returned.
| | </td></tr> |
| | </table> |
| | </center> |
|
| |
|
| What started out as a dream grew as Dlarit recruited various Force-sensitive outcasts to his banner, and his visions began to grow more intense until, finally, the Dark Man revealed himself to be the [[starwars:Force_ghost|spirit]] of Naga Sadow. Dlarit learnt he was the last of the Sadows, and that his true father had been a [[starwars:Sith_cult|Sith cultist]] named Anubis Sadow, but that the rest of the line had either died long ago or else finally been hunted down during the [[starwars:Great_Jedi_Purge|Great Jedi Purge]]. He was now the last, and it was to him the burden of restoring true Sith Empire now fell.
| | === House === |
| | <center> |
| | <table width="750" align="center" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="fancy fancy-green"> |
| | <tr><td colspan="4" class="head"> '''History of the Summit of the Original House''' |
| | </td></tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Quaestor''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Aedile''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Tron Dlarit]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td> ??.??.???? - ??.??.???? |
| | </td> |
| | <td> Taage |
| | </td> |
| | <td> ??.??.???? - ??.??.???? |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt"> Taage |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> ??.??.???? - ??.??.???? |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> [[Kharon Daragon|Robert Fett]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> ??.??.???? - ??.??.???? |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Tron Dlarit]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td> ??.??.???? - 04.03.1999 |
| | </td> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr><td colspan="4" class="head"> '''History of the Summit of the Reformed House''' |
| | </td></tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Quaestor''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Aedile''' |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="sub-head" width="25%"> '''Service Dates''' |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> [[Macron Goura Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td> 07.22.2010 - 10.01.2010 |
| | </td> |
| | <td> [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td> 07.22.2010 - 10.01.2010 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td class="alt"> [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> 10.01.2010 - 04.13.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> [[Fremoc Pepoi]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td class="alt"> 10.23.2010 - 12.01.2010 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td> |
| | </td> |
| | <td> [[Methyas Pepoi L'eonheart]] |
| | </td> |
| | <td> 01.06.2011 - 04.13.2011 |
| | </td> |
| | </tr> |
| | <tr><td colspan="4" class="foot"> |
|
| |
|
| ====Digging up the past====
| | </td></tr> |
| | </table> |
| | </center> |
|
| |
|
| {{quote|Could this be the Chosen One we have awaited? The one who shall revive the Sith Empire?|Ximeno, Overlord of Ragnos}}
| | == Historical == |
| | '''Naga Sadow''' was formed on January 7, 1998 by [[Astronicus Aurelius Sadow|Tron Dlarit]] as a [[House]] of the [[Dark Brotherhood]]. On April 3, 1999, House Naga Sadow was deemed [[Clan Naga Sadow]]. Now a [[Clan]], Naga Sadow went on to spawn three houses: [[House Marka Ragnos]], [[House Ludo Kressh]], and [[House Primus Goluud]]. On July 22, 2010, [[House Marka Ragnos]] and [[House Ludo Kressh]] were dissolved into the newly reorganized House Naga Sadow. On April 13, 2011; Naga Sadow was restored as a [[Clan]] of the Brotherhood on the eve of the [[Independence Games]], a monumental occasion for the [[Disciples of Sadow]]. |
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| Though the young [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Lord Sadow]] had assembled a few [[starwars:Sith_Acolyte|acolytes]], he still was nowhere near restarting the Sith Empire. The spirit led him across the Galaxy on a journey to assemble the tools and followers he would need. His first destination was the not-too-distant [[Karana system]], where the [[Disciples of Ragnos]] had remained in hiding ever since the death of Marka Ragnos—after all those years ''still'' awaiting his return. Though their loyalty to their fallen lord remained, [[Ximeno]], the [[House Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Overlord]] and leader of the cultists, believed the young Sith Prince to be the Chosen One they had long awaited—the one who would revive the true Sith Empire. The priests and sorcerers pledged their allegiance, though maintained that Ragnos himself would one day return. Until then, however, they deemed Astronicus a worthy leader—ruling his fate would be for Ragnos, and Ragnos alone, to decide as and when he finally returned.
| | {{Naga Sadow}} |
| | | [[Category:Naga Sadow]] |
| Having secured the service of the Disciples of Ragnos, Naga Sadow next led his young descendant to the other side of the Galaxy, to the outskirts of the original Sith Empire, to [[starwars:Yavin_4|Yavin 4]]—the final resting place of the once emperor himself. Being careful to avoid discovery by the [[starwars:New_Jedi_Order|new Jedi Order]] growing up on the planet, the spirit shrouded Astronicus and led him into the ancient temples, where the young heir recovered a raft of tomes, [[starwars:Sith_artifact|artifacts]] and [[starwars:Sith_holocron|holocrons]]—among them [[Sword of Sadow|Sadow’s sword]]—which the spirit proclaimed would provide the necessary components to train a new order of Dark Jedi.
| |
| | |
| ====Declaring a truce====
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| | |
| {{quote|Keep your friends close—keep your enemies ''closer''.|Eagleye, Overlord of Kressh, trying to convince the Circle of Elders to join Astronicus Sadow.}}
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| | |
| [[Image:Saaraiwreck.jpg|thumb|left|The wreck of the ''Saarai'' which became the [[starwars:Sith_Temple|temple]] of the ''Jentarali''.]]The lost ''Jentarali'', the hidden guardians of the Sith legacy, had been stranded on the unknown planet near Rhelg for five thousand years. Due to their numbers, the Dark Jedi and Red Sith had been forced to continue interbreeding; however, most had been willing to embrace their mixed heritage as Ludo Kressh himself had done. In [[11 ABY to 19 ABY|15 ABY]], they and their [[starwars:Sith_Temple|Hidden Temple]] were stumbled across by Astronicus Aurelius Sadow while he was on his journey to assemble the tools to restore the Sith Empire. At the time, the [[House Ludo Kressh|Disciples of Kressh]] were led by [[House Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Overlord]] Lee Tingnot, otherwise know by his Sith name of ''Eagleye'', the current ''Taral'ari'' of the ''Jentarali''.
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| | |
| The ancient conflict between Kressh and Sadow remained a bitter memory in the minds of the Disciples of Kressh, though it was unclear how much the dark specter of Naga Sadow had informed his young descendant. However, whatever Astronicus’s reasons, upon coming across the lost tribe he extended the same invitation he had offered to the Disciples of Ragnos, eager to recruit all the followers he could find. Eagleye agreed to lend his support to the new Disciples of Sadow—though it would be a years before the distrust between the two lines would be forgotten entirely.
| |
| | |
| ====Laying the foundations of a new empire====
| |
| | |
| The Disciples of Kressh joined the Disciples of Ragnos in lending their support to the young Sith Prince, and his vision of a Sith Empire reborn from the ashes. On Sadow’s return to Sif, and aided by his closest disciple [[Robert Daragon]], he established '''Clan Naga Sadow'''; formed from his apprentices on Sif, who resettled at Dargbar’rh Stronghold on [[Frigg]] and became [[House Primus Goluud]], named after the location of the secret base from which Naga Sadow had waged war on, and nearly destroyed, the Republic during the Great Hyperspace War; the Disciples of Ragnos from Karana III, who resettled on [[Loki]] and became [[House Marka Ragnos]]; and the Disciples of Kressh from Rhelg, who relocated to [[Ullyr]] and became [[House Ludo Kressh]].
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| | |
| Hidden in the shadow of one of the many rogue [[starwars:Imperial_Remnant|Imperial]] [[starwars:Warlord|Warlords]], the three Sith lines worked together out of mutual interest—all three equally eager to see the Republic fall and the Sith Empire restored. [[Sith Lord|Lord]] [[Khyron]], the reigning [[Grand Master]] of the Brotherhood, recognised the young heir’s potential and his value to the [[Dark Council]] as the [[Clan Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|lord]] of a new [[Clan]]. It was not long after the Clan's formation that the [[Second Great Jedi War|opportunity arose]] for the new Lord Sadow and his followers to prove their value to the [[Star Chamber]] when a convoy headed to the [[Dark Hall]] bearing numerous [[starwars:Sith_artifacts|Sith artifacts]] was hijacked by a group known as the Cordona Pirates. Together with the other Clans, a team was assembled that headed out the pirate base to recover the artifacts and destroy the pirates.
| |
| | |
| ====The Golden Age====
| |
| | |
| {{quote|It was known by the ancients that a Dark Lord with three eyes has a secret strength possessed by none other.|From the legend of [[starwars:Darth_Millennial|Darth Millennial]]}}
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| | |
| [[Image:Shanlong3.jpg|right|thumb|[[Trevarus Caerick]], [[Krath]] [[starwars:Sith_sorcerer|sorcerer]] and then [[Consul]] of the Clan.]]As the [[starwars:Galactic_Empire|Empire]] crumbled around them, the Clan grew in the shadow of the [[Dlarit Corporation]] under the guidance of Lord Sadow and his [[consul]]s. In [[10 ABY to 19 ABY|15 ABY]], the future of the Clan would forever be changed when a wandering [[starwars:Sith_sorcerer|sorcerer]] first passed through the hallways of Sadow Palace. Believed by the [[Disciples of Ragnos]] to be one spoken of in prophecy, [[Trevarus Caerick]] quickly rose to power during the [[Third Great Jedi War|Second Brotherhood Civil War]] the following year when he returned bearing the [[Marked of the Wanderer|Mark]] and the [[Amulet of Orian]] after rediscovering the [[Orian system|Orian]] and [[Antei System|Antei system]]s. The sorcerer recorded his discoveries in the [[Chronicle of Dark Souls]], sparking the [[Star Chamber]] to begin planning the relocation of the Brotherhood to Antei.
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| | |
| Caerick presided over what became known as a Golden Age for the Clan and was revered by the Karanan disciples as if he were the very voice of the [[starwars:Dark_side|dark side]] itself. Yet, much like Ragnos himself, Caerick was also an iron fisted leader, personally overseeing the execution of more than one hundred apprentices whom he deemed unfit to be of further use.
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| The final days of Caerick’s reign took place during the uprising of [[Archibald Zoraan]]. Lord Zoraan too sought to break free of the Imperial yoke, but he attempted to do so without planning and against the will of the Star Chamber. Unwilling to allow his own plans to be brought down with Zoraan, Caerick joined forces with [[Telaris "Mav" Cantor|Telaris Cantor]] of [[Clan Taldryan]] to lead a rebellion against the Grand Master. Battle was joined on the steps of the [[Dark Hall]] itself on [[Eos]], but Zoraan was ultimately defeated, consumed by his own [[starwars:Force_storm_(wormhole)|Force storm]]s. The damage had already been done, however. The Imperial commanders no longer trusted the Brotherhood and sought to disband the Star Chamber to seize control. Realising the threat posed, Caerick stepped aside to focus on accelerating the Brotherhood’s plans by infiltrating the Imperial High Court to assist in laundering funds.
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| ===In the shadow of the Remnant (17 ABY–19 ABY)===
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| ====The Empire seizes control====
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| {{quote|The Empire will always strike back.|Gilad Pellaeon}}
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| The next year proved tough for the Brotherhood as the Empire tightened its grip. The [[Iron Throne]] stood empty and the Clan found itself in a struggle for survival while Imperial spies infiltrated its ranks in search of those behind the growing seeds of dissent. Lord Sadow was forced to bide his time in the shadows as the Phare system fell deeper under the Imperial yoke.
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| Into this disorder stepped Lord [[Chi Long]] who leaked information pertaining to the Skin of Fire and instructed the Clans to [[Fourth Great Jedi War|search out]] the [[starwars:Sith_artifact|artifact]]. The Grand Master’s plan was to use the artifact to restore the Star Chamber, putting him in opposition to Caerick’s fellow shadow councillors’ plans to relocate to Antei. Yet, with some irony, when Caerick’s mind slipped nearer madness, Chi Long was the one to pull him back from the brink, separating his prophetic madness into [[Shan Long]]. The hunt for the Skin of Fire proved successful, but not before the Empire discovered what Chi Long was planning. However, [[Xanos Zorrixor]], Caerick’s own apprentice, learnt of the Empire’s own impending betrayal and Chi Long escaped into exile before he could be dealt with.
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| The Empire appointed Lord [[Firefox]] Grand Master in place of Chi Long and believed its control to be complete. With Master Yoni, Lord Sadow mourned the loss of the Star Chamber, and the Clan was forced to look to the future through a clouded lens of uncertainty.
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| ====Rise of the Seven====
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| {{quote|He would have his vengeance. An insanity known only to him, the destruction and disease of the Force would soon be at hand. It would require patience—ages, aeons—no, a near eternity of patience to achieve what he wanted. But he did not mind.|From the personal account of of Kurien}}
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| [[Image:XanosFracturedMirror.jpg|left|thumb|[[Xanos Zorrixor]], [[Sith]] [[Dark Prophet|prophet]] and then [[Consul]] of the Clan.]]As the future of the Clan looked grim, [[starwars:Count|Count]] Zorrixor emerged to restore confidence in Caerick’s vision. None realised how far removed their fears about the new Grand Master were from the truth, for Lord Firefox was no Imperial puppet, but one of the very [[Seven|shadow councillors]] with whom Caerick had been plotting. The Empire had unknowingly appointed its own judge, jury and executioner.
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| Through [[10 ABY to 19 ABY|18 ABY]] Zorrixor co-ordinated plans with the group who would become known as the [[Seven]]; and, in spite of living in the shadow of the Imperial Remnant, the Clan experienced a revival to the days when Caerick had been in charge. Zorrixor worked closely with Lord Sadow to weed out any Imperial spies hidden in their midst and restore faith in his dream of building a new Sith Empire. To this end, the [[Order of the Black Guard|Black Guard]], led by [[Tharivol Endymiron]], was formed to enforce Lord Sadow’s will throughout Phare. Their actions were repeated across the Brotherhood, and for the first time in years the clans were united in a common cause: to rise up against the shackles of the Empire.
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| However, the Empire was not oblivious to this threat, and a [[Fifth Great Jedi War|shadow war]] erupted early in [[10 ABY to 19 ABY|19 ABY]] with a number of high profile assassination attempts on both sides. When the Empire court-martialled the former Sadow disciple Mairin Astoris and tried to have her executed, it sent ripples through the Clan, and Caerick and the Seven knew it would soon be time to act.
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| Zorrixor began having nightmares of a series of unknown voices, centred on the recently discovered world Klind’arith. Some years earlier, Klind’arith’s population had been found to have an unusually high rate of Force-sensitives and [[envoy]]s had routinely been dispatched to find fresh candidates. After contact with several envoys was lost and Alex Church returned from the planet with an unexplained illness, the Empire requested the Clan investigate. Caerick sensed something amiss and returned to help lead the expedition to the planet to unearth the truth, ruling it a matter of urgency. However, when they arrived the Imperial Navy laid siege, trying to trap the expedition party on the surface, causing Caerick to abandon the mission and hurry back to Eos.
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| [[Image:Kurien.gif|right|thumb|[[Kurien]], the former Klind'arithi [[starwars:shaman|high shaman]] who became the self-styled "Lord of Vampires".]] On Klind’arith, the expedition discovered [[Kurien]], a native Klind’arithi [[starwars:Shaman|shaman]] who appeared to be immortal and had an impossibly high [[starwars:Midichlorian|midichlorian]] count. In [[10 ABY to 19 ABY|12 ABY]] the Brotherhood had taken Kurien captive and experimented on him to discover the source of his condition. However, Kurien mutated and became addicted to midichlorians, requiring more to stay alive and turning those he fed off into mindless slaves. The Empire had deliberately returned him to Klind’arith to use as bait to lure the Clan there and destroy them. Kurien appeared unstoppable until Zorrixor obtained the ancient Sith artifact that was the source of the Klind’arithi population’s gifts and finally slew him.
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| ====Codeword: Exodus====
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| Troubled by the Empire’s betrayal at Klind’arith, the Clan returned to Phare to discover the system had been placed under Imperial lockdown. The system had been left lightly guarded, the Empire having thought the Clan destroyed on Klind’arith. Lord Sadow and Count Zorrixor led an assault on Sadow Palace to regain control while the rest of the Clan performed a series of clandestine raids on Ullyr, Frigg and Loki to quietly infiltrate the system.
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| Days passed and there was no word from Caerick or further action by the Empire. Fearing the worst, Zorrixor instructed the Clan to prepare for the exodus and loaded the ships in readiness to depart. Finally, Caerick contacted them with news: the Brotherhood had been betrayed and the [[Exodus]] had been authorised. The Empire had signed a peace treaty with the Republic forcing the Seven’s hand. There had already been a battle over Eos, but the Empire had called in reinforcements from their new allies in the Republic and the Brotherhood had been forced to retreat when its flagship, the [[starwars:Executor-class_Star_Dreadnought|''Executor''-class Star Dreadnought]] ''Avenger'', was destroyed.
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| The Clan began a mass evacuation of Phare. But the clock was ticking: the Battle of Eos was over and Imperial forces were now on their way. With the arrival of an [[starwars:Inquisitorius|Inquisition]] battle fleet, Count Zorrixor ordered self-destruct sequences be initiated throughout the system, choosing to take the Empire with them before surrendering their secrets. On Frigg one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Clan took place at Dargbar'rh Stronghold in what would become known as the Battle of Darkened Hearts, where the warrior named Ace died fighting to defend those he had served with.
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| In space, Zorrixor took command of the assembled forces. However, the Battle of Phare was not so much a battle but a massacre. The Clan was ill prepared to hold off a fleet of [[starwars:Star_Destroyer|Star Destroyer]]s and their fighter wings fought to hold the Empire off to provide their evacuation convoy enough time to escape. Hope appearance lost at the arrival an [[starwars:Immobilizer_418_cruiser|Imperial interdictor]]. But Lord Sadow had one last card to play and revealed the hidden secret of Sadow Palace: that it was built on top of a prototype Star Destroyer. Sadow sent the palace on a suicide run against the interdictor, securing the Clan the opening it needed to escape to [[starwars:Hyperspace|hyperspace]].
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| The Clan rendezvoused with Caerick and the other survivors of the Battle of Eos in nearby [[starwars:Wild_Space|Wild Space]]. With the battle over, the clans went their separate ways to begin rebuilding; the disciples of Sadow journeying across [[starwars:The_Galaxy|the Galaxy]] with the main fleet to Antei and Orian.
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| ===A new beginning (19 ABY–23 ABY)===
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| ====Orian and the Sons of Sadow====
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| [[Image:TempleofSorrow.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Temple of Sorrow]], the [[New Sadow Palace]].]]While the exodus took its toll, the Clan emerged relatively unscathed, escaping the initial brunt of the Empire’s attack while on Klind’arith, with only House Primus Goluud suffering major losses in Battle of Darkened Hearts. Unlike much of the Brotherhood, Caerick had been positioned to prepare the Clan in advance, and he and Zorrixor had for the past year been laundering funds into a dummy corporation in the [[starwars:Corporate_Sector|Corporate Sector]], [[Kaldex Transport Inc]]. Through Kaldex, construction efforts were already underway throughout the Orian system, with the city of [[Seng Karash]] near completion.
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| Lord Sadow and the rest of the Clan had intentionally been kept in the dark on a strict need to know basis, yet the work of Kaldex had gone on unhindered. Zorrixor had discretely authorised the transport of a number of Saraii—the [[starwars:Chiss|Chiss]] colonists of Phare—to Orian to aid in the construction.
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| The Clan had been forced to relocate earlier than expected so a number of construction projects were still unfinished. House Marka Ragnos established itself in [[Ragnos Cathedral|Alabrek castle]] on [[Tarthos]] and oversaw the reconstruction of the renowned Sadow Archives, with work on the surrounding city of [[Kar Alabrek]] commencing soon after; House Ludo Kressh settled for now on [[Dentavii Prime]], but also helped oversee the final construction efforts of Seng Karash. House Primus Goluud, having suffered such dire losses, moved into one of the remote temples on [[Aeotheran]] that reminded them of their beloved Dargbar'rh Stronghold, hoping to quietly rebuild.
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| Lord Sadow deemed the exodus a success and selected the [[Temple of Sorrow]], one of [[Temples of Orian|seven temples]] located deep in the jungles of [[Sepros]], to serve as the [[New Sadow Palace|new Sadow Palace]]. There he hoped to forge the seat of his new empire, hidden from the rest of the system. To this end, Sadow called forth two of the heroes of the Battle of Phare, [[Raistlin Majerus Sadow|Raistlin Majerus]] and [[Manesh|Manesh Pillai]], declaring them to be the first of a new [[Sadow dynasty]]: the [[Sons of Sadow]].
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| [[Image:OrianSeal.jpg|right|thumb|The insignia of Urias Orian, now adopted by Clan Naga Sadow.]]The relocation to Orian saw the Clan immerse itself in the lost teachings of Urias Orian. The Clan’s original seal was exclusively adopted by the Sons of Sadow, and the seal of the newly discovered Sith Lord was taken to be used by the Clan and the Dlarit Corporation instead. Largely unnoticed, the Clan had silently undergone something of an evolution, having moved beyond just being the heirs of Naga Sadow. Now the heirs of Astronicus Sadow himself, his brotherhood a union not only of the teachings passed down by the disciples of Sadow, but also those of Ragnos, Kressh, and now Orian.
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| ====Ghosts of the past (20 ABY—21 ABY)====
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| =====The Invasion of Antares=====
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| {{quote|We see from beyond the stars<br>Through the glittering of a million eyes<br>In a sea of glass.|From the Tenebric Conclusions}}
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| With the exodus over, Trevarus Caerick and Xanos Zorrixor were called to join the ranks of the [[Dark Council]] and made the transition to Antei as soon as [[Kalekka Tower]] was finished at the Jadan Pass of the [[Du'San Boundary|Du'san boundary]]. Thus began a yearlong military campaign to rid Antei and its neighbouring systems of the Antaran pirates, culminating with the [[invasion of Antares]] in [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|21 ABY]]. The Clan aided the Council during this time, while back home in Orian at [[Amphor]] construction began on the sky city of [[San Korinar]].
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| The arrival of the Dark Lords and the war against the Antarans awoke [[Okemi]], the long forgotten Sith Lord who had been exiled from the Sith Empire by Marka Ragnos. Not long after Caerick had moved to Antei, he made contact with a [[Nameless Ones|series of voices]] that proclaimed a desire for fire, destruction, and blood. He recorded his observations in the [[Tenebric Conclusions]] but Lords Firefox and [[Jac Cotelin|Cotelin]] paid the portents no heed. Shortly after, Lord Firefox departed to the [[starwars:Imperial_Remnant|Imperial Remnant]] on business.
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| =====Curse of the Forgotten Ones=====
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| [[Image:Okemi.gif|thumb|left|[[Sith Lord|Lord]] [[Okemi]], [[starwars:Massassi|Sith]] [[starwars:King|King]] of [[Antei]], now consumed by the [[Consciousness|Nameless Voices]] in payment for his "immortality".]]When the ruins of the original Star Chamber were unearthed, a [[Consciousness|plague]] spread across Antei, infecting anybody Okemi’s blood came in contact with, driving them mad with the screams of thousands of voices and dominating them like puppets. Caerick was infected, but the Amulet of Orian sheathed him in a cocoon to try and prevent the corruption spreading. But Lord Cotelin sealed the system off, masking the plague and allowing [[Kem-Shu Maeda]] to spread the madness through the Brotherhood. An attack against [[Clan Arcona]] by a false Black Guard was staged in the [[Dajorra System|Dajorra system]], drawing the [[disciples of Sadow]] into the crisis. The voices fed off destruction and the ensuing conflict allowed them to spread, infiltrating the Clan to ransack the library on Tarthos. During the battles, the [[Obelisk]] [[Obelisk#Centurion|centurion]] [[Korras|Korras Aquillarum]] helped lead much of the Clan’s forces into battle.
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| Count Zorrixor managed to escape from Antei and bring word of what had happened to Lord Firefox at [[starwars:Muunilinst|Muunilinst]]. The Grand Master returned and assembled a force from those still in possession of their faculties and led a [[Sixth Great Jedi War|direct assault]] on Antei. The conflict reached its climax when Lord Firefox took up arms against Lord Cotelin as Zorrixor held off Kem-Shu Maeda. Zorrixor was mortally wounded and Maeda escaped; however, Firefox defeated Cotelin and made his way to the ruins of the ancient Star Chamber where he slew Okemi with the Sword of Son’Jiatt, silencing the voices.
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| While a full civil war was averted, the Clan still suffered heavy casualties during the crisis. The staged attack on Arcona had led to retaliatory strikes and the attack on Alabrek Castle had cost a number of lives. Still reeling from the Battle of Darkened Hearts, House Primus Goluud finally collapsed, with too few left to train others in its traditions. The disciples of Kressh quickly laid claim to its former possessions and established a permanent base in Seng Karash, destroying all evidence the House had ever existed. Years later, some would speculate it was a curse that had brought the House down, dating back to the betrayal of [[starwars:Gav_Daragon|Gav Daragon]] during the [[starwars:Battle_of_Primus_Goluud|Battle of Primus Goluud]] in 5,000 BBY.
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| House Primus Goluud was not the only loss the Clan suffered in the crisis. The Amulet of Orian may have prevented Caerick from being infected, but it also stopped the infection from being destroyed when Okemi was slain and Caerick’s mind was lost to the madness of Shan Long. With Caerick gone, Zorrixor renounced his position on the Council and went into exile in search of answers for his loss; and Lord Sadow was left to mourn not just a House but two of his greatest sons as well.
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| ====Dawn of a new family====
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| [[Image:KeibatsuAll.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Keibatsu]].]]While Zorrixor disappeared into the unknown and Caerick remained trapped inside his own mind, bound in chains on Antei, uttering mindless prophecy; the Clan sought to rebuild, forced to deal with the loss of House Primus Goluud. It was around this time two brothers—though they were unaware of their connection at the time—first walked the halls of Sadow Palace: [[Muz Ashen]] and [[Nekura Manji Keibatsu]].
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| The pair was the first of the [[Keibatsu|Keibatsu family]] to join the disciples of Sadow, marking the dawn of a new chapter in the Clan’s history. As time passed, further members of the family appeared, such as Tharivol Endymiron, who upon his return to the Brotherhood was discovered to be the lost relative [[Tharivol Endymiron|Shin’ichi]]. The Keibatsu inexplicably appeared drawn to the Clan, as if they had all been beckoned into the service of Lord Sadow. An explanation for this apparent link between the Keibatsu and Sadow bloodlines remains unknown, should one even exist.
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| The hole that had been left following the upheaval of the exodus and the trauma of war appeared to have been filled as a new sense of family emerged. The Clan led numerous expeditions to planets throughout the Sith Empire while the Clan’s influence grew within the Orian system, as envoys scouted the Rims for suitable candidates, and colonists were recruited from various worlds. At a hidden shipyard in the Corporate Sector, work continued on the future [[Dlarit Navy]], under the mask of Kaldex Inc.
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| A major challenge emerged for the Clan a year after the chaos on Antei. The Brotherhood had been in the possession of a number of relics belonging to the mysterious K’hamar’an cult for years, but the move to Antei had brought the missing artifacts near to the planet K’hamar’a, and the cultists’ attention. When the K’hamar’ans infiltrated the Brotherhood to recover the relics, the Krath High Priest took steps to root out the spies. The Clan rallied to the cause, having lost several artifacts in its own possession, with the Keibatsu brothers spearheading the efforts alongside Clan Taldryan.
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| The wake of the [[K'hamar'an Crisis|K’hamar’an crisis]] saw glimmers of Trevarus Caerick echo through the madness of Shan Long. The [[Oracle]] journeyed to K’hamar’a itself, a world he had visited many years earlier, as he still struggled with his inner demons, wrestling for control of the Dragon that continued to make claim to his body; his mind still wrought with the lingering voices from the previous war.
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| ====History’s echoes====
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| The end of the K’hamar’an crisis saw the return to the Clan of Count Zorrixor, who had spent his exile touring the lost worlds of the Sith Empire, and returned with a renewed zeal—almost an obsession—to overcome the weakness that had almost cost him his life against Maeda. Lord Sadow quickly made the count his consul once more after the Korras Aquillarum was called to the Council, his efforts in rooting out the K’hamar’an spies having not gone unnoticed.
