Astronicus Era History

"... 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 Great Clans of the Dark Brotherhood. It currently has two constituent Houses: Ludo Kressh and 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.

For a summary of the Clan, see the Clan Naga Sadow Prospectus.

For details of the Clan's public front, see the Dlarit Corporation.

History

Ancient history

The Immortal

Lord Orian the Immortal

The history of the current day disciples of Lord Sadow, Astronicus Aurelius Sadow, begins more than five thousand years ago. In 5,100 BBY, following the death of the previous Dark Lord of the Sith, Marka Ragnos, a half-breed Sith Lord of Human and Kissai descent, defeated Simus in battle, earning the right to be crowned the next Dark Lord.

While 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 pure blooded descendants of the original group of Dark Jedi, isolated himself in the Sepros system in pursuit of immortality. There Orian transformed the native Ombi into monstrous Sithspawn, who in mourning renamed their race Ekind – meaning cursed in Ombian. Orian’s quest for eternal life ultimately proved to be in vain when Princess Hafalia Chunasca, the daughter of the murdered Ombi king, betrayed him.

The Okemi Uprising

With Orian dead, Lady Hafalia sought revenge on the Sith Empire. She abandoned the renamed Orian system and allied with the uprising then being led by the Massassi warlord Okemi. United through slavery, the Ekind and the Massassi challenged Ragnos and the rule of the Jedi-Kissai, but their rebellion was ultimately quashed and Okemi exiled to the planet Antei outside the Empire.

The Great Hyperspace War

The duel of the two future Dark Lords.

Ragnos’s death in 5,000 BBY left the Sith Empire with a power vacuum. Two Sith Lords emerged to vie for the throne: Naga Sadow, a half breed like Ragnos descended from the Jedi Exiles, and Ludo Kressh, a Kissai priest. Kressh sought to follow in Ragnos’s footsteps: to keep an iron-fisted rule over the Sith and keep the Empire stable; Sadow, who had been Simus’s apprentice, felt the opposite, believing the Empire had grown stagnant and wanted to expand its borders. The Sith Council ultimately crowned Sadow the new Dark Lord and a war erupted with the Galactic Republic. In the Goluud system, Sadow was betrayed by one of his own generals and his fleet chased back to Korriban. But in Sadow’s absence, the Council had crowned Kressh Dark Lord instead. The resulting civil war and the arrival of Republic forces saw the ultimate destruction of the Empire.

Legacies of the Dark Lords

Naga Sadow, Dark Lord of the Sith.

However, Sadow himself escaped and fled to the Yavin system where he encased himself in a suspended animation chamber to await the day the Empire could be rebuilt. While in hibernation, the Dark Lord left his son, Sadow the Younger, in charge. Cut off from civilisation, the Massassi on Yavin 4 would eventually devolve back into primitives; however, with the aid of one of the group’s last hyperspace capable ships, a single member of the Sadow line escaped to carry on the bloodline. In 4,400 BBY, Naga Sadow was reawakened by the prodigal Jedi Freedon Nadd, but slain when his new apprentice betrayed him. Several disciples still loyal to Ragnos also survived the destruction of the Empire to flee to the Karana system where they formed a small Sith cult; while a handful of Kressh’s former priests retreated to his fortress on Rhelg after interring his remains on Korriban.

Recent history

The lost heir to a forgotten empire

"The Sith Empire will burn brightly, like a supernova, dwarfing the complacent Republic. We shall hold the entire galaxy in our grasp."

―Naga Sadow

Astronicus Aurelius Sadow, the lost heir of the Sadow dynasty.

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 planet named Sif in the Phare system. His Force-sensitivity was 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.

What started out as a dream grew as Dlarit recruited various Force-sensitive outcasts to his banner, such as the disciples of Karana who gladly relocated to Loki. His visions grew more intense until the Dark Man revealed himself to be Naga Sadow, and Dlarit learnt he was his last of the Sadows, and that his true father had been a Sith cultist named Anubis Sadow. The spirit led the young Sadow heir to Yavin 4 to recover the Sword of Sadow; and then to Rhelg where he enlisted the aid of the forgotten cultists there. 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 on Frigg and became House Primus Goluud, in memory of the battle in which Naga Sadow was defeated so that none would forget the Republic’s treachery; the Karanan disciples of Loki, who became House Marka Ragnos in memory of the Golden Age of the Sith Empire; and the cultists from Rhelg, who relocated to Ullyr and became House Ludo Kressh so that none would forget Kressh’s betrayal.

Lord Khyron, the reigning Grand Master of the Brotherhood, recognised 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 after 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.

The Golden Age

"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

Trevarus Caerick, Krath sorcerer and then Consul of the Clan.

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. 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.

The Empire seizes control

"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.

Rise of the Seven

"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

Xanos Zorrixor, Sith prophet and then Consul of the Clan.

As the future of the Clan looked grim, 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 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-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.

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 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.

Kurien, the former Klind'arithi high shaman who became the self-styled "Lord of Vampires".

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.

Codeword: Exodus

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.

Orian and a new beginning

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 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 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.

Ghosts of the past

"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 neighbouring 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.

Lord Okemi, Sith King of Antei, now consumed by the Nameless Voices in payment for his "immortality".

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.

Dawn of a new family

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.

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.

History’s echoes

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.

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 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.

Kiln Tobasa, leader of the Marked.

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.

The True Brotherhood

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 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 coming darkness

"The night beyond darkness dawns when all shall surrender to dusk."

―Xanos Zorrixor

Zorrixor's visions of destruction.

Having not foreseen the True Brotherhood threat, Zorrixor realised 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. 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.

Rising tensions

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.

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.

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 enemy within

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.

Jaac Cotelin, the 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. 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 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.

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.

The approaching storm

Marakith Skyhook over the mining metropolis of Seng Karash.

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.

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 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.

Darkness falls

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 defence 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 rest of the Brotherhood was caught in a desperate fight for survival, trying to hold off the endless waves from the Vong armada.

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 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 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 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.

Anaxela Goura, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 new Special Operations Division.

The turn of 28 ABY finally saw the completion of the 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.

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.

Just some of the dangers of the Kangaras jungle.

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, Anaxela 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

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.

The Yuuzhan Vong fleet at Telos.

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 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-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.

The 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 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 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 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.

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.

Betrayal

The turn of 29 ABY saw the insidious plot Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus 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 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 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 realised 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.

An exogorth like the illusions the traitors conjured to delay the Dlarit fleet at Lehon.

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 Clan Naga Sadow. 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.

Darth Vexatus, 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 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 recognising 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 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.

Broken

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.

The 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 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. 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.

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.

Curwen Sunei, the Dark Jedi hermit found living on the 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Turning point

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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

Omancor Crask, Jedi Lord and General.

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.

Liberation

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 defences guarding the other sites throughout Adas.

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 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 Valley of the Lost.

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 duelled 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 duelled 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 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.

Fractured Mirror

The future has yet to be written.

External Links

• Clan Naga Sadow's homepage
• CNS Vision Statement website
• CNS Vision Statement video (YouTube)
• CNS Vision Statement video (Photobucket)
• Clan Naga Sadow - Ninth Great Jedi War trailer (Photobucket)