Korroth Hroth is a Consular Warrior of House Odan-Urr. He describes himself as a Jedi, a healer and a scientist. He is a Pau'an from Utapau, who has traveled the galaxy as a xenobiologist and geneticist before coming to the Dark Jedi Brotherhood in 24 ABY. In 33 ABY he renounced the Dark Side and adopted the personal motto "Servant of the Light", which signifies his dedication to aid and protect others. Despite being a Jedi and a Disciple of Odan-Urr, he is skeptical of both the Unifying and Living Force theories, and he is reluctant to simply follow his instincts. Instead he prefers to rely on his own experiences and rationalisations to determine what is right and wrong.
Character History
Utapau
City of Birth
2 BBY - 9 ABY
- "Let the councils go to war for ideals, honour, pride, justice. A soldier fights for home and hearth."
- ―Tuvon Karn
The sinkhole of Ika
Korroth Karn was born in 2 BBY in Ika, a remote sinkhole city on the Outer Rim planet of Utapau. Ika was geographically isolated and both culturally and politically distinct from the planetary Utapaun society. This contrast was best exemplified, culturally, by the city's practice of an ancient animistic cult and, politically, by the Ikan City Council's autonomous rule and historical independence from the planetary government.
With the effective collapse of the Galactic Empire in 4 ABY, the re-instituted Utapaun Committee began applying pressure on Ika to integrate into planetary and galactic society. Korroth's mother Mavane was a prominent member of the governing traditionalist party on the Ikan City Council. This party took an aggressive stance towards the planetary government's perceived encroachment, and the dispute eventually escalated into a protracted war of attrition. The Utapaun Committee imposed economic sanctions and established a blockade around the entire sinkhole, while the Ikan Civil Guard retaliated with raids and skirmishes against the Utapaun security forces. In short, an event too insignificant on the galactic scale to even breach the HoloNet, but so ruinous to Ika as to bring its citizens to the brink of destruction.
Korroth's father Tuvon was a captain in the Ikan Civil Guard. Though the child’s parents loved each other very much, they often quarreled over the war. Mavane strongly believed the Ikan people would lay down their lives for the sake of freedom, while Tuvon thought the cost of this war was too high. In 7 ABY Tuvon died while leading a raid against the Utapaun blockade. Though for a time mother and son grew closer in their grief, over the years each found their own separate ways to deal with the loss. For Mavane it was the war against the Utapauns. She poured her pain into the flames of the conflict, drawing it closer around herself, the City Council and eventually her son. For Korroth the childish question “Why?” never really left him, and this earnest need to understand his father’s death colored his quests and choices for the rest of his life. In these early years it led him into the consolation of the city’s spirit cult, where he began to discover the connectedness of the spiritual and mundane worlds.
Spirit Cult
9 ABY - 14 ABY
- "Take this altar, it is the farthest reaches of the world. Take this sacrifice, it is the navel of the world. Take this fire, it is the life of the world. Take this priest, she is the speech of the world."
- ―Recitations of the spirit cult
In 10 ABY Mavane enrolled the young Korroth in the city's Cadet Corps Academy, with the intent that he would eventually become a Civil Guard officer. Korroth took to the military education with diligence, but more out of commitment to his father's memory than any aspiration for a military career. Instead, his real devotion was to the Ikan spirit cult. Whenever he could, he would assist the revered spirit guides in healing rituals, the recitation of holy hymns and the maintenance of shrines. It was while taking part in their sacred rites that Korroth was able to immerse into the spirit world, where the energies of living beings were laid bare. He glimpsed the spiritual essence of Pau’ans and Utai and he saw that they glowed with the same light, irrespective of where they fought in the war.
An Ikan Civil Guard
The spirit cult had a strong influence on the young Pau'an's developing political position, as his social circle consisted mainly of cult initiates. The venerable spirit guides, attuned as they were to the temper of the spirit world, saw that the war against the Utapaun Committee was bringing only grief and privation. In 14 ABY Korroth joined a dissident cabal of initiates who, believing the situation to have become too dire, intended to remove the warmongering traditionalist party from the City Council. After months of planning and covert communications, the cabal led the security forces of the Utapaun Committee through an abandoned cave tunnel and into the sinkhole of Ika. The Utapaun soldiers took control of the city barracks and apprehended the members of the City Council without bloodshed.
The Utapaun Committee soon installed a provisional city administrator and lifted the economic sanctions. The blockade dispersed and the raids stopped. In their hearts the people of Ika were thankful that they were no longer committed to a bloody war. However, they could not forgive the dissidents' traitorous actions, which had slighted their civic pride. After several days of riots and unrest, the uncontrolled lynch mobs discharged their fatal justice on the young conspirators one by one, until Korroth was forced to flee Ika and even Utapau itself. He took the first starliner he could find, which headed coreward on the Rimma Trade Route.
Slave Empire
Zygerria
14 ABY - 16 ABY
The Zygerrian slave freighter
The starliner was still in the Outer Rim Territories when it was attacked by Zygerrian slavers of the Pr'ollerg Clan. The slavers seized every passenger, including Korroth, and imprisoned them in the cargo holds of their Aurore-class freighters. Korroth barely took notice of the woeful month-long journey. His mental state was such that the wretchedness of the cargo hold's slave pens was to him a mere sensory extrusion of the internal misery he was experiencing. The exile from his native city of Ika, the brutal killing of his comrades and his own mother’s repudiation had sheared all that had tethered him to the mundane galaxy. For a while the distraught Pau'an withdrew into his own self.
The slaves who survived the voyage arrived on Zygerria and were put to work on the construction of a slave master’s grand palace. The ordeals of slave labor taught Korroth to suppress the pain that he felt for being an exile of his homeworld, the contempt he bore for his captors and the hate he directed towards his own self for being in this situation. He could not afford to indulge any of these emotions; his every fiber was bent towards surviving the backbreaking, unending drudgery, the beatings of the older slaves and the punishments of the slave drivers.
In the long run, what saved him were his rudimentary skills of healing, taught to him in the form of rites and incantations by the spirit guides of Ika. Through his practice of the art he gained comrades amongst the slaves, people ready to stick together for mutual protection and support. These alliances allowed Korroth to survive day-to-day, but it was the Zygerrian slave master Yaj Pr'odek, owner of the grand palace being constructed, who released him from this brutal, soul-crushing state of existence. Upon inspecting the slave work crews in 16 ABY, she saw him performing his healing rituals on the other slaves and she bought him for her own retinue.
Queen Scintel III
16 ABY - 18 ABY
- "You know the truth, even if you will not admit it. The slave is only free when he submits."
- ―Lady Pr’odek
Lady Pro’dek and her Clan insignia
Yaj Pr'odek was the captain of the Corona-class slaving frigate Queen Scintel III. She and her crew of mercenaries, slavers and slaves raked the planets of the Trans-Hydian Borderlands for rare and exotic slaves, occasionally taking refuge in the Stygian Caldera when New Republic or First Order patrols gave chase. Korroth was assigned to assist another slave, an old Bothan named Tarc, who served the Lady as the ship’s medic. Together the two took care of captured slaves, ensuring that they were fit to travel and that they remained in good condition for the slave markets. As an experienced medical practitioner, the Bothan tutored his new pupil through the transition from spirit healer to trainee medic.
Tarc became a mentor in more than the medical sciences. It was the old Bothan who taught Korroth to recognize the Force in the ethereal energies of the spirit world. He claimed to have once been a Jedi and, though Korroth never saw evidence he could draw upon the Force himself, he showed the young Pau’an how the arts of medicine and Force healing could be woven together to restore harmony in the body of an afflicted being. He also taught Korroth a form of Jeswandi kinetic meditation. When the slaves did not perform as desired, the Lady’s choice punishment was the “hot casket,” a durasteel box in the frigate’s engine room. Tarc and Korroth used these Jeswandi meditation techniques to restore function to their bodies after enduring the casket.
Korroth’s curiosity about the nature of the Force was not entirely sated by these more practical applications. Even though it was his slave prison, the Queen Scintel III had expanded his horizons immensely. From the surface-bound view of Utapau to the galaxy-spanning vistas opened by hyperspace, Korroth finally saw that the Force was a universal principle which bound all life as one. The Pau’an wanted to understand how this omnipresent energy guided beings, shaped cultures, drove conflict and peace, so he drank in every one of Tarc’s stories about the Jedi, the Sith and their ancient wars. It was in this manner that Tarc introduced Korroth to the concept of the Force as cosmic will. It was the Force, he preached, which placed beings into the place and time that best prepared them for their destiny. Of his mentor’s teachings, Korroth was least content with this one. He was a slave, and his labor helped his slavemaster to make more slaves. He could not see how this life could rise to any form of destiny; though, at the same time, he was certain there was no other place in the galaxy for him but this one.
Felucia
18 ABY - 20 ABY
- "One breath. Tree, flower, rancor, acklay, kinsfolk. One breath. One life."
- ―Felucian Shaman
The Queen Scintel III on Felucia
In 18 ABY the Queen Scintel III began surveying the planet of Felucia for potential slaves, acting on a commitment signed with a secretive group of Force users from the Esstran sector. Lady Pr’odek sent Tarc and Korroth to the surface and charged them with finding a rumored tribe of jungle Felucians and determining their suitability for the slave market. Left to their own devices in the dangerous and primitive jungle, the two slaves had no choice but to seek out the Felucians. Over the course of two years the slaves gained the trust of the tribe and came to live in their encampments. In their role as healers they built a close rapport with these people, learning to participate in many aspects of their vibrant lives and social habits. Korroth saw himself naturally drawn to their shamans’ rites and ceremonies. From the little he could perceive and interpret, the Felucians appeared to be mere instances of a single unity that encompassed their whole tribe, the jungle, maybe even the whole planet. The young Pau’an felt this was the key to unlocking a higher truth about the Force, but in the end this opportunity escaped his grasp.
The Queen Scintel III launched its attack in 20 ABY. Tarc and Korroth had long foreseen their slavemaster’s return, but their preparations were to no avail in the end. Lady Pr’odek destroyed the tribe’s encampment, seized all the healthy Felucians that survived and took Tarc and Korroth back onto the slave frigate. The two implored the Lady not to leave the surface. They felt sure that the Felucians would not survive being severed from their planet, but Lady Pr’odek had no wish to squander her investment, and Korroth thought he also sensed a great deal of fear surrounding her mysterious contractors. Willing to suffer no further dissent, the Lady shackled Korroth and threw Tarc back into the jungle, before taking to hyperspace towards the Stygian Caldera.
Without the old Bothan’s steady guidance things seemed to escalate too quickly for Korroth to handle. The Felucians, driven insane by hyperspace, broke free of their cages and rampaged through the ship. The crew managed to maintain control until they faltered into an unknown system of the Esstran sector, whereupon the Felucians stormed the bridge and the frigate crashed onto a deserted planet. Somehow Korroth survived, though on the brink of senselessness. Moments before he blacked out he glimpsed starships moving in on the wreckage.