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| But it was clear something had changed in Zorrixor during his exile. Having brought the holocron of [[starwars:Tulak_Hord|Tulak Hord]] back with him, he retreated to his study for much of the following year, working with Muz Ashen to unlock the ancient Dark Lord’s secrets. Where before the exodus the count had personally overseen the planning, working in secret with Trevarus Caerick; now, Zorrixor delegated much of the day-to-day oversight of the Dlarit Corporation to others, and entrusted the Houses with their own training, emerging from his seclusion on Sepros once a month to convene a conclave.
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| [[Image:KilnTobasa.gif|thumb|left|[[Kiln Tobasa]], leader of the [[Marked of the Wanderer|Marked]].]]A year passed as the Clan continued to grow in strength, fully recovered from the damage of the last war. However, in early [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|23 ABY]], a number of high profile assassination attempts took place across the system, with the survivors speaking of ghosts and moving shadows. Questions were raised, but the consul had mysteriously disappeared. The situation reached a peak midyear when troops marched on Sadow Palace demanding answers, and rogue units bombed Alabrek Castle.
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| Eventually, Count Zorrixor emerged from hiding. He had disappeared in the hope of luring out the true culprit behind the attacks. Upon his return to Sadow Palace he found his answer: [[Kiln Tobasa]], a man meant to be seven years dead, who proclaimed the coming of the darkness to end all darkness. Zorrixor slew the sorcerer, only to find it had merely been a [[starwars:Force_Illusion|shade]]. Nonetheless, the threat exposed, the crisis throughout Orian eased and civil war between the Houses was averted.
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| The barrels of the turbolasers had barely cooled when Korras Aquillarum, now the [[Obelisk High Commander]], issued a call to arms for forces to assist in an [[Invasion of Coratua|invasion]] of the planet Coratua. The space lanes around Antei had recently been besieged by pirates and the Council was growing concerned it would bring unwanted attention from the Republic. The Clan gladly heard the call of their former clansman and assembled a force to travel to Coratua; led by Zorrixor and Ashen themselves, who had completed their study of the Hord holocron and wanted to put their research to the test on the field of battle.
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| ===Omens (24 ABY–26 ABY)===
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| ====The True Brotherhood====
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| [[Image:Severakold.jpg|thumb|right|[[Darth]] [[Severak]], the leader of the [[True Brotherhood]].]]With its value proven in battle, the contents of the Hord holocron were entered into the archives of the [[Shadow Academy]], bringing both Ashen and Zorrixor to the attention of the Council. Zorrixor was made a [[Dark Jedi Master|Master]], but it would not be long before crisis hit the Clan once more with the emergence of the [[True Brotherhood]], led by the false Sith Lord [[Severak|Darth Severak]].
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| Orian was undergoing many changes in early [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|24 ABY]]. The appearance of Kiln Tobasa had troubled Zorrixor, who had begun having nightmares of Antei rendered lifeless. The Council had dismissed it, but Zorrixor had grown paranoid and ordered the construction of an [[Marakith Skyhook|immense skyhook]] to orbit Seng Karash, and diverted addition funds to Kaldex to speed up the construction of the new fleet. With the consul starting to echo his master, spouting lines of incoherent prophecy, the Clan was caught unaware as agents of the True Brotherhood infiltrated its ranks and began luring apprentices away.
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| When the True Brotherhood’s existence was discovered, the Clan sent a task force to its holdout on the nearby world of [[Kangaras]] to wipe it out. The faction on Kangaras was utterly destroyed, along with Darth Severak’s two foremost apprentices, [[Severina]] and [[Tslotha Garnath]], but the Sith Lord himself escaped to join his other forces on [[starwars:Mustafar|Mustafar]]. The victory was a testament to the efforts of many of the Clan’s junior knights, such as [[Macron|Macron Goura]] and [[Malisane de Ath]]. With the threat of the True Brotherhood believed vanquished, Muz Ashen stepped up to join the ranks of the Dark Council.
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| ====The coming darkness====
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| {{Quote|The night beyond darkness dawns when all shall surrender to dusk.|Xanos Zorrixor}}
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| [[Image:XanosVision.gif|thumb|left|Zorrixor's visions of destruction.]]Having not foreseen the True Brotherhood threat, Zorrixor realised his gift of [[starwars:Force_Vision|second sight]] was not the gift he had hoped it to be and that he still needed to master it. The Council had grown tired of Shan Long, believing they would divine nothing further from sorcerer’s mindless prattle, so the count requested that he be handed over to the Clan. Shan Long arrived at Sepros clapped in irons, the mind of Trevarus Caerick utterly lost to the madness of the nameless voices. Zorrixor managed what no other had in the two years since the war on Antei: pull Caerick’s mind back from the abyss.
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| With the True Brotherhood believed dealt with, while Caerick was tutoring his old apprentice in the ways of prophecy the Keibatsu family assembled a task force to reclaim their ancestral homeland, the Kyataru system. Heading off with a number of the Clan’s best knights, the Keibatsu vanished for three months to wage a brutal campaign against the warlords who had taken control of Kyataru. It was not long after they returned when Marshal Aquillarum had need of the Clan’s services again, this time requiring a strike team to secure the sunside of Antei. The Clan saw action at the Jagred city of Om'Jagred, the battle seeing the first in combat deployment of [[Violator_Gas|Violator gas]] by Macron Goura.
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| Back at Orian, with much of the Clan away, Caerick’s return stirred a threat in the temples on Sepros. In the ruins of the [[Temple of the Void]], he encountered Kiln Tobasa—the real Kiln Tobasa—who had survived their duel years earlier. This time Caerick made sure his old master would remain dead, obliterating his spirit permanently. In the depths of the ruins, the pair discovered an ancient [[starwars:Star_Map|Star Map]] and surmised that it may have been the cause of Tobasa's insanity, but for now the ancient emitter matrix remained inactive so was therefore useless. However, the rogue sorcerer’s death did not silence Zorrixor’s dreams of a coming darkness, and eventually Lord Cotelin summoned him to Antei to teach what Caerick couldn’t, not believing the Star Chamber should leave the future to chance.
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| ====Rising tensions====
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| As Masters Caerick and Zorrixor left for Antei, Aquillarum returned to the Clan after the completion of military operations on the sunside of the planet. The shadow of the count’s premonitions loomed over the Clan like a grim specter as it entered [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|25 ABY]]. The threat of the True Brotherhood returned after [[Sildrin Rys-Hastur]] was arrested when evidence emerged that she had been supplying Jagred partisans on Antei with bioweapons. The arrest sent shockwaves through the Clan and Muz Keibatsu returned from Antei, convinced of Hastur’s innocence.
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| [[Image:Severak.jpg|thumb|right|[[Severak|Darth Severak]] reborn in his new body.]]With all the players assembled, the True Brotherhood sprung its trap. Muz Keibatsu slew the cult’s leader, Darth Severak, but the Sith Lord transferred his essence into the body of a young journeyman and kidnapped Malisane de Ath, following the discovery de Ath was his son. The Clan pursued the leader of the True Brotherhood across the Galaxy to a hidden base on the distant planet of Mustafar. The Clan managed to stop Severak as he attempted to sacrifice his son, killing him again and forcing him to jump to a third body. De Ath sabotaged the Sith Lord’s hyperdrive when he tried to escape, trapping him in hyperspace, hopefully forever.
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| Relations between the clans had been weakening for some time as they each kept largely to their own systems to continue their rebuilding following the exodus and the last war. For one of the few wargames still carried out together, the Clan sent a task force to the Aranna system, the abandoned homeworld of the former [[Clan Satal Keto]]. The wargame proved to be a set up when the four clans taking part were attacked by pirates. The clans fought off the attack and the disciples of Sadow returned to the Orian system with only minor casualties, but their trust had been broken, with each clan having accused the other of setting them up and the truth never discovered.
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| ====The Brotherhood Civil War (25 ABY)====
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| =====The enemy within=====
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| While the Clan was fighting pirates at the Aranna system, similar betrayals were unfolding between other clans at the Selen system. Relations between the clans had reached historic lows and the Dark Council had grown increasingly distant, isolating itself on Antei. Unknown to the Clan, Lord Cotelin had cloned himself; he had left [[Jaac Cotelin|his clone]] to attend to the mundane running of the Brotherhood, while he trained his new apprentice and searched for answers to the coming darkness.
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| [[Image:Jac.jpg|left|thumb|[[Jaac Cotelin]], the [[starwars:Clone|clone]] of the then true [[Grand Master]], [[Jac Cotelin]].]]Midway through 25 ABY, the clone revealed itself existence and declared itself to be the true Jac Cotelin. The clans saw the clone’s appearance as an opportunity to settle their growing differences. [[Seventh Great Jedi War|War erupted]], sending the Brotherhood into full blown civil war. None could identify the true Grand Master, with one summoning those loyal to him to Antei, as the other assembled an army to assault the planet. As war descended on Antei, Muz Keibatsu and [[Kaiann Yetaru Entar|Kaiann Entar]] found themselves leading the opposing armies to war, eventually facing off in single combat inside the Dark Hall itself. The Clan fought valiantly in the Civil War, seeing heavy combat against the clone’s forces at the city of Milmefia, earning the favour of the true Grand Master. The war reached its climax when Jac Cotelin squared off in single combat against Jaac Cotelin and finally slew his clone.
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| =====The Siege of Antei=====
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| The dust had scarcely settled when the clans, fed up of being ruled by a seemingly out of touch body, laid siege to the Antei system, blocking all transport and supplies in or out, demanding their voices be heard. Neither the Dark Council nor the clans could afford further hostilities, and the stalemate held for several weeks until Lord Cotelin agreed to grant the clans seats on the Council.
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| As Cotelin’s apprentice, Xanos Zorrixor may potentially have been able to have told the Grand Masters apart to have ended the war earlier, but early on in the conflict after a narrow escape from a duel with the false Jaac Cotelin, Zorrixor disappeared inside the ruined archives of the Star Chamber. As the war raged aboveground, Zorrixor was paralysed by shockwaves in the Force, sensing a [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong|great shadow]] falling over the Galaxy. There in the Star Chamber, he uncovered the holocron of Darth Maestus and studied the secrets of the ancient Sith Lords as the six month long campaign waged on the surface. With the damage to Antei, it appeared his premonitions had come true, and the Star Chamber deigned fit to make him one of them and declared him a Sith Lord. But the months in seclusion had twisted his mind, and he remained adamant that the true threat had yet to befall them. When the Star Chamber denounced Lord Zorrixor’s prophecy as false, he deserted them to return to the one he saw as his true master at Kalekka Tower: Trevarus Caerick.
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| The Brotherhood Civil War may have ended with the death of Jaac Cotelin but its legacy would haunt the Clan for years to come. The Star Chamber gave nothing away for free; while Lord Zorrixor’s omens had been denounced in public, in secret many saw the approaching storm as an opportunity to remind the clans their place. But the internal schisms had blinded all to the events unfolding unnoticed on the edge of the Outer Rim: for the [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong|Yuuzhan Vong]] [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_War|invasion]] had already begun.
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| ====The approaching storm====
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| [[Image:Marakithskyhook.gif|left|thumb|[[Marakith Skyhook]] over the mining metropolis of [[Seng Karash]].]]After a series of preliminary strikes the previous year, [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|26 ABY]] saw the main Yuuzhan Vong invasion begin in earnest. The [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_galaxy|extragalactic]] [[starwars:Far_Outsiders|invaders]] quickly spread across the Outer Rim, striking at the [[starwars:Core_Worlds|Core]] at [[starwars:Duro|Duro]], and making numerous gains through the [[starwars:Mid_Rim|Mid Rim]]. The Brotherhood remained divided on how to respond: many believed it was not the Brotherhood’s fight; others were troubled by the threat to the Force the existence of the Far Outsiders represented; but all accepted the Brotherhood was in no shape for another conflict so soon after Civil War.
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| To assist with the rebuilding, a small expedition was dispatched to venture across the Outer Rim back to the Clan’s former home in the Phare system to recover the supplies it had been forced to leave behind back in 19 ABY. The mission to the ruins of the old Sadow Palace recovered the Sword of Sadow, which had been lost during the evacuation. A separate team also visited the abandoned fortress on Ullyr to secure additional supplies, should the war drag on and supply lines to the Core be cut off for longer than expected.
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| The Clan began to stockpile resources, commissioning a [[Last Breath Mine|new mine]] after [[starwars:Baradium|baradium deposits]] were discovered beneath the new Sadow Palace. The year also saw the completion of [[Marakith Skyhook]] above the city of Seng Karash, as well as the [[Dystopia|Dystopia nightclub]] in the entertainment district. Hopes that the war would be over within the year were dashed when news reached that the [[starwars:Praxeum|Jedi Academy]] on Yavin 4 had fallen, bringing the Yuuzhan Vong perilously close to Antei and Orian. The news also saw the disappearance of Lord Zorrixor who, after his clash with the Star Chamber, had deserted the Brotherhood to seek answers to the galactic crisis elsewhere, but was instead captured by the Vong.
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| [[Image:Cloningtanks.jpg|thumb|right|The secret cloning labs located underneath the [[Cenota Facility]] on [[Gamuslag]].]]There were a number of further low key excursions across the Galaxy to secure supplies that Orian could no longer obtain from the Core. In an expedition to Jaginos, the Clan secured a number of [[starwars:Spaarti|Spaarti cloning cylinders]], with which it initiated the [[Delta-class Advanced Commando]] project to produce a batch of thirty-four genetically enhanced super soldiers each year.
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| ===The Yuuzhan Vong War (27 ABY–30 ABY)===
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| ====Incursion====
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| While news from the Core was sporadic at best with the [[starwars:HoloNet|HoloNet]] crippled, the word on Antei was that the Yuuzhan Vong were readying an attack on [[starwars:Coruscant|Coruscant]] itself. And, on the turn of the year, the new Grand Master, Lord [[Sarin]], summoned the clans to Antei for a [[Second Darkness|special exercise]] to test their ability to combat the Yuuzhan Vong if the war were to spread. Construction of the new Dlarit Navy had not quite finished, so the Clan was forced to send most of its system defence fleet to participate, but there was little other choice was it to learn how to combat the alien biotechnology of the Vong.
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| Elsewhere, Lord Zorrixor had escaped captivity and taken the name [[Darth]] [[Vexatus]]. Hearing of the efforts of the new Grand Master to combat the Vong, the rogue Sith Lord returned from exile to again discuss the matter with the Star Chamber. But the time for omens and prevention was over; just after Vexatus’s arrival, the Yuuzhan Vong [[Eighth Great Jedi War|sprung their trap]], and the clans were forced to take cover in the [[Shroud]]. Muz Keibatsu, who Lord Sarin had taken as his [[Shadow Hand]], signalled the joint clan fleets to fall back into the Shroud and defend the evacuation of Antei.
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| The Clan was split, many concerned for the safety of Orian, others outright unperturbed by the Council’s plight. Against the greater consensus to withdraw to safety, Vexatus and Trevarus Caerick convinced Lord Sadow to follow Keibatsu’s request and fall back to Antei. Keibatsu himself was captured while fighting to hold off the Vong long enough to allow the rest of the fleet to retreat. However, the Clan soon discovered the Yuuzhan Vong had already mined the Shroud, preventing hyperspace travel. After damaging its hyperdrive in a failed jump, the Clan was forced to hold off several Yuuzhan Vong attacks while its ships drifted idle as the hyperdrive was repaired. As repairs were performed, a force of deadly [[starwars:Voxyn|voxyn]] boarded the Clan’s ships, wreaking havoc. During the fighting, the Clan managed to destroy two Vong cruisers when Vexatus led the Clan as one in a [[starwars:Force_Meld|meld]] to conjure a [[starwars:Force_Storm_(wormhole)|Force storm]], but not before the loss of all but the [[starwars:Victory_II-class_Star_Destroyer|Star Destroyer]] ''[[VSDI Covenant|Covenant]]''. By the time the Clan arrived at Antei, it had already lost half its ships, and the rest of the Brotherhood was caught in a desperate fight for survival, trying to hold off the endless waves from the [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_fleet|Vong armada]].
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| [[Image:Drathul2.gif|thumb|right|[[starwars:Subcommander|Subcommander]] [[Drathul Amnan]].]]As the Brotherhood teetered toward collapse, Caerick and Vexatus fled the battle to make their way to the surface of Antei, causing Lord Sadow to order the fleet to open fire on the deserters. On Antei, the two turncoats carried out a frantic evacuation of Kalekka Tower, their reason for tricking the Clan into coming to Antei in the first place. Elsewhere, Lord Sarin arrived with a division of the [[Navy of the Iron Throne|new Council fleet]] which was also still under construction, but enough firepower to hold the Vong off long enough to execute the [[Braata Option]] to signal the retreat. Below, Caerick performed the [[starwars:Battle_Meditation|Grand Emanation]], a ritual to channel the dark energies on Antei into the members of the Clan to revivify them long enough to make it out of the system. The fall of Antei ended with a rapid retreat along the escape vector Lord Sarin’s fleet had opened up through the Shroud. Sarin recovered Muz Keibatsu from the wreckage of the Vong command ship and the entire Brotherhood jumped to hyperspace, forced to abandon Antei to the clutches of the aliens. Of the chief Yuuzhan Vong who had been tasked with the annihilation of the Dlarit battlegroup, [[starwars:Subcommander|Subcommander]] [[Drathul Amnan]] was [[starwars:Escalation|escalated]] to [[starwars:Commander|Commander]]. But [[starwars:Executor (Yuuzhan Vong rank)|Executor]] [[Eshin Shul]] had turned and fled for her failed voxyn plan, and Drathul was tasked with hunting down the now [[starwars:Shamed_One|Shamed One]] if he was ever to earn the status of [[starwars:Warleader|Warleader]].
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| The [[Eighth Great Jedi War|Fall of Antei]] saw the greatest defeat in Brotherhood history and made the Civil War the previous year resemble a minor brushfire. In the face of overwhelming odds, many showed their true colours. Lord Sadow was furious at Trevarus Caerick, but the Clan also owed its survival to the sorcerer’s ritual. Xanos Zorrixor may technically have returned, but he was unrecognisable as Darth Vexatus, whose true motives remained unclear. Many others had lost loved ones in the battle; the Keibatsu family in particular suffered the loss of Sanjuro Sledge, son to Muz Ashen and [[Ashia|Ashia Kagan]]; and Lord Sarin’s decree that Muz had become worthy of being called a Sith Lord seemed a hollow victory.
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| ====Crosscurrents====
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| The defeat at the start of [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|27 ABY]] had set the tone for the whole of the following year. The Clan managed to limp home in a single battered Star Destroyer; its pride, its faith, and its trust wounded. People remained split over who to trust between Lord Sadow, or Caerick and Vexatus. Both groups drifted into the shadows on the slow voyage home, allowing Macron Goura and Shin’ichi Keibatsu to take the spotlight while the [[elder]]s withdrew to their own business.
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| [[Image:Anaxela.jpg|left|thumb|[[Anaxela|Anaxela Goura]], [[starwars:Sith_witch|Sith witch]] and leader of the [[True Brotherhood]] Remnant.]]Following the defeat at Antei, the Clan was ill prepared for the fate awaiting them back home. The system had been [[Invasion of Orian|invaded]] by a hidden faction of the True Brotherhood, which had survived the death of the cult’s leaders two years earlier. Led by [[Anaxela|Anaxela Goura]], sister to Macron Goura, the cult had waited for a chance to strike. Believing the Brotherhood destroyed at Antei, Anaxela’s forces had invaded, searching for a lost relic of Urias Orian. Marakith Skyhook had been captured and Seng Karash taken hostage; while on Tarthos Kar Alabrek had been left in ruins by the True Brotherhood’s invasion forces, who sought to enter the Archives of Alabrek Castle. Its fleet in ruins, the Clan was forced to covertly insert its men into the system to assassinate the True Brotherhood commanders.
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| On Marakith Skyhook, Malisane de Ath was captured, learning Anaxela was actually being directed by the spirit of Severina, who was searching for the Clan’s hidden cloning facility to acquire a new clone body. While de Ath reached an agreement with the spirit in exchange for Severina leaving Anaxela to her fate, Caerick and Vexatus infiltrated the Skyhook via Seng Karash to confront Anaxela directly. Elsewhere, other members of the Clan quietly infiltrated various facilities to assemble a force to take back Alabrek Castle and the ruins of Kar Alabrek.
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| The end game came when Caerick and Vexatus engaged Anaxela on the bridge of the Skyhook, but she escaped to retreat and rejoin her forces orbiting Tarthos. Simultaneously, the Clan had sprung its raid on the occupying forces at Alabrek, routing the True Brotherhood armies. The Clan stormed Anaxela’s flagship, engaging Anaxela and her remaining followers in a final duel. During the battle, [[Platform Obsidian|''Obsidian'' station]] was destroyed by the True Brotherhood flagship. However, Anaxela had what she had come for, and fled to Kangaras to continue her quest for the lost scepter of Urias Orian. Secretly, as the battle was going on, de Ath had secured Severina a new body; and, true to her word, the former foe agreed to leave in peace, following the other witch to Kangaras to obtain the lost artifact for herself.
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| ====Hardships of war====
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| [[Image:Dlaritsoldiers.jpg|thumb|right|From left to right: [[DSOG]] trooper, DSOG officer, [[DSF]] trooper, DSF officer.]] With Orian back in the Clan’s hands, the Clan was left to reflect on what had befallen them at Antei. Little news filtered through the broken HoloNet, but one bulletin would not be contained: Coruscant itself had fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong and the [[starwars:New_Republic|New Republic]] had collapsed. With the aliens now spread throughout the entire Galaxy, and the new fleet on order from Kaldex Transport still a year away, the Clan had no choice but to hide itself away on Orian and hope for the best.
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| A number of policy changes were enacted, such as the abandonment of the DAC Trooper Project in favour of a more mass produced clone army to replace those who had been lost in the Fall of Antei and the assault on Kar Alabrek. As such, numbering only thirty four, late 27 ABY saw the first and last batch of elite DAC troopers birthed. The decision was also made that the chaos caused during the Battle of Antei by the sudden revelation to the men of the Dlarit Navy that their masters were in truth Dark Jedi could never be allowed to repeat itself. With the creation of a new [[starwars:clone|clone army]] initiated, the [[Dlarit Security Force]] was drastically restructured, with the creation of a new [[DSOG|Special Operations Group]] who would know the full nature of the Dlarit Corporation and be better prepared in the future. The regular Dlarit Security Force remained oblivious; the long term goal being to slowly replace the regular recruits with loyal [[starwars:clone|clones]] as the years went on, though it would take decades.
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| Wartime rationing was imposed across the system due to the loss of countless supply lines to the Core. Isolated and relatively unknown, Orian also became a favoured destination for refugee ships. The majority of the refugees were put on the Sky City of San Korinar on Amphor, which rapidly descended into an overpopulated hive of scum and villainy. Eventually the city limits around Seng Karash were expanded to make room for the ever growing refugee numbers, and prefabricated shanty towns sprung up outside the city walls. A strong division emerged between those who were employees and valued by the Corporation; and the refugees who were simply left to fend for themselves, barred entrance from the main city districts. On Amphor, the polarisation reached violent levels as [[Prefect (Dlarit Corporation)|military governor]] Xanos Zorrixor – the still public face of Darth Vexatus – instituted martial law, bringing order to the Upper City, but civil unrest to the homeless denizens of the lower levels.
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| [[Image:DSOGFleet.jpg|thumb|right|The new [[DSOG#Special_Operations_Division|Special Ops Division]].]]The turn of [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|28 ABY]] finally saw the completion of the [[Dlarit Navy|battle fleet]] that had been on order from the Corporate Sector for almost ten years. Several new ships had already finished construction during the previous few years, but by mid 28 ABY the final Star Destroyers had rolled off the lines. Early in the year also saw the birthing and flash-imprinting of the first batches of mass produced clones to begin replacing the regulars of the Security Force with the new Special Operations clone troopers.
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| ====Insidious motives====
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| [[Image:KangarasBeasts.jpg|left|thumb|The [[starwars:Sithspawn|dangers]] of Kangaras.]]Macron Goura had spent much of the year following Antei’s loss training with Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus. The Elders had located a deactivated [[starwars:Star_Map|Star Map]] on Sepros and determined the True Brotherhood had been searching for the key needed to activate it. They sought to seduce Goura with secrets ordinarily reserved for Elders, hoping to use the man to gain control over the Dlarit Navy to aid in their quest; but the process took its toll on Goura’s psyche, and his already unstable mind finally began to break early in 28 ABY under the strain of absorbing too much power too fast.
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| Events took a turn for the worse when the freighter Anaxela had escaped on was located in the jungles of Kangaras. A team was dispatched to investigate the whereabouts of the missing witch, but upon arriving at Kangaras they found the crashed ship abandoned. After sensing [[starwars:Wound_in_the_Force|an anomaly]] in the [[starwars:Force|Force]], Caerick headed deeper into the jungle to investigate, but the anomaly disabled his ship – as seemed to have also been the case with Anaxela’s freighter – causing him to crash. The rest of the Clan moved to follow him on foot, but as they neared the center of the anomaly they discovered that not only was it draining all their electronic gear, but numbing their connection to the Force too. The strange anomaly took its toll on Goura, his mind finally succumbing to madness as he was broken off from the psychic walls he had built up to shield his mind from his growing insanity.
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| [[Image:lightsaberdroid.gif|right|thumb|The [[starwars:Battle_droid|battle droids]] found in [[Hafalia Seprosin Chunasca|Hafa Chun]]'s tomb.]]In the heart of the jungle the Clan discovered the hidden tomb of [[Hafalia Seprosin Chunasca]], the self-styled Dark Lady of the Ekind who had helped destroy Urias Orian and fought in Okemi’s rebellion against the rule of their [[starwars:Dark_Lord_of_the_Sith|Jedi Lords]]. After surviving an attack by a host of ancient lightsaber wielding battle droids, they discovered an ancient scepter hidden deep within Hafa Chun’s tomb, which was generating the interference field over the jungle in order to hide its resting place from Force adepts. The temple collapsed when Caerick prised the scepter from its stand, but with the Force dampening field disabled the Clan was able to escape. Elsewhere, unknown to the Clan while they were trekking through the jungle, Severina's clone managed to steal one of the shuttles they had come on and escape the planet, this time leaving no sign behind of her intended destination.
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| The aftermath of the mission to Kangaras marked the beginning of a Dark Age of lies and betrayal when Trevarus Caerick had Macron Goura relieved of command by [[starwars:Darth|Darth]] [[Sarin]] on the grounds of the young alchemist’s mental breakdown, enabling the sorcerer to wrest control of the Dlarit Navy out from under the hands of the loyal pawns of Lord Sadow.
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| ====The Dark Age (28 ABY–29 ABY)====
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| =====Revanche=====
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| With the Dlarit Corporation under their control, and the keystone – the scepter – they had long been searching for, Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus put their ultimate plan into motion. Unconcerned by the growing unrest in Seng Karash and San Korinar, as soon as repair work for Kar Alabrek was finished all resources were redirected to Sepros to begin reconstruction of the [[Temple of the Void]] where the lost Star Map had been discovered. Lies were concocted about powerful artifacts to keep the rest of the Clan distracted, with teams dispatched throughout local space to [[starwars:Thule|Thule]], Korriban, and elsewhere to keep people chasing ghosts as the two Elders continued their work in secret.