Dark Jedi Brotherhood
Lyspair
20 ABY
The Shadow Academy on Lyspair
Korroth awoke in a medcenter of the Shadow Academy on Lyspair. He was greeted by an envoy of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, who laid out the state of affairs for him. The Pau’an was given the choice to leave the system as soon as able, but never to return, or to stay and learn to walk the Tripartite Path in service to the Brotherhood. The Pau’an’s first thought went to his mentor. If he left now there was still a chance that he would find the old Bothan alive on Felucia, however slim the probability given the destruction wrought by the Queen Scintel III. On the other side stood the Brotherhood, a portal to untold wisdom and the deepest secrets of the Force. To be offered such an opportunity, the chance to be a part of the act by which the Force comes to know itself, surely this was what Tarc had meant by “the will of the Force”?
Once again the young Pau’an saw his past severed and cast off, but this time relinquished by his own choice. Though now he was too lost in the turbulence of the moment to see it, this decision would leave a deep scar within Korroth. Nonetheless, it was in 20 ABY, in the reign of Grand Master Jac Cotelin that Korroth was inducted into the Dark Brotherhood as an initiate of the Krath Order.
His days on Lyspair were spent perusing the vast knowledge base of this composite and intricate organization. The histories of the great and powerful of the Brotherhood, their command and arcane comprehension of the Force, galvanized the callow Journeyman and gave him intemperate aspirations. Soon he was ready to depart the Academy and take service in one of the great Clans. He transferred to Kapsina and Clan Plagueis, where he hoped to understand more clearly what his own path in the Brotherhood would be.
Kapsina
20 ABY
- "I foresee great and wicked things in the future; we will continue our path of destruction throughout the Galaxy."
- ―Jac Cotelin
The Dark Tower on Kapsina
Under the Consulship of Battlelord Aabsdu di Plagia Dupar al'Tor, Clan Plagueis was an excellent introduction into the wrangling politics of the Brotherhood and its Sith overlords. Though three years had passed since the so-called "Dictum of Two Skies" which had merged the declining Clan Satak Keto and Clan Exar Kun into the current Plagueis, the turbulent ripples of the event still colored the interactions of the Clan's Dark Jedi. In observing the internal acrimony of the Clan, Korroth could reflect on how the whole Brotherhood maintained its effective unity. How could a gathering of self-serving dark side zealots, divided into rival power-vying Clans, hold together and not be destroyed from the inside? Korroth's pondering was partly answered when Grand Master Jac Ae-Sequiera Cotelin Taldrya-Cantor abdicated the Iron Throne and nominated Deputy Grand Master Aristan Dantes as his successor. The latter's ceremony of ascension to the Iron Throne as Darth Sarin demonstrated to the awestruck Journeyman the heights of power that an individual could attain through the Force, and how this individual could drag the whole Brotherhood structure up into its current shape.
In the Antei Combat Center Korroth learned the fundamentals of lightsaber combat. Using a training saber, he practiced under Archpriest al'Lan Mandragoran and then with Combat Master Dalthid, who finally accepted him as a Neophyte of the Combat Center. In practicing the simple movements of Banlanth, Korroth learned the value of focus and awareness of one's own body. He began using the basic katas as a way to center on the self and refine his connection to the Force.
During 20 ABY the Plagueis Clan Summit pushed efforts to document and gather intelligence on the Crimson Tide, an organization of pirates that had tormented Clan Plagueis since its inception. Korroth took a minor assistant role in the forensic pathology section of the research team led by Proconsul Valerian di Plagia Orzon. The Journeyman's role in this information-gathering enterprise was relatively insignificant, but it helped him to grasp that knowledge gave as much of an upper hand against the enemy as superior weaponry and tactics.
Scholae Palatinae
Antenora
20 ABY
- "When the enemy comes for you, it will not be simulation. It will not be when you are ready. When he comes for you he is sure of your death. Will you be sure of his?"
- ―Darth Sarin
An alien ship over Suzel
Towards the end of 20 ABY, while the Brotherhood fleets gathered near the Shroud to celebrate the conclusion of a series of military exercises, Korroth was sent to the Cocytus system as part of a diplomatic mission to instigate rapprochement between the Clans Plagueis and Scholae Palatinae. When the Pau’an arrived on Antenora he found that all contact with the fleets in the Shroud had been lost, and, as the capital city Suzel began evacuation, he realized that the Clans and the Cocytus system itself were under attack. He fled south but lost his way in the deserts of Batnare while strange starships flew towards the cities of the Northern Oasis. The Ser Gaa, a nomad tribe on their mammoth byerua, found him moribund and took him in.
The Ser Gaa had nursed Korroth back to health by the time Scholae Palatinae had Reclaimed their system from the alien invaders. The Krath returned to civilization but did not take the flight back to Kapsina. Maybe it was the venerable dignity and camaraderie of House Acclivis Draco, or the allure of Antenora’s desert mysteries and the secrets of the Cocytus Empire, but he decided to remain and join the House of the Rising Dragon. He felt that the answers to many pressing questions would lay in unpicking the tapestry that interwove the primitive Antenorans, the Dark Jedi of Scholae Palatinae, the Empire and the Force.
Claw of Suffering
21 ABY - 22 ABY
- "We stand as one House united."
- ―RevengeX Palpatine
Since the alien invasion and the loss of Antei and so many of the Clans' assets in 21 ABY, the Dark Council had been working to reinforce and replenish the beleaguered Brotherhood. In 22 ABY Grand Master Sarin announced major reforms concerning the dissolution of the Society of Envoys and the empowering of Journeymen, in the form of mass-produced armory lightsabers. Evidently the echelons of power wanted to prepare the Brotherhood for further engagements with the alien invaders.
In Clan Scholae Palatinae the responsibility of training and developing the Journeymen shifted towards the Rollmasters and to individual mentoring by the Equite and Elder classes. It is thus that Korroth became Prelate Lucien's apprentice for a time. The Prelate coached Korroth in the use of his new armory lightsaber in the training halls on Judecca. For the first time the Journeyman came face to face with the terrifying expediency and compressed ferocity of Vaapad, which his master used with great proficiency. In this time Korroth came to see lightsaber combat as more than a means to violence. It was a way to challenge, test and control both internal and external conflict.
RevengeX Palpatine
In this year Korroth had the honor to serve as the Claw of Suffering, Order of the Dragon: Third Class. The prestigious Order of the Dragon functioned as the Quaestor's personal guard on Antenora, protecting the Dragon's Citadel from threats external and internal. Quaestor RevengeX had instituted the Order in 20 ABY in response to the insidious Sith menace of Acclivis Draco's rival sister House Caliburnus. When RevengeX appointed Korroth in 22 ABY, the priority had shifted to domestic planetary threats.
In his duties as the Claw, Korroth familiarized himself with the intricate politics of the Antenoran locals. The ruling tribes of Li Gandor jostling for power, the vanquished remnants of the Ognerate dreaming of the glory days, the mysterious practices of the Nogarsh Hatzate, the desert nomads struggling with the pace of industrial development. Each of these could spawn a suicidal native with a vibroshiv or a well-placed bomb, and the only way to prevent this was to become intimately familiar with the tempers and expectations of the Antenorans.
It was in the course of these investigations that Korroth first encountered a drug called Hatwa. This illegal hallucinogenic substance was apparently being sourced from the planet itself. Over the years he spent on Antenora Korroth would recognize the huge cultural and social significance that this drug had for the natives. The Pau’an also became acquainted with the Haka Lakuis of Patz-Ah. This martial tribe held the greatest military responsibilities of the three Northern Tribes. With their connections to the security forces of many Antenoran cities, Korroth became a close associate of several soldiers from this tribe.
Ser Gaa
23 ABY - 24 ABY
Woven fabric of Ser Gaa workmanship
In 23 ABY Korroth’s period of active service as Claw of the Order of the Dragon came to an end, but the Krath felt the need to continue his investigation of Antenoran cultures. By travelling into the Sea of the Rising he hoped to observe a section of the population that had minimal contact with the Dragon’s Citadel, and therefore displayed a stronger resemblance to the “original” Antenorans, the ones that existed before the arrival of the Cocytus Empire.
Korroth encountered a number of tribes on the edges of the Sea of the Rising. He would travel with them for a span, observing their customs and practices, then he would join the next tribe they stopped to trade with, offering his healing craft in exchange for their hospitality. In this manner, he once again ran across the Ser Gaa, the Antenorans who had rescued him on his first stay on the planet. For several months the Pau’an lived the lifestyle, culture and traditions of this tribe. He learned of their complex social structure and hierarchies, their devotion to their patron deity and their vital relationship with Byeru-Tara, the titan tortoise on which they followed the seasonal underground tides of the Sea of the Rising. Korroth wanted in some way to return the tribe’s generosity and care of three years ago, but he knew so little about them that he could not find a way to do that. By travelling with them he hoped to acquire this knowledge through observation and osmosis.
The Krath’s most significant finding was that, contrary to his original assumptions, the nomads of the desert were greatly affected by the presence of the Empire. According to the Ser Gaa’s mabrigashi the glory days of the tribe were long over. No longer the huge hosts of tribespeople, the vast byut herds and the many byeruas. The Dragon Treaty of 13 ABY, by outlawing Hatwa and impeding its distribution, severely disrupted the social structure of the nomad tribes. For these Antenorans the drug Hatwa played a crucial role in their social cohesion and their religious practice. When its supplies ran dry, the people of the Ser Gaa became divided and less able to cope with the hostility of the desert. Many left the Sea of the Rising and migrated beyond the Dragon’s Teeth, following rumors of stockpiles of Hatwa in Ognen. Those who remained and survived the throes of Hatwa withdrawal rallied the tribe and struggled on. Over the years their numbers continued to diminish as the youngsters left to seek a supposedly more stable life in Zef Demoht.
Unification War
24 ABY
The Shadowlands of Antei
The Pau’an returned to the Dragon’s Citadel in 24 ABY, where internal and interstellar developments were causing commotion in every circle. The House—and, indeed, the whole Cocytus system—had recently been plagued by unrest and seditious activity from local populations, even to the point of attempts on the Quaestor’s life and acts of sabotage at the Silvia Industries headquarters. However, the Clan’s attention had already turned towards Antei, distracted by signs that the time to reclaim the Brotherhood’s homeworld was drawing near. Towards the end of 24 ABY, the Grand Master finally summoned the fleets of the Clans for the retaking of Antei. In a move probably calculated to reduce the possibility of inter-Clan conflict, Darth Sarin ordained that only the Dark Jedi of the Clans could set foot on the surface of Antei, supported solely by the Armed Forces of the Iron Throne, rather than the individual Clan militaries. Korroth was onboard the ISDII Warspite when the assembled fleets navigated through the Shroud and broke into the Antei system. They found only the empty husks of the alien invaders’ organic warships, and down on the planet they were not confronted by Force-devoid fiends but hostile Jedi and battle droids.