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| [[Image:VexatusTelos.gif|thumb|left|The Yuuzhan Vong fleet at [[starwars:Telos|Telos]].]]Caerick and Vexatus sought a nexus of dark side energies called the [[Heart of the Force]] which was located on [[starwars:Lehon|Lehon]], the lost capital of the [[starwars:Infinite_Empire|Infinite Empire]] of the ancient [[starwars:Rakata|Rakata]]. Once the Temple was rebuilt, they would unlock the secrets of the Star Map and obtain the coordinates. However, to do this they needed to do more than just obtain the location. They had been caged in the Orian Sector ever since the Battle of Antei, and before they could reach Lehon they would also need to clear a corridor through the [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_Empire|Yuuzhan Vong Empire]] to the [[starwars:Unknown_Regions|Unknown Regions]]. There were growing numbers of reports of the alien armada amassing in the nearby [[starwars:Telos_system|Telos system]]. The clock was ticking and the Temple was unlikely to be built before the [[starwars:Yuuzhan_Vong_fleet|Vong fleet]] was ready to push deeper into [[starwars:Sith_Space|Sith Space]]. So, shortly after the final ships had run off the construction lines in the Corporate Sector, Caerick organised a pre-emptive strike on the [[starwars:worldship|worldship]] orbiting [[starwars:Telos_IV|Telos IV]]. Though troubled by unfolding events, Lord Sarin dispatched his Shadow Hand, Muz Keibatsu, to oversee the operation, deeply interested in the attempt to push the Vong back from sectors surrounding Antei.
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| The Dlarit Navy was sent to divert the main Vong force while the Special Operations flagship, the [[starwars:Republic-class_Star_Destroyer|Star Destroyer]] ''[[RSD Final Way|Final Way]]'', exited hyperspace behind the worldship to deploy a small commando team to the surface to battle to the massive vessel’s core and slay the [[starwars:yammosk|yammosk]] which coordinated the Vong’s forces throughout the nearby systems. The deceitful Elders recognised it was a suicide mission and did not intend for the Clansmen who infiltrated the worldship to return. However, during the insertion Vexatus’s own ship was shot down, causing Caerick to personally launch an unplanned recovery mission. Inside the worldship, the commando team – now aided by the two Elders – encountered the Shamed One Eshin Shul, who agreed to act as a guide. In the bowels of the worldship, Ylith Atema nearly came to blows with Vexatus but the Elder simply humiliated him in front of the rest of the Clan. However, Ylith strangely lost his connection to the Force, and believed the Sith Lord had stripped it from him. Eshin eventually led the team to the Well of the yammosk in the heart of the ship, but it was a trap and waiting for them was the now-[[starwars:Supreme_Commander|Supreme Commander]] Drathul Amnan, now commander of his [[Domain_Amnan|Domain]]’s worldship, with his elite and intensely escalated retinue of warriors. The two Elders agreed to hold the Vong leader off while the rest of the Clan headed inside the well and dealt with the yammosk, the creature being slain by the [[Atema]] brothers [[Tyren Atema|Tyren]] and Ylith.
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| [[Image:Yammosk2.jpg|thumb|right|The [[starwars:Yammosk|yammosk]] coordinating the Yuuzhan Vong fleets around Telos.]]With the yammosk dead, the worldship began to enter its final death throes. Eshin Shul revealed her betrayal and poisoned Caerick, hauling him off to the prison area to strap him to an [[starwars:Embrace_of_Pain|Embrace of Pain]]. As Vexatus went to rescue the sorcerer, the rest of the Clan withdrew to the [[Nachzerer|evac transport]]. As the vessel began to collapse, Lord Keibatsu issued the retreat, ordering the Clan to leave the two Elders to their fate and pull out. However, as the Clan withdrew, [[Paladin|Jedgar Paladin]] arrived in the system to recover Caerick and Vexatus from the crumbling worldship – it seemed the Star Chamber itself was still uncertain what to make of the two wayward Elders. They had placed the lives of their entire Clan in jeopardy. And yet, despite all their recklessness, they had now routed the Vong from Telos, thus helping clear the way for the eventual reclamation of Antei.
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| The final battle of the year came when Clan Arcona requested emergency aid in the [[Dajorra_System|Dajorra system]]. Located on the other side of the [[starwars:Perlemian_Trade_Route|Perlemian Trade Route]], just outside [[starwars:Hutt_Space|Hutt Space]], Dajorra was on the very outskirts of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire but it appeared they had finally drawn the attention of the extragalactic invaders. The Dlarit Navy was rapidly deployed to assist with the evacuation of [[Estle City]] on [[Selen]], and the defence of the system from the alien fleet. The chaos during the Fall of Antei still simmered under the surface, and neither Clan trusted the other fully. In the confusion, Darth Vexatus saw an opening to rid himself of one Clan already, and manipulated Macron Goura and a visiting Brotherhood envoy, [[Vallen'dere]], to sabotage the city’s defence grid. As Ylith Atema led the joint evacuation from Estle City’s spaceport, Vexatus and his covert team snuck behind Vong lines to blow up the [[starwars:turbolaser|turbolasers]] that were holding back the main Vong deployment. With the defences down, the two Clans had no choice but to declare Estle lost and withdraw, leaving those who had not yet been evacuated to their fate. As commanding general, Atema took much of the blame for his failure to hold the city; nobody believing his accusations about Vexatus conveniently sneaking off with a small team of commandos to the defence towers.
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| With Dajorra lost to the Vong, Clan Arcona and the [[Dajorra Defence Force]] limped back with the Dlarit fleet to the Orian system where it was agreed they could take refuge until a plan could be formulated to reclaim their own homeworlds. The fall of Dajorra had served its purpose, however. As the Dlarit Navy and Clansmen had been distracted, Trevarus Caerick had overseen the final stages of the reconstruction of the Temple of the Void on Sepros. The plan was now but a matter of timing.
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| =====Betrayal=====
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| The turn of [[20 ABY to 29 ABY|29 ABY]] saw the insidious plot Trevarus Caerick, the Deceiver, and Darth Vexatus, the Betrayer, had been hatching enter its final stages. With the aid of Jedgar Paladin, who believed their plan would either destroy them or earn the Brotherhood two new Grand Masters, they sacrificed the entire surviving [[Ekind]] population. The sacrifice imbued the Temple of the Void with the dark side, reactivating the ancient Star Map. With the location of Lehon finally in their hands, the Obsidian Cohort – Caerick’s private guard – stormed the Star Destroyer ''[[ISDII Harbinger|Harbinger]]'', and headed to Telos, then on the Unknown Regions.
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| [[starwars:Force_Projection|Projecting]] their spectres directly into the Grand Atrium of Sadow Palace during the annual Exodus celebrations, the two traitors announced their defection. They declared the Brotherhood would rot for its failure to foresee the Yuuzhan Vong threat, and worse: its failure to do what was necessary after the invasion had begun. In defence of their actions, they claimed they were simply doing what the Star Chamber should have done decades ago: embracing the true nature of the dark side. Lord Sadow was furious; his two closest Sons had betrayed him. History was repeating itself, the [[House Overlord (Clan Naga Sadow)|Overlord]] of Ludo Kressh betraying Naga Sadow like his namesake. Sadow issued immediate orders that all who had dealt with the traitors were to be arrested and detained indefinitely, seeing the likes of Vallen’dere and [[Delta-30|Krenth]] hauled off to the [[Cenota Facility]]. Lord Paladin realised he had been wrong for trusting Caerick’s word and now understood that they did not wish to ascend to [[Grand Master|Grand Mastery]] but to consume all life in the universe to become a god. The Clan assembled an urgent response force, rallying the entire Navy and Special Operations Group to pursue the traitors and follow their hyperspace vector. But, instead of arriving at Lehon, they discovered they had been duped – the pair had merely led them to Telos. However, Macron Goura – who bore a [[starwars:Force_bond|direct bond]] to the traitors – could sense them directly through the [[Marked of the Wanderer|Mark]] they shared, and was able to guide the fleet after them.
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| [[Image:Exogorth.jpg|thumb|left|An [[starwars:Exogorth|exogorth]] like the [[starwars:Force_Phantom|illusions]] the traitors conjured to delay the [[Dlarit Special Operations Group|Dlarit fleet]] at [[starwars:Lehon|Lehon]].]]Upon arriving at Lehon, the Clan found a ship graveyard – wreckage from the [[starwars:Battle_of_Rakata_Prime|fateful climax]] of the [[starwars:Jedi_Civil_War|Jedi Civil War]] nearly [[starwars:3956_BBY|four thousand years]] earlier. On the other side of the wreckage, the ''Harbinger'' hung in orbit of the planet itself. But between it and the Dlarit fleet writhed a swarm of massive [[starwars:Exogorth|exogorth]]s: giant [[starwars:Space_slug|space slugs]] large enough to devour entire starships. However, the exogorths were not actually real, but [[starwars:Force_Phantom|dark manifestations]] being generated by a series of sorcerous projectors installed onboard the ''Harbinger''. An assault team was forced to insert onto the rogue Star Destroyer to take down the projectors to enable the rest of the fleet to engage the ''Harbinger'' directly. Onboard the stolen ship, [[Sakura Haruno]] broke free of Caerick’s [[starwars:Mind_control_(Sith_magic)|mind control]] over the rest of the crew, but she was discovered and tortured by Vexatus before being thrown into the brig. However, she was able to free herself and made her way to the engineering bay to sabotage the ship’s systems. An assault team then managed to insert onto the ''Harbinger'', including Macron Goura, [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu]] and [[Ashura Isradia]]. Sakura was injured, but once she regained consciousness hunted down the raiding team, and ended up saving Isradia’s life before they were saved by Goura and Keibatsu. Goura then engaged the commander of the Obsidian Cohort, Eosara, but the mercenary was able to escape to the surface of the planet.
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| As the Clan fought their way through space to the surface, on the ground the two traitors had made their way to the volcanic mountain of Urati Kazinal, otherwise known as the Temple of Lost Souls. In Kazinal Core they at long last came across the fabled Heart of the Force that they had hunted for so many years. After destroying the [[starwars:Sith_wyrm|great wyrm]] that guarded it, before they could reflect they were engaged by the elite [[Iron Fist Brigade|Iron Fist brigade]] of the Disciples of Kressh. Yet, despite their years of experience, the veteran Obelisk warriors were slain to the last man. Then came the inevitable confrontation both men had known would come from the very beginning: the duel to determine who would rule as the new will of the Force itself. In the end, the answer would be neither: in their final act the two men destroyed their own prize, blowing up the Heart of the Force, and killing themselves the process.
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| [[Image:VexatusLehon.gif|right|thumb|[[Darth]] [[Vexatus|Vexatus the Betrayer]], one of the two traitors.]]The Clan arrived just in time to watch the two traitors destroy themselves as the Heart exploded; the souls of the damned Rakata released in an explosive outburst that incinerated both men. But victory over Lords Caerick and Vexatus was short lived. In his final breaths, Trevarus Caerick used the power of the Rakatan ghosts to reenergise himself, being reborn into the Thunder Dragon Shan Long as a true ascendant. As Lord Sadow took up arms against the traitor in single combat, Lord Keibatsu and Macron Goura went in search of the body of Darth Vexatus. However, as with Caerick, Vexatus too had not yet submitted to death: but unlike Caerick he had not used the power of the Heart to heal himself. Instead, Vexatus had now consumed the souls of the Rakata, becoming less man than monster. As Lord Keibatsu held him off, Goura managed to stab his former master with a specially concocted variant of violator gas, based off the original ''Omega'' strained which had already been mixed with [[starwars:Alpha_Red|Alpha Red]], but now also crossed with a virus that had decimated the population of [[starwars:Fallen_(planet)|Falleen]] decades earlier, which he had specifically designed to target [[starwars:Falleen|Falleen]] – the alchemist had sought revenge on his one-time master ever since the incident on Kangaras. As the poison coursed through Vexatus’s veins, his final assassin made his move from the shadows: Ylith Atema. Vexatus, blind to the man who he himself had cut off from the Force, did not sense it when Atema dived at him, thrusting his weapon directly into the Sith Lord’s heart. However, instead of dying, the monster entered a final meltdown, threatening to bring the entire volcano down on top of them and consume the lives of the whole Clan. Lord Paladin signalled the retreat, sensing what the monster had become and recognising they had to leave if they were not to be consumed by the [[starwars:Wound_in_the_Force|dark void]]. In the end, both Shan Long and the Clan left Vexatus to the fate he had unleashed upon himself. As the volcano erupted, Shan Long evaded capture by the Clan, fleeing with the surviving members of the Cohort onboard the ''[[Sanguinus]].
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| As if the betrayal of the two Clan Elders had not been enough, the Clan limped home to Orian to discover Clan Arcona had taken control of the system and the Dajorra Defence Force now stood ready in orbit over the cities of Seng Karash, San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. Having been gone for several weeks, [[Mejas Doto]] had concluded the Dlarit fleet must have met its fate at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong or the terrors of the Unknown Regions. As such, he had moved to seize control of the Orian system, never expecting the other Clan to return. But unfortunate for Clan Arcona, Lord Sadow was now in no mood to discuss terms. Still reeling from his sons’ recent betrayal, Sadow launched his fleet at the occupying forces as if in a suicidal feeding frenzy. Sensing Lord Sadow could not be reasoned with, Mejas Doto realised both Clans would be destroyed in Sadow’s rage if he did not end the fighting; and so the Shadow Lord called for a truce, agreeing that Arcona would hand Orian back over to the disciples of Sadow leave the system in peace.
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| =====Broken=====
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| The Clan was left fractured following the betrayals at the start of 29 ABY. Darth Vexatus may have been dead, but Shan Long had escaped and was still out there somewhere. Lord Sadow became paranoid for the survival of his bloodline and began secretly seeing Sakura Haruno in the hopes of fathering a new heir. The martial law he had instituted following the betrayal was upheld as he shut himself away in Sadow Palace, refusing to have audience with any by his loyal Sons – and even them he no longer felt entirely comfortable around. Fortunately, the destruction of the worldship at Telos the previous year had spared the Orian system from further threats, but refugee ships continued to pour in from the worlds along the nearby Hydian Way that had been ravished by the Yuuzhan Vong.
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| Unknown to the Clan at the time, [[Order of the Shield|a group of wayward Jedi]] had been among one of the refugee transports that arrived in the system seeking sanctuary. Like most refugees, they were sent to the Lower City of the Sky City on Amphor, San Korinar. With no money or additional transport, the Jedi were left stranded in the system – the dark shadow they felt increasingly pressing upon their minds. Among them was [[Aisha Qifaxa]], the apprentice of a [[starwars:Jedi_Knight|Jedi Knight]] who had been slain on Telos prior to the planet’s liberation following the destruction of the worldship stationed there.
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| Despite the woes of Orian in the Outer Rim, in the Core, the newly formed [[starwars:Galactic_Alliance|Galactic Alliance]] – which had replaced the fractured New Republic – had begun turning the tide against the Yuuzhan Vong, whose empire’s forces were now stretched thinly trying to hold onto both the Outer Rim and the Core Worlds. However, in the backwater reaches of Sith Space where the Sons of Sadow called home, news of the Galactic Alliance’s successes did not filter through with any frequency, much of the HoloNet communications grid still damaged.
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| [[Image:SithLeviathan.jpg|left|thumb|The [[starwars:Leviathan_(creature)|leviathan]] behind the outbreak at [[Lor Zatean]].]]Problems continued to mount against the Clan, the next major incident occurring when a number of unexplained deaths occurred at the beach resort of [[Lor Zatean]] on Aeotheran. When the [[Dlarit Police]] sent also turned up dead, the Clan dispatched a small team to investigate. It quickly became clear that the water supply had been poisoned by a particularly deadly xenomorph, which buried itself inside its victim’s body until it was ready to emerge, bursting forth from inside and killing the host in the process. These creatures quickly grew to humanoid size, infecting new victims. The infection was spreading so quickly the Clan did not think it could contain it. Prisoners were called in from the Cenota Facility to act as bait, eventually luring the Clan to a nearby dormant volcano where they discovered the source of the xenomorphs to be an ancient [[starwars:Leviathan|leviathan]]. Too strong to take out by conventional means, the Clan was forced to call in an [[starwars:Orbital_bombardment|orbital bombardment]] to kill the leviathan and sterilise Lor Zatean.
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| Toward the end of the year, Lord Sadow’s paranoia reached boiling point and he set things in motion to draw out any further traitors within his midst. Ashia Keibatsu and Ashura Isradia withdrew from Orian, claiming to be heading to a meeting with the Dark Council-in-exile. Those left behind in Orian began to sense a growing disturbance in the Force and [[Derev Niroth]] had a vision of the destruction of the Orian system. After sensors detected signals corresponding to the [[starwars:Imperial_Remnant|Imperial Remnant]] emanating from [[Inos]], Niroth declared himself [[Governor General (Dlarit Corporation)|governor-general-in-interregnum]]. As acting governor-general, he assembled all military assets in orbit of Tarthos to prepare for an attack, leaving the other worlds in Orian defenceless. Rumours began to spread through the system that Lord Sadow had been arrested. With the betrayal earlier in the year still fresh in people’s minds, [[Faeril Munlear]] ordered her counterpart to stand down, fearing he was amassing forces for a Civil War.
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| As Niroth dispatched his forces to Inos to investigate the disturbance in the Force and the Remnant comm signals, Munlear urgently dispatched her own ships to uncover whatever he was after first. However, the entire distress beacon had been a deception, orchestrated by Lord Sadow to weed out those who were no longer loyal to him – but it had unwittingly backfired. As the two fleets engaged each other, forces from the Imperial Remnant arrived, responding to the distress signal. With the situation spiralling out of control, Lord Sadow emerged from his false detention and announced the truth of his deception. No longer marshalled against each other, the Clan regrouped to engage the enemy force. Just as the Imperial fleet threatened to overwhelm the Clan, Task Force 61 from the [[Navy of the Iron Throne]] emerged from hyperspace, following a premonition by Lord Keibatsu.
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| With the help of the Dark Council fleet, the Imperial forces were at last dispatched. However, Darth Sarin was furious at the setback the damage to the Clan’s forces might cause, not only with Niroth and Munlear for their haste to doubt each other, but also with Lord Sadow and Ashia Keibatsu for having orchestrated the operation in the first place. Far from having ended with Lehon, the Dark Age of distrust and betrayal seemed as strong as ever. The year ended much as it had begun, with Sadow’s attempt to weed out those he could not trust having completely backfired. Parts of Kar Alabrek stood in ruins; Alabrek Castle had been heavily damaged; and much of the Dlarit Navy needed repairs.
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| ====The winds of change====
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| By the start of [[30 ABY to 39 ABY|30 ABY]] news finally began to filter through from the Core of the death of [[starwars:Shimrra|Shimrra Jamaane]]. With the [[starwars:Supreme_Overlord|Supreme Overlord]]’s death, the Yuuzhan Vong’s [[starwars:True_Way|faith]] in their [[starwars:Yun'o|gods]] had been utterly destroyed. Most surrendered, and those refusing to accept defeat committed ritual suicide rather than face a life of shame. But in the Outer Rim some Vong remnants dug in and continued to pursue their holy crusade. Worlds such as Antei remained under occupation; and the Dlarit Navy remained plagued by frequent attacks as it tried to keep the spacelanes to and from Orian secure.
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| [[Image:Curwen.jpg|thumb|left|[[Curwen Sunei]], the [[starwars:Dark_Jedi|Dark Jedi]] hermit found living on the [[Inos Moon 42|42nd moon]] of [[Inos]].]]However, in spite of the continued threat to the Orian Sector, the collapse of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire had made the impossible possible, proving the aliens could be defeated in time. Now a year after Lehon, the Clan tried to move on from what had happened during the Battle of Inos, and the Dlarit forces began stockpiling resources to prepare for the coming operation to finally liberate Antei from the Vong. But the problems of the past few years were not eager to be forgotten. During a celebration held at the Dystopia nightclub in Seng Karash, senior members of the Clan narrowly survived an assassination attempt on Lord Sadow. Further unexplained bombings occurred across the system at San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. The wartime martial law continued to be upheld.
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| Trouble seemed to be drawn to Orian. Inmates at the Cenota Facility began suffering nightmares of a coming apocalypse. Worse: so did Robert Daragon. The police investigation into the bombing of Dystopia turned up nothing. The population began fearing an underground terrorist organisation, most likely originating from the seedier elements that had snuck in with the masses of refugees. Disorder broke out between the two groups. Employees harassing refugees; refugees assaulting employees. However, the Clan knew something else was at work, sensing a dark cloud was falling over the system. The source was believed located when a team led by Macron Goura tracked down a thoroughly insane sorcerer named [[Curwen Sunei]] in the ancient tombs on [[Inos Moon 42|Inos 42]]. During the mission, young apprentice [[Aleho Ruoxf]] was captured by Sunei and tortured. After battling through the insane sorcerer’s horde of reanimated corpses, Goura and Tsainetomo Keibatsu bested Sunei, saving Ruoxf. However, they spared Sunei, believing he could be of more use to them alive than dead, and perhaps able to spread some light on the recent spate of ghostly hallucinations.
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| [[Image:CyrusRaze.gif|thumb|right|[[Cyrus Raze]], the man appointed by [[Robert Daragon]] to investigate the nightmares plaguing them both.]]But the capture of Sunei did not bring an end to the troubles plaguing Orian. Daragon’s nightmares became worse and he secluded himself away as his health began to fail him, suffering repeated blackouts. The consul unearthed deleted footage that revealed [[Cyrus Raze]], a brief apprentice of Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus, had been behind the assassination attempt on the Clan’s leaders at Dystopia. The revelation appeared to confirm what Daragon had long feared: that the shadow that had fallen across the Orian system was the work of Shan Long and his surviving agents. The consul had the man brought before him and, with the help of Macron Goura, discovered Raze had been suffering the same nightmares as Daragon and others. Although, unlike the others, Goura himself had learned how to shield himself from psychic invasions after what had happened to his mind on Kangaras. Privately, Daragon revealed his condition to Raze and offered to cover up the man’s crimes if he put a team together to venture to Antei before it was recaptured and search for answers in the ruins of Kalekka Tower. Raze knew his chances were slim, but it was that or the consul would bring him before Lord Sadow. In the end, the man begrudgingly conceded to Daragon’s demands.
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| As Raze put his team together and the rest of the Clan and Dlarit forces readied themselves for the return to Antei, a second problem was brewing in the Lower City of the Sky City of Amphor. The Jedi stranded in the system were getting closer to uncovering the truth behind the Dlarit Corporation’s masters. Furthermore, a wandering Force-sensitive named [[Jaspen Kraitus]] had found his way to the Orian system, following dreams of a man who Kraitus believed could give him the answers he sought about his parents and the [[Marked of the Wanderer|tattoo]] that had always adorned his forehead. When he crossed paths with wanted posters for one ‘Trevarus Caerick’ he thought he had finally found his man. Kraitus employed the now-bounty hunter Aisha Qifaxa to investigate his suspicions, but she was discovered by a team from the Dlarit Special Operations Group and taken into custody by Macron Goura. As Goura awaited pickup with his new prisoner, both Kraitus and the other Jedi who Aisha had had dealings with converged on the spaceport to save her. Goura narrowly escaped with Aisha, but Kraitus and the other Jedi had now discovered each other – and the truth behind the Corporation’s masters.
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| [[Image:Ekindwarrior.jpg|thumb|right|One of the last surviving [[Ekind]] warriors.]]Aside from the joint threat now of both the Jedi who had uncovered the truth of the Corporation – although it still remained unclear how much they actually knew about how deep the rot went – and the still unexplained feeling that something worse was coming out in the darkness, the Clan faced a series of other setbacks during the year. As Kar Alabrek underwent repairs following the chaos of the Battle of Inos, new problems arose in the northern hemisphere of Tarthos when an isolated holdout of Yuuzhan Vong was discovered. The outpost was eradicated, but it remained unclear how or when the aliens had infiltrated the system, and threw up an entirely different concern about how many more Vong infiltrators could be masquerading as other species behind their [[starwars:Cloaker|ooglith masquers]]. A separate situation arose on Sepros where it emerged a small number of Ekind had escaped the ritual sacrifice of the rest of their species and gone into hiding. They had now started regularly attacking the Clan facilities located on the planet, so efforts were made to defend against the raids. However, the continued attacks defied all previous experience with the usually fearful and disorganised Ekind, leaving some suspecting the hand of a presently unknown [[Hafa Chun|third party]].
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| Just as the eleventh hour approached, a final complication was thrown into the already chaotic situation: Sakura Haruno finally gave birth to the next heir to the [[Sadow dynasty]], [[Remy Dlarit|Remulus Sadow]]. However, as the Dark Council and the other Clans neared their final preparations, the Clan had no choice but to put its own concerns on hold and ready itself for the reclamation of the Antei. Whatever the outcome of the now imminent military campaign, the Clan knew the winds of change were blowing. Whether or not this would be for the better remained to be seen; but one thing was certain: nothing would be the same after the [[Ninth Great Jedi War|liberation of Antei]].
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| ====Unification (30 ABY)====
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| =====Turning point=====
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| As 30 ABY neared its close, after nearly four years the Brotherhood was finally ready to return to Antei and reclaim it from the Yuuzhan Vong who had taken it in the [[Eighth Great Jedi War|disastrous battle]] at the start of 27 ABY. A joint task force from the Dlarit Navy and Dlarit Special Operations Group rendezvoused with the [[Navy of the Iron Throne]] and the other Clan fleets at the [[starwars:Radama_Void|Radama Void]] located near [[starwars:Ord_Radama|Ord Radama]] from where the fleets then proceeded to the Shroud surrounding Antei. The Iron Throne forces went on ahead, attempting a risky [[starwars:Micro-jump|micro-jump]] directly through the Shroud itself. Without Trevarus Caerick anymore, and with Lord Paladin on the [[NSD Dark Star|''Dark Star'']] helping guide the Council fleet in hyperspace through the Shroud, Clan Naga Sadow was also forced to pass through the Shroud along with the rest of the Clans at [[starwars:Sublight|sublight]] to arrive two days behind the main forces from the Navy of the Iron Throne.
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| [[Image:Boundary.jpg|left|thumb|The Du'san Boundary.]]Ahead of the main force, Cyrus Raze and his team had already passed behind enemy lines and inserted onto Antei. There they made their way across the Jadan Pass into the heart of the Du’san boundary to Kalekka Tower in search of answers to the darkness that was plaguing both Raze and Robert Daragon. When Raze reached the tower’s summit he encountered the man who Daragon had suspected was behind it all along: Shan Long. However, as Raze entered the traitor’s presence, what was left of his mind was finally [[starwars:Invoke_spirits|consumed]] by the [[Vexatus|darkness inside him]]. As the darkness reached out to consume the energies of the fragments of the Star of Ombus arrayed around Shan Long, Shan Long blasted Raze off the top of Kalekka, sending him tumbling into the boundary’s volcanic depths. While Antei’s fate had never concerned Shan Long, he knew his exile was at its end. His darkest fears had been realised, and if he was to win the coming battle he would need others’ help – and they his. So, taking Raze’s shuttle, Shan Long left Antei to return to the Clan he had abandoned two years earlier.
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| Outside the Shroud the Clan rendezvoused with [[Raistlin Majerus Sadow|Raistlin Majerus]] and the [[DSOG#Kangaras_Division|Kangaras Division]], which had been reassigned to Antei and been launching regular raids on the Vong forces for several months. However, Majerus reported that of late no movement had come in or out of the Shroud, as if the Yuuzhan Vong had fallen silent. As they made their way inside the Shroud, the Clan came across a number of derelict hulks – Yuuzhan Vong cruisers that were literally breaking apart and liquefying as if in their final death throes. Macron Goura led a small team to investigate while the rest of the Clan hurried ahead to rejoin the Dark Council at Antei, desperate to find out what was going on. The situation became more complicated when Raze’s scout transport returned to the ''Final Way'' carrying Shan Long, who was immediately arrested. Lord Sadow placed the traitor under the direct watch of his closest and most loyal Son, Robert Daragon, until they could decide what to do. But, before the Sons had determined the betrayer’s fate, the fleet arrived at Antei, emerging through the Shroud head first into a massive graveyard of dying Vong cruisers. The Yuuzhan Vong were already dead.
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| [[Image:JediLord.jpg|thumb|right|Omancor Crask, [[starwars:Jedi_Lord|Jedi Lord]] and [[starwars:Jedi_General|General]].]][[DJM|Master]] [[Yoni]] opened a direct transmission to Lord Paladin on the ''Dark Star'' who revealed that Antei had been taken over by Omancor Crask, a [[starwars:Jedi_General|Jedi General]] and style-appointed [[starwars:Jedi_Lord|Jedi Lord]] who had taken it upon himself to wage a new [[starwars:Sith_Wars|Sith War]], having foreseen a [[starwars:Darth_Krayt's_Sith_Empire|coming darkness]] that would eclipse everything that had been seen before. Also, Paladin sensed Shan Long’s presence and issued strict orders to Lord Sadow that the sorcerer was not to be harmed until the Grand Master had personally interrogated him. Just then, Goura contacted the fleet to report his findings that the Vong ship had been infected with a strain of the [[starwars:Alpha_Red|Alpha Red]] virus – raising doubts over Crask’s claim of being a Jedi, who for years had refused to sanction the virus. However, the answers would have to wait. They had a planet occupied by a rogue sect of Force-users in command of a vast [[starwars:Droid_Army|droid army]]. Not planning to run away and abandon their homeland a second time, the combined forces of the Army of the Iron Throne and the Clans began their invasion – [[Ninth Great Jedi War|their ''liberation'']] – of Antei to take back what was theirs.
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| =====Liberation=====
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| The Yuuzhan Vong may already have fallen but Antei was still under enemy occupation all the same. Forces from the [[Army of the Iron Throne]] deployed to the surface in two beachheads in the sunside of [[Antei#Narmar_.28Sunside.29|Narmar]] and the Shadowlands of [[Antei#Adas_.28Shadow_Lands.29|Adas]]. While some of the Clan flew fighter cover against the [[starwars:Vulture_droid|droid fighter]]s swarming across the planet, the rest deployed in [[starwars:Dropship|dropships]] to the two beachheads but the landing zone in Narmar was overrun before it had even had a chance, and a rapid evacuation was launched by Goura and his team to recover Ashura Isradia and Aleho Ruoxf who had already landed in Narmar. In Adas, the second planetary beachhead was in danger of a similar fate until Malisane de Ath isolated the source transmission from the local droid control relay and organised a raid to disable it, opening a long enough window for the rest of the [[starwars:Anti-aircraft_gun|anti-air]] [[2nd_Special_Troops_Battalion|teams]] to be safely deployed.
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| Before the Clan could catch their breath after securing the landing zone, reports came in that FOB Spear was being overrun and the [[2nd_Squadron,_14th_Reconnaissance|scout team]] was in danger of being lost. The commando unit already out at the droid bunker proceeded with haste to the Forward Operating Base to reinforce the scout unit, while back at the main landing zone the fleet deployed the rest of the [[2nd_Battalion,_8th_Infantry_(Mechanized)|mechanized division]], which then moved to follow behind and rendezvous at the FOB. As the battle was unfolding on the ground, back on the ''Final Way'' Daragon was struggling to retain control of his mind, and beginning to lose it to the darkness the way Raze had. Furthermore, troubled by Daragon’s behaviour, Tsainetomo hacked into the shipboard computers and unearthed evidence that the consul had been behind the cover up of the Dystopia bombing earlier in the year. Elsewhere on the surface, Raze had not died as thought but had instead become something far worse and was now sweeping his way across the battlefield. When he ran into a team from [[Clan Tarentum]], the two Clans went on high alert with each other. Back at FOB Spear, the droid raiding party was defeated but heavy tank reinforcements were close behind. Reinforcements were called in from [[Clan Taldryan]] and tensions ran high when Goura deliberately blew up part of the Taldryan unit in revenge for what they had done four years before during the [[Eighth Great Jedi War|Fall of Antei]].
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| A number of Clansmen were captured during the battle at FOB Spear and hauled off to the nearby Jedi Command Post where, instead of killing them, [[starwars:Jedi_Master|Jedi Master]] Gelusk sought to redeem them back to the light. [[Zaxen Dauketrenal Isradia|Zaxen Isradia]]’s and [[Zaroth|Zaroth Rakiroyo]]’s wills began to falter, but de Ath, Agrist, and [[Jades "Imperial" Atema|Jade Atema]] managed to sabotage the droid [[starwars:IFF|IFF transponder]] which sent the droid forces into disarray, attacking each other as much as the enemy. Just in time, the mechanized division from the main beachhead arrived to take the battle to the haywire droids and control of the Forward Operating Base was finally re-established. With the FOB safely back in Brotherhood hands, the Clan continued further east into Antei to rendezvous with forces under [[Clan Scholae Palatinae]]’s control. There the Clan received new orders to bring in some of the enemy Jedi Generals for interrogation. At the forward camp, Goura set up several of his trademark torture devices to help procure information from the captured Jedi about the defences guarding the other sites throughout Adas.
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| [[Image:CyrusPossessed.jpg|thumb|right|[[Cyrus Raze]], fully consumed by [[Darth Vexatus]] and holding one of the two fragments of the Star of Ombus he stole from [[Kalekka Tower]].]]As the battle at FOB Spear was going on, back at the main landing zone [[Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow|Tsainetomo Keibatsu]] arrived following his discovery that contrary to everyone’s assumptions that Shan Long had killed Raze, the missing scout was in fact still alive somewhere in Adas. Sensing something amiss, the Keibatsu risked the wrath of Lord Sadow and went off mission to investigate his suspicions—although Ashura Isradia assigned Aleho Ruoxf to go with him. Deep in the desert, Keibatsu came across a [[starwars:Force_Storm_(weather)|raging hurricane]], within which he discovered that he had been right—Raze was not dead. But the man he found was no longer Cyrus Raze. Instead the Keibatsu uncovered the horrifying truth that against all beliefs to the contrary the second traitor, Darth Vexatus, was in fact [[starwars:Force_ghost|still alive]], and had now taken over Raze’s body. Determined to silence the Betrayer once and for all, Keibatsu took up arms against him, but he was easily bested by the once-[[Sith Lord]]-turned-[[starwars:Force_Wraith|wraith]]. But, before the Keibatsu could be [[starwars:Force_Drain|consumed]], two scouts from Tarentum and four Jedi Masters arrived, seeking to investigate the hurricane as well. As the dark monster battled the six new arrivals, Aleho Ruoxf was able to recover the now-unconscious Keibatsu—and one of the Jedi who had also been knocked unconscious—and fled with them both on her swoop while Vexatus was distracted.
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| From FOB Spear the Clan split off into several teams to hunt down the enemy commanders, while at the camp further east tensions flared between the Naga Sadow and Scholae Palatinae forces; the two clans beginning to take the pressure and exhaustion from the prolonged fighting out on each other. Jade Atema, [[Alexander Anderson]] and [[Valorian]]; and Malisane de Ath and Agrist separately secured two Jedi captives who they returned to the eastern camp for interrogation by Goura, who thus far had not managed to procure anything further than the Brotherhood already knew—most of the Jedi choosing to die during interrogation before revealing anything. Increasingly it seemed Omancor Crask had kept many of his followers in the dark of his [[starwars:One_Sith|true reasons]] for developing his determination to root out all [[starwars:Darksider|darksiders]] left in the Galaxy.
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| Back on the ''Final Way'', Shan Long had convinced Daragon that he was no longer the enemy and that Cyrus Raze was the true threat. Ultimately, Daragon conceded that the Jedi were but one part in the escalating warfare on the surface, and that if they were to survive the coming battle they would need the sorcerer’s help. Against Lord Sadow’s orders, Daragon headed to the surface with his prisoner, determined to face the truth with his own eyes. But in the back of his mind the maddening darkness was pounding heavier still as he neared Antei’s black sands. At the main beachhead, Lord Sadow was furious with Daragon but had little time to worry about Shan Long while he still had a war to oversee. Elsewhere, Omancor Crask had abandoned the planet and headed into orbit to deal with Lord Sarin personally. The Jedi left on the surface knew that their fate was likely to end in martyrdom and became ever more desperate. Orders were issued by [[starwars:General|General]] Faylen that the Clan was to proceed on the [[Hall of Immortals]] and secure it before the Jedi could burn it to the ground. It was then that Ruoxf arrived back, Tsainetomo and Jedi in tow. The captured Jedi was quickly carried off for interrogation, while Keibatsu had just the energy left to announce to the whole leadership the revelation he had encountered in the desert. With the situation escalating beyond their control, Lord Sadow, Daragon, Shan Long and all the others who had remained behind at the landing zone took to their shuttles to head to the Hall of Immortals and rendezvous with the rest of the Clan to reinforce.
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| [[Image:ValleyoftheLost.jpg|thumb|right|The Valley of the Lost.]]The final battle erupted in the [[Hall of Immortals|Valley of the Lost]] on the steps outside the Hall of Immortals when the Clan arrived to engage the Jedi and droid forces that were setting up charges around the Hall in an attempt to bring the entire structure down. Throughout the valley, further Jedi teams were already in the process of bringing down thousand year old statues and monuments. As the Clan leaders flew across the desert with reinforcements, Daragon finally began to succumb to the darkness seeking to wrest control of his mind. Desperate, he at last submitted to Shan Long’s offer of salvation, knowing that in accepting the [[Marked of the Wanderer|Mark]] he was betraying the trust Lord Sadow had placed in him. However, as the former traitor had promised, through the [[starwars:Force_bond|Force bond]] they now shared Shan Long was able to shield Daragon’s mind from the [[starwars:Mind_control_(Sith_magic)|psychic attacks]] by whatever remained of Lord Vexatus. The consul and overlord arrived just as the Clan laid siege to the Hall of Immortals itself, heading inside to take up arms with Jedi Masters Nejj Kenten, Qira Vaal and Lordien. While Goura took up arms against Lordien, Manji Keibatsu and his apprentice, [[Dyrra Skye]], dealt with Qira Vaal and her own apprentice; and, on the roof of the Hall, Lord Sadow himself duelled the Jedi Master in command, Nejj Kenten, while Tsainetomo Keibatsu held off Kenten’s [[starwars:MagnaGuard|MagnaGuard]] defenders. Elsewhere, [[Demonic|Fremoc Pepoi]], [[Ekeia Iclo]], Xander Anderson and [[Krandon Rowella]] set charges along the valley’s entrances to hold off incoming droid reinforcements.
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| As the Jedi Masters were defeated on the surface, Lord Sarin duelled Omancor Crask in the skies above. But the battle was matched, and in the end both died after the [[BAC Exodus|''Exodus'']] was damaged by their fighting and crashed into the surface of Antei. However, at the Hall of Immortals, the Clan managed to defeat the three Jedi Masters and their forces. But then the darkness arrived. Whatever remained of Cyrus Raze had defeated the four warriors who Aleho Ruoxf had left him battling in the desert, and had now [[starwars:Summon_fear|twisted]] the four into mindless berserkers bent to his will. As the Clan mopped up any straggling Jedi and the last remnants of the droid forces, a hurricane swept over the valley, blanketing the Hall of Immortals in fog. The four berserkers laid siege to the Hall, engaging Daragon; Goura; Manji and Tsainetomo Keibatsu; and Jade Atema, Xander Alexander and Zaxen Isradia. The four berserkers were slain, but not at the cost of Atema being mortally wounded, and fearing that right before its death part of the berserker’s essence may have passed on into her. As the berserkers fell, Vexatus – in the body of Raze – moved against the Hall himself, the firestorm enveloping the structure as the entire Clan and much of the nearby Brotherhood forces took shelter in the basements. The final confrontation of the war took place when the entire Clan joined their minds in a [[starwars:Force_Meld|Force meld]] led by Lords Sadow, Paladin and Shan Long to hold back the waves pounding against the building. As Vexatus’s anger grew worse, he opened a [[starwars:Black_hole|rift]] in the space above the Hall of Immortals, seeking to suck the entire building into oblivion—but the Clan fought back, their combined might pushing him back and wrapping him in a [[starwars:Protection_Bubble|bubble]] of their own collective energy. Vexatus lost control of the [[starwars:Force_Storm_(wormhole)|storm]] he had unleashed, his body ultimately tearing apart as he was sucked into the pit of the black hole he had tried to unleash.
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| In the aftermath, much of the Hall itself was in ruins, but the Clan had survived—by working together ''as one''. Lord Sadow recognised without Shan Long they may not have been able to channel their strength into a meld to direct against the Betrayer, and despite all that had happened two years earlier, the Battle of Lehon was at long last finally forgotten. The Clan was united. The Yuuzhan Vong had fallen. The Jedi had been slain. And Muz Keibatsu, a Son of Sadow, now sat on the Iron Throne itself as Grand Master of the Brotherhood. The war had ended and the Dark Age of lies and betrayal was finally at its end. Looking out across tthe glassed and smoking sands of the Valley of the Lost, for the first time in more than four years the Clan was finally able to look into the future with hope.
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| ===A new hope for the future (31 ABY–)===
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| ====Fractured Mirror====
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| The future has yet to be written.
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| ==External Links==
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| *[http://www.nagasadow.org Clan Naga Sadow's homepage]
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| *[http://web.me.com/banditx1979/Fractured_Mirror/Welcome.html Fractured Mirror (Competition) website]
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| *[http://web.me.com/banditx1979/PCON_Project/Clan_Naga_Sadow_Vision_Statement.html CNS Vision Statement website]
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| *[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lE_bGrinHc CNS Vision Statement video] (YouTube)
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| *[http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd314/banditx1979/?action=view¤t=CNSVision0001.flv CNS Vision Statement video] (Photobucket)
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| *[http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd314/banditx1979/?action=view¤t=CNSGJWTrailer.flv Clan Naga Sadow - Ninth Great Jedi War trailer] (Photobucket)
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| {{Template:Naga Sadow}} | |
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| [[Category: Clans & Houses]][[Category:Clan Naga Sadow| Clan Naga Sadow]][[Category: DJBWiki featured articles]] | |
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The Jedi were real? This article is part of the history of Clan Naga Sadow and isn't part of current events. Please do not remove this tag or the contents. These articles exist for historic purposes.
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- "... As long as I draw breath, Naga Sadow lives. As long as I hold this sword, Naga Sadow's strength endures. As long as we remain ever vigilant, Clan Naga Sadow will never fall! Long live the Heirs to the Empire..."
- ―Astronicus Aurelius Sadow
Clan Naga Sadow was a Clan within the Dark Brotherhood of Jedi which has undergone a series of transformations over the years by adapting and surviving to the changing ecosystems of the Brotherhood and Galaxy at large. Founded in 14 ABY as an Independent House, the unit nearly burst with growth before ascending to its own Clan status and spawning three Houses known as House Ludo Kressh, House Primus Goluud and House Marka Ragnos. In 33 ABY, several years after the unit's ascension to Clan Status the Dark Council, at the behest of Grand Master Muz Ashen, determined that all of the Great Clans of the Brotherhood needed to be reformed into Houses. This resulted in seeing the surviving Houses of Kressh and Ragnos dissolved into House Naga Sadow. In 35 ABY on the Anniversary of the Exodus, Naga Sadow was once more restored to its status as a Clan of the Brotherhood.
For a summary of the Clan please see the Naga Sadow Prospectus or for details on the Clan's public front see the Orian Assembly.
History
The Golden Age of the Sith (5,100 BBY—5,000 BBY)
- "Once we were mighty Jedi of the Republic, brothers in the Force, but the Great Schism between the dark side and the light turned Jedi against Jedi. Our ancestors were defeated, driven off, cast out! But we turned our exile into victory, here on the far side of the galaxy. In these unblemished worlds we found the Sith people treated us as Gods! After many centuries some of us have interbred with the Sith while others still bear true Jedi blood. Our Sith Empire is great, rich, and powerful. This is our Golden Age."
- ―Marka Ragnos, Dark Lord of the Sith
The history of the present day disciples of the current Lord Sadow, Astronicus Aurelius Sadow, Prince Regent of the Sith Empire, begins more than five thousand years ago. In 5,100 BBY, after the death of the previous ruler, Marka Ragnos, a halfbreed Sith Lord of mixed Jedi and Sith descent, defeated his chief rival, Simus, earning the right to be crowned the next Dark Lord of the Sith. Following his defeat, Simus became a mentor to Naga Sadow, nurturing the young Sith Lord’s desire for conquest.
As Ragnos grew in power, pitting his adversaries against each other and ensuring that there were no threats to his throne, another Sith Lord, Urias Orian, one of few remaining pureblood descendants of the original Dark Jedi Exiles, isolated himself in the Sepros system in pursuit of immortality. There Orian mutated the native Ombi into his Sithspawn slaves, who renamed their race the Ekind—meaning the cursed in Ombian. With his new slave workforce, Orian constructed a network of temples to restore an ancient Rakatan Star Map he had discovered on Sepros; leading him to Lehon, where he found the knowledge of thought bombs. He sacrificed the Ombi on Aeotheran, the ritual incinerating a large area of the forest, forming the Karash Crater. With the Ombi’s essence trapped in the Star of Ombus, he constructed the Amulet of Orian—but before he could use it, the Ombi-turned-Ekind Princess Hafalia Chunasca betrayed him, sabotaging the ritual and destroying Orian’s spirit in the process. After the ritual, she took Orian’s scepter—which doubled as the keystone for the Star Map—to Kangaras, hoping to prevent others from ever repeating his crimes, and to offer the souls he had trapped in it a measure of peace.
With Orian dead, Lady Hafalia sought revenge on the Sith Lords who had enslaved her people and transformed them into twisted monsters. She rallied those she could find to her banner and left the—now renamed—Orian system to lead her forces to the heart of the Sith Empire. The Dark Lady of the Ekind joined forces with the uprising currently being led by Okemi, a Massassi warlord, one of the few pure Red Sith who had risen to the ranks of the Sith Council, but now, like her, grown tired with the rule of the Dark Jedi. The rebels rallied many of the Empire’s slave races—Massassi, Kissai, Ekind, and other alien species—to challenge Marka Ragnos and the rule of the halfbreed dominated Council. However, their rebellion was ultimate quashed, and Okemi exiled to Antei outside the borders of the Empire. Hafalia fell in the fighting, her followers entombing her on Kangaras where she had hidden Orian’s scepter.
Fall of the Sith Empire (5,000 BBY—4,990 BBY)
- "The chains of the grave cannot hold a Dark Lord of the Sith…"
- ―Marka Ragnos
For one hundred years, Marka Ragnos presided over an unrivalled period of stability for the Sith Empire. However, the Jedi bloodlines were fast disappearing, and many—like Naga Sadow—feared it wouldn’t be long before the pureblood Red Sith dominated the Council of Sith Lords. The uprising by Okemi had not helped matters, but while Ragnos was still alive none dared question the iron fisted rule upheld by his disciples—a cult of warriors, mages and priests fanatically devoted to him. It was they who enabled him to maintain his grip over the Sith Empire, unchallenged by further rebellions.
Following his death, while the surviving members of the Sith Council deliberated on his successor, several of his disciples left Korriban, unwilling to accept their lord’s demise. They wandered across the Galaxy for a number of years, their movements masked by the war that Naga Sadow would soon unleash upon the Republic. However, when the Great Hyperspace War drew to a close, they at last settled on Karana III, all but forgetting the worlds of the first Sith Empire. There they would remain for the next five thousand years, patiently awaiting a Chosen One who they believed would arise to bring about the revival of the Sith Empire and the return of their true lord, Marka Ragnos.
- "You have held us back long enough, keeping the Sith Empire from its great destiny."
"I fight for the Sith Empire, Naga Sadow... you fight for yourself!"
- ―Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh challenge each other over the future direction of the Sith Empire
When Marka Ragnos finally expired in 5,000 BBY, the Sith Empire was left in a power vacuum—and the tensions between rival bloodlines finally boiled to the surface. The Dark Lord had hardly been laid to rest when two Sith Lords emerged to vie for the right to be crowned the next Emperor of the Sith Empire: Naga Sadow, a halfbreed of almost pure Jedi descent, and Ludo Kressh, another hybrid, but who identified no less with his Sith blood than his far weaker Jedi ancestry compared to Sadow. Sadow, eager to replenish the fading Jedi bloodlines, was ready to take on the Republic and expand the Empire’s borders; Kressh, freely embracing his mixed blood, wanted to preserve the stability of the Empire—even if it meant the pure bloodlines dying out—and opposed Sadow’s hunger for war. The arrival of two Republic explorers played right into Sadow’s hand, and he used them to urge the Sith Council into action to prevent a Republic invasion—a position supported by his old mentor, Simus. Shockingly, Sadow murdered Simus, framing the explorers to stir the Council into action.
Kressh rallied his allies on the Council to prevent Sadow taking the Empire to war. With Horak-Mul and Dol Gal-ram, he launched an assault on Sadow’s citadel on Khar Delba. However, Sadow had double-crossed Kressh, his true base being in an identical fortress on the planet’s moon, Khar Shian. Horak-Mul and Dol Gal-ram were assassinated by their own Massassi warriors, loyal to Naga Sadow, and Kressh’s flagship destroyed—the Sith Lord being presumed dead. With the competition dealt with, the Sith Council at last crowned Sadow the new Dark Lord and Emperor.
- "The Sith Empire will burn brightly, like a supernova, dwarfing the complacent Republic. We shall hold the entire galaxy in our grasp."
- ―Naga Sadow
The invasion of the Republic by the new Dark Lord saw the Sith Empire take it by surprise. From his hidden base at Primus Goluud, Naga Sadow directed his Dark Jedi, fleets, sorcerers and legions of Massassi shocktroopers against the Jedi and their Republic—bolstered by armies of Force phantoms and illusions. Battles unfolded throughout the known Galaxy at Koros Major, Kirrek, and elsewhere, finally culminating in the Battle of Coruscant itself. However, just as Sadow had victory in his grasp, he was betrayed by Gav Daragon—one of the two Republic explorers who he had seduced to the dark side and made one of his commanders—who led the Republic Navy to Goluud, giving them the coordinates of the Sith Empire. His battle meditation broken, Sadow had to abandon Goluud, rushing back to Korriban to stop the Republic counter invasion.
Unknown to Sadow, Kressh had been one step ahead and had faked his own death. While Sadow was off fighting the Great Hyperspace War, Kressh had been rebuilding his powerbase, convincing the Sith Council they needed to stop Sadow before the Empire was destroyed. In Sadow’s absence, the dissenting voices threw their support behind Kressh, declaring him Dark Lord instead. However, by the time Sadow returned to Korriban, it was too late. Caught in a three way battle, the tensions between Sadow’s warmongers and Kressh’s supporters reached boiling point and the two factions tore themselves apart even as the Republic fleets arrived to deliver the final blow. Kressh was slain in the Battle of Korriban, Sadow ordering his ships on kamikaze runs while he himself fled, and the Sith Empire itself finally collapsing altogether in 4,990 BBY.
Though Ludo Kressh had no direct heir to continue his line, his strong Sith blood meant many who survived the Republic invasion stayed loyal to the fallen Dark Lord. The Disciples of Kressh recovered their liege’s body and entombed him in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban, returning to his homeworld of Rhelg before they could be captured or slain by the Republic forces. However, straying too near a gravity mine probably left by Sadow or his Massassi spies, their ship, the Derriphan-class battleship Saarai, was yanked out of hyperspace and crash landed on a planet in a system several light years out from Rhelg itself.
Unlike the Jedi blooded Naga Sadow, Kressh was more Sith than not, and his followers reflected this. Though a number of hybrid Dark Jedi Proselytes survived the crash, their numbers were too few to support a sustainable population, and so the Disciples of Kressh survived—but as a true Sith colony, ruled not solely by the Dark Jedi hybrids, but by the Red Sith as well—Massassi and Kissai—who had inherited the Jen’jidai’s knowledge. The Disciples of Kressh took the name Jentarali, the hidden guardians of the legacy of the true Sith. Their leaders, those ones who had wrestled control back from the misguided Jen’ari who had cost them their homeworlds, now made up a Circle of Elders, and came to be hailed as Taral’ari, the Overlords of the Guardians of the Sith.
Following the disastrous Second Battle of Korriban, Sadow fled to Yavin where he encased himself in a suspended animation chamber to await the day the Empire could be rebuilt. In hibernation, the Dark Lord left his son, Sadow the Younger, to rule in his absence. However, cut off from civilization, the Massassi on Yavin 4 began to devolve into primitives. In 4,400 BBY, Sadow was reawakened by the prodigal Jedi Freedon Nadd, only to be slain when his new apprentice betrayed him. However, at some point during the four centuries in between, a single member of the Sadow line had escaped aboard one of the last hyperspace capable ships, and thus the bloodline continued—fulfilling Naga Sadow’s original goal of breeding back into his original Human roots, such that by the rise of the Galactic Empire in 19 BBY, Sadow’s last surviving descendant, Anubis Sadow, was all but Human.
Restoration (14 ABY—16 ABY)
Born 21 BBY, Astronicus Dlarit grew up in a foster family oblivious to his true heritage. He enlisted in the Imperial Navy and eventually became governor of a remote farming colony on Sif in the Phare system. His Force-sensitivity was first discovered by a Dark Jedi Master by the name of Yoni and he was recruited into the Brotherhood. As Dlarit slowly unlocked his potential, he began having visions of a Dark Man and found himself driven to create a House dedicated to Naga Sadow, and secretly began training apprentices at his governor’s mansion, which became known as Sadow Palace—thus, after more than five millennia, the Disciples of Sadow returned.
What started out as a dream grew as Dlarit recruited various Force-sensitive outcasts to his banner, and his visions began to grow more intense until, finally, the Dark Man revealed himself to be the spirit of Naga Sadow. Dlarit learnt he was the last of the Sadows, and that his true father had been a Sith cultist named Anubis Sadow, but that the rest of the line had either died long ago or else finally been hunted down during the Great Jedi Purge. He was now the last, and it was to him the burden of restoring true Sith Empire now fell.
- "Could this be the Chosen One we have awaited? The one who shall revive the Sith Empire?"
- ―Ximeno, Overlord of Ragnos
Though the young Lord Sadow had assembled a few acolytes, he still was nowhere near restarting the Sith Empire. The spirit led him across the Galaxy on a journey to assemble the tools and followers he would need. His first destination was the not-too-distant Karana system, where the Disciples of Ragnos had remained in hiding ever since the death of Marka Ragnos—after all those years still awaiting his return. Though their loyalty to their fallen lord remained, Ximeno, the Overlord and leader of the cultists, believed the young Sith Prince to be the Chosen One they had long awaited—the one who would revive the true Sith Empire. The priests and sorcerers pledged their allegiance, though maintained that Ragnos himself would one day return. Until then, however, they deemed Astronicus a worthy leader—ruling his fate would be for Ragnos, and Ragnos alone, to decide as and when he finally returned.
Having secured the service of the Disciples of Ragnos, Naga Sadow next led his young descendant to the other side of the Galaxy, to the outskirts of the original Sith Empire, to Yavin 4—the final resting place of the once emperor himself. Being careful to avoid discovery by the new Jedi Order growing up on the planet, the spirit shrouded Astronicus and led him into the ancient temples, where the young heir recovered a raft of tomes, artifacts and holocrons—among them Sadow’s sword—which the spirit proclaimed would provide the necessary components to train a new order of Dark Jedi.
- "Keep your friends close—keep your enemies closer."
- ―Eagleye, Overlord of Kressh, trying to convince the Circle of Elders to join Astronicus Sadow.
The lost Jentarali, the hidden guardians of the Sith legacy, had been stranded on the unknown planet near Rhelg for five thousand years. Due to their numbers, the Dark Jedi and Red Sith had been forced to continue interbreeding; however, most had been willing to embrace their mixed heritage as Ludo Kressh himself had done. In 15 ABY, they and their Hidden Temple were stumbled across by Astronicus Aurelius Sadow while he was on his journey to assemble the tools to restore the Sith Empire. At the time, the Disciples of Kressh were led by Overlord Lee Tingnot, otherwise know by his Sith name of Eagleye, the current Taral'ari of the Jentarali.
The ancient conflict between Kressh and Sadow remained a bitter memory in the minds of the Disciples of Kressh, though it was unclear how much the dark specter of Naga Sadow had informed his young descendant. However, whatever Astronicus’s reasons, upon coming across the lost tribe he extended the same invitation he had offered to the Disciples of Ragnos, eager to recruit all the followers he could find. Eagleye agreed to lend his support to the new Disciples of Sadow—though it would be a years before the distrust between the two lines would be forgotten entirely.