Korroth was sent as a “Foxtrot Uniform” to assist a squadron of the 13th Starborne Division in their push towards the Tomb of Okemi on the surface. Having secured the north entrance of the tomb, the Pau’an was instructed by his Clan Summit to hold his position until Palatinean reinforcements arrived, but in that interval a Journeyman from Clan Naga Sadow approached and demanded entrance. Korroth had no intention to give up his own Clan’s advantage—the opportunity to probe the secret knowledge inside the tomb was not to be missed—and a violent altercation ensued. The intervention of Iron Throne troopers put a stop to the quarrel, and Korroth retreated to a forward command post where he spent the rest of the engagement treating casualties coming in from the frontline.
The campaign on Antei ended with the death of both Darth Sarin and the Jedi leader, Omancor Crask, followed by the ascension of Muz Keibatsu Sadow, now Darth Ashen, to the Iron Throne in the restored Dark Hall. For his part, Korroth received a battlefield promotion for his efforts, but he gained much more besides that in terms of understanding the Brotherhood. The dark side of the Force gave the Clans the clout to overpower their enemies, but to him the bout with the Sadowite Journeyman was evidence that it was not a sustainable model. This first-hand experience persuaded him that the Brotherhood tended only towards division, and any semblance of unity was perhaps only an illusion.
The Cause
24 ABY - 25 ABY
After the Unification War Emperor Occasus embarked on a series of large-scale public infrastructure projects, aimed at appeasing the populace of the Cocytus system, who had been expressing unprecedented levels of public discontent. Despite the Emperor’s efforts, an insurgency called the Cause had gained ground amongst the malcontent, staging acts of sabotage, riots and bombings against the Imperial authorities on Judecca and the House planets. The rebel group had hooks in the Dragon’s Citadel itself, allegedly. A Sith Warrior’s attempt to usurp Quaestor Tra’an Reith’s position was linked to the Cause. The culprit, a supposed Sorcerer of Rhand, failed in his thrust for power, but he fled with two Journeyman followers.
At this time Korroth was in the south of Antenora helping to gather resources for the construction of a new operational base for his battleteam the Ebon Cloak. News of the attempted coup came to him over the House holofeed, but he could see with his own eyes the general state of restiveness in the Antenoran population. He travelled often between the construction site and Nas Modeh, where the battleteam sourced much of its commerce and workforce. Though it was difficult for a stranger to interact with the Soba Karemu themselves, the city was a nucleus for the trade of all the Southern Tribes. All these people had lost something in the Dragon Treaty, and the rumors of a force willing to oppose the Cocytus Empire spread like wildfire among them. Though it was doubtful that Antenora as a whole would be better off without the Empire, it was easy for market-square demagogues to hook onto the grievances of the Southern Antenorans.
These observations pushed him, in 25 ABY, to embark on a long-term study of Antenora’s main urban centers. By refining the Empire’s appreciation of Antenoran culture, religion and social issues, Korroth hoped to give Acclivis Draco the tools to bring peace and stability to the planet. He did it also to satisfy his own curiosity. He felt that exploring how the Force worked through Antenora and Scholae Palatinae to form the structure of the Empire would help him to reflect on his own connection to the Force.
Li Gandor
25 ABY
The research project began in the three cities of Li Gandor, the Northern Oasis. Suzel and Wekraneh taught Korroth how the Dragon Treaty of 13 ABY had carried the Northern Tribes to their current seats of power. These two beautiful, wealthy and opulent cities were the physical representation of the Northern Tribes’ ascendancy on Antenora. They were the apogee of what the Northern Antenorans had achieved with the backing of the Sith. However, that was the crux of the matter in the Pau’an’s eyes. Without the Empire, Hoka Dachu and Malar Denovi would be nothing. Their rulership of Antenoran lands south of Li Gandor rested entirely on the Cocytus Empire’s conquests in 13 ABY. Their control over the Southern Antenorans was merely by virtue of the blaster, supplied by Acclivis Draco for use against a largely pre-slugthrower population.
In addition to this, the Krath perceived a deep cultural, economic and spiritual divide between these tribes and the Southern Antenorans. The wealth disparity in itself was obvious, but it was also a compounding factor in the growing secularity of the Northern Tribes. Their striving for cosmopolitanism with Imperial and Galactic society drove them further away from their more conservative Antenoran cousins. This made it more difficult for them to relate to the issues and anxieties experienced by the Southern Antenorans, Korroth judged, and therefore less able to govern them successfully.
The situation was different in Patz-Ah. Korroth was well acquainted with Tribe Haka Lakuis, and he knew them to be of a very practical and efficient strain. Ever since his term as Claw of Suffering three years ago, the Pau’an had been practicing martial arts in the dojos of the city’s Academies of War. The Tribe hosted doyens from all over the galaxy. Combining their expertise with the tribe’s own traditions they developed a style resembling Shadow Step. The style was well-suited to their work in security, policing and peacekeeping, with its rapid and non-lethal techniques for subduing opponents.
Haka Lakuis had never lost its martial disposition, but it was this ability to adapt, remodel and innovate that made their rulership of eastern Antenora so effective. However, they still suffered from the same cultural estrangement of the other Northern Tribes. Over the years, this had forced them to rely increasingly on oppression and violent suppression of rebellions, methods which, in Korroth’s mind, could not be considered long-term solutions. With these disturbing observations, the Pau’an abandoned Li Gandor for the planet’s desert lands, where he hoped to plumb the depths of the gulf between the ruling and the ruled of Antenora.
Zef Demoht
25 ABY
Clambering up the slopes of the Peaks of Fire, Zef Demoht stood as proof and commentary to the wealth of Tribe Malar Denovi. The Pau’an went into the city unannounced, thus avoiding the prearranged tour of the industrial parks and the Glamiavad estates. Instead, passing off as an occupational health inspector, he snuck into the miners’ ghetto. It was while traversing its black, dust-laden alleys that he recognized the distinctive woven textiles of the Ser Gaa. He had encountered a Quod of the tribe, one of the groups that had left the desert in search of a less uncertain life in the city.
What they found was backbreaking, unending labor. Their every waking hour was spent toiling in the smelting plants and mines. Their most unbearable thought was that they saw no prospect of their situation ever changing. When Korroth chanced upon them, he found a broken people. Many times they had considered escaping the city, but their shame at having abandoned the Tribe sapped their resolve.
Korroth knew well the tendency of these people to endure hardship rather than take arms against it, but he also knew that the Ser Gaa only drew sorrow from the division of its people. The diaspora of young Antenorans had sapped the nomad tribe’s strength and ability to live in the desert. It was not easy to convince the miners in Zef Demoht of this fact, but once the Knight revealed his plan to escape the city they found their courage and accepted his help.
In his fictitious capacity as health inspector, the Pau’an went to the Glamiavad Antenorans who oversaw the miners’ ghetto and notified them of an outbreak of plyridian fever. The overseers, far from establishing a proper quarantine, fled the miners’ settlements and left the workers to their own devices. There was nobody to sound the alarm when the Ser Gaa followed Korroth out of the city during the night. They made straight for the Sea of the Rising. In the light of the dawn the Glamiavad watchposts spotted the fugitives, and a squad of company mercenaries gave chase, but the Ser Gaa shook them off in the vast Batnarean expanse.
Even as they headed towards the migratory trail of the parent tribe, the once-abject miners celebrated their new freedom. Korroth was not so exuberant. News of his seditious stunt would likely reach the Dragon’s Citadel, and there it would undoubtedly be interpreted in the light of the Cause insurrection. The Pau’an had no wish to be associated with rebels, but he felt he had embarked upon a path which brooked no deviation. The policies of the Empire’s Sith leadership had placed an untenable strain on the planet. With the balance of power so abominably skewed towards the Northern Tribes and against the Southern ones, any appearance of order could be naught but a screen, a temporary illusion sustained by violent oppression. Korroth could not do much about exalted Imperial policy, but he could put his faith in Acclivis Draco. The House had always been strong in the traditions of the Krath. The Pau’an knew that the knowledge of Antenora he was gathering would grant the Dragon’s Citadel the power to mend the planet’s societal fractures. His next destination was the shatterpoint of Antenora’s disharmony.
To Ognen
25 ABY - 26 ABY
The return of the expatriate Quod to the mother Tribe was cause for great festivities. All was forgiven and forgotten in the joy of reunion. Byeru-Tara was bedecked in banners and brilliant streamers, and the tribe danced and blared their horns around her feet. In the midst of the celebrations, the emancipated Quod gave Korroth a gift, a translucent gem which they had dug out in the deep Zef Demoht mines. In Korroth’s hand the gem radiated a violet light, revealing that it was the last lightsaber component the Krath had been looking for, a kyber crystal. The Quod had long kept it hidden in their hovels in Zef Demoht. They had never found the fortitude to use it to buy their way out of the miners’ ghetto. It was the Pau’an who had given them the courage to retake their own destiny, so the gem rightly belonged to him, they stated. Korroth took the crystal and the saber components and assembled his weapon in full sight of the Tribe. He dedicated its first ignition to them as a gesture of comradeship.
The celebrations eventually turned to a ceremony of past-recital. This was a solemn and treasured ritual, because no Tribe could be truly reunited until its members shared entirely in each others’ past history. Korroth also participated. He recounted the events of the past two years, his escapade with the Naa Ugo, the war on Antei, the construction of the Sedes Doctrinae, the rise of the Cause and his investigation of the Antenoran cities.
On this, the Ser Gaa offered their help. Several of their Drushi (family groups) still had relatives in Ognen, lost to them during the post-Dragon Treaty diaspora. If Korroth followed them to Ognen and helped them return the lost Ser Gaa into the fold of the Tribe, they would use their connections in the city to aid him in his research. This was an extraordinary opportunity for Korroth to advance his project, as Ognen was, to his knowledge, the source of the Hatwa and the center of the planet’s discontent.
Zetora
26 ABY
Six Druruni (Drush fathers) made the journey with Korroth to Ognen. The city’s white towers were prison to Tribe Pacre Datship, and the Haka Lakuis were their jailors. However, the Druruni were headed to the Zetora slums, which sprawled lawless and ungoverned at the feet of the prison towers. The group found the lost Ser Gaa beneath the tower of a lesser Quod of Pacre Datship. The twoscore-or-so Antenorans lived in woeful poverty and squalor. Their shame at being found in this state turned to anger when the Druruni explained their reason for coming to Ognen. The Zetora Ser Gaa had no intention to rejoin the Tribe. The only bond they felt was amongst themselves; when they consumed Hatwa they transcended the suffering of their separate lives and became as one greater entity. They believed they could not survive without the Hatwa.
The Druruni were shocked to learn that the drug was still in circulation. Not so Korroth, who had seen it smuggled all across southern Antenora. The words of the Zetora Ser Gaa gave a pale reflection of how the Cult of Hatza must have shaped Antenoran communities before 13 ABY, but their wretched condition now was undoubtedly an abhorrent perversion of the entheogenic origins of the drug. Nevertheless, Korroth’s and the Druruni’s exhortations to return to the Sea of the Rising did not sway them.
The Druruni headed out of the city, resigned to the failure of their mission. Korroth, however, did not give up yet. He sneaked back into the slums and observed the Zetora Ser Gaa from a distance. Eventually, the twoscore of them made their way to the foot of the prison tower, where they met an unknown Antenoran figure. Korroth, having followed them, spotted dozens of prison wardens closing in on them. He stepped in and instructed the Ser Gaa to flee and find the Druruni outside the city. The mere sight of his ignited lightsaber was sufficient to give the Ser Gaa and their unnamed acquaintance a head start. Once they were clear, the Knight allowed himself to be captured by the Haka Lakuis soldiers.
Hatwa
26 ABY
His sojourn in the Ognen prisons did not last long. In his time as Claw of the Dragon, the Krath had made connections amongst the senior officials of the military and law enforcement of Patz-Ah. All it took was a comm-call and a promise to return the favor, and he was free to go. He caught up with the Zetora Ser Gaa, who had joined the Druruni on their way to the mother Tribe. With the wardens now on the lookout for them in the city, they had no choice but to leave for the Sea of the Rising. The mysterious Antenoran now travelling with them, they revealed, was the Pacre Datship tribesman who had been supplying them with the Hatwa.
The journey was not clement on the Zetora Ser Gaa. Within a day they started to show withdrawal symptoms, which only grew more pronounced as they kept travelling. The Pacre Datship tribesman could not help them, as he had lost all his stache of Hatwa in their escape, and Korroth was struggling to keep them alive. Their long-established state of malnutrition was a severe aggravator of the dehydration caused by the drug withdrawal. The Krath estimated that more than half would not survive the trip. He needed to formulate a detox therapy to relieve their withdrawal symptoms, but for that he required Hatwa.
When the group entered the Mod valley, with Haka Lakuis patrols increasing in frequency, they suddenly turned North into the Dragon’s Teeth. The danger of recapture by Lakuan search parties had pushed the Pacre Datship tribesman to reveal the true origin of Hatwa, which, as Korroth had already begun to suspect, was not Ognen.
Aknah
26 ABY
The Pacre Datship tribesman guided the party through treacherous mountain passes, to the western valleys of the Dragon’s Teeth, and then northwards to Aknah. The ruined city was desolate, but not abandoned. The priests of the Nogarsh Hatzamin still discharged the old rites and traditions of the Ognerate, and it is with them that Korroth sought the wisdom to save his comrades. He made a deal with the distrustful priests: in exchange for what knowledge and assistance they could give, the Krath would work to keep their illegal activities hidden from the Empire. The Nogarsh Hatzamin taught Korroth the secrets of Hatwa, and Korroth used this new learning to wean the Zatori Ser Gaa off the addictive drug. The process was a long and difficult one and, despite the Pau’an’s best efforts, not all of them survived.
The Ser Gaa were Korroth’s friends, and he had seen them endure hardships that would have shattered any other people. Though he did not seek a scapegoat for their problems, he felt that his conversations with the Nogarsh Hatzamin gave him insight into the complex causes from which these hardships arose. They delivered to him many of the secrets that surrounded Hatwa, the defunct Ognerate and the foundations of Antenoran culture. Through this knowledge, it became clear to him that the Cocytus Empire professed its imposition of order and peace as its creed, but in fact it functioned by demolishing Antenoran societies and dividing tribes and peoples. Korroth observed that the tribal Antenorans, left to their own devices, found harmony with their world and with each other through their deep connection with their deities. Conversely, the interference of foreign empires (the Haka Lakuis, the Ognerate, Scholae Palatinae) worked to destabilize and weaken the tribes, targeting their spirituality and their unity.
House Scholae Palatinae
Spring Games, Antenora Cities Project, RoS:Disorder.
House Odan-Urr
Harakoans, GJWX.
Clan Odan-Urr
Between Light and Dark, Homecoming, Battle Formations
Korroth of the Karn
102 BBY to 85 BBY
Korroth set up residence in a cavern in the Med Zathruma South of Ezzekieli land, where he would be able to carry out his experiments for the most part undisturbed. Tribe Ezzekiel sent him supplies regularly, and he had managed to organize a group of tribesmen to dedicate their time to constructing the instruments he needed to carry out his experiments. However, he was not completely satisfied, as the tribe simply did not have the technical knowledge to craft the more complex apparatuses he required. Eventually he was able to have Chieftain Udhren send a delegation over the Med Zathruma to travel to the Tarbaur sinkholes (Korroth could not go himself as he was still in exile from that place). There, with the permission of the Tarbauri, they copied the scientific texts written by Tuvon's scientists and drew schematics of scientific tools and devices, which they brought back to Korroth. They also brought back news on what had occurred since Korroth's exile. It seemed that each sinkhole now had its own separate government, and some sinkholes were even split between two authorities. Tensions between the sinkholes had grown drastically, and war threatened to break out soon.
This account did not trouble Korroth very much, since events in Tarbaur would not affect him now that he had what he wanted. Using the texts and schematics from Tarbaur he was able to set up experiments that took up his time for several years, but which in the end advanced his knowledge enormously. Tuvon's scientists in Tarbaur had mainly been concerned with research that had practical uses, but Korroth delved much deeper than them, especially in the fields of chemistry and biology. The tribesmen that were in contact with him believed him to be practicing arcane arts and mystical rituals, but Korroth was using and developing the rational reasoning, the objective interpretation of results and the firm respect of facts that would be essential to him in his future scientific pursuits. During this time he also gained a reputation as a healer; he himself encouraged tribesmen to bring their ill or injured relatives to him, as this provided the opportunity to study a myriad of interesting diseases and conditions. He was even able to carry out quite risky experiments on them; the other tribesmen hardly noticed because normally someone who fell ill was fated to die anyway.
To clear his mind, Korroth often went on long excursions through the Karnashu, the lifeless desert West of Ezzekieli land. Apart from honing his survival skills and tempering his resilience, he found that if he had been pondering on a difficult question for a long time, sometimes the answer became clear while he travelled the desert. In 93 BBY, when he had been particularly troubled by a set of results from one of his experiments, he found a small oasis far into the Karnashu and stayed there for almost an entire year, until the explanation suddenly came to him one morning. Because of these jaunts, and because of his seemingly unemotional demeanor, the Ezzekieli tribesmen came to call him "Korroth of the Karn", which literally means "of the Dry Sand". Karn was the name of the sterile sands of the Karnashu, and in the language of the tribes, "dry" was used to mean "cold", "emotionless" and possibly "heartless". Korroth thought that this nickname suited him well, so on one of his trips he travelled to the Med Ushibri, where so many years ago he had incised his initials on his rite of passage. After he found the place where he had carved them, he added two lines to the Sazareli glyph for "H", so that it now read "KK".
85 BBY
During the year 85 BBY, Korroth's studies were persistently interrupted by sightings of giant wedge-shaped metallic objects flying in the sky higher than any dactillion. Many tribes reported missing tribesmen, and in the fifth month of that year the whole of Tribe Crabwa disappeared, leaving behind only crushed tents and a few dead bodies. After that event, Korroth remained in the Ezzekieli camp in the hope of spotting himself one of these strange phenomena. His wish was fulfilled when one of the giant metal objects landed just outside the camp on the 12th day of the 7th month of 85 BBY, in a great gust of hot air and sand. Out of the flying object came strange creatures, with the heads of lizards and hands with scales and talons. Some tribesmen, terrified by their appearance, threw spears at them, but the lizard creatures shot beams of colored light out of gnarled metal tubes that incinerated the tribesmen. Threatened and pushed by these metal tubes, Korroth and the Ezzekieli tribesmen were herded into the flying object.
They were shut in dark, cramped and cold metal cubicles for an uncertain period of time. Korroth could not tell if days or months were passing, as they weren't even fed at regular intervals. His excitement at having met extraplanetary beings and technologies soon evaporated; it was obvious that the lizard-men regarded them as mere chattel rather than fellow sapients with which to share their knowledge. The tedious and hungry passage of time in the cubicles was occasionally interrupted by short hours of exercise, where they would be made to jog along bland metal corridors. During one of these exercise hours, Korroth passed by a round window and saw outside what seemed to be stars racing past at great speed. However, back in his cubicle, his hunger and desolation prevented him from working out the significance of this sighting.
Melida/Daan
85 BBY
Melida/DaanAfter an indiscernible period of time, they were finally led out into the open air. Korroth could see that they were on terra firma again, but most probably that of a different planet. The wind was cold, the sky grey and the vegetation unfamiliar, although it bore some resemblance to the plants of Medri Gamri. A group of aliens came to speak to the lizard-men and examine the Pau'an prisoners. They were more similar in appearance to the Pau'ans than to the lizard-men, but they had damp-looking pink skin, tiny pupils and fur on top of their skulls. Korroth could not understand their language, but it appeared as though the lizard-men sold their Pau'an captives to the furred humanoids. They were then given grey uniforms to wear and were escorted to a camp; there Korroth saw more alien species than he could describe, but they all seemed to be captives of the furred humanoids. They spent the next few days in the dirty and crowded camp, during which time the group of Pau'ans attempted unsuccessfully to find someone speaking their language. Also, each day the furred humanoids gathered the prisoners and trained them in the use of those metal tubes that shot beams of light. From this, and from the distant rumblings of explosions, Korroth conjectured that they had been sold to an army (vastly more technologically advanced than those of Tarbaur) which intended to use these slaves as cannon-fodder.
His speculations were proven right when, one day, they were suddenly rounded up and sent running at what appeared to be the enemy line. Korroth survived this and three subsequent battles only by what he believed to be sheer luck. Most of the Pau'an tribesmen with him died, and the prisoner camp became visibly emptier after each battle. Korroth knew that, if he did not do something soon, his body would be added to the pile in no man's land. On the third battle, he was sent to the infirmary for a minor wound. There he managed to impress upon the field-surgeon that he had skills in healing and could help him in the infirmary. The surgeon, who was one of the only three doctors working in that camp, accepted and arranged for Korroth to remain in the infirmary to work as his assistant. For a moment, Korroth almost felt gratitude towards the surgeon, who had virtually saved his life; but then he remembered the Renascence Pledge he had made in Medri Gamri and doubled his efforts to repress his emotions. He could not allow himself to slip in such a precarious situation.
Field Surgeon
85 BBY to 78 BBY
As soon as his wound had healed, Korroth began help the three surgeons. At first he was only given menial tasks, but over time he was able to use the skills he had already learned in the Sazarel and acquire the more advanced techniques of the surgeons. There was a constant stream of wounded soldiers coming in, so there was no shortage of subjects to practice on, and epidemics of quickly spreading diseases were frequent in the camps. Both the war injuries and the alien diseases were new and fascinating to Korroth, and so were the treatments that the surgeons passed on to him. He only regretted not having the time to study them in more detail.
Apart from imparting surgery procedures and techniques, the doctors also taught Korroth to speak Basic. The first thing he learned was that they were on the planet Melida, and that both Melida and Daan lived on the planet. These two peoples had been at war for centuries, with victories and defeats on both sides and occasional brief periods of peace. Currently the Melida, in whose army Korroth was a conscript, had been driving North to siege the city of Garth. All three surgeons were strongly nationalistic Melidans, and they claimed that the Melidan army was taking back what was theirs by right. The surgeons were also able to shed light on Korroth's own home planet and travel to Melida. They speculated that he came from Utapau in the Tarabba sector. Korroth eagerly listened to all the surgeons knew about Utapau; he had often wanted to explore more of the planet before he was captured by the slavers, but he had not been able to do so because of geographical impediments. In addition, the surgeons were able to tell him that the slavers who captured him were of the Trandoshan species, and that they probably worked for the Karazak Slavers' Cooperative. The Melida and the Daan were Human, and the surgeons described the biology of these species and of the many other species that passed through the infirmary.