The Disciples of Kressh joined the Disciples of Ragnos in lending their support to the young Sith Prince, and his vision of a Sith Empire reborn from the ashes. On Sadow’s return to Sif, and aided by his closest disciple Robert Daragon, he established Clan Naga Sadow; formed from his apprentices on Sif, who resettled at Dargbar’rh Stronghold on Frigg and became House Primus Goluud, named after the location of the secret base from which Naga Sadow had waged war on, and nearly destroyed, the Republic during the Great Hyperspace War; the Disciples of Ragnos from Karana III, who resettled on Loki and became House Marka Ragnos; and the Disciples of Kressh from Rhelg, who relocated to Ullyr and became House Ludo Kressh.
Hidden in the shadow of one of the many rogue Imperial Warlords, the three Sith lines worked together out of mutual interest—all three equally eager to see the Republic fall and the Sith Empire restored. Lord Khyron, the reigning Grand Master of the Brotherhood, recognized the young heir’s potential and his value to the Dark Council as the lord of a new Clan. It was not long after the Clan's formation that the opportunity arose for the new Lord Sadow and his followers to prove their value to the Star Chamber when a convoy headed to the Dark Hall bearing numerous Sith artifacts was hijacked by a group known as the Cordona Pirates. Together with the other Clans, a team was assembled that headed out the pirate base to recover the artifacts and destroy the pirates.
- "It was known by the ancients that a Dark Lord with three eyes has a secret strength possessed by none other."
- ―From the legend of Darth Millennial
As the Empire crumbled around them, the Clan grew in the shadow of the Dlarit Corporation under the guidance of Lord Sadow and his consuls. In 15 ABY, the future of the Clan would forever be changed when a wandering sorcerer first passed through the hallways of Sadow Palace. Believed by the Disciples of Ragnos to be one spoken of in prophecy, Trevarus Caerick quickly rose to power during the Second Brotherhood Civil War the following year when he returned bearing the Mark and the Amulet of Orian after rediscovering the Orian and Antei systems. The sorcerer recorded his discoveries in the Chronicle of Dark Souls, sparking the Star Chamber to begin planning the relocation of the Brotherhood to Antei.
Caerick presided over what became known as a Golden Age for the Clan and was revered by the Karanan disciples as if he were the very voice of the dark side itself. Yet, much like Ragnos himself, Caerick was also an iron fisted leader, personally overseeing the execution of more than one hundred apprentices whom he deemed unfit to be of further use.
The final days of Caerick’s reign took place during the uprising of Archibald Zoraan. Lord Zoraan too sought to break free of the Imperial yoke, but he attempted to do so without planning and against the will of the Star Chamber. Unwilling to allow his own plans to be brought down with Zoraan, Caerick joined forces with Telaris Cantor of Clan Taldryan to lead a rebellion against the Grand Master. Battle was joined on the steps of the Dark Hall itself on Eos, but Zoraan was ultimately defeated, consumed by his own Force storms. The damage had already been done, however. The Imperial commanders no longer trusted the Brotherhood and sought to disband the Star Chamber to seize control. Realizing the threat posed, Caerick stepped aside to focus on accelerating the Brotherhood’s plans by infiltrating the Imperial High Court to assist in laundering funds.
In the Shadow of the Remnant (17 ABY–19 ABY)
- "The Empire will always strike back."
- ―Gilad Pellaeon
The next year proved tough for the Brotherhood as the Empire tightened its grip. The Iron Throne stood empty and the Clan found itself in a struggle for survival while Imperial spies infiltrated its ranks in search of those behind the growing seeds of dissent. Lord Sadow was forced to bide his time in the shadows as the Phare system fell deeper under the Imperial yoke.
Into this disorder stepped Lord Chi Long who leaked information pertaining to the Skin of Fire and instructed the Clans to search out the artifact. The Grand Master’s plan was to use the artifact to restore the Star Chamber, putting him in opposition to Caerick’s fellow shadow councillors’ plans to relocate to Antei. Yet, with some irony, when Caerick’s mind slipped nearer madness, Chi Long was the one to pull him back from the brink, separating his prophetic madness into Shan Long. The hunt for the Skin of Fire proved successful, but not before the Empire discovered what Chi Long was planning. However, Xanos Zorrixor, Caerick’s own apprentice, learnt of the Empire’s own impending betrayal and Chi Long escaped into exile before he could be dealt with.
The Empire appointed Lord Firefox Grand Master in place of Chi Long and believed its control to be complete. With Master Yoni, Lord Sadow mourned the loss of the Star Chamber, and the Clan was forced to look to the future through a clouded lens of uncertainty.
- "He would have his vengeance. An insanity known only to him, the destruction and disease of the Force would soon be at hand. It would require patience—ages, aeons—no, a near eternity of patience to achieve what he wanted. But he did not mind."
- ―From the personal account of of Kurien
As the future of the Clan looked grim, Count Zorrixor emerged to restore confidence in Caerick’s vision. None realized how far removed their fears about the new Grand Master were from the truth, for Lord Firefox was no Imperial puppet, but one of the very shadow councillors with whom Caerick had been plotting. The Empire had unknowingly appointed its own judge, jury and executioner.
Through 18 ABY Zorrixor co-ordinated plans with the group who would become known as the Seven; and, in spite of living in the shadow of the Imperial Remnant, the Clan experienced a revival to the days when Caerick had been in charge. Zorrixor worked closely with Lord Sadow to weed out any Imperial spies hidden in their midst and restore faith in his dream of building a new Sith Empire. To this end, the Black Guard, led by Tharivol Endymiron, was formed to enforce Lord Sadow’s will throughout Phare. Their actions were repeated across the Brotherhood, and for the first time in years the clans were united in a common cause: to rise up against the shackles of the Empire.
However, the Empire was not oblivious to this threat, and a shadow war erupted early in 19 ABY with a number of high profile assassination attempts on both sides. When the Empire court-martialed the former Sadow disciple Mairin Astoris and tried to have her executed, it sent ripples through the Clan, and Caerick and the Seven knew it would soon be time to act.
Zorrixor began having nightmares of a series of unknown voices, centered on the recently discovered world Klind’arith. Some years earlier, Klind’arith’s population had been found to have an unusually high rate of Force-sensitives and envoys had routinely been dispatched to find fresh candidates. After contact with several envoys was lost and Alex Church returned from the planet with an unexplained illness, the Empire requested the Clan investigate. Caerick sensed something amiss and returned to help lead the expedition to the planet to unearth the truth, ruling it a matter of urgency. However, when they arrived the Imperial Navy laid siege, trying to trap the expedition party on the surface, causing Caerick to abandon the mission and hurry back to Eos.
On Klind’arith, the expedition discovered Kurien, a native Klind’arithi shaman who appeared to be immortal and had an impossibly high midichlorian count. In 12 ABY the Brotherhood had taken Kurien captive and experimented on him to discover the source of his condition. However, Kurien mutated and became addicted to midichlorians, requiring more to stay alive and turning those he fed off into mindless slaves. The Empire had deliberately returned him to Klind’arith to use as bait to lure the Clan there and destroy them. Kurien appeared unstoppable until Zorrixor obtained the ancient Sith artifact that was the source of the Klind’arithi population’s gifts and finally slew him.
Troubled by the Empire’s betrayal at Klind’arith, the Clan returned to Phare to discover the system had been placed under Imperial lockdown. The system had been left lightly guarded, the Empire having thought the Clan destroyed on Klind’arith. Lord Sadow and Count Zorrixor led an assault on Sadow Palace to regain control while the rest of the Clan performed a series of clandestine raids on Ullyr, Frigg and Loki to quietly infiltrate the system.
Days passed and there was no word from Caerick or further action by the Empire. Fearing the worst, Zorrixor instructed the Clan to prepare for the exodus and loaded the ships in readiness to depart. Finally, Caerick contacted them with news: the Brotherhood had been betrayed and the Exodus had been authorised. The Empire had signed a peace treaty with the Republic forcing the Seven’s hand. There had already been a battle over Eos, but the Empire had called in reinforcements from their new allies in the Republic and the Brotherhood had been forced to retreat when its flagship, the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Avenger, was destroyed.
The Clan began a mass evacuation of Phare. But the clock was ticking: the Battle of Eos was over and Imperial forces were now on their way. With the arrival of an Inquisition battle fleet, Count Zorrixor ordered self-destruct sequences be initiated throughout the system, choosing to take the Empire with them before surrendering their secrets. On Frigg one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Clan took place at Dargbar'rh Stronghold in what would become known as the Battle of Darkened Hearts, where the warrior named Ace died fighting to defend those he had served with.
In space, Zorrixor took command of the assembled forces. However, the Battle of Phare was not so much a battle but a massacre. The Clan was ill prepared to hold off a fleet of Star Destroyers and their fighter wings fought to hold the Empire off to provide their evacuation convoy enough time to escape. Hope appearance lost at the arrival an Imperial interdictor. But Lord Sadow had one last card to play and revealed the hidden secret of Sadow Palace: that it was built on top of a prototype Star Destroyer. Sadow sent the palace on a suicide run against the interdictor, securing the Clan the opening it needed to escape to hyperspace.
The Clan rendezvoused with Caerick and the other survivors of the Battle of Eos in nearby Wild Space. With the battle over, the clans went their separate ways to begin rebuilding; the disciples of Sadow journeying across the Galaxy with the main fleet to Antei and Orian.
A New Beginning (19 ABY–23 ABY)
While the exodus took its toll, the Clan emerged relatively unscathed, escaping the initial brunt of the Empire’s attack while on Klind’arith, with only House Primus Goluud suffering major losses in Battle of Darkened Hearts. Unlike much of the Brotherhood, Caerick had been positioned to prepare the Clan in advance, and he and Zorrixor had for the past year been laundering funds into a dummy corporation in the Corporate Sector, Kaldex Transport Inc. Through Kaldex, construction efforts were already underway throughout the Orian system, with the city of Seng Karash near completion.
Lord Sadow and the rest of the Clan had intentionally been kept in the dark on a strict need to know basis, yet the work of Kaldex had gone on unhindered. Zorrixor had discretely authorised the transport of a number of Saraii—the Chiss colonists of Phare—to Orian to aid in the construction.
The Clan had been forced to relocate earlier than expected so a number of construction projects were still unfinished. House Marka Ragnos established itself in Alabrek castle on Tarthos and oversaw the reconstruction of the renowned Sadow Archives, with work on the surrounding city of Kar Alabrek commencing soon after; House Ludo Kressh settled for now on Dentavii Prime, but also helped oversee the final construction efforts of Seng Karash. House Primus Goluud, having suffered such dire losses, moved into one of the remote temples on Aeotheran that reminded them of their beloved Dargbar'rh Stronghold, hoping to quietly rebuild.
Lord Sadow deemed the exodus a success and selected the Temple of Sorrow, one of seven temples located deep in the jungles of Sepros, to serve as the new Sadow Palace. There he hoped to forge the seat of his new empire, hidden from the rest of the system. To this end, Sadow called forth two of the heroes of the Battle of Phare, Raistlin Majerus and Manesh Pillai, declaring them to be the first of a new Sadow dynasty: the Sons of Sadow.
The relocation to Orian saw the Clan immerse itself in the lost teachings of Urias Orian. The Clan’s original seal was exclusively adopted by the Sons of Sadow, and the seal of the newly discovered Sith Lord was taken to be used by the Clan and the Dlarit Corporation instead. Largely unnoticed, the Clan had silently undergone something of an evolution, having moved beyond just being the heirs of Naga Sadow. Now the heirs of Astronicus Sadow himself, his brotherhood a union not only of the teachings passed down by the disciples of Sadow, but also those of Ragnos, Kressh, and now Orian.
Ghosts of the Past (20 ABY—21 ABY)
- "We see from beyond the stars
Through the glittering of a million eyes
In a sea of glass."
- ―From the Tenebric Conclusions
With the exodus over, Trevarus Caerick and Xanos Zorrixor were called to join the ranks of the Dark Council and made the transition to Antei as soon as Kalekka Tower was finished at the Jadan Pass of the Du'san boundary. Thus began a yearlong military campaign to rid Antei and its neighboring systems of the Antaran pirates, culminating with the invasion of Antares in 21 ABY. The Clan aided the Council during this time, while back home in Orian at Amphor construction began on the sky city of San Korinar.
The arrival of the Dark Lords and the war against the Antarans awoke Okemi, the long forgotten Sith Lord who had been exiled from the Sith Empire by Marka Ragnos. Not long after Caerick had moved to Antei, he made contact with a series of voices that proclaimed a desire for fire, destruction, and blood. He recorded his observations in the Tenebric Conclusions but Lords Firefox and Cotelin paid the portents no heed. Shortly after, Lord Firefox departed to the Imperial Remnant on business.
When the ruins of the original Star Chamber were unearthed, a plague spread across Antei, infecting anybody Okemi’s blood came in contact with, driving them mad with the screams of thousands of voices and dominating them like puppets. Caerick was infected, but the Amulet of Orian sheathed him in a cocoon to try and prevent the corruption spreading. But Lord Cotelin sealed the system off, masking the plague and allowing Kem-Shu Maeda to spread the madness through the Brotherhood. An attack against Clan Arcona by a false Black Guard was staged in the Dajorra system, drawing the disciples of Sadow into the crisis. The voices fed off destruction and the ensuing conflict allowed them to spread, infiltrating the Clan to ransack the library on Tarthos. During the battles, the Obelisk centurion Korras Aquillarum helped lead much of the Clan’s forces into battle.
Count Zorrixor managed to escape from Antei and bring word of what had happened to Lord Firefox at Muunilinst. The Grand Master returned and assembled a force from those still in possession of their faculties and led a direct assault on Antei. The conflict reached its climax when Lord Firefox took up arms against Lord Cotelin as Zorrixor held off Kem-Shu Maeda. Zorrixor was mortally wounded and Maeda escaped; however, Firefox defeated Cotelin and made his way to the ruins of the ancient Star Chamber where he slew Okemi with the Sword of Son’Jiatt, silencing the voices.
While a full civil war was averted, the Clan still suffered heavy casualties during the crisis. The staged attack on Arcona had led to retaliatory strikes and the attack on Alabrek Castle had cost a number of lives. Still reeling from the Battle of Darkened Hearts, House Primus Goluud finally collapsed, with too few left to train others in its traditions. The disciples of Kressh quickly laid claim to its former possessions and established a permanent base in Seng Karash, destroying all evidence the House had ever existed. Years later, some would speculate it was a curse that had brought the House down, dating back to the betrayal of Gav Daragon during the Battle of Primus Goluud in 5,000 BBY.
House Primus Goluud was not the only loss the Clan suffered in the crisis. The Amulet of Orian may have prevented Caerick from being infected, but it also stopped the infection from being destroyed when Okemi was slain and Caerick’s mind was lost to the madness of Shan Long. With Caerick gone, Zorrixor renounced his position on the Council and went into exile in search of answers for his loss; and Lord Sadow was left to mourn not just a House but two of his greatest sons as well.
While Zorrixor disappeared into the unknown and Caerick remained trapped inside his own mind, bound in chains on Antei, uttering mindless prophecy; the Clan sought to rebuild, forced to deal with the loss of House Primus Goluud. It was around this time two brothers—though they were unaware of their connection at the time—first walked the halls of Sadow Palace: Muz Ashen and Nekura Manji Keibatsu.
The pair was the first of the Keibatsu family to join the disciples of Sadow, marking the dawn of a new chapter in the Clan’s history. As time passed, further members of the family appeared, such as Tharivol Endymiron, who upon his return to the Brotherhood was discovered to be the lost relative Shin’ichi. The Keibatsu inexplicably appeared drawn to the Clan, as if they had all been beckoned into the service of Lord Sadow. An explanation for this apparent link between the Keibatsu and Sadow bloodlines remains unknown, should one even exist.
The hole that had been left following the upheaval of the exodus and the trauma of war appeared to have been filled as a new sense of family emerged. The Clan led numerous expeditions to planets throughout the Sith Empire while the Clan’s influence grew within the Orian system, as envoys scouted the Rims for suitable candidates, and colonists were recruited from various worlds. At a hidden shipyard in the Corporate Sector, work continued on the future Dlarit Navy, under the mask of Kaldex Inc.
A major challenge emerged for the Clan a year after the chaos on Antei. The Brotherhood had been in the possession of a number of relics belonging to the mysterious K’hamar’an cult for years, but the move to Antei had brought the missing artifacts near to the planet K’hamar’a, and the cultists’ attention. When the K’hamar’ans infiltrated the Brotherhood to recover the relics, the Krath High Priest took steps to root out the spies. The Clan rallied to the cause, having lost several artifacts in its own possession, with the Keibatsu brothers spearheading the efforts alongside Clan Taldryan.
The wake of the K’hamar’an crisis saw glimmers of Trevarus Caerick echo through the madness of Shan Long. The Oracle journeyed to K’hamar’a itself, a world he had visited many years earlier, as he still struggled with his inner demons, wrestling for control of the Dragon that continued to make claim to his body; his mind still wrought with the lingering voices from the previous war.
The end of the K’hamar’an crisis saw the return to the Clan of Count Zorrixor, who had spent his exile touring the lost worlds of the Sith Empire, and returned with a renewed zeal—almost an obsession—to overcome the weakness that had almost cost him his life against Maeda. Lord Sadow quickly made the count his consul once more after the Korras Aquillarum was called to the Council, his efforts in rooting out the K’hamar’an spies having not gone unnoticed. During this time, Macron Sadow first joined the Clan at the height of the K'hamar'an conflict.
But it was clear something had changed in Zorrixor during his exile. Having brought the holocron of Tulak Hord back with him, he retreated to his study for much of the following year, working with Muz Ashen and Macron Sadow to unlock the ancient Dark Lord’s secrets. Where before the exodus the count had personally overseen the planning, working in secret with Trevarus Caerick; now, Zorrixor delegated much of the day-to-day oversight of the Dlarit Corporation to others, and entrusted the Houses with their own training, emerging from his seclusion on Sepros once a month to convene a conclave.
A year passed as the Clan continued to grow in strength, fully recovered from the damage of the last war. However, in early 23 ABY, a number of high profile assassination attempts took place across the system, with the survivors speaking of ghosts and moving shadows. Questions were raised, but the consul had mysteriously disappeared. The situation reached a peak midyear when troops marched on Sadow Palace demanding answers, and rogue units bombed Alabrek Castle.
Eventually, Count Zorrixor emerged from hiding. He had disappeared in the hope of luring out the true culprit behind the attacks. Upon his return to Sadow Palace he found his answer: Kiln Tobasa, a man meant to be seven years dead, who proclaimed the coming of the darkness to end all darkness. Zorrixor slew the sorcerer, only to find it had merely been a shade. Nonetheless, the threat exposed, the crisis throughout Orian eased and civil war between the Houses was averted.
The barrels of the turbolasers had barely cooled when Korras Aquillarum, now the Obelisk High Commander, issued a call to arms for forces to assist in an invasion of the planet Coratua. The space lanes around Antei had recently been besieged by pirates and the Council was growing concerned it would bring unwanted attention from the Republic. The Clan gladly heard the call of their former clansman and assembled a force to travel to Coratua; led by Zorrixor and Ashen themselves, who had completed their study of the Hord holocron and wanted to put their research to the test on the field of battle.
Omens (24 ABY–26 ABY)
With its value proven in battle, the contents of the Hord holocron were entered into the archives of the Shadow Academy, bringing both Ashen and Zorrixor to the attention of the Council. Zorrixor was made a Master, but it would not be long before crisis hit the Clan once more with the emergence of the True Brotherhood, led by the false Sith Lord Darth Severak.
Orian was undergoing many changes in early 24 ABY. The appearance of Kiln Tobasa had troubled Zorrixor, who had begun having nightmares of Antei rendered lifeless. The Council had dismissed it, but Zorrixor had grown paranoid and ordered the construction of an immense skyhook to orbit Seng Karash, and diverted addition funds to Kaldex to speed up the construction of the new fleet. With the consul starting to echo his master, spouting lines of incoherent prophecy, the Clan was caught unaware as agents of the True Brotherhood infiltrated its ranks and began luring apprentices away.
When the True Brotherhood’s existence was discovered, the Clan sent a task force to its holdout on the nearby world of Kangaras to wipe it out. The faction on Kangaras was utterly destroyed, along with Darth Severak’s two foremost apprentices, Severina and Tslotha Garnath, but the Sith Lord himself escaped to join his other forces on Mustafar. The victory was a testament to the efforts of many of the Clan’s junior knights, such as Macron Goura and Malisane de Ath. With the threat of the True Brotherhood believed vanquished, Muz Ashen stepped up to join the ranks of the Dark Council.
- "The night beyond darkness dawns when all shall surrender to dusk."
- ―Xanos Zorrixor
Having not foreseen the True Brotherhood threat, Zorrixor realized his gift of second sight was not the gift he had hoped it to be and that he still needed to master it. The Council had grown tired of Shan Long, believing they would divine nothing further from sorcerer’s mindless prattle, so the count requested that he be handed over to the Clan. Shan Long arrived at Sepros clapped in irons, the mind of Trevarus Caerick utterly lost to the madness of the nameless voices. Zorrixor managed what no other had in the two years since the war on Antei: pull Caerick’s mind back from the abyss.
With the True Brotherhood believed dealt with, while Caerick was tutoring his old apprentice in the ways of prophecy the Keibatsu family assembled a task force to reclaim their ancestral homeland, the Kyataru system. Heading off with a number of the Clan’s best knights, the Keibatsu vanished for three months to wage a brutal campaign against the warlords who had taken control of Kyataru. It was not long after they returned when Marshal Aquillarum had need of the Clan’s services again, this time requiring a strike team to secure the sunside of Antei. The Clan saw action at the Jagred city of Om'Jagred, the battle seeing the first in combat deployment of Violator gas by Macron Goura.
Back at Orian, with much of the Clan away, Caerick’s return stirred a threat in the temples on Sepros. In the ruins of the Temple of the Void, he encountered Kiln Tobasa—the real Kiln Tobasa—who had survived their duel years earlier. This time Caerick made sure his old master would remain dead, obliterating his spirit permanently. In the depths of the ruins, the pair discovered an ancient Star Map and surmised that it may have been the cause of Tobasa's insanity, but for now the ancient emitter matrix remained inactive so was therefore useless. However, the rogue sorcerer’s death did not silence Zorrixor’s dreams of a coming darkness, and eventually Lord Cotelin summoned him to Antei to teach what Caerick couldn’t, not believing the Star Chamber should leave the future to chance.
As Masters Caerick and Zorrixor left for Antei, Aquillarum returned to the Clan after the completion of military operations on the sunside of the planet. The shadow of the count’s premonitions loomed over the Clan like a grim specter as it entered 25 ABY. The threat of the True Brotherhood returned after Sildrin Rys-Hastur was arrested when evidence emerged that she had been supplying Jagred partisans on Antei with bioweapons. The arrest sent shockwaves through the Clan and Muz Keibatsu returned from Antei, convinced of Hastur’s innocence.
With all the players assembled, the True Brotherhood sprung its trap. Muz Keibatsu slew the cult’s leader, Darth Severak, but the Sith Lord transferred his essence into the body of a young journeyman and kidnapped Malisane de Ath, following the discovery de Ath was his son. The Clan pursued the leader of the True Brotherhood across the Galaxy to a hidden base on the distant planet of Mustafar. The Clan managed to stop Severak as he attempted to sacrifice his son, killing him again and forcing him to jump to a third body. De Ath sabotaged the Sith Lord’s hyperdrive when he tried to escape, trapping him in hyperspace, hopefully forever.
Relations between the clans had been weakening for some time as they each kept largely to their own systems to continue their rebuilding following the exodus and the last war. For one of the few wargames still carried out together, the Clan sent a task force to the Aranna system, the abandoned homeworld of the former Clan Satal Keto. The wargame proved to be a set up when the four clans taking part were attacked by pirates. The clans fought off the attack and the disciples of Sadow returned to the Orian system with only minor casualties, but their trust had been broken, with each clan having accused the other of setting them up and the truth never discovered.
The Brotherhood Civil War (25 ABY)
While the Clan was fighting pirates at the Aranna system, similar betrayals were unfolding between other clans at the Selen system. Relations between the clans had reached historic lows and the Dark Council had grown increasingly distant, isolating itself on Antei. Unknown to the Clan, Lord Cotelin had cloned himself; he had left his clone to attend to the mundane running of the Brotherhood, while he trained his new apprentice and searched for answers to the coming darkness.
Midway through 25 ABY, the clone revealed itself existence and declared itself to be the true Jac Cotelin. The clans saw the clone’s appearance as an opportunity to settle their growing differences. War erupted, sending the Brotherhood into full blown civil war. None could identify the true Grand Master, with one summoning those loyal to him to Antei, as the other assembled an army to assault the planet. As war descended on Antei, Muz Keibatsu and Kaiann Entar found themselves leading the opposing armies to war, eventually facing off in single combat inside the Dark Hall itself. The Clan fought valiantly in the Civil War, seeing heavy combat against the clone’s forces at the city of Milmefia, earning the favor of the true Grand Master. The war reached its climax when Jac Cotelin squared off in single combat against Jaac Cotelin and finally slew his clone.
The dust had scarcely settled when the clans, fed up of being ruled by a seemingly out of touch body, laid siege to the Antei system, blocking all transport and supplies in or out, demanding their voices be heard. Neither the Dark Council nor the clans could afford further hostilities, and the stalemate held for several weeks until Lord Cotelin agreed to grant the clans seats on the Council.
As Cotelin’s apprentice, Xanos Zorrixor may potentially have been able to have told the Grand Masters apart to have ended the war earlier, but early on in the conflict after a narrow escape from a duel with the false Jaac Cotelin, Zorrixor disappeared inside the ruined archives of the Star Chamber. As the war raged aboveground, Zorrixor was paralysed by shockwaves in the Force, sensing a great shadow falling over the Galaxy. There in the Star Chamber, he uncovered the holocron of Darth Maestus and studied the secrets of the ancient Sith Lords as the six month long campaign waged on the surface. With the damage to Antei, it appeared his premonitions had come true, and the Star Chamber deigned fit to make him one of them and declared him a Sith Lord. But the months in seclusion had twisted his mind, and he remained adamant that the true threat had yet to befall them. When the Star Chamber denounced Lord Zorrixor’s prophecy as false, he deserted them to return to the one he saw as his true master at Kalekka Tower: Trevarus Caerick.
The Brotherhood Civil War may have ended with the death of Jaac Cotelin but its legacy would haunt the Clan for years to come. The Star Chamber gave nothing away for free; while Lord Zorrixor’s omens had been denounced in public, in secret many saw the approaching storm as an opportunity to remind the clans their place. But the internal schisms had blinded all to the events unfolding unnoticed on the edge of the Outer Rim: for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion had already begun.
After a series of preliminary strikes the previous year, 26 ABY saw the main Yuuzhan Vong invasion begin in earnest. The extragalactic invaders quickly spread across the Outer Rim, striking at the Core at Duro, and making numerous gains through the Mid Rim. The Brotherhood remained divided on how to respond: many believed it was not the Brotherhood’s fight; others were troubled by the threat to the Force the existence of the Far Outsiders represented; but all accepted the Brotherhood was in no shape for another conflict so soon after Civil War.
To assist with the rebuilding, a small expedition was dispatched to venture across the Outer Rim back to the Clan’s former home in the Phare system to recover the supplies it had been forced to leave behind back in 19 ABY. The mission to the ruins of the old Sadow Palace recovered the Sword of Sadow, which had been lost during the evacuation. A separate team also visited the abandoned fortress on Ullyr to secure additional supplies, should the war drag on and supply lines to the Core be cut off for longer than expected.
The Clan began to stockpile resources, commissioning a new mine after baradium deposits were discovered beneath the new Sadow Palace. The year also saw the completion of Marakith Skyhook above the city of Seng Karash, as well as the Dystopia nightclub in the entertainment district. Hopes that the war would be over within the year were dashed when news reached that the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 had fallen, bringing the Yuuzhan Vong perilously close to Antei and Orian. The news also saw the disappearance of Lord Zorrixor who, after his clash with the Star Chamber, had deserted the Brotherhood to seek answers to the galactic crisis elsewhere, but was instead captured by the Vong.
There were a number of further low key excursions across the Galaxy to secure supplies that Orian could no longer obtain from the Core. In an expedition to Jaginos, the Clan secured a number of Spaarti cloning cylinders, with which it initiated the Delta-class Advanced Commando project to produce a batch of thirty-four genetically enhanced super soldiers each year.
The Yuuzhan Vong War (27 ABY–31 ABY)
While news from the Core was sporadic at best with the HoloNet crippled, the word on Antei was that the Yuuzhan Vong were readying an attack on Coruscant itself. And, on the turn of the year, the new Grand Master, Lord Sarin, summoned the clans to Antei for a special exercise to test their ability to combat the Yuuzhan Vong if the war were to spread. Construction of the new Dlarit Navy had not quite finished, so the Clan was forced to send most of its system defense fleet to participate, but there was little other choice was it to learn how to combat the alien biotechnology of the Vong.
Elsewhere, Lord Zorrixor had escaped captivity and taken the name Darth Vexatus. Hearing of the efforts of the new Grand Master to combat the Vong, the rogue Sith Lord returned from exile to again discuss the matter with the Star Chamber. But the time for omens and prevention was over; just after Vexatus’s arrival, the Yuuzhan Vong sprung their trap, and the clans were forced to take cover in the Shroud. Muz Keibatsu, who Lord Sarin had taken as his Shadow Hand, signalled the joint clan fleets to fall back into the Shroud and defend the evacuation of Antei.
The Clan was split, many concerned for the safety of Orian, others outright unperturbed by the Council's plight. Against the greater consensus to withdraw to safety, Vexatus and Trevarus Caerick convinced Lord Sadow to follow Keibatsu's request and fall back to Antei. Keibatsu himself was captured while fighting to hold off the Vong long enough to allow the rest of the fleet to retreat. However, the Clan soon discovered the Yuuzhan Vong had already mined the Shroud, preventing hyperspace travel. After damaging its hyperdrive in a failed jump, the Clan was forced to hold off several Yuuzhan Vong attacks while its ships drifted idle as the hyperdrive was repaired. As repairs were performed, a force of deadly voxyn boarded the Clan's ships, wreaking havoc. During the fighting, the Clan managed to destroy two Vong cruisers when Vexatus led the Clan as one in a meld to conjure a Force storm, but not before the loss of all but the Star Destroyer Covenant. By the time the Clan arrived at Antei, it had already lost half its ships, and the restof the Brotherhood was caught in a desperate fight for survival, trying to hold off the endless waves from the Vong armada.
As the Brotherhood teetered toward collapse, Caerick and Vexatus fled the battle to make their way to the surface of Antei, causing Lord Sadow to order the fleet to open fire on the deserters. On Antei, the two turncoats carried out a frantic evacuation of Kalekka Tower, their reason for tricking the Clan into coming to Antei in the first place. Elsewhere, Lord Sarin arrived with a division of the new Council fleet which was also still under construction, but enough firepower to hold the Vong off long enough to execute the Braata Option to signal the retreat. Below, Caerick performed the Grand Emanation, a ritual to channel the dark energies on Antei into the members of the Clan to revivify them long enough to make it out of the system. The fall of Antei ended with a rapid retreat along the escape vector Lord Sarin's fleet had opened up through the Shroud. Sarin recovered Muz Keibatsu from the wreckage of the Vong command ship and the entire Brotherhood jumped to hyperspace, forced to abandon Antei to the clutches of the aliens. Of the chief Yuuzhan Vong who had been tasked with the annihilation of the Dlarit battlegroup, Subcommander Drathul Amnan was escalated to Commander. But Executor Eshin Shul had turned and fled for her failed voxyn plan, and Drathul was tasked with hunting down the now Shamed One if he was ever to earn the status of Warleader.
The Fall of Antei saw the greatest defeat in Brotherhood history and made the Civil War the previous year resemble a minor brushfire. In the face of overwhelming odds, many showed their true colors. Lord Sadow was furious at Trevarus Caerick, but the Clan also owed its survival to the sorcerer’s ritual. Xanos Zorrixor may technically have returned, but he was unrecognisable as Darth Vexatus, whose true motives remained unclear. Many others had lost loved ones in the battle; the Keibatsu family in particular suffered the loss of Sanjuro Sledge, son to Muz Ashen and Ashia Kagan; and Lord Sarin’s decree that Muz had become worthy of being called a Sith Lord seemed a hollow victory.
Crosscurrents
The defeat at the start of 27 ABY had set the tone for the whole of the following year. The Clan managed to limp home in a single battered Star Destroyer; its pride, its faith, and its trust wounded. People remained split over who to trust between Lord Sadow, or Caerick and Vexatus. Both groups drifted into the shadows on the slow voyage home, allowing Macron Goura and Shin’ichi Keibatsu to take the spotlight while the elders withdrew to their own business.
Following the defeat at Antei, the Clan was ill prepared for the fate awaiting them back home. The system had been invaded by a hidden faction of the True Brotherhood, which had survived the death of the cult's leaders two years earlier. Led by Anaxela Goura, sister to Macron Goura, the cult had waited for a chance to strike. Believing the Brotherhood destroyed at Antei, Anaxela's forces had invaded, searching for a lost relic of Urias Orian. Marakith Skyhook had been captured and Seng Karash taken hostage; while on Tarthos Kar Alabrek had been left in ruins by the True Brotherhood's invasion forces, who sought to enter the Archives of Alabrek Castle. Its fleet in ruins, the Clan was forced to covertly insert its men into the system to assassinate the True Brotherhood commanders.
On Marakith Skyhook, Malisane de Ath was captured, learning Anaxela was actually being directed by the spirit of Severina, who was searching for the Clan’s hidden cloning facility to acquire a new clone body. While de Ath reached an agreement with the spirit in exchange for Severina leaving Anaxela to her fate, Caerick and Vexatus infiltrated the Skyhook via Seng Karash to confront Anaxela directly. Elsewhere, other members of the Clan quietly infiltrated various facilities to assemble a force to take back Alabrek Castle and the ruins of Kar Alabrek.
The end game came when Caerick and Vexatus engaged Anaxela on the bridge of the Skyhook, but she escaped to retreat and rejoin her forces orbiting Tarthos. Simultaneously, the Clan had sprung its raid on the occupying forces at Alabrek, routing the True Brotherhood armies. The Clan stormed Anaxela’s flagship, engaging Anaxela and her remaining followers in a final duel. During the battle, Obsidian station was destroyed by the True Brotherhood flagship. However, Anaxela had what she had come for, and fled to Kangaras to continue her quest for the lost scepter of Urias Orian. Secretly, as the battle was going on, de Ath had secured Severina a new body; and, true to her word, the former foe agreed to leave in peace, following the other witch to Kangaras to obtain the lost artifact for herself.
Hardships of war
With Orian back in the Clan's hands, the Clan was left to reflect on what had befallen them at Antei. Little news filtered through the broken HoloNet, but one bulletin would not be contained: Coruscant itself had fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong and the New Republic had collapsed. With the aliens now spread throughout the entire Galaxy, and the new fleet on order from Kaldex Transport still a year away, the Clan had no choice but to hide itself away on Orian and hope for the best.
A number of policy changes were enacted, such as the abandonment of the DAC Trooper Project in favor of a more mass produced clone army to replace those who had been lost in the Fall of Antei and the assault on Kar Alabrek. As such, numbering only thirty four, late 27 ABY saw the first and last batch of elite DAC troopers birthed. The decision was also made that the chaos caused during the Battle of Antei by the sudden revelation to the men of the Dlarit Navy that their masters were in truth Dark Jedi could never be allowed to repeat itself. With the creation of a new clone army initiated, the Dlarit Security Force was drastically restructured, with the creation of a new Special Operations Group who would know the full nature of the Dlarit Corporation and be better prepared in the future. The regular Dlarit Security Force remained oblivious; the long term goal being to slowly replace the regular recruits with loyal clones as the years went on, though it would take decades.
Wartime rationing was imposed across the system due to the loss of countless supply lines to the Core. Isolated and relatively unknown, Orian also became a favoured destination for refugee ships. The majority of the refugees were put on the Sky City of San Korinar on Amphor, which rapidly descended into an overpopulated hive of scum and villainy. Eventually the city limits around Seng Karash were expanded to make room for the ever growing refugee numbers, and prefabricated shanty towns sprung up outside the city walls. A strong division emerged between those who were employees and valued by the Corporation; and the refugees who were simply left to fend for themselves, barred entrance from the main city districts. On Amphor, the polarisation reached violent levels as military governor Xanos Zorrixor – the still public face of Darth Vexatus – instituted martial law, bringing order to the Upper City, but civil unrest to the homeless denizens of the lower levels.
The turn of 28 ABY finally saw the completion of the battle fleet that had been on order with Dark Council funding from the Corporate Sector for almost ten years. Several new ships had already finished construction during the previous few years, but by mid 28 ABY the final Star Destroyers had rolled off the lines. Early in the year also saw the birthing and flash-imprinting of the first batches of mass produced clones to begin replacing the regulars of the Security Force with the new Special Operations clone troopers.
Insidious motives
Macron Goura had spent much of the year following Antei’s loss training with Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus. The Elders had located a deactivated Star Map on Sepros and determined the True Brotherhood had been searching for the key needed to activate it. They sought to seduce Goura with secrets ordinarily reserved for Elders, hoping to use the man to gain control over the Dlarit Navy to aid in their quest; but the process took its toll on Goura’s psyche, and his already unstable mind finally began to break early in 28 ABY under the strain of absorbing too much power too fast.
Events took a turn for the worse when the freighter Anaxela had escaped on was located in the jungles of Kangaras. A team was dispatched to investigate the whereabouts of the missing witch, but upon arriving at Kangaras they found the crashed ship abandoned. After sensing an anomaly in the Force, Caerick headed deeper into the jungle to investigate, but the anomaly disabled his ship – as seemed to have also been the case with Anaxela’s freighter – causing him to crash. The rest of the Clan moved to follow him on foot, but as they neared the center of the anomaly they discovered that not only was it draining all their electronic gear, but numbing their connection to the Force too. The strange anomaly took its toll on Goura, his mind finally succumbing to madness as he was broken off from the psychic walls he had built up to shield his mind from his growing insanity.
In the heart of the jungle the Clan discovered the hidden tomb of Hafalia Seprosin Chunasca, the self-styled Dark Lady of the Ekind who had helped destroy Urias Orian and fought in Okemi’s rebellion against the rule of their Jedi Lords. After surviving an attack by a host of ancient lightsaber wielding battle droids, they discovered an ancient scepter hidden deep within Hafa Chun’s tomb, which was generating the interference field over the jungle in order to hide its resting place from Force adepts. The temple collapsed when Caerick prised the scepter from its stand, but with the Force dampening field disabled the Clan was able to escape. Elsewhere, unknown to the Clan while they were trekking through the jungle, Severina's clone managed to steal one of the shuttles they had come on and escape the planet, this time leaving no sign behind of her intended destination.
The aftermath of the mission to Kangaras marked the beginning of a Dark Age of lies and betrayal when Trevarus Caerick had Macron Goura relieved of command by Darth Sarin on the grounds of the young alchemist’s mental breakdown, enabling the sorcerer to wrest control of the Dlarit Navy out from under the hands of the loyal pawns of Lord Sadow.
The Dark Age (28 ABY–29 ABY)
With the Dlarit Corporation under their control, and the keystone – the scepter – they had long been searching for, Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus put their ultimate plan into motion. Unconcerned by the growing unrest in Seng Karash and San Korinar, as soon as repair work for Kar Alabrek was finished all resources were redirected to Sepros to begin reconstruction of the Temple of the Void where the lost Star Map had been discovered. Lies were concocted about powerful artifacts to keep the rest of the Clan distracted, with teams dispatched throughout local space to Thule, Korriban, and elsewhere to keep people chasing ghosts as the two Elders continued their work in secret.
Caerick and Vexatus sought a nexus of dark side energies called the Heart of the Force which was located on Lehon, the lost capital of the Infinite Empire of the ancient Rakata. Once the Temple was rebuilt, they would unlock the secrets of the Star Map and obtain the coordinates. However, to do this they needed to do more than just obtain the location. They had been caged in the Orian Sector ever since the Battle of Antei, and before they could reach Lehon they would also need to clear a corridor through the Yuuzhan Vong Empire to the Unknown Regions. There were growing numbers of reports of the alien armada amassing in the nearby Telos system. The clock was ticking and the Temple was unlikely to be built before the Vong fleet was ready to push deeper into Sith Space. So, shortly after the final ships had run off the construction lines in the Corporate Sector, Caerick organised a pre-emptive strike on the worldship orbiting Telos IV. Though troubled by unfolding events, Lord Sarin dispatched his Shadow Hand, Muz Keibatsu, to oversee the operation, deeply interested in the attempt to push the Vong back from sectors surrounding Antei.
The Dlarit Navy was sent to divert the main Vong force while the Special Operations flagship, the Star Destroyer Final Way, exited hyperspace behind the worldship to deploy a small commando team to the surface to battle to the massive vessel’s core and slay the yammosk which coordinated the Vong’s forces throughout the nearby systems. The deceitful Elders recognized it was a suicide mission and did not intend for the Clansmen who infiltrated the worldship to return. However, during the insertion Vexatus’s own ship was shot down, causing Caerick to personally launch an unplanned recovery mission. Inside the worldship, the commando team – now aided by the two Elders – encountered the Shamed One Eshin Shul, who agreed to act as a guide. In the bowels of the worldship, Ylith Atema nearly came to blows with Vexatus but the Elder simply humiliated him in front of the rest of the Clan. However, Ylith strangely lost his connection to the Force, and believed the Sith Lord had stripped it from him. Eshin eventually led the team to the Well of the yammosk in the heart of the ship, but it was a trap and waiting for them was the now-Supreme Commander Drathul Amnan, now commander of his Domain’s worldship, with his elite and intensely escalated retinue of warriors. The two Elders agreed to hold the Vong leader off while the rest of the Clan headed inside the well and dealt with the yammosk, the creature being slain by the Atema brothers Tyren and Ylith.
With the yammosk dead, the worldship began to enter its final death throes. Eshin Shul revealed her betrayal and poisoned Caerick, hauling him off to the prison area to strap him to an Embrace of Pain. As Vexatus went to rescue the sorcerer, the rest of the Clan withdrew to the evac transport. As the vessel began to collapse, Lord Keibatsu issued the retreat, ordering the Clan to leave the two Elders to their fate and pull out. However, as the Clan withdrew, Jedgar Paladin arrived in the system to recover Caerick and Vexatus from the crumbling worldship – it seemed the Star Chamber itself was still uncertain what to make of the two wayward Elders. They had placed the lives of their entire Clan in jeopardy. And yet, despite all their recklessness, they had now routed the Vong from Telos, thus helping clear the way for the eventual reclamation of Antei.
The final battle of the year came when Clan Arcona requested emergency aid in the Dajorra system. Located on the other side of the Perlemian Trade Route, just outside Hutt Space, Dajorra was on the very outskirts of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire but it appeared they had finally drawn the attention of the extragalactic invaders. The Dlarit Navy was rapidly deployed to assist with the evacuation of Estle City on Selen, and the defense of the system from the alien fleet. The chaos during the Fall of Antei still simmered under the surface, and neither Clan trusted the other fully. In the confusion, Darth Vexatus saw an opening to rid himself of one Clan already, and manipulated Macron Goura and a visiting Brotherhood envoy, Vallen'dere, to sabotage the city’s defense grid. As Ylith Atema led the joint evacuation from Estle City’s spaceport, Vexatus and his covert team snuck behind Vong lines to blow up the turbolasers that were holding back the main Vong deployment. With the defenses down, the two Clans had no choice but to declare Estle lost and withdraw, leaving those who had not yet been evacuated to their fate. As commanding general, Atema took much of the blame for his failure to hold the city; nobody believing his accusations about Vexatus conveniently sneaking off with a small team of commandos to the defense towers.
With Dajorra lost to the Vong, Clan Arcona and the Dajorra Defense Force limped back with the Dlarit fleet to the Orian system where it was agreed they could take refuge until a plan could be formulated to reclaim their own homeworlds. The fall of Dajorra had served its purpose, however. As the Dlarit Navy and Clansmen had been distracted, Trevarus Caerick had overseen the final stages of the reconstruction of the Temple of the Void on Sepros. The plan was now but a matter of timing.
The turn of 29 ABY saw the insidious plot Trevarus Caerick the Deceiver and Darth Vexatus the Betrayer had been hatching enter its final stages. With the aid of Jedgar Paladin, who believed their plan would either destroy them or earn the Brotherhood two new Grand Masters, they sacrificed the entire surviving Ekind population. The sacrifice imbued the Temple of the Void with the dark side, reactivating the ancient Star Map. With the location of Lehon finally in their hands, the Obsidian Cohort – Caerick’s private guard – stormed the Star Destroyer Harbinger, and headed to Telos, then on the Unknown Regions.
Projecting their spectres directly into the Grand Atrium of Sadow Palace during the annual Exodus celebrations, the two traitors announced their defection. They declared the Brotherhood would rot for its failure to foresee the Yuuzhan Vong threat, and worse: its failure to do what was necessary after the invasion had begun. In defense of their actions, they claimed they were simply doing what the Star Chamber should have done decades ago: embracing the true nature of the dark side. Lord Sadow was furious; his two closest Sons had betrayed him. History was repeating itself, the Overlord of Ludo Kressh betraying Naga Sadow like his namesake. Sadow issued immediate orders that all who had dealt with the traitors were to be arrested and detained indefinitely, seeing the likes of Vallen’dere and Krenth hauled off to the Cenota Facility. Lord Paladin realized he had been wrong for trusting Caerick’s word and now understood that they did not wish to ascend to Grand Mastery but to consume all life in the universe to become a god. The Clan assembled an urgent response force, rallying the entire Navy and Special Operations Group to pursue the traitors and follow their hyperspace vector. But, instead of arriving at Lehon, they discovered they had been duped – the pair had merely led them to Telos. However, Macron Goura – who bore a direct bond to the traitors – could sense them directly through the Mark they shared, and was able to guide the fleet after them.
Upon arriving at Lehon, the Clan found a ship graveyard – wreckage from the fateful climax of the Jedi Civil War nearly four thousand years earlier. On the other side of the wreckage, the Harbinger hung in orbit of the planet itself. But between it and the Dlarit fleet writhed a swarm of massive exogorths: giant space slugs large enough to devour entire starships. However, the exogorths were not actually real, but dark manifestations being generated by a series of sorcerous projectors installed onboard the Harbinger. An assault team was forced to insert onto the rogue Star Destroyer to take down the projectors to enable the rest of the fleet to engage the Harbinger directly. Onboard the stolen ship, Sakura Haruno broke free of Caerick’s mind control over the rest of the crew, but she was discovered and tortured by Vexatus before being thrown into the brig. However, she was able to free herself and made her way to the engineering bay to sabotage the ship’s systems. An assault team then managed to insert onto the Harbinger, including Macron Goura, Tsainetomo Keibatsu and Ashura Isradia. Sakura was injured, but once she regained consciousness hunted down the raiding team, and ended up saving Isradia’s life before they were saved by Goura and Keibatsu. Goura then engaged the commander of the Obsidian Cohort, Eosara, but the mercenary was able to escape to the surface of the planet.
As the Clan fought their way through space to the surface, on the ground the two traitors had made their way to the volcanic mountain of Urati Kazinal, otherwise known as the Temple of Lost Souls. In Kazinal Core they at long last came across the fabled Heart of the Force that they had hunted for so many years. After destroying the great wyrm that guarded it, before they could reflect they were engaged by the elite Iron Fist brigade of the Disciples of Kressh. Yet, despite their years of experience, the veteran Obelisk warriors were slain to the last man. Then came the inevitable confrontation both men had known would come from the very beginning: the duel to determine who would rule as the new will of the Force itself. In the end, the answer would be neither: in their final act the two men destroyed their own prize, blowing up the Heart of the Force, and killing themselves the process.
The Clan arrived just in time to watch the two traitors destroy themselves as the Heart exploded; the souls of the damned Rakata released in an explosive outburst that incinerated both men. But victory over Lords Caerick and Vexatus was short lived. In his final breaths, Trevarus Caerick used the power of the Rakatan ghosts to reenergise himself, being reborn into the Thunder Dragon Shan Long as a true ascendant. As Lord Sadow took up arms against the traitor in single combat, Lord Keibatsu and Macron Goura went in search of the body of Darth Vexatus. However, as with Caerick, Vexatus too had not yet submitted to death: but unlike Caerick he had not used the power of the Heart to heal himself. Instead, Vexatus had now consumed the souls of the Rakata, becoming less man than monster. As Lord Keibatsu held him off, Goura managed to stab his former master with a specially concocted variant of violator gas, based off the original Omega strained which had already been mixed with Alpha Red, but now also crossed with a virus that had decimated the population of Falleen decades earlier, which he had specifically designed to target Falleen – the alchemist had sought revenge on his one-time master ever since the incident on Kangaras. As the poison coursed through Vexatus’s veins, his final assassin made his move from the shadows: Ylith Atema. Vexatus, blind to the man who he himself had cut off from the Force, did not sense it when Atema dived at him, thrusting his weapon directly into the Sith Lord’s heart. However, instead of dying, the monster entered a final meltdown, threatening to bring the entire volcano down on top of them and consume the lives of the whole Clan. Lord Paladin signalled the retreat, sensing what the monster had become and recognizing they had to leave if they were not to be consumed by the dark void. In the end, both Shan Long and the Clan left Vexatus to the fate he had unleashed upon himself. As the volcano erupted, Shan Long evaded capture by the Clan, fleeing with the surviving members of the Cohort onboard the Sanguinus.
As if the betrayal of the two Clan Elders had not been enough, the Clan limped home to Orian to discover Clan Arcona had taken control of the system and the Dajorra Defense Force now stood ready in orbit over the cities of Seng Karash, San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. Having been gone for several weeks, Mejas Doto had concluded the Dlarit fleet must have met its fate at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong or the terrors of the Unknown Regions. As such, he had moved to seize control of the Orian system, never expecting the other Clan to return. But unfortunate for Clan Arcona, Lord Sadow was now in no mood to discuss terms. Still reeling from his sons’ recent betrayal, Sadow launched his fleet at the occupying forces as if in a suicidal feeding frenzy. Sensing Lord Sadow could not be reasoned with, Mejas Doto realized both Clans would be destroyed in Sadow’s rage if he did not end the fighting; and so the Shadow Lord called for a truce, agreeing that Arcona would hand Orian back over to the disciples of Sadow leave the system in peace.
The Clan was left fractured following the betrayals at the start of 29 ABY. Darth Vexatus may have been dead, but Shan Long had escaped and was still out there somewhere. Lord Sadow became paranoid for the survival of his bloodline and began secretly seeing Sakura Haruno in the hopes of fathering a new heir. The martial law he had instituted following the betrayal was upheld as he shut himself away in Sadow Palace, refusing to have audience with any by his loyal Sons – and even them he no longer felt entirely comfortable around. Fortunately, the destruction of the worldship at Telos the previous year had spared the Orian system from further threats, but refugee ships continued to pour in from the worlds along the nearby Hydian Way that had been ravished by the Yuuzhan Vong.
Unknown to the Clan at the time, a group of wayward Jedi had been among one of the refugee transports that arrived in the system seeking sanctuary. Like most refugees, they were sent to the Lower City of the Sky City on Amphor, San Korinar. With no money or additional transport, the Jedi were left stranded in the system – the dark shadow they felt increasingly pressing upon their minds. Among them was Aisha Qifaxa, the apprentice of a Jedi Knight who had been slain on Telos prior to the planet’s liberation following the destruction of the worldship stationed there.
Despite the woes of Orian in the Outer Rim, in the Core, the newly formed Galactic Alliance – which had replaced the fractured New Republic – had begun turning the tide against the Yuuzhan Vong, whose empire’s forces were now stretched thinly trying to hold onto both the Outer Rim and the Core Worlds. However, in the backwater reaches of Sith Space where the Sons of Sadow called home, news of the Galactic Alliance’s successes did not filter through with any frequency, much of the HoloNet communications grid still damaged.
Problems continued to mount against the Clan, the next major incident occurring when a number of unexplained deaths occurred at the beach resort of Lor Zatean on Aeotheran. When the Dlarit Police sent also turned up dead, the Clan dispatched a small team to investigate. It quickly became clear that the water supply had been poisoned by a particularly deadly xenomorph, which buried itself inside its victim’s body until it was ready to emerge, bursting forth from inside and killing the host in the process. These creatures quickly grew to humanoid size, infecting new victims. The infection was spreading so quickly the Clan did not think it could contain it. Prisoners were called in from the Cenota Facility to act as bait, eventually luring the Clan to a nearby dormant volcano where they discovered the source of the xenomorphs to be an ancient leviathan. Too strong to take out by conventional means, the Clan was forced to call in an orbital bombardment to kill the leviathan and sterilise Lor Zatean.
Toward the end of the year, Lord Sadow’s paranoia reached boiling point and he set things in motion to draw out any further traitors within his midst. Ashia Keibatsu and Ashura Isradia withdrew from Orian, claiming to be heading to a meeting with the Dark Council-in-exile. Those left behind in Orian began to sense a growing disturbance in the Force and Derev Niroth had a vision of the destruction of the Orian system. After sensors detected signals corresponding to the Imperial Remnant emanating from Inos, Niroth declared himself governor-general-in-interregnum. As acting governor-general, he assembled all military assets in orbit of Tarthos to prepare for an attack, leaving the other worlds in Orian defenceless. Rumors began to spread through the system that Lord Sadow had been arrested. With the betrayal earlier in the year still fresh in people’s minds, Faeril Munlear ordered her counterpart to stand down, fearing he was amassing forces for a Civil War.
As Niroth dispatched his forces to Inos to investigate the disturbance in the Force and the Remnant comm signals, Munlear urgently dispatched her own ships to uncover whatever he was after first. However, the entire distress beacon had been a deception, orchestrated by Lord Sadow to weed out those who were no longer loyal to him – but it had unwittingly backfired. As the two fleets engaged each other, forces from the Imperial Remnant arrived, responding to the distress signal. With the situation spiralling out of control, Lord Sadow emerged from his false detention and announced the truth of his deception. No longer marshalled against each other, the Clan regrouped to engage the enemy force. Just as the Imperial fleet threatened to overwhelm the Clan, Task Force 61 from the Navy of the Iron Throne emerged from hyperspace, following a premonition by Lord Keibatsu.
With the help of the Dark Council fleet, the Imperial forces were at last dispatched. However, Darth Sarin was furious at the setback the damage to the Clan’s forces might cause, not only with Niroth and Munlear for their haste to doubt each other, but also with Lord Sadow and Ashia Keibatsu for having orchestrated the operation in the first place. Far from having ended with Lehon, the Dark Age of distrust and betrayal seemed as strong as ever. The year ended much as it had begun, with Sadow’s attempt to weed out those he could not trust having completely backfired. Parts of Kar Alabrek stood in ruins; Alabrek Castle had been heavily damaged; and much of the Dlarit Navy needed repairs.
The winds of change
By the start of 30 ABY news finally began to filter through from the Core of the death of Shimrra Jamaane. With the Supreme Overlord’s death, the Yuuzhan Vong’s faith in their gods had been utterly destroyed. Most surrendered, and those refusing to accept defeat committed ritual suicide rather than face a life of shame. But in the Outer Rim some Vong remnants dug in and continued to pursue their holy crusade. Worlds such as Antei remained under occupation; and the Dlarit Navy remained plagued by frequent attacks as it tried to keep the spacelanes to and from Orian secure.
However, in spite of the continued threat to the Orian Sector, the collapse of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire had made the impossible possible, proving the aliens could be defeated in time. Now a year after Lehon, the Clan tried to move on from what had happened during the Battle of Inos, and the Dlarit forces began stockpiling resources to prepare for the coming operation to finally liberate Antei from the Vong. But the problems of the past few years were not eager to be forgotten. During a celebration held at the Dystopia nightclub in Seng Karash, senior members of the Clan narrowly survived an assassination attempt on Lord Sadow. Further unexplained bombings occurred across the system at San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. The wartime martial law continued to be upheld.
Trouble seemed to be drawn to Orian. Inmates at the Cenota Facility began suffering nightmares of a coming apocalypse. Worse: so did Robert Daragon. The police investigation into the bombing of Dystopia turned up nothing. The population began fearing an underground terrorist organization, most likely originating from the seedier elements that had snuck in with the masses of refugees. Disorder broke out between the two groups. Employees harassing refugees; refugees assaulting employees. However, the Clan knew something else was at work, sensing a dark cloud was falling over the system. The source was believed located when a team led by Macron Goura tracked down a thoroughly insane sorcerer named Curwen Sunei in the ancient tombs on Inos 42. During the mission, young apprentice Aleho Ruoxf was captured by Sunei and tortured. After battling through the insane sorcerer’s horde of reanimated corpses, Goura and Tsainetomo Keibatsu bested Sunei, saving Ruoxf. However, they spared Sunei, believing he could be of more use to them alive than dead, and perhaps able to spread some light on the recent spate of ghostly hallucinations.
But the capture of Sunei did not bring an end to the troubles plaguing Orian. Daragon’s nightmares became worse and he secluded himself away as his health began to fail him, suffering repeated blackouts. The consul unearthed deleted footage that revealed Cyrus Raze, a brief apprentice of Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus, had been behind the assassination attempt on the Clan’s leaders at Dystopia. The revelation appeared to confirm what Daragon had long feared: that the shadow that had fallen across the Orian system was the work of Shan Long and his surviving agents. The consul had the man brought before him and, with the help of Macron Goura, discovered Raze had been suffering the same nightmares as Daragon and others. Although, unlike the others, Goura himself had learned how to shield himself from psychic invasions after what had happened to his mind on Kangaras. Privately, Daragon revealed his condition to Raze and offered to cover up the man’s crimes if he put a team together to venture to Antei before it was recaptured and search for answers in the ruins of Kalekka Tower. Raze knew his chances were slim, but it was that or the consul would bring him before Lord Sadow. In the end, the man begrudgingly conceded to Daragon’s demands.
As Raze put his team together and the rest of the Clan and Dlarit forces readied themselves for the return to Antei, a second problem was brewing in the Lower City of the Sky City of Amphor. The Jedi stranded in the system were getting closer to uncovering the truth behind the Dlarit Corporation’s masters. Furthermore, a wandering Force-sensitive named Jaspen Kraitus had found his way to the Orian system, following dreams of a man who Kraitus believed could give him the answers he sought about his parents and the tattoo that had always adorned his forehead. When he crossed paths with wanted posters for one ‘Trevarus Caerick’ he thought he had finally found his man. Kraitus employed the now-bounty hunter Aisha Qifaxa to investigate his suspicions, but she was discovered by a team from the Dlarit Special Operations Group and taken into custody by Macron Goura. As Goura awaited pickup with his new prisoner, both Kraitus and the other Jedi who Aisha had had dealings with converged on the spaceport to save her. Goura narrowly escaped with Aisha, but Kraitus and the other Jedi had now discovered each other – and the truth behind the Corporation’s masters.
Aside from the joint threat now of both the Jedi who had uncovered the truth of the Corporation – although it still remained unclear how much they actually knew about how deep the rot went – and the still unexplained feeling that something worse was coming out in the darkness, the Clan faced a series of other setbacks during the year. As Kar Alabrek underwent repairs following the chaos of the Battle of Inos, new problems arose in the northern hemisphere of Tarthos when an isolated holdout of Yuuzhan Vong was discovered. The outpost was eradicated, but it remained unclear how or when the aliens had infiltrated the system, and threw up an entirely different concern about how many more Vong infiltrators could be masquerading as other species behind their ooglith masquers. A separate situation arose on Sepros where it emerged a small number of Ekind had escaped the ritual sacrifice of the rest of their species and gone into hiding. They had now started regularly attacking the Clan facilities located on the planet, so efforts were made to defend against the raids. However, the continued attacks defied all previous experience with the usually fearful and disorganised Ekind, leaving some suspecting the hand of a presently unknown third party.
Just as the eleventh hour approached, a final complication was thrown into the already chaotic situation: Sakura Haruno finally gave birth to the next heir to the Sadow dynasty, Remulus Sadow. However, as the Dark Council and the other Clans neared their final preparations, the Clan had no choice but to put its own concerns on hold and ready itself for the reclamation of the Antei. Whatever the outcome of the now imminent military campaign, the Clan knew the winds of change were blowing. Whether or not this would be for the better remained to be seen; but one thing was certain: nothing would be the same after the liberation of Antei.
Liberation of Antei (30 ABY)
As 30 ABY neared its close, after nearly four years the Brotherhood was finally ready to return to Antei and reclaim it from the Yuuzhan Vong who had taken it in the disastrous battle at the start of 27 ABY. A joint task force from the Dlarit Navy and Dlarit Special Operations Group rendezvoused with the Navy of the Iron Throne and the other Clan fleets at the Radama Void located near Ord Radama from where the fleets then proceeded to the Shroud surrounding Antei. The Iron Throne forces went on ahead, attempting a risky micro-jump directly through the Shroud itself. Without Trevarus Caerick anymore, and with Lord Paladin on the Dark Star helping guide the Council fleet in hyperspace through the Shroud, Clan Naga Sadow was also forced to pass through the Shroud along with the rest of the Clans at sublight to arrive two days behind the main forces from the Navy of the Iron Throne.
Ahead of the main force, Cyrus Raze and his team had already passed behind enemy lines and inserted onto Antei. There they made their way across the Jadan Pass into the heart of the Du’san boundary to Kalekka Tower in search of answers to the darkness that was plaguing both Raze and Robert Daragon. When Raze reached the tower’s summit he encountered the man who Daragon had suspected was behind it all along: Shan Long. However, as Raze entered the traitor’s presence, what was left of his mind was finally consumed by the darkness inside him. As the darkness reached out to consume the energies of the fragments of the Star of Ombus arrayed around Shan Long, Shan Long blasted Raze off the top of Kalekka, sending him tumbling into the boundary’s volcanic depths. While Antei’s fate had never concerned Shan Long, he knew his exile was at its end. His darkest fears had been realized, and if he was to win the coming battle he would need others’ help – and they his. So, taking Raze’s shuttle, Shan Long left Antei to return to the Clan he had abandoned two years earlier.
Outside the Shroud the Clan rendezvoused with Raistlin Majerus and the Kangaras Division, which had been reassigned to Antei and been launching regular raids on the Vong forces for several months. However, Majerus reported that of late no movement had come in or out of the Shroud, as if the Yuuzhan Vong had fallen silent. As they made their way inside the Shroud, the Clan came across a number of derelict hulks – Yuuzhan Vong cruisers that were literally breaking apart and liquefying as if in their final death throes. Macron Goura led a small team to investigate the drifting hulk of the yorik-stronha spy ship Zhaetor-zhae while the rest of the Clan hurried ahead to rejoin the Dark Council at Antei, desperate to find out what was going on. While the away team investigated the fast crumbling Vong ship, Goura was attacked by a spineray. The situation became more complicated when Raze’s scout transport returned to the Final Way carrying Shan Long, who was immediately arrested. Lord Sadow placed the traitor under the direct watch of his closest and most loyal Son, Robert Daragon, until they could decide what to do. But, before the Sons had determined the betrayer’s fate, the fleet arrived at Antei, emerging through the Shroud head first into a massive graveyard of dying Vong cruisers. The Yuuzhan Vong were already dead.
Master Yoni opened a direct transmission to Lord Paladin on the Dark Star who revealed that Antei had been taken over by Omancor Crask, a Jedi General and style-appointed Jedi Lord who had taken it upon himself to wage a new Sith War, having foreseen a coming darkness that would eclipse everything that had been seen before. Also, Paladin sensed Shan Long’s presence and issued strict orders to Lord Sadow that the sorcerer was not to be harmed until the Grand Master had personally interrogated him. Just then, Goura contacted the fleet to report his findings that the Vong ship had been infected with a strain of the Alpha Red virus – raising doubts over Crask’s claim of being a Jedi, who for years had refused to sanction the virus. However, the answers would have to wait. They had a planet occupied by a rogue sect of Force-users in command of a vast droid army. Not planning to run away and abandon their homeland a second time, the combined forces of the Army of the Iron Throne and the Clans began their invasion – their liberation – of Antei to take back what was theirs.
Unification
The Yuuzhan Vong may already have fallen but Antei was still under enemy occupation all the same. Forces from the Army of the Iron Throne deployed to the surface in two beachheads in the sunside of Narmar and the Shadowlands of Adas. While some of the Clan flew fighter cover against the droid fighters swarming across the planet, the rest deployed in dropships to the two beachheads but the landing zone in Narmar was overrun before it had even had a chance, and a rapid evacuation was launched by Goura and his team to recover Ashura Isradia and Aleho Ruoxf who had already landed in Narmar. In Adas, the second planetary beachhead was in danger of a similar fate until Malisane de Ath isolated the source transmission from the local droid control relay and organised a raid to disable it, opening a long enough window for the rest of the anti-air teams to be safely deployed.
Before the Clan could catch their breath after securing the landing zone, reports came in that FOB Spear was being overrun and the scout team was in danger of being lost. The commando unit already out at the droid bunker proceeded with haste to the Forward Operating Base to reinforce the scout unit, while back at the main landing zone the fleet deployed the rest of the mechanized division, which then moved to follow behind and rendezvous at the FOB. As the battle was unfolding on the ground, back on the Final Way Daragon was struggling to retain control of his mind, and beginning to lose it to the darkness the way Raze had. Furthermore, troubled by Daragon’s behaviour, Tsainetomo hacked into the shipboard computers and unearthed evidence that the consul had been behind the cover up of the Dystopia bombing earlier in the year. Elsewhere on the surface, Raze had not died as thought but had instead become something far worse and was now sweeping his way across the battlefield. When he ran into a team from Clan Tarentum, the two Clans went on high alert with each other. Back at FOB Spear, the droid raiding party was defeated but heavy tank reinforcements were close behind. Reinforcements were called in from Clan Taldryan and tensions ran high when Goura deliberately blew up part of the Taldryan unit in revenge for what they had done four years before during the Fall of Antei.
A number of Clansmen were captured during the battle at FOB Spear and hauled off to the nearby Jedi Command Post where, instead of killing them, Jedi Master Gelusk sought to redeem them back to the light. Zaxen Isradia’s and Zaroth Rakiroyo’s wills began to falter, but de Ath, Agrist, and Jade Atema managed to sabotage the droid IFF transponder which sent the droid forces into disarray, attacking each other as much as the enemy. Just in time, the mechanized division from the main beachhead arrived to take the battle to the haywire droids and control of the Forward Operating Base was finally re-established. With the FOB safely back in Brotherhood hands, the Clan continued further east into Antei to rendezvous with forces under Clan Scholae Palatinae’s control. There the Clan received new orders to bring in some of the enemy Jedi Generals for interrogation. At the forward camp, Goura set up several of his trademark torture devices to help procure information from the captured Jedi about the defenses guarding the other sites throughout Adas.
As the battle at FOB Spear was going on, back at the main landing zone Tsainetomo Keibatsu arrived following his discovery that contrary to everyone’s assumptions that Shan Long had killed Raze, the missing scout was in fact still alive somewhere in Adas. Sensing something amiss, the Keibatsu risked the wrath of Lord Sadow and went off mission to investigate his suspicions—although Ashura Isradia assigned Aleho Ruoxf to go with him. Deep in the desert, Keibatsu came across a raging hurricane, within which he discovered that he had been right—Raze was not dead. But the man he found was no longer Cyrus Raze. Instead the Keibatsu uncovered the horrifying truth that against all beliefs to the contrary the second traitor, Darth Vexatus, was in fact still alive, and had now taken over Raze’s body. Determined to silence the Betrayer once and for all, Keibatsu took up arms against him, but he was easily bested by the once-Sith Lord-turned-wraith. But, before the Keibatsu could be consumed, two scouts from Tarentum and four Jedi Masters arrived, seeking to investigate the hurricane as well. As the dark monster battled the six new arrivals, Aleho Ruoxf was able to recover the now-unconscious Keibatsu—and one of the Jedi who had also been knocked unconscious—and fled with them both on her swoop while Vexatus was distracted.
From FOB Spear the Clan split off into several teams to hunt down the enemy commanders, while at the camp further east tensions flared between the Naga Sadow and Scholae Palatinae forces; the two clans beginning to take the pressure and exhaustion from the prolonged fighting out on each other. Jade Atema, Alexander Anderson and Valorian; and Malisane de Ath and Agrist separately secured two Jedi captives who they returned to the eastern camp for interrogation by Goura, who thus far had not managed to procure anything further than the Brotherhood already knew—most of the Jedi choosing to die during interrogation before revealing anything. Increasingly it seemed Omancor Crask had kept many of his followers in the dark of his true reasons for developing his determination to root out all darksiders left in the Galaxy.
Back on the Final Way, Shan Long had convinced Daragon that he was no longer the enemy and that Cyrus Raze was the true threat. Ultimately, Daragon conceded that the Jedi were but one part in the escalating warfare on the surface, and that if they were to survive the coming battle they would need the sorcerer’s help. Against Lord Sadow’s orders, Daragon headed to the surface with his prisoner, determined to face the truth with his own eyes. But in the back of his mind the maddening darkness was pounding heavier still as he neared Antei’s black sands. At the main beachhead, Lord Sadow was furious with Daragon but had little time to worry about Shan Long while he still had a war to oversee. Elsewhere, Omancor Crask had abandoned the planet and headed into orbit to deal with Lord Sarin personally. The Jedi left on the surface knew that their fate was likely to end in martyrdom and became ever more desperate.
Orders were issued by General Faylen that the Clan was to proceed on the Hall of Immortals and secure it before the Jedi could burn it to the ground. It was then that Ruoxf arrived back, Tsainetomo and Jedi in tow. The captured Jedi was quickly carried off for interrogation, while Keibatsu had just the energy left to announce to the whole leadership the revelation he had encountered in the desert. With the situation escalating beyond their control, Lord Sadow, Daragon, Shan Long and all the others who had remained behind at the landing zone took to their shuttles to head to the Hall of Immortals and rendezvous with the rest of the Clan to reinforce.
The final battle erupted in the Valley of the Lost on the steps outside the Hall of Immortals when the Clan arrived to engage the Jedi and droid forces that were setting up charges around the Hall in an attempt to bring the entire structure down. Throughout the valley, further Jedi teams were already in the process of bringing down thousand year old statues and monuments. As the Clan leaders flew across the desert with reinforcements, Daragon finally began to succumb to the darkness seeking to wrest control of his mind. Desperate, he at last submitted to Shan Long’s offer of salvation, knowing that in accepting the Mark he was betraying the trust Lord Sadow had placed in him. However, as the former traitor had promised, through the Force bond they now shared Shan Long was able to shield Daragon’s mind from the psychic attacks by whatever remained of Lord Vexatus. The consul and overlord arrived just as the Clan laid siege to the Hall of Immortals itself, heading inside to take up arms with Jedi Masters Nejj Kenten, Qira Vaal and Lordien. While Goura took up arms against Lordien, Manji Keibatsu and his apprentice, Dyrra Skye, dealt with Qira Vaal and her own apprentice; and, on the roof of the Hall, Lord Sadow himself dueled the Jedi Master in command, Nejj Kenten, while Tsainetomo Keibatsu held off Kenten’s MagnaGuard defenders. Elsewhere, Fremoc Pepoi, Ekeia Iclo, Xander Anderson and Krandon Rowella set charges along the valley’s entrances to hold off incoming droid reinforcements.
As the Jedi Masters were defeated on the surface, Lord Sarin dueled Omancor Crask in the skies above. But the battle was matched, and in the end both died after the Exodus was damaged by their fighting and crashed into the surface of Antei. However, at the Hall of Immortals, the Clan managed to defeat the three Jedi Masters and their forces. But then the darkness arrived. Whatever remained of Cyrus Raze had defeated the four warriors who Aleho Ruoxf had left him battling in the desert, and had now twisted the four into mindless berserkers bent to his will. As the Clan mopped up any straggling Jedi and the last remnants of the droid forces, a hurricane swept over the valley, blanketing the Hall of Immortals in fog. The four berserkers laid siege to the Hall, engaging Daragon; Goura; Manji and Tsainetomo Keibatsu; and Jade Atema, Xander Alexander and Zaxen Isradia. The four berserkers were slain, but not at the cost of Atema being mortally wounded, and fearing that right before its death part of the berserker’s essence may have passed on into her. As the berserkers fell, Vexatus – in the body of Raze – moved against the Hall himself, the firestorm enveloping the structure as the entire Clan and much of the nearby Brotherhood forces took shelter in the basements. The final confrontation of the war took place when the entire Clan joined their minds in a Force meld led by Lords Sadow, Paladin and Shan Long to hold back the waves pounding against the building. As Vexatus’s anger grew worse, he opened a rift in the space above the Hall of Immortals, seeking to suck the entire building into oblivion—but the Clan fought back, their combined might pushing him back and wrapping him in a bubble of their own collective energy. Vexatus lost control of the storm he had unleashed, his body ultimately tearing apart as he was sucked into the pit of the black hole he had tried to unleash.
In the aftermath, much of the Hall itself was in ruins, but the Clan had survived—by working together as one. Lord Sadow recognized without Shan Long they may not have been able to channel their strength into a meld to direct against the Betrayer, and despite all that had happened two years earlier, the Battle of Lehon was at long last finally forgotten. The Clan was united. The Yuuzhan Vong had fallen. The Jedi had been slain. And Muz Keibatsu, a Son of Sadow, now sat on the Iron Throne itself as Grand Master of the Brotherhood. The war had ended and the Dark Age of lies and betrayal was finally at its end. Looking out across tthe glassed and smoking sands of the Valley of the Lost, for the first time in more than four years the Clan was finally able to look into the future with hope.
War's End (31 ABY)
The liberation of Antei saw the Clan triumphant and spirits at their highest since the original Yuuzhan Vong incursion into Sith Space almost four years earlier. Nevertheless, attacks along the Orian Pipeline still continued, straggling Yuuzhan Vong and Peace Brigade holdouts launching piratical raids from an unknown base and striking fear along the local stretch of the Hydian Way. With supply lines still under siege, contact with the outside galaxy and Corporate Sector remained difficult; further, with RePlanetHab's reconstruction of the countless worlds devastated by the war set to take years, the Corporation had no choice but to continue to host to the many refugees who had found their way to the Orian system, putting further pressure on already strained resources. As the Clan and Corporation now sought to rebuild, none suspected the Vong who Lord Jedgar Octavius Paladin had once feared to be hauled up in Tarthos's arctic—until his expedition in early 30 ABY discovered no trace—were real after all and had been making progress in infiltrating the Corporation's command while the Brotherhood had been occupied with organising the Antei operation.
Unknown to the outside galaxy, on the edges of the Tingel Arm lingered the remains of Baanu Amnan, the worldship that the Clan believed it had destroyed three years ago during the Battle of Telos. In truth, one lone Vong had managed to command the worldship's dovin basals to pull it into darkspace. Though the planetoid-sized Koros-Strohna had torn apart during the jump, the dead fragments of Domain Amnan's home had since been taken over by Varesh Shai and his armies from Domain Shai. They had since harvested it for resources to regrow a new generation of ships. The Yammka's Sword was the first, a mighty Kor Chokk grand cruiser, formed around one of the largest pieces left of Baanu Amnan and constructed around the Warmaster's existing flagship. With his allies from Amnan and various other domains, Varesh had been leading strikes along the Hydian Way for the past two years. For his devotion, and his refusal to accept that the Supreme Overlord could have fallen, the once Slayer and now self-declared Warmaster had been hailed by his high priestess, Seef Lacap as Khattazz al'Yun—the Avatar of God. With the Yuuzhan Vong Empire's collapse, Varesh had become convinced the Gods had abandoned them—and the new Warmaster set to redeem the Chosen Race by finishing the task he believed Shimrra had set before them: cleansing the Promised Land of the Jeedai heresy.
What not even Varesh himself ever realized was that he was being betrayed by one of his own: Eckla Muyel. Supposedly a low ranking intendant, Eckla was in truth Eshin Shul, the Shamed One who had been condemned to death by the Supreme Overlord after the Fall of Antei, subsequently hunted down by Drathul, the revered late Supreme Commander of Domain Amnan, and finally left for dead by the avatar of Yun-Shuno during the Battle of Telos. However, Eshin had not died and had since infiltrated the new Warmaster's court, seducing Tolok Amnan, the young new warleaader of Domain Amnan; ever since, she had been conspiring with the Master Shaper Niiriit Phaath to imbue one of the Chosen Race with the blood of a Jedi in order to gain mastery of the Force and take her revenge on the Sith who had shamed her. Under the guise of Eckla, Eshin pushed for the attack on Orian by feeding Tolok the information that would play on Varesh's desire to exterminate the dreaded Sith, who were rumored to be even more powerful than the Jedi themselves. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Eshin and Niiriit had utilised Tolok's resources to capture countless Jedi, Sith and other Force-users, torturing them into submitting to the True Way and serving Eshin as her own "Slayers", her personal warrior elite. To this end she had dispatched the Zhaetor-zhae to Antei, loaded with spinerays to corrupt the Sith if and when they finally went back to recapture their homeworld.
Sacking of Sadow Palace
The Yuuzhan Vong invasion of Orian came without warning in the dead of night. Throughout the system, agents working for Vega Incorporated, which was headed by the discredited former mayor Sylus Vega, and his deputy, Jinkil Moksuna, a survivor of the failed True Brotherhood invasion, were at long last activated, together with with Vong infiltrators, all under the command of Bur'lorr Amnan, head of the infiltration teams and one of the warrior caste's elite Hunters. In Seng Karash, Deputy Commissioner Wyla Sarn shut off Marakith Skyhook's defenses; in Kar Alabrek, Commander Ran Arnet did the same to Tarthos's grid; but it was at the very heart of the Disciples of Sadow, in Sadow Palace, where the greatest treachery of all took place. Macron Goura, former apprentice to the Betrayer, Darth Vexatus, broke into the Hive, Orian's central intelligence database, and disabled the entire system's defense network. With Orian in total blackout, the Vong armada led by Warmaster Varesh launched its attack. Peace Brigade fleets commanded by Admiral Yashais dei Izvoshra laid siege to Aeotheran, Amphor and Tarthos, trapping the Disciples of Kressh and Ragnos planetside as the Brigaders moved to capture the cities, their strike teams led by captured Jedi and Sith who had been converted to the Vong's religion in the two years since their Supreme Overlord's defeat. Vega, who had been offered Seng Karash as a reward for his part in the invasion, mobilised his militia to seize control of security check points through Seng Karash, effectively placing the city into lock down thanks to his security access from his time as mayor. Over on Tarthos, Kar Alabrek suffered the brunt of the attack head on as the Peace Brigade forces devastated the barracks and residential districts that housed soldiers' families outside the Hub in the centre of the garrison city. As most of the Clan remained isolated throughout the rest of the system, on Sepros the main Vong battlegroup laid siege to the palace, bombarding it from orbit and deploying strike teams on a one way suicide trip to slay as many Sseeth and dark Jeedai as they could find in order to redeem the Chosen Race in the eyes of their gods. The Simus Institute was slaughtered, dozens of junior apprentices falling to amphistaff fangs or coufee blades.
The chief traitor himself made his way into the hidden sanctum of the Order of the Black Guard deep beneath the palace in the ancient catacombs; there he found his new mistress's true prize: Remulus Sadow. After defeating the infant Sadow heir's guardian, Ashura Isradia, Macron took them both to an escape craft and fled to the massive Yammka's Sword in orbit before. Back aboveground, a second betrayal, this time by Delta-1, Aurek, with the help of the bounty hunter Xarask, had captured Kharon Daragon, hauling the consul away on Xarask's ship, Razorback. As the palace smouldered on fire, the surviving DSOG troopers battling the remaining Vong drop teams, victory looking impossible, until salvation arrived in the form of Fleet Admiral Araic Simonetti. The Commanding Admiral of Special Operations had raced home to Orian with the Final Way after Colonel Kal Septka of the Palace Guard had managed to get a distress call out. With the Special Operations Division's arrival, the Warmaster's main battlegroup withdrew, their primary objectives already accomplished.
Liberation may have come for Sepros itself however Admiral Izvoshra's forces remained in orbit of the colonies throughout the system. The Vong themselves may have withdrawn, their mission complete, having spilt the blood of many Jeedai already, but Sylus Vega and the other Brigaders had no intention of giving up their prize: Orian. Chaos erupted on the streets of Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek as—still in a communications blackout—the two Houses remained cut off from each other. The DSOG fleet remained stuck at Sepros, Izvoshra having announced that if the Brigade fleet was engaged he would issue a full Base Delta Zero orbital bombardment to deny the Corporation victory. On Tarthos, the Disciples of Ragnos battled the Jedi, Brigade and Vong hordes, cleansing Alabrek Castle of the infestation as the Dlarit Army battled a bioengineered colossus that had been released on the city outskirts. However, the chemical and biological organic weapons already released into the air, among them lethal Bo'tous spores and Vongspawning viruses, forced a full evacuation of the city, with soldiers' families being shuttled around the planet to the incomplete shell of the future Markosian City that had been begun under Governor Derev Niroth though was still under construct at the time, and not scheduled for completion until later that year. Fremoc Pepoi's son was captured during the attack, sending the young knight on a killing spree as he hunted down Captain Paterson, the leader of the Brigade's forces on the surface. Paterson's death bought the Dark Jedi teams the opening they needed to push the invasion forces out of the Hub, securing the city's central district. Despite the disciples' success, Ylith Atema was captured during the fighting, being hauled away to one of the lingering Vong slaveships.
Across the system on Aeotheran, Delta-32, Orenth, performed a similar betrayal to the one on Sepros, allowing the Brigade's forces onto Marakith as fire breathers assaulted the city walls. As the chaos unfolded, Malisane de Ath and Agrist used the opportunity to launch a raid on Vanise Tower against Meria Vanise, who they had unmasked as the former founding triumvir of the True Brotherhood Severina. Though Severina initially bested them, setting a resurrected Tslotha Garnath on them, de Ath subsequently lured her to a final confrontation in Dystopia, where he had planted a bomb within the head of Talorthane Zemar, the Vong he had captured back during the Fall of Antei. Unable to sense the deception, Severina had no opportunity to prepare herself for the explosion, which was powerful enough to bring down the entire tower. Marakith's tractor beams secured the wreckage, but with Orenth's betrayal the city was held to ransom, the rogue Delta-class Advanced Commando threatening to drop the wreckage on top of the Dark Jedi battling in the streets below. As the Disciples of Kressh ushered the civilians into the central Government District, setting up a triage unit in the Peace Headquarters, Tsainetomo Keibatsu infiltrated the skyhook and fought Orenth off, the DAC escaping, but the skyhook re-secured.
Peace Brigade siege
As the Vong fleet returned to Baanu Amnan out in Wild Space on the outskirts of the Tingel Arm, the fighting continued throughout Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek, the Dlarit and Brigade fleets locked in a stalemate. It was five days before the Vong left behind on Sepros had been dealt with, the wounded addressed, and Colonel Septka able to start working his way through the wreckage—within which he discovered the truth of who had betrayed them. In the ruins of the Hive, Septka discovered the digital footprints left behind by Wyla Sarn and Ran Arnet that incriminated them as the culprits who had sold the Corporation out. Septka relayed the new information to the Clansmen still trapped in Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek. As Nix Graves and Dyrra Skye made their way into the Police Headquarters to arrest Sarn, in Kar Alabrek Fremoc Pepoi and Raven went to arrest Arnet. However, none had been prepared when Sarn revealed herself to be a Vong, using the surprise to escape into the city; similarly, on Tarthos the Disciples of Ragnos were unprepared for how deep the rot went, their own security team turning against them, buying Arnet the opening he needed to escape. As Graves and Skye led their teams after Sarn, heading into the Undercity to a secret mining shaft that had been installed during Vega's time as mayor to lead to an abandoned mine, Pepoi and Raven chased Arnet into Tarthvos's arctic reaches, heading off in search of the Vong base that Lord Paladin had speculated about so long ago. The two teams respectively made their way to Vega Mine in Aeotheran's jungle and the wreckage of Obsidian Station, which had crashed into Tarthos four years earlier during the True Brotherhood invasion. Finding Vega Mine infested with Killiks, the Disciples of Kressh fought their way through the insect swarms and Vega's hired mercenaries, fighting off the corrupted Shadow Academy student Fiula Muyel along with Vega's bodyguard, Ghon; once the team reached Vega himself, they beat the access codes to reactivate Marakith's defenses, then executed the treacherous mayor. Elsewhere, the team on Tarthos battled the corrupted Jedi Knight Khalee Muyel and the Vong commander himself, Bur'lorr Amnan, to reactivate Tarthos's defense grid. During the fighting, however, William Darkfire was knocked unconscious and captured by one of the Vong warriors, who fled with the incapacitated Obelisk journeyman.
With the planets' defense networks reactivated, the DSOG fleet that had been waiting in orbit was finally cleared to engage the Brigade ships. Without the Vong armada to support them, Admiral Izvoshra's forces were no match for the advanced Dlarit warships and Dark Jedi battleteams. As the Final Way micro-jumped to Amphor to engage Izvoshra's battlesphere itself, the Kaleesh admiral signalled the withdrawal, issuing orders for all Peace Brigade ships to fall back to the rendezvous point with the rest of the Vong battlegroup in the Tingel Arm. However, Izvoshra's Nightsister-turned-Slayer, Nen Muyel, overruled his orders, informing the Patriot's Fist's Chazrach slave crew to hold where they were because Varesh had never had any intention of the Brigade surviving the battle—nor any desire for them to lead the darksiders to the hidden Vong shipyard's location. Nevertheless, as the Fist took heavy fire from the Final Way, Izvoshra took up arms against the converted Human Slayer, besting her in single combat in order to finally signal the full withdrawal, what remained of the Brigade fleet withdrawing with him. With Orian liberated, Fleet Admiral Simonetti knew they had no time to spare and that if they were to finally bring an end to the war they would need to pursue Izvoshra back to hidden base that the Vong had been striking from. Though it went against every bone in his body, Simonetti initiated Operation Rancor, the Corporation's final doomsday protocol, which authorised the use of the Violator Gas Bomb stored in the Cenota Facility on Gamuslag, a warhead loaded with enough of the pathogen to wipe out all life in an entire star system—and, unlike Alpha Red's deployment at Antei, Violator Gas was indiscriminate about what it killed. With the VGB loaded aboard the Final Way, Simonetti took what ships remained operational and headed off in pursuit of Izvoshra.
During the Sacking of Sadow Palace, Kal Septka had managed to plant a tracking device on the Ghtroc Class 580 light freighter onto which Kharon Daragon had last been seen being carried onto by an unknown Trandoshan. As the rest of the Clan headed off in pursuit of Izvoshra's straggling forces, a lone Clansmen was spared to head off in search of where the consul had been taken. The Razorback's trail led the lone Dark Jedi operative to an empty region of deep space just off the Hydian Way, where the trail promptly went dead. As the operative feared he had reached a dead end, an immense space station emerged from hyperspace, the fabled mobile criminal space city of Refuge. The Dark Jedi managed to get on board and infiltrate the city as it jumped back into hyperspace again. Followingthe bounty hunter who had taken the consul, the operative discovered he had arrive too late, and that Daragon had already been moved to another location; however, he encountered the true extent of the betrayal: Delta-1, Aurek, the very first of the thirty-four Delta-class Advanced Commandos—and the man who was meant to protect Robert Daragon at all times. After beating the information out of the treacherous commando, the Dark Jedi secured the coordinates for where the consul was to be taken and headed off in pursuit on a journey that would take him to the other side of the galaxy.
While the Special Operations fleet headed into the Tingel Arm, the operative tracking the consul journeyed to the other end of the Hydian Way to the Phare system in the Minos Cluster—the original home of the Disciples of Sadow until the Exodus twelve years before. The Dark Jedi found a ruin of what the system had once been. Without the firm leadership of then-governor Astronicus Dlarit or the resources of the Dlarit Corporation, the system had fallen into disarray, taken over by the criminal underworld. The Imperial Remnant had long since imploded, its fleet lost to warlordism and infighting. Traveling to the system's capital, Sif, the operative found the Saraii—the local Chiss offshoots— had become polarised; the name Sadow was still remembered fondly by some, but by many others it was synonymous with the viceroy and corporation that had abandoned them to the corrupt remnants of the Empire. Making his way to the capital city of Juraas-Kur, the lone operative came across a familiar name: Vega Incorporated, overseen by Vice President Jinkil Moksuna, twin to the very same Jingi Moksuna who had been slain in the True Brotherhood attack four years prior, and whose criminal and corporate power had made him into Sif's de facto governor. The rot ran deep, the Clan's enemies having united and marshalled against it together to bring down Orian, Vega Incorporated having become an arms manufacturer for the Peace Brigade fleets of Yashais dei Izvoshra that now served Varesh Shai. The lone operative fought his way inside Vega Incorporated's headquarters, battling through the ranks of mercenaries to where the consul was being held before taking up arms against Moksuna himself and rescuing Robert Daragon.
While the Disciples of Sadow had been driving the Peace Brigade out of Orian, Varesh Shai's fleet had left Orian Space, heading back out to Wild Space, believing themselves victorious. However, in the days that followed, the Warmaster grew unsettled upon his armada's return to Baanu Amnan. Still awaiting the return of the Supreme Overlord, Varesh began to question what more the Gods expected of him, having proven he was greater than even the Sith. Following the counsel of Tsaak Shai, his religious guide, he at last heeded the word of the high priestess, Seef Lacap, recognizing that the Jedi conversions and intercaste affairs of Domain Amnan had gone on long enough and that Tolok Amnan and Eckla Muyel must suffer the consequences of their blasphemy. The Warmaster issued orders to his fleet's commander, Romm Shai, that Tolok was to be relieved of command and all Amnan forces were to either to swear loyalty directly to him or else be destroyed.
As the domains' alliances were falling apart, over on the Voice of Agony Eshin Shul and Niiriit Phaath were conducting their final experiment. The pair had tried for so long, injecting Vasi Khess, Niiriit's former student, who had been shamed because of her experiments' side effects, with countless blood samples from their captured Jedi-turned-Slayers. With the blood of Remulus Sadow, son of Astronicus Sadow and heir to the Sadow dynasty, one of what the Master Shaper referred to as the Children of the the Ancients, the pair finally hoped that a pure sample would fulfill their quest for Force-sensitivity. Instead, the injection sent Vasi into shock, killing him. With Niiriit's experiment a failure, Eshin stormed out of the laboratory with her two Slayers, Shok and Krag Muyel—formerly known as Macron Goura—and headed back to the cells to retrieve Remulus and get out before she could be caught up in the unfolding battle between the two domains. After Eshin had gone, however, Vasi reawakened, tearing free from his restraints and mocking his former master for her "victory" before he incinerated her with Force lightning, declaring himself the Light of the True Way and that it was time for the Shamed Ones to rise up and claim their rightful place as the Promised Land's Gods.
As chaos unfolded on the Voice of Agony, the Patriot's Fist arrived back with the surviving Peace Brigade fleet. Infuriated, when Izvoshra contacted the Yammka, Varesh cursed the infidel admiral for returning to Baanu Amnan's location, fearing that the Kaleesh had placed the entire fleet in jeopardy and risked leading the Sith there. Taking his rage out on his high priestess, Varesh executed Seef with a lightsaber he had taken from one of the Sith apprentices he had slain, condemning her for her failure to divine the betrayal of their Peace Brigade allies. Declaring that Yun-Yuuzhan had forsaken them, Varesh announced that his armies would forever be remembered as the Yammka Vong, the Children of Yun-Yammka, the Children of War; that it was a curse their generation must carry if the Chosen Race was ever to redeem favor with the rest of the True Gods.
As Varesh was denouncing his own gods, Vasi Khess was rampaging through the Voice of Agony, liberating Shamed Ones—now declared the Gods' Chosen: the Extolled—from their forced servitude and slaying all those who had oppressed him, from warriors, to priests like the Apostle of the Undying Flame Taug Lacap. Vasi encountered the captive Ylith Atema in the cells, who had been experimented on by one of Niiriit's apprentices. Vasi battled the Sith into submission, hurling him unconscious halfway through the ship's interior into an amphistaff garden. Elsewhere, one of Vasi's other initiates was converting the captured William Darkfire into a half-alien hybrid, implanting numerous biots. As Vasi butchered his way through the ship, Eshin retrieved Remulus and Ashura Isradia from the cells, hastening to the bridge where Tolok was waiting for secure her transportation off ship—and ultimately away from Baanu Amnan forever. The ship itself was by this point in danger of breaking up, sustaining heavy fire from both the Yammka Vong and Peace Brigade fleets. Eshin reached the bridge just in time to witness Vasi's arrival, leading a pack of fellow, Shamed Ones, the now Force-sensitive Vong incinerated the entire bridge crew—Tolok along with them.
Leaping to his mistresses's defense, Shok Muyel charged at Vasi only to be struck down along with the rest. Vasi scolded Eshin as the worst of all of them, worse still than even Varesh himself, who he said at least had faith as an excuse, and condemned her Sith Slayers as heretics. Krag hurled his own wave of dark energies at the Chosen Vong, the two's attacks momentarily locking together, until Vasi got the upper hand and hurled Krag away. Vasi then reached out into the mind of the Voice of Agony, exerting his will over the thousands of biots and directing them to charge the cruiser into the side of the Yammka—just as the Dlarit fleet arrived at Baanu Amnan.
Operation Rancor
The Dlarit fleet arrived just in time to witness the Voice of Agony collide with the Yammka's Sword. Uninjured, Vasi revealed himself to the Warmaster, issuing his death threat. Varesh concluded that Vasi had been the heresy he must undo. The Warmaster gave his aide, Tsaak, leave to escape—accepting that it was his place as Warmaster to die, and Tsaak's to continue the Yammka Vong's crusade should he fall. Unlike Vasi, the collision had knocked Ashura and Krag unconscious, though Krag had narrowly managed to shield the baby Remulus from the falling debris; Eshin, however, had been buried underneath rubble, her legs crushed. When Krag came round, he initially went to rescue Eshin. However, knowing she would die no matter what now happened, Eshin revealed how she had manipulated them all; how she was not really Eckla Muyel, but Eshin Shul, the Shamed One who had masterminded the attack on the Dlarit fleet at Antei, who had betrayed them at Telos; how she had since corrupted Krag to the True Way through the spineray that had attacked him on the Zhaetor-zhae at Antei a year earlier; how she had never sought anything other than the death of all those who had shamed her, Vong, Jedi and Sith alike; and that Vasi was the weapon she had now forged to bring down both ancient religions together. As if awakening from a dream, Macron Goura finally broke free of the spineray's control, ripping it off his back before executing Eshin, then going to help Ashura and Remulus and get off the Yammka before it was destroyed in the unfolding space battle. Upon encountering one of the Dlarit teams who had by now stormed the Vong flagship, Macron put Ashura and Remulus into one of the Vong escape pods and—in spite of the proconsul's protestations—launched it towards the Final Way before anyone could stop him, then instructed them to take him to the VGB so that he could at last finish what he had started in order to atone for his role in everything that had happened.
Elsewhere, Manji Keibatsu was leading teams led by Nix Graves, Dyrra Skye, Fremoc Pepoi and Raven, who were helping transport the VGB to the Hall of Confluence in the center of the Yammka. Ylith Atema had since awakened from his duel with Vasi and was now en route after the Extolled leader, who was now also converging on the Hall of Confluence to take revenge on the Warmaster who had shamed him. As the VGB crew neared the Hall, the Warmaster himself arrived, along with his personal retinue of Hunters, and a now corrupted William Darkfire. As the journeymen battled the Hunters, Fremoc reluctantly taking up arms against his friend William, trying in vain to convince him to see reason, Manji joined up with the now freed Macron Goura and the pair of Sons of Sadow engaged Varesh. However, strong as the pair were, the Warmaster seemed virtually indestructible, his very skin immune to attack.
Elsewhere, Ylith had caught up with Vasi and the pair engaged each other again, Ylith drawing power from the curse Darth Vexatus had left him with, but still not enough to hold the Vong off. With Ylith hurled away again, Vasi continued on to the Hall of Confluence, where he finally encountered Varesh. Growing desperate, Manji and Macron held back, leaving the two Vong giants to destroy each other first. As Varesh dueled Vasi, Fremoc managed to get through to what was left of William, convincing the mutilated man to tear from off the Vong implants, ripping his own face off in order to free himself of their control. As Vasi scorched Varesh with lightning, Varesh's ceremonial Vonduun crab armor, together with the biots that encrusted his skin, began to peel off, but still the Vong Warmaster continued. It was at that moment Ylith arrived, his cursed body still empowering him when he leapt at the Force-charged Vong, battering him into the side of the VGB—damaging the warhead in the process, and spilling toxic fumes across Vasi, the Shamed One finally dissolving into a pool of blood as Macron Goura leapt at the bomb, clenching his hand around the broken valve. With Vasi dead, and Varesh's armor burnt off, Manji charged at the Warmaster again, supported by fire from Tyren Atema. The second of the Atema brothers' gunfire surprised Varesh enough for the Keibatsu, together with Fremoc, Soolin, Dyrra and Ryuk, to cleave their lightsabers through the Vong's chest, carving him into pieces.
With the two Vong finally dead, the Yammka venting atmosphere from the impact crater, suicidal Vong from Domain Amnan launching kamikaze runs along the grand cruiser's side, and the VGB venting gas, the Clan rapidly began heading back to their evacuation ships, only Macron staying behind—nobody else able to withstand the toxic gas, and the alchemist still carrying the guilt for having helped the Vong. But William Darkfire refused to see the Son of Sadow throw his life away, and—despite Macron's protestations—announced he would stay behind instead. Begrudingly, Macron handed the valve over to the mutilated journeyman and hurried off after the others, who were now battling their way through the evacuating Vong to their transports. William held out as long as his hand could suffer the burning to buy his fellow Clansmen as much time as he could, only finally letting go when two Vong arrived to investigate what had befallen their Warmaster. Declaring his Oath of Knighthood, William at last detonated the bomb, the Violator Gas spreading throughout the ship, killing everything instantly, dissolving Romm Shai on the bridge, before the Yammka collapsed through the orbit of the nearest chunk of Baanu Amnan, hitting the surface with the full force of several megaton warheads, shattering into thousands of pieces and flinging burning lumps of contaminated rock throughout the system and into every other piece of Baanu Amnan. The flaming wreckage of the Yammka slammed through the surviving Vong cruisers, splitting them in two, as well as smashing through the bridge of the Patriot's Fist and taking Admiral Yashais dei Izvoshra with it.
New Beginnings (31 ABY–35 ABY)
With the war that had waged for half a decade finally over, Clan Naga Sadow was now faced with the challenge of rebuilding. On Tarthos, with the city of Kar Alabrek rendered inhospitable, the families of the Dlarit Security Force had been left homeless. The clean-up operation by the Special Operations Group was likely to take years. Elsewhere, around the system at the refugee camps on Aeotheran, Amphor and Tarthos, the refugee populations were nearing breaking point, with resources running scarce. A problem not helped by the economic recession unfolding right across the galaxy, or the high cost of repairing the damage dealt to Seng Karash and San Korinar by the last attack by Varesh Shai's Vong remnants. As a result, the Dlarit Corporation was eager to return the refugees to their native homeworlds as fast as possible; however, like the Old Republic before it, the new Galactic Alliance was weighed down by bureaucracy, with underhanded contractors like RePlanetHab running circles around the Reconstruction Authority to steal habitable new worlds from the refugees. With no other choices, the Corporation was simply forced to maintain the system-wide quarantine that had been in place since Governor Caerick enacted it in 28 ABY, and accelerate the construction of the new city on Tarthos that had been begun by Governor Niroth in 29 ABY. For the lucky ones, a few refugees were offered spots in the security forces to replace those lost during the sacking of Orian. However, the new city was revised not as a home for the refugees, but for the displaced military families; a decision that would have lasting repercussions for years in the years to come, and become the cause of much civil unrest.
The social unrest left behind from the war was not invisible to the Disciples of Sadow, and the Overlord himself left for Antei to seek the counsel of his old mentor, Master Yoni, whom he believed might be able to help stave off the collapse that Astronicus had foreseen. Back in Orian, Kharon Daragon set about training a new generation of Black Guardsmen to protect the Clan's leaders from possible threats. Indeed, though the rest of the Clan had put the past behind them, Daragon still feared the return of the two Apostates and set about training the Black Guard for the battle he knew would one day come. However, not all the Sons of Sadow fell victim to their doubts and the new Consul, Tsainetomo, set about forging alliances beyond the Clan, reaching out to their old adversaries Clan Taldryan. Instead of a burden, Sai saw the refugee crisis as an opportunity and in exchange for Taldryan's services the Consul welcomed his new allies into Orian, granting them the freedom to take any of the refugees whom they felt could be of service to them. Being a Dark Jedi, Sai had had no quarrel with trading sentient beings as if they were no different than livestock.
Drugs, Refuge, Blah, blah (32 ABY)
[Pictured of Refuge, I think?]
The Underworld took advantage of the social collapse. Illegal narcotics were smuggled in from Refugee Criminal Space City by unknown organisation, which further caused problems making things worse for the Voice of Justice.
CARE formed as a civilian protest movement within the city.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Invasion of Salas V (32 ABY)
[Used to be a picture of Muz here]
Killiks found. DC wants help. Salas V purged. Lots of troops and Dark Jedi die. Dlarit and Sadow resources stretched even further.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Markosian Finished (32 ABY)
[Sparkly new city picture?]
Markosian finished. Refugees truly hacked off. Military base been added to Derev's original plans. Kar Alabrek still not cleaned up.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Ragnos Reborn Crisis and Stuff (32 ABY)
Anti-HMR Ragnos-people infiltrate Mucenic and cause trouble. Fremoc looks good.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Voice of Justice uprising (32 ABY)
Refugees were placed in camps on Aeotheran rebel. A superhuman called Deliverance lead the fighting, funded by corrupt Seng Karash financier. All of this was orchestrated by an unknown organisation. A clone of Bob escapes a forgotten Exodus-era facility. Kano and his squad derail a civilian train as opposed to a cargo train. Anti-Dlarit sentiments are exacerbated even further. Attempts to frame the Voice of Justice by sabotaging the city power supply goes wrong when Generation 2 explodes instead. An alien Anti-Force experiment called "Firak" is released on Aeotheran causing even more problems. Firak kills the clones as a result. Illegal arms smugglers and refugees run in-and-out of Seng Karash. During this Deliverance discovers she's nothing but an experiment and subsequently loses her sanity and wants revenge. The Voice of Justice becomes the very thing Sadow was trying to frame them as. Deliverance sets up a bomb on Isle of Lor Zatean to kill everyone housed there, but is killed by Sadow in the process. Dlarit capitalises on deaths caused by the explosion by maneuvering itself to appear as a Hero.
Ekind Uprising (33 ABY)
While everyone was distracted on Aeotheran, the Lost Tribe of Ekind takes over the Kar Alabrek ruins. From the ruins they launched an attack on Mucenic. Members of Sadow were forced to rush to Tarthos in order to defend Mucenic. This was an ellaborate ploy. Their real army assaults Markosian City during the confusion. Sadow forces rushed to Markosian in retaliation. Fremoc ordered Simonetti to destroy the Green Sector to try and kill Shan Long. This attempt failed. In the aftermath Muz chooses to let Shan Long live. The entire House falls into rage as chaos reigns within. Members of Marka Ragnos blamed Kressh for wasting their time on Aeotheran. Meanwhile, Tron returns from Antei and speaks with Yoni. Tron agrees with Muz's decision and Naga Sadow undergoes the Reformation. Clan Naga Sadow is dissolved until they are calm once more and have regained their former strength. There had been too much death already. Ekind tries to resurrect Hafa Chun in the old Ragnos Cathedral ruins. This plan is a success. Muz arrives in response to deal with the threat. A great conflict ensues with the arrival of the former Naga Sadow. Both Hafa Chun and Ekind die in the chaos with no chance of Hafa's return.
Fremoc the Errand Boy (33 ABY)
Fremoc does stuff for Shan Long. Aleho returns and goes crazy. Sunei returns. Agents from Revan return from spying on rumours about reborn Sarin for Muz. Cloning facility blown up.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Rite of Supremacy: Disorder (33 ABY)
Mike Halcyon messes up holocrons. Orders go mad. Big fight. Lasts 3 days. Not sure anymore exactly "when" this slots in; need to double check.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Clones, Curwen Sunei, Other Stuff (34 ABY)
Following the Ekind Uprising on Tarthos, it was made official that Clan Naga Sadow would become House Naga Sadow; dissolving all the houses into Battle Teams and leaving Macron Goura Sadow and Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow as the Quaestor and Aedile of the newly reformed house. The leaders chose Malisane Sadow as their House Rollmaster, as well as forming Battleteam Marka Ragnos led by Fremoc Pepoi, Battleteam Ludo Kressh led by Dyrra Skye, Battleteam Primus Goluud led by Teu Pepoi, and keeping the Night Hawks with their leader Sarconn. Fremoc eventually left for his exile, causing Methyas Pepoi L'eonheart to assume command of Battleteam Marka Ragnos in his stead. Life was peaceful for Naga Sadow until late in 33 ABY when the house's Orders were sent to Antei to fight against each other. Despite the battle lasting only a few days, it saw Tsainetomo become the new Quaestor of Naga Sadow. The members of the house returned, finding that Ashura Isradia Sadow had been murdered by his apprentice Aleho. Macron, who had stayed behind during the Order War, began an investigation while Sai pondered his replacement for Aedile of Naga Sadow. Finding out that Trevarus Caerick had released Fremoc Pepoi from his exile, Sai called upon Fremoc to become Aedile. Fremoc accepted and returned immediately, helping Sai decide that there were too many battleteams for the house and that only one was needed. The two chose that Kano Tor Pepoi was fit for the job and from him they created The Regulators. His time as Praetor to the Fist of the Brotherhood had allowed him access to special training regiments, but also having become a member of the Marked he was learning to control the Mark, causing him to spend much of his time at the Temple of Blood.
Meanwhile, Sai and Macron found Ashura's body and gave their fellow Son of Sadow a proper Sith burial, where the body was burnt. Macron, Jade, and Aisha found Aleho and began to torture the young woman in order to find that a man named Sunei had possessed her to kill Ashura. Aleho, along with Macron, told the collected Dark Jedi that Sunei was hiding in the Nifokalija mountains. Macron returned to the new Sadow Palace with the body of Ashura, leaving Sai and his apprentice Lan there with the House's Overlord, grieving for Ashura. During this time, Sai received a message from Muz Ashen informing the Keibatsu that Fremoc Pepoi was to become the Fist of the Brotherhood. Macron called upon Kano and his Regulators to help him kill Sunei on Aeotheran. Fremoc intercepted Macron's transmission to Kano and sensed that it was a bad idea for Macron to kill Sunei. He used his influence as Fist of the Brotherhood to countermand Macron's orders and to make the Regulators capture Sunei and bring him back to Camp Havoc and the Temple of Fire instead. Sai intercepted that transmission and informed Macron that the Regulators were not going to be his back up as he expected. The events which followed led Fremoc to discover this exchange through the Mark, in turn warning his brother of the change; although not before the Raptor team had made landfall. The remaining Regulators made a low-atmosphere drop from the M/CRV Reaper's Call into the mountain range to alert their out-of-contact comrades and capture the mad Adept.
The capture of Curwen Sunei went off without a hitch, on the ground at least. While en route to Sepros, the crazed Adept, used his grasp of the Force to subdue the Regulators and disable the Corvette; thus creating an army of "possessed" crew members to assault anyone that tried to stop his plans. Due to a Voodoo curse accidentally placed upon himself, Kano was unaffected when Sunei had taken control of the ship. Waking each member of his team before going after Sunei, they weren't the only ones preparing to assault the crippled Corvette. On Sepros, Fremoc and Sai had received the Soul Rippers from the House's new Rollmaster, Teu Pepoi, after a discovery that Sunei had a connection to the deceiver. Also en route to the vessel was Macron with Jade Sadow and his apprentice in a bid to rescue the Regulators. Aboard the vessel, conflict was rising between the Regulators as those with a greater connection to the Force found themselves being "possessed" by whatever Sunei had been channeling. A brief standoff between Methyas and Venator saw both Miraluka injured greatly before the connection had been severed. Shortly afterwards Kano had been possessed as well and bent on slaying his team. Before things could go from bad to worse, Fremoc had arrived with Sai and entered mortal combat with his brother to save his cousin. While Kano and Fremoc engaged each other, Methyas and Venator led the Regulators to the bridge of the corvette to challenge Sunei. In an attempt to strengthen themselves, Methyas initiated a Force Meld to give them each an edge before they entered.
The ensuing battle was as catastrophic to the members of the Regulators as the Pepoi brothers battle was to the corvette's interior. The arrival of Macron and his team, now including Kalei Basai, created a welcome repreive for the tired combatants and ended the battle swiftly when Macron withdrew the Sith Sword of Shar Dakhan and slew Sunei with it. Although he collapsed in a coma as a result of this. Jade acted swiftly, knowing the sword drew on a being's energies, with the help of those present to stabilize the Warlord as he fought a battle within against the mad Adept. Meanwhile, Fremoc and Kano continued their battle resulting in Kano's death at the hands of his brother, a small standoff between the Fist of the Brotherhood and Sai followed before resulting in Fremoc leaving Orian space for Antei and the Iron Throne. Aboard the bridge, Macron won his battle against Sunei, the mad Adept's soul getting captured within the sword as Macron rose in a bit of pain though he'd survive. Following the restoration of control for the corvette, the Regulators returned to Tarthos for the burial and memorial of Kano before Venator took the reigns of the Regulators.
Rakghoul Prague (34 ABY)
Burden, Distrust and Loathing events.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Various rebuilding things (34 ABY–35 ABY)
People doing different stuff. Need to check what. Refugee restrictions finally lifted. People allowed to go home. Calm starting to return but bad people remain on San Korinar. Galactic Alliance getting too close for comfort. Fremoc's son killed. Mike Halcyon et al. cause other problems. Jeric et al. turn pirate to keep GA away. Need to see when 34-35 happened in respect of different stories. Jedi-who-aren't-Jedi on "GA" ships. Turns out to be set-up. Unknown organisation maybe behind it again. Tow ruined cruisers back to Aeotheran to help use in building Kel Rasha.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
San Korinar Uprising (35 ABY)
Criminals, pirates and assorted lowlifes stuck on Sky City as refugees stay behind as there is no home to deport them to. Problems happen.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Invasion of New Tython (35 ABY)
Great Jedi War X.
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Horizons (36 ABY)
Editors Note: This section should be expanded by someone familiar with these events.
Historical Roll of the Summit
Clan
House
Historical
Naga Sadow was formed on January 7, 1998 by Tron Dlarit as a House of the Dark Brotherhood. On April 3, 1999, House Naga Sadow was deemed Clan Naga Sadow. Now a Clan, Naga Sadow went on to spawn three houses: House Marka Ragnos, House Ludo Kressh, and House Primus Goluud. On July 22, 2010, House Marka Ragnos and House Ludo Kressh were dissolved into the newly reorganized House Naga Sadow. On April 13, 2011; Naga Sadow was restored as a Clan of the Brotherhood on the eve of the Independence Games, a monumental occasion for the Disciples of Sadow.