The war between the Melida and the Daan continued all around the planet until 78 BBY. Despite being confined mostly to the infirmary, the surgeons and Korroth were forced to fight several times; by the time they had taken Garth in 80 BBY two of the field surgeons had been killed in ambushes. Once the siege of Garth had ended the army remained garrisoned in that city, and Korroth was able to dedicate more of his time studying the wondrous wealth of information on this planet and the galaxy at large. However, when the war ended in 78 BBY with the capture of Zehava by Melidan forces, the generals of Melida decided that all the conscripts they had bought from slavers would just be a burden in time of peace, so they were to be sold to off-world buyers. Korroth attempted to hide in the outskirts of Garth as soon as he received these news, but his alien appearance made him easy to find and he was soon arrested. He was sold to a band of space pirates to work as an on-board medic for the pirates' slaves.
The League of Cavaliers Corsaire
78 BBY
The pirates called themselves the League of Cavaliers Corsaire. Since first stepping onto their starship it was obvious that they were quite different from the barbarous and bedraggled space raiders that Korroth had read about in the libraries of Garth. In 78 BBY there were 245 "Cavaliers"; many of them were Mon Calamari, but there were also Humans, Bith, Givin, a Gossam, Muuns, Koorivar, a Falleen and even a Celegian. They came from very different backgrounds, but most of them had received a university education, or they were at least bright enough to be able to learn from the other Cavaliers. Korroth soon found out that the Cavaliers' main line of pursuit was not piracy, but academic learning. Piracy was just their method of financing their travels and studies. The League of Cavaliers Corsaire was basically a collection of scholars that found it more fruitful to carry out their studies outside the law. All of the Cavaliers strove to become erudite in all branches of study, but most were specialized in various fields of science. This was because many Cavaliers were originally led to join the League by burdensome regulations and laws that limited their research, imposed by the Republic or their home planet for ethical, bureaucratic or political reasons. The substantial income provided by piracy was also an incentive, when compared to the meager and restrictive budgets that researchers were often granted.
One of the CorsairesThe League travelled aboard a custom frigate, called the Ghostly Galleon, that the Mon Calamari Cavaliers had designed and then stolen when they were still working for Mon Calamari Shipyards, and they also had three Republic light assault cruisers modified to serve as escort and assault ships (the Furor Corsaire, the Vexer Corsaire and the Veto Corsaire). All the books, datacards, papers and information that the Cavaliers had collected over their travels was stored in the MC Frigate, where they also carried out their studies. There were many lecture halls, a library at either end of the ship and several laboratories with "borrowed" equipment. However, the Cavaliers also spent as much time as they could on planets of interest, at least until their location or identity was discovered by the local security force. A committee of representatives for each specialist group convened each time they were forced to move on to decide on their next destination. Since the Cavaliers were divided into several specialized groups, like biology, physics, engineering, chemistry, et cetera, these committees sometimes had disagreements, but in the end they always found a planet that accommodated each specialization's interests. All the Cavaliers were partial to worlds with important universities or large libraries, as this was their main means of keeping up-to-date with the progress made in their fields across the galaxy. However, many of these universities did not want anything to do with research that was financed illegally and that used methods and procedures that broke laws and regulations. Therefore the Cavaliers often had to infiltrate these universities and steal the information and instruments they required. Occasionally they came across institutes that recognized the value of their unrestricted research and were ready to exchange information in secret.
The League's piratic activities were confined to the Outer Rim Territories, because they wanted to remain out of sight of any law-enforcement authorities. They preyed mainly on independent smugglers and smaller pirate groups, so as not to attract the attention of larger criminal organizations. The most abundant booty was spice, but they also looted weapons, expensive artifacts and foodstuff and stolen merchandise in general, and they sometimes commandeered the ships of their victims. These things they would sell for a large profit or in exchange for favors, advanced laboratory instruments and rare datacards. They also raided slaver ships and cargo freighters of certain manufacturing industries. The League used the slaves as subjects for their experiments and studies, sometimes setting up ambushes on specific slaver bands to acquire subjects of a certain species or origin. They also raided specific cargo freighters that carried supplies of chemicals and instruments for their laboratories. Because of this, the labs of the Ghostly Galleon were often filled with mismatched pieces of equipment. When they ventured towards the more civilized territories of the galaxy, most often to visit universities and libraries, they refrained from conducting illegal activities so as to maintain a low profile towards the local and Republic authorities.
The main method used by the League to seize target ships was to lay an ambush at specific hyper-points, where ships came out of hyperspace. A lot of preliminary investigations were carried out on the target to make sure that they did not travel with an escort too powerful for the League's fleet. When it came out of hyperspace, the target ship would find itself surrounded by the three Corsaires and targeted by long-range missiles from the Ghostly Galleon. The Corsaires had modest ion cannons which were usually enough to disable a target ship before it could react. If the victim still refused to surrender, they would be boarded using six pods launched from the Ghostly Galleon. The Cavaliers took it in turns to take part in the boarding operation. Cavaliers who refused to join the boarding party when it was their turn were often ostracized and eventually expelled from the League. Consequently, every Cavalier spent a certain amount of time exercising and training in close-quarter combat on the Furor Corsaire.
Over the years, the Cavaliers had developed a peculiar kind of chivalric code that allowed them to keep their self-esteem while they pirated, exploited salves and carried out ethically ambiguous studies. This unwritten code of morals placed study and knowledge as the virtues to be sought by Cavaliers, thus making bloodshed, slavery, theft and even torture honorable if done in the name of science. The Cavaliers were also encouraged to expand their general cultural education outside of their specialization. For the Cavaliers, perusing literature, poetry or galactic history was an enjoyable recreational activity. Some became connoisseurs of fine art, music, interplanetary cuisine, liquors and even fashion. As a consequence the Ghostly Galleon was full with both legally obtained and stolen works of art, and the Cavaliers sometimes employed or kidnapped bands and small orchestras to play on board. The Cavaliers often wore elegant and expensive clothes, even during a boarding, and elaborate dinners with lavish food and drink were served almost every evening.
On the Ghostly Galleon
78 BBY to 75 BBY
In 78 BBY the League had been forced to land on Melida/Daan after the Ghostly Galleon had been tracked down and badly damaged by a wing of Jedi pilots. The Cavaliers had managed to escape and throw off the Jedi when they landed on Melida/Daan. While the engineer Cavaliers repaired the MC frigate, the others took the opportunity to purchase several slaves from the Melidan military. Korroth was bought to serve as a medic for the slaves that the Cavaliers used in their research. There were already many experienced medical doctors in the League, but they did not have time to look after all the slaves. Korroth was an investment that would pay off by keeping slaves alive if dangerous experiments went wrong, and by generally keeping slaves healthy enough to be used in the Cavaliers' various studies.
Korroth's status within the League improved when a Cavalier requested him to join a study on medicinal herbs used by primitive cultures across the galaxy. Korroth provided information on herbs that he himself had examined and used in the Tarbaur and the Sazarel, and he was also able to use his knowledge to expand upon the work done on xerophytic plants of other desert planets. His work on this and subsequent studies brought him to the notice of a wider circle of Cavaliers, who, in 75 BBY, eventually invited him to become a Cavalier himself. Korroth hesitated at first, principally because of the League's peculiar code of honor. This code appeared to be modeled to allow those who wanted to remain morally upright to carry out studies and use methods which society at large would consider immoral. However, it simply shifted the focus of its component ethical rules, it did not actually eliminate any of them. Korroth did not want to be limited by any moral laws, but in the end he recognized that he would not be able to live with any type of society unless he at least gave the appearance of following their laws. Therefore Korroth Karn accepted and was inducted into the League of Cavaliers Corsaire on the 11th day of the 5th month of 75 BBY.
To solemnize his induction into the League, Korroth was granted a coat of arms. He used a simple shield with a brown field; for the charge he used the Sazareli glyphs for "KK" (the same that he had carved on the Med Ushibri on Utapau) in gold.
Cavalier Corsaire
75 BBY to 55 BBY
In the ensuing decades, Korroth travelled the galaxy with the League. In the years following 75 BBY, he was exposed to countless new cultures, species and planets. This boundless profusion of unfamiliar natural phenomena, landscapes, organisms, ecosystems and civilizations was open and waiting for Korroth to study and understand; this left upon him an impression so strong that it reaffirmed his dedication to the understanding of the universe for the rest of his life.
The seal of the University of SanbraBetween 75 BBY and 68 BBY, as recommended by his fellow Cavaliers, Korroth spent seven months of each year studying in the University of Sanbra, and then later in Corellia University, while the rest of the League travelled the Outer Rim. Korroth was able to study openly at these universities because he had not yet participated in any of the League's illegal activities. During the five years in the University of Sanbra, he was educated in the advanced concepts of science that he had previously just brushed upon on Utapau. In 70 BBY he graduated in xenobiology. Although he was not particularly keen, he also went to the Corellia University for two years to study starship engineering; the other Cavaliers had insisted on this because they wanted every new Cavalier to be able to repair and rework the Ghostly Galleon and the three Corsaires.
After he finished his university education in 68 BBY, he settled permanently on the Ghostly Galleon and became fully involved in both the piratic and research activities of the League. Since all the ambushes and boarding raids were entirely carried out by Cavaliers, Korroth was obliged to take part in these fights. The various roles in a battle were rotated among all the Cavaliers, so that Korroth learned how to man the various stations of the Ghostly Galleon, how to handle a single Corsaire and its gun emplacements, how to fly the four ships in hyperspace and realspace, and he also became quite adept at close quarters combat with vibroblades and blaster pistols.
The project that interested and took up most of Korroth's time after 68 BBY was a study on the genetic engineering and cloning of ludos and several other animals from Ganlihk. The aim of the study was to find and remove, modify or neutralize the genes that caused senescence in these animals. The first problem they solved was the shortening of telomeres, and at the same time they found a way for cells to repair DNA replication errors and damage to DNA from external sources much more efficiently. They then spent a number of years cataloguing genes that they thought were related to senescence, and after this they examined every single one to see if it could be completely removed or if it was essential for some other purposes. In 56 BBY, they completed the modification or elimination of all the target genes and they cloned a batch of ludos with this new genome. They were relieved to find that their tampering of the ludos' DNA had produced no apparent detrimental side effects, and the ludos in fact appeared to be more resistant to radiation and certain toxins and pathogens, and generally healthier. Regarding the effects of aging on the ludos, their only option was to wait and see. They were not able to eliminate damage caused by many environmental factors (although they succeeded in improving the ludos' resistance to things like dehydration, infections, toxic chemicals and mechanical damage), but they estimated that the mutated ludos would be able to survive hundreds of years in an ideal environment.
With this project complete, Korroth decided to research a completely different topic, the vocalizations that the ludos appeared to use as a basic form of communication. He obtained several interesting results from his studies. The vocalizations of the artificially mutated ludos were much more complex than those of the ludos they had captured on Ganlihk. The mutated ludos were able to produce what could almost be described as songs. They were able to repeat these songs accurately, but they seemed to intentionally modify certain sections every time they repeated it. He placed the mutated ludos in differing environments to see what caused these vocalizations and the modifications in the song. When placed for a long time in an empty room in which nothing changed, their song did not change and they eventually ceased vocalizing. If they were placed in a room with other mutated ludos, but with nothing else changing, the songs of the individual ludos eventually became the same, and they changed together if certain sapients entered the room. If they were placed in a space where many sapients came and went and interacted with each other, the ludos' song changed almost constantly, although certain segments were repeated at apparently random times. This did not happen when they were placed together with other non-sapient animals and Ganlihk ludos.
Korroth and the other Cavaliers working with him concluded that the ludos' song described something related to other mutated ludos and to certain Cavaliers, although they had no hint as to what this was. Eventually they found that the mutated ludos had a much higher count of midichlorians per cell than the Ganlihk ludos, and that the Cavaliers that caused them to change their song also had a higher midichlorian count than the other crew members. Korroth had been taught about the function of midichlorians very superficially at the University of Sanbra, and he knew very little about the Force. The same applied to most of the other Cavaliers, because there was an especially strong taboo against the Force and any study of it. This was due to the fact that, in 78 BBY, the Cavaliers had started a study on Force-sensitive slaves, which had been widely publicized and criticized in many universities. This had attracted the Jedi Order's attention, and the Jedi had tracked down and had almost destroyed the Ghostly Galleon. Since then studies concerning the Force had been virtually banned by the League.
However, Korroth and certain other Cavaliers that worked with him had joined the League only after this event, so they did not have this prejudice. In 55 BBY the League had been studying the local fauna and limited flora of the desert planet Blenjeel, when an intense dispute broke out between the Cavaliers that were carrying out the research on the ludos and the other Cavaliers who saw this study as meddling dangerously with matters of the Force. It erupted when the ludos researchers requested blood samples of every Cavalier and later revealed that they had used the samples to make a midichlorian count. Many Cavaliers immediately accused the researchers of trying to attract the Jedi's attention, and the ludos researchers accused the other Cavaliers of being paranoid. At one point, violence broke out, but the Cavaliers that stood against research on the Force greatly outnumbered the ludos researchers. Eventually the ludos researchers, all their test subjects and equipment, and even some of the other Cavaliers that had been found to have high midichlorian counts were thrown out of the Ghostly Galleon. The MC frigate and the three Corsaires left them stranded on the planet and never came back.
Blenjeel
55 BBY to 52 BBY
Blenjeel
Form the 67 Cavaliers left stranded on Blenjeel on the 14th day of the 3rd month of 55 BBY, 45 survived the first two days, and 12 more died in the following two weeks. It had been a long time for Korroth since he had walked a desert, but he soon became accustomed to it again and recalled all the skills he had acquired in the Sazarel on Utapau. Most of the other Cavaliers, however, had been raised on civilized planets and had seldom been in a situation more dangerous than a boarding sortie. On the first day, many were eaten by the native sand burrowers. After they found and established themselves on several rocky cliffs out of reach of the sand burrowers, some of the survivors simply died of dehydration and the relentless heat. Those who survived the initial decimation came to naturally follow a Filvian named H'chad Globergan, because they knew that he had grown up on Filve, a desert planet. Globergan's gregarious nature and innate leadership skills suited this role, but not long passed before Globergan had a private meeting with Korroth. The Filvian told Korroth that he had actually spent all his pre-Cavalier life in the cities of Filve, so he did not posses the knowledge and expertise of the desert that the other survivors expected of him. Korroth agreed to progressively teach Globergan all he knew about desert survival, but only if he sent an expedition to retrieve the research equipment and the ludos that they had left where the Ghostly Galleon had abandoned them.
A sand worm about to eat a CavalierKorroth went with the expedition, and he found that none of the ludos had been eaten by sand burrowers, because they were in large metal cages. However, most of the ludos had died from the heat and lack of water. To his surprise, six of the mutated ludos were still alive. This would allow him to partly continue his research, although it would be very limited by the lack of equipment. Most of it had been damaged by sand and heat, and some of it had even disappeared beneath the sand dunes. Eventually the 33 survivors settled in a narrow rocky gorge that was repaired from wind, sun and sand burrowers. At the end of the defile they found a meagre spring surrounded by purple and blue-colored vegetation. They managed to survive on this and other small small scurrying animals until they could set up hunting parties to catch sand burrowers. It was not easy at first to kill these fell fiends, but the Cavaliers found that the juice of a certain succulent plant was poisonous to the sand burrowers. To kill the beasts, they would spray the juice over a wide area of sand, and then attract a sand burrower by pounding rhythmically on the ground. When the sand burrower emerged out of the sand, it would inevitably get some of the juice on its body, which would cause it to thrash and spasm, while a viscous fluid leaked out of the gaps in its exoskeleton. The Cavaliers were quick to gather this liquid, which was both water-rich and nutritious, before it evaporated on the sand. Once the sand burrower was dead it was dragged to the camp, where its meat was used for food and its exoskeleton and teeth for tools and weapons.
During the first months on Blenjeel most of the Cavaliers were solely concerned with increasing their chances of survival. However, Korroth was worried less about this and more about continuing his research, especially after he observed that the ludos' songs were able to calm a person who was in a high emotional state. By putting pressure on Globergan, he was able to secure three personal assistants and a general cooperative attitude from the whole group of survivors. His assistants were fully dedicated to the research and were spared most of the other menial tasks of the group of survivors (although Korroth himself chose to go on periodical sand burrower hunts), and the rest of the Cavaliers helped sporadically when they were not busy with other tasks.
As he continued his study of the ludos' vocalizations, Korroth took to carrying one of the mutated ludos, Test Subject THY-16.3, around with him wherever he went. Thanks to this habit, he was able to observe that the ludos' song changed when one of the Cavaliers rich in midichlorians (Korroth being one of them) experienced intense emotions or carried out tasks which required concentration, agility or fast reactions. From what the other Cavaliers knew of the Force, mainly popular culture, the ludos' changing song could have been reacting to or even describing an unconscious use of the Force by the midichlorian rich Cavaliers. The ludos themselves appeared to use the Force to alter, through their song, the state of mind of both Force-sensitive and non-Force-sensitive Cavaliers. If one calmed themselves and listened intently to the ludos' vocalizations, they would become immersed in a deep state of concentration where all their thoughts and feelings would become very clear and distinct. It was during one of these meditations, in 52 BBY, that Korroth made the most important discovery of his study. He found that, alongside the ludos' song, he could recognize a feeling or sensation external to himself, which he did not sense through hearing, sight, taste, smell or touch. At first it was only in the song, but then Korroth was able to expand his perception of this feeling and he sensed it in the ludos itself, and in the other Cavaliers and in al the other lifeforms around him. This, he realized, was the Force.
Force Exploration
52 BBY to 25 BBY
With little hope of ever leaving Blenjeel, Korroth concentrated fully on this new and wondrous aspect of the universe that he had just experienced. At first it seemed that he would have to revolutionize his whole view of the universe, but gradually he came to see that the Force fit perfectly into what he already knew, and it even filled some of the many gaps in his understanding. However, in his current state Korroth did not have the resources to test scientifically and in detail the interactions between the Force and the material world. Instead, he focussed on delving deeper and deeper into the Force during his meditation sessions. He examined, simply from his sense of the Force , how it interacted with other living beings and how it changed in these beings, from microbes to Cavaliers to sand burrowers. It appeared to him that the Force became more intense around a being the more that being's emotions escalated; but also its "swirls" and fluctuations became more complex the more sapient and intelligent the organism was. From this, Korroth speculated that the Force was very closely correlated with certain aspects of higher organisms' thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Korroth taught what he learned through these explorations to the other Force-sensitive Cavaliers. Some seemed quite unable to even sense the Force, while others far surpassed Korroth's abilities. These Cavaliers gradually learned to actually interact with the Force rather than just sense it. After many years of trial and error, they were able to make small objects move in a certain direction by a few centimeters, and they could subtly alter a person's or beast's emotions if they concentrated enough. Korroth never got this far in his experimentations on Blenjeel. For many years the Cavaliers' connection to the Force was only possible through the meditative state induced by the mutated ludos' song. Korroth relied on THY-16.3 (which he had come to call Thy) for his explorations of the Force until around 40 BBY, when he first touched the Force without the aid of Thy's song. Despite this, Korroth and most of the other Force-sensitives preferred to use the help of the ludos' songs, because they made it relatively easier to touch the Force.
One of the deserts of BlenjeelOne thing that distracted Korroth slightly from his studies on the Force was the non-Force-sensitive Cavaliers' progressive change of behavior over the years. The Force-sensitives and Korroth observed with interest as these Cavaliers gradually descended into an uncivilized society of almost primitive practices, driven by basic urges like the hunt for food, water, survival and reproduction. While many more Cavaliers were killed over the years by Blenjeel's environment, numerous families formed in the group of non-Force-sensitives, so that by around 30 BBY the total number of Cavaliers had actually increased to above 50. The Force-sensitive Cavaliers, like Korroth, developed the habit of keeping the other Cavaliers at arm's length, so that the Force-sensitives were able mostly to retain their culture and civility. This was probably the origin of Korroth's subtle and involuntary prejudice against non-Force-sensitives. Nevertheless, they still lived with the non-Force-sensitives because they relied on them to supply certain resources while they carried out their studies. This was another lesson that Korroth took to heart. He also conjectured that the descent of the non-Force-sensitives into barbarity was due to the fact that all they had left was their primordial instinct for survival, while the Force-sensitive Cavaliers still had a higher purpose to drive for, their study of the Force. Additionally, Korroth was always careful not to let his fellow Force-sensitive Cavaliers become too lazy, spurring them (through Globergan) into taking part in hunts and expeditions under the threat that they would not survive the planet if they became too lethargic.
Rescue and the Trade Federation
25 BBY
In 25 BBY a merchant ship was spotted landing in the middle of a far-off desert of the planet. All of the Cavaliers attempted to reach it, but it left before they could contact it. Fortunately, several other ships arrived a few days later, and the Cavaliers were able to meet with them. The merchants, which claimed to be in the service of the Trade Federation, were surprised to find inhabitants on Blenjeel. However, the Cavaliers told their story and the merchants agreed to carry them off-world if they helped the merchants find phrikite on the planet. The Cavaliers were not sure what metal that was, but they directed the merchants towards a cave where they had previously found veins of a very hard ore. This, and a general warning about storms and sand burrowers, was enough to earn the Cavaliers and all their offsprings a ride on the merchant ships.
While they were making their way towards Gromas 16 in the Perkell sector, the Cavaliers and their sons and daughters (some of whom were already over 20 standard years old) discussed what they should do. Many of them, both Force-sensitive and not, had developed a rotting hatred of the Cavaliers that had left them stranded on Blenjeel, which they had passed on to their offsprings. These Cavaliers thus decided to hunt down the League of Cavaliers Corsaire and take revenge. Korroth had no doubt that the League would be slaughtered if they were found by these Cavaliers, since Blenjeel had tempered and strengthened them into hard and unforgiving savages. However, Korroth saw no value in revenge, it would not actually profit him in any way and would therefore be a waste of his time. Therefore, he and five other Force-sentient Cavaliers decided to set off on a different path. They questioned the Trade Federationists on Gromas 16 on what employment a group of scientists like the Cavaliers could find in the Federation. They assumed that, having been isolated on Blenjeel for thirty years, their criminal records had been archived long ago.
Their enquiries led them to Cato Neimoidia, where, through an exasperating chain of secretaries and bureaucratic procedures, they were referred to a Neimoidian noble. He offered them a funded research project on the Q'Maere Research Facility to study several arachnids and insects. He produced paperwork that stated they were to determine the best species to be used for "pest control" in agriculture, but he made it clear, off the record, that their real job would be to find a species to be used as assassin bugs. The Cavaliers were hesitant to accept. In the three months since their rescue from Blenjeel, they had become aware of the rising tensions between the Republic and the Trade Federation and its allies. They did not want to commit to one side or the other yet, since their thirty-years long absence had left them ignorant of the actual state of galactic affairs. Also, now that they were off Blenjeel they thought they would have been able to seek more information on the Force, but on the isolated Q'Maere this would not be possible. In the end, however, they accepted the Neimoidian's offer because they knew that they would have a better chance to survive on Blenjeel than in the civilized galaxy if they had no credits in their pockets.
Q'Maere Research Facility
25 BBY to 22 BBY
On the University of Sanbra-owned Q'Maere Research Facility, the Cavaliers found all the arthropods they needed to conduct their study. Despite this, the Cavaliers did not find this project very interesting, and the rarity with which the Trade Federation came to check on their progress encouraged them to deviate slightly from their original aim. Instead of examining an assortment of arthropod species, they selected the drewood mite and set out to genetically engineer it to produce a suitable "assassin bug". The secrecy of their research did not bother the other scientists of the facility, since many of them were also working on confidential projects.
The Cavaliers spent several years on this project, remaining on Q'Maere until shortly after the start of the Clone Wars. Early in 22 BBY, the Trade Federation contacted the Cavaliers to inform them that they would be sending a Commerce Guild functionary to collect the results of their studies. The Cavaliers had already completed the project, and they only needed to add the finishing touches. They had engineered a mite that could be made to recognize a specific individual by allowing them to feed for a period of time on a culture of the individual target's cells. If the mites were then released close to that individual, they would be able to attach themselves to the target and secrete a toxin into their muscles, which proved deadly if injected by more than five of these mites. The secretion of this toxin also triggered the release of large amounts of lysozyme, which would break down the mite completely in a very short time, thus serving to remove any evidence of the assassination.
While waiting for the Commerce Guild functionary to arrive, Korroth was able to meditate on his current situation. The most troublesome thing that he identified was his attachment to the other five Cavaliers that were presently working with him. He had known those Cavaliers since 78 BBY, and he had studied with them, worked on the same projects, travelled on the same ship and spent thirty years stranded on the same uninhabited planet with them. Korroth now recognized that the bond of friendship he had formed with these Cavaliers had violated his Renascence Pledge. He could even remember one time on Blenjeel when he had risked his own life to save one of them from a sand burrower. Obviously this friendship had grown too strong and had led him to act for the benefit of others rather than solely to serve the self. Therefore, he resolved to sever his bond to the Cavaliers. Just before the Commerce Guild functionary came, Korroth prepared several of the assassin mites and released them onto the five Cavaliers.
The Commerce Guild functionary landed on the facility just as Korroth's five colleagues expired their last breath. Korroth made it look like an accident, but there was no need, as the pragmatic Gossam functionary simply took those bodies as confirmation of the success of the research project. With the project finished, Korroth hoped to go to the University of Sanbra, where there was supposed to be a professor expert in the study of organizations of Force-users. This was not in the Commerce Guild's plans, however. The Gossam functionary informed him that since the beginning of the Clone Wars, the Confederacy of Independent Systems had been short of medical staff to attend to the small portion of organic soldiers in their army. Therefore, Korroth had been conscripted to serve as a medical officer in the Gossam Commandos on Castell. Korroth was obviously very displeased that decisions like this were made without his knowledge and then forced upon him, but the Gossam's escort of battle droids put Korroth in no position to argue or refuse.
The Clone Wars and the CIS
22 BBY to 19 BBY
A Gossam Commando
The Gossam Commandos remained stationed on Castell only for a short time, just enough for Korroth to complete a cursory training course on Gossam biology and medicine. For the two years following the Battle of Geonosis, the Gossam Commandos mainly followed and guarded Presidente Shu Mai in her travels, and in 21 BBY they took part in the Battle of Cerea and the Battle of Virujansi. Korroth did not find it difficult to reconcile spending his time improving other beings’ health to his Renascence Pledge, since it allowed him to learn many interesting things that were not to be found in textbooks or from controlled laboratory research. If he was careful, he was also able to try new and untested treatments and drugs on unsuspecting patients. He was even able to test the effects of Thy’s vocalizations on injured or ill Gossams.
A Koorivar FusilierIn 20 BBY the Gossam Commandos contributed to the conquest of several worlds during Operation Durge’s Lance, such as Moorja and Duro. After the Battle of Moorja, Korroth was relocated to the Koorivar Fusiliers, led by General Oro Dassyne. These forces assisted the main droid army on many worlds during the Outer Rim Sieges, until the Battle of Bomis Koori IV towards the end of 20 BBY. Here General Dassyne’s Fusiliers were shattered by the Republic, but a small detachment, including Korroth, was able to escape the mayhem and reach the Confederate First Fleet. From here, the remaining Fusiliers were disbanded and Korroth was sent with a battalion of Quarren soldiers to fight on the planet Iskalon.
To his dismay, Korroth soon found out that Iskalon was an ocean world, and that they would be fighting Republic forces underwater. Korroth had already seen seas and oceans, both on Melida/Daan and during his travels with the League of Cavaliers Corsaire. However, possibly because he had grown up on a planet with no surface water, he had developed a deep phobia of any large body of water. During his years as a Cavalier, he had often secluded himself to his cabin when the Ghostly Galleon landed near the oceans or seas of a planet.
Panic soon gripped Korroth when he saw that he had no way of turning away from Iskalon. Once on the planet, he was forced underwater in a cramped amphibious craft while a muted battle raged all about him. Here his fear took control of his actions; he killed the small crew and fled the planet. After wandering in confusion for a few days, he travelled to the first planet that came to his mind, Utapau.
Once there, he was forced to land on Pau City and was arrested by Separatist droids, but they released him when he showed his credentials as a CIS medical officer. He was instead assigned to the medical staff that attended the Separatist Council, which was hiding in Pau City at that time. His initial intention upon deciding to come to Utapau had been to travel to Tarbaur or Sazarel, principally out of curiosity to see what had happened in the 65 years since he left Utapau. But now he was in the service of the Separatists and he could not leave Pau City. Since there wasn’t much work to do in that period, he was at least able to question the local Utapauns about news from his home lands. The Pau’ans that he talked to immediately recognized him as a Tarbauri, because of the subtle genetic differentiations between the common Pau’ans and the Tarbauri and Sazareli Pau’ans, like bristly eyebrows and drier, swarthier skin. This alone implied much change had occurred in Tarbaur and Sazarel, because in 85 BBY those regions had not yet made any contact with the rest of the planet. The Pau’ans explained sketchily to Korroth that, by around 50 BBY, Utapau was gradually becoming more involved with the galactic community, so the Utapaun Committee had decided to develop and utilize the planet’s resources to encourage interplanetary trade. During this development drive, Utapaun prospectors discovered the isolated Tarbaur sinkholes, finding them impoverished and drained by constant slaver raids and internal disputes. The Utapaun Committee agreed to protect Tarbaur from slavers and help it recover by allowing Buuper Torsckil Abbey Devices to build factories in the Tarbauri sinkholes. The residents of Pau City knew little more than this, and Korroth was not able to learn if Mavane Noren was still alive.
The Battle of Utapau
The Battle of Utapau in 19 BBY took Korroth by surprise, and he was forced to join the fighting when he found that the Separatist Council had already left Utapau. At first he fought against the clones, but at a certain point in the battle the Separatist droids began labeling all Pau’ans as hostiles, so he was forced to switch sides. When the battle ended, the clones rounded up all the Pau’ans in the city, including Korroth.
The New Order and Byss
19 BBY to 1 BBY
After the Declaration of the New Order, Korroth and many other Pau’ans were exported as slaves to the Deep Core planet of Byss, where they were put to work on a “recolonization effort”. After several months of work on the planet, Korroth began to notice faintly through the Force that the slaves’ essence or presence in the Force was being slowly drained away by some powerful entity. It was rumored among the slaves that Emperor Palpatine himself was sucking up all the life energy of the slaves on Byss. With the help of the ludos Thy (which he had managed to smuggle to Byss with him) Korroth slowly learned to stop his own Force essence from being drained away through meditation. Among the thousands of slaves on Byss, he was such a small entity anyway that whoever was draining away the slaves’ energies would never detect what Korroth was doing.
Byss
This proved to be wrong, when he was noticed by the Constable of Homunculi in around 16 BBY. The Constable took him away from the other slaves and put him to work with the Clone Keepers in the Clone Labs of the Emperor’s Citadel. There, Korroth assisted the Clone Keepers in their work on the Emperor’s genetic code, which would be used to produce Palpatine’s clones. He was never considered a Clone Keeper himself because of the New Order’s humanocentrist policies. Also, despite the fact that the Constable of Homunculi found him through his use of the Force, he was later told that he was not strong enough in the Force to even start training as a Dark Side Adept.
Korroth remained in the Emperor’s Citadel until 1 BBY, when the machinations of Janus Greejatus’s Imperial Department of Redesign forced him to flee Byss. He boarded a civilian transport and, before his absence was discovered by the authorities, he had gone into hiding on Sanbra.
Hunt for a Teacher
1 BBY to 11 ABY
After setting up a hideout near the University of Sanbra, Korroth rested for a while and ruminated on his future plans. He realized that this was the first time in almost thirty years that he was not under the command of a higher authority, like the Trade Federation or the Galactic Empire. Now he could dedicate himself fully to the study of the Force, which he had wanted to do since leaving Blenjeel. Korroth reasoned that he already knew all that he could learn about the Force through meditation and with only Thy’s song as a guide. Therefore his next step would be to seek out a Force-using organization that could teach him the rest. He had come to Sanbra in the hope that he could find some of the people he had met while studying at the University of Sanbra in the 70’s BBY, but all of those students or professors had moved on or passed away. However, he did find a professor who had once been a student of Profex Rynalla, before the Clone Wars. Profex Rynalla had been a scholar and expert on organizations associated with the Force, like the Jedi and Sith. This student of hers, now Profex Libauld Qooster, still possessed all of her notes, papers and findings, so Korroth approached Profex Qooster and was able to negotiate a deal with him. Korroth found that it had been Profex Qooster’s dream to learn to use the Force, but as a young boy he had been too afraid to go to the Jedi Order, and now he was too old to go hunting for other masters of the Force. Therefore, Korroth agreed to teach the professor what little he knew about the Force in exchange for guidance on the Force-using organizations of the galaxy.
The Valley of the Dark Lords on KorribanKorroth spent the rest of 1 BBY perusing Profex Rynalla’s studies on Force-using organizations and planning his future travels to examine these organizations, or what was left of them, in person. During this time, he also taught what little he knew about the Force to Profex Qooster, who was Force-sensitive and a quick learner. In 0 BBY, Korroth started his journey by visiting Korriban and Ziost. The Valley of the Dark Lords and the Sith Citadel impressed upon him what heights of power and magnificence a civilization ruled by Force-users could reach. Korroth also sensed the Dark Side power emanating from the crumbling tombs of Korriban. He spent much time basking in this dark glow, as he could feel that this was the true power by which the will of one could be perpetrated upon the peoples of worlds and empires. He also felt this power on the world of Lehon, where he travelled towards the end of 1 ABY.
For several years Korroth journeyed from planet to planet, following Profex Rynalla’s and Profex Qooster’s notes. On many worlds, as he expected, he found only the ruins of the Force-using society he was looking for, and these ruins had often already been picked clean by archaeologists and raiders. Some of the organizations that had existed during Profex Rynalla’s time had now been destroyed by the New Order’s Great Jedi Purge, and if they still existed they had been driven underground, where neither the Empire nor Korroth could find them. On rare occasions he encountered enclaves of Force-users that had somehow resisted the Empire or escaped its notice, like the Baran Do on Dorin or the Nuns of G’aav’aar’oon in the Vodilux Star Cluster. Most of the Force powers and techniques used by these Force-users far surpassed Korroth’s current abilities, but he was still able to learn from the way they interacted with the Force, thus forming new hypotheses, scrapping old ones and slowly composing his own vague theory on the nature of the Force. This, however, was not the main objective of his travels. His aim was to find an experienced individual or organization that could teach him the deeper secrets of the Force. None of the Force-users that Korroth encountered seemed to be suitable for this purpose, since many of them were restricted by burdensome moral and ethical laws, much like the Jedi, and those not bound by such laws, most often followers of the Dark Side, were too disorganized and frequently too violent to be able to teach Korroth anything.
The Emperor's Citadel on ByssThe death of Emperor Palpatine in 4 ABY and the subsequent gradual fragmentation of the Galactic Empire allowed Korroth to continue his travels in the open, without the fear of being caught by Imperial authorities. In 10 ABY, however, Korroth learned that Emperor Palpatine had survived in one of his clone bodies and was directing his Empire from Byss. In 11 ABY, hoping to acquire information on the various groups of Dark Side Adepts of the Empire, he travelled to Byss. Most of the Imperial forces were busy in a battle over Onderon, so Korroth was able to infiltrate the Emperor’s Citadel and steal several documents from the library. Before he could obtain more records, he was found by Stormtroopers and was forced to flee the planet in a hurry. This saved his life, since he left the [starwars:Beshqek system|Beshqec system]] shortly before the Galaxy Gun’s projectile collided with Byss and destroyed its surface.
Hunt for Okemi’s Descendants
11 ABY to 25 ABY
The Sith Lord OkemiThe documents that Korroth had stolen on Byss consisted of an investigation on a group of Dark Side Adepts that once served the Galactic Empire but were now allied with one of the fallen Empire’s splinter factions. The documents did not state the name or location of the organization and its ally, but it did speculate that the Dark Side Adepts had some sort of connection to an ancient pure-blood Massassi Sith Lord called Okemi. Korroth travelled to Sanbra to consult Profex Rynalla’s notes on the Old Sith Empire. Once there, he found that Profex Qooster had died of old age, but he had passed on everything, including his teachings in the Force, to one of his trusted students. This student helped Korroth find a reference to a revolt of Sith slaves led by a Massassi warlord against the Dark Lord Marka Ragnos. With this, he went to Korriban and examined the inscriptions and murals in the tombs of Marka Ragnos and several of the Dark Lord’s allies. He spent several years deciphering these and trying to find a mention of Okemi. In 14 ABY he was forced out of Marka Ragnos’s tomb by the Disciples of Ragnos. Korroth still had access to the tombs of the Sith Lords that served Marka Ragnos, so that, in 15 ABY he was able to conclude that the Massassi Sith Lord Okemi had fought and lost in a war against the Dark Jedi Sith Lords, after which he was exiled to a planet called Antei.
Korroth set out to find Antei in the hope that the documents he had found on Byss told the truth, and that by following the trail of Okemi he would reach the organization of Dark Side Adepts. He spent six years scouring the galaxy without success for this mysterious planet, but his resolve to find the Dark Side organization made him push on with all his will. During these years he financed his journeys by working for the Republic Bioengineering Corps, a descendant of the Imperial Corps of Bioengineers, traveling aboard a modified SkyBlind recon ship.
In 22 ABY, Korroth was traveling along the Daragon Trail when he began hearing rumors of an undead Sith Lord. The stories seemed to intensify as Korroth travelled nearer to Korriban, but once in Dreshdae the rumors pointed to another planet. His enquiries led him to Thule. By the time he reached the planet in 23 ABY the stories had died away, but Korroth remained in the hope of finding more clues. Two years passed, and Korroth was despairing that he had followed the wrong trail and that he would have to start all over again, but he was not yet ready to give up. Late in 25 ABY, a mysterious hooded local directed Korroth to the Shroud, an impenetrable nebulous cloud that covered a large area of space between Thule and Coratua. Korroth was preparing to leave the spaceport of Kessia when an unseen attacker bludgeoned him from behind and he lost consciousness.
Dark Jedi Brotherhood
Shadow Academy
26 ABY
He awoke on a dark desert plain with mountains in the far distance, and he found a disparate group of humanoids in his same condition. From them he came to know that they had been captured by the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, and they were to reach the Shadow Academy on the distant mountain range to pass a test of resilience. Korroth set off immediately and separated himself from the group, since he suspected they would only hinder him. He reached the mountain range five days later, but he spent three further days trying to scale its slopes to reach the Shadow Academy. On the last day he came across the survivors of the group he had met previously, whose sorry sight confirmed his earlier misgivings. The group had been decimated not only by dehydration and exhaustion but by infighting over water, rations and direction of travel.
Emblem of House GladiusHe walked past the doors of the Shadow Academy on the 2nd day of the 1st month of 26 ABY. Before he could even get his bearings, he was initiated into the Dark Jedi Brotherhood and the Sith Order. His possessions were also returned to him at this point, Thy among them. He completed the Test of Lore in three days, eager to take the first true steps into the Brotherhood. He was assigned to House Gladius of Tarentum as an Apprentice, but he barely noticed it, as he spent most of his time in the Shadow Academy poring over the Brotherhood's vast written knowledge. He took and passed nine courses in the space of a few months, mainly ones based on the workings and history of the Brotherhood. This earned him promotions to first Novice and then Proselyte, under the rigorous guidance of Envoy SBM Sato Bruth'Kothae.
Now that he knew more about the Brotherhood, he wanted to get more involved in it and the Clans, instead of just reading about it in the Shadow Academy. He took more permanent residence in the Sword's Sheath of House Gladius and attempted to slot into the daily workings of the House. However, life within the Clan was not as he had expected. He realized then that the only reason he had been assigned to Clan Tarentum was to balance the numbers on the Clan rosters. Disappointed, Korroth returned to the Shadow Academy and begun studying the other Clans of the Brotherhood.
This research led him to request a transfer to Clan Plagueis. He was attracted by the Clan's young yet rich history and by its tradition of mind control powers. Clan Plagueis gave the impression to Korroth of a rising power in the Brotherhood, and the Acolyte wanted to be a part of its ascension.
Clan Plagueis
26 ABY to 27 ABY
Emblem of Clan Plagueis While settling into House Exar Kun, Korroth continued to study for a large number of SA courses, which he submitted from the Diadem Fortress on Aerun. Between the hours of study, he attempted to become more involved in the House and Clan. He also held a training battle in the [Antei Combat Center] with [Archpriest] al'Lan Mandragoran, after which he was advised to attempt a battle in the Proving Grounds. This activity soon earned him a promotion to Protector, and he was assigned his first Master, SBM Armand "Sunflash" al'Tor. Unfortunately, SBM Armand left the Brotherhood shortly thereafter, so that Korroth didn't have enough time to get acquainted with him. Towards the end of 26 ABY he was assigned a second Master, KAP Scorpius, who begun organizing his Trials for Guardian. However, due to his duties as Quaestor of House Exar Kun and later as Proconsul of Clan Plagueis, he was not able to prepare these Trials for Protector Korroth.
Between 26 ABY and 27 ABY, Korroth continued to digest the Shadow Academy's vast store of knowledge. In addition, he fought a battle in the ACC's Proving Grounds against [Combat Master] [Dalthid], but he failed the test due to wrong usage of his weapons. He also became involved in documenting the Crimson Tide, a faction of powerful pirates who were the sworn enemies of Clan Plagueis. In 27 ABY Consul Aabsdu Dupar al'Tor promoted Korroth to the rank of Guardian for the service to his Clan and for the many courses he passed in the Shadow Academy.
In 27 ABY, Korroth took part in training exercises for the Rite of Supremacy codenamed "Second Darkness". However, he later did not participate in the Rite of Supremacy itself, because his attention was diverted by news from his homeworld of Utapau.
Not Sith material
27 ABY
In a minor HNN report, almost a footnote among the other headlines, Korroth read that a Buuper Torsckil Abbey Devices factory in the Tarbaur region of Utapau had been sabotaged by a terrorist group named the 'Hrothi Independence Union'. The report did not have any further details. Korroth had no idea where this 'HIU' came from, or what connection it had with his father's family name. The Pau'an had not set foot on his homeland for over a century, and he thought the time had come to see how things had changed. Furthermore, the mention of his old family name intrigued him.
Knowing that he would be gone for quite some time, he requested a transfer to the Rogues, and then he took a shuttle to Utapau. When he landed on Ika, the capital sinkhole of the Tarbaur region, he immediately saw how different the city was from his memories of it. Giant machinery spouting grey smoke occupied the whole upper levels of the sinkhole, and pools of filthy sludge filled its bottom. Most of the Pau'an and Utai population appeared to be working inside the Abbey Devices factories, while those outside either catered directly to the factory workers or begged in the streets.
Disguised as a news reporter, he investigated further and found that Abbey Devices had built factories in all thirteen of the Tarbaur sinkholes, displacing the Pau'an and Utai inhabitants to the lower levels and replacing the local governments with their own Board of Executives. By suppressing the local currency and tightly controlling the flow of the Galactic Credit Standard in Tarbaur, this Board had ensured that only those who worked for Abbey Devices accrued enough money to survive. This made the people of Tarbaur completely dependent on Abbey Devices, and enslaved them to the will of its Board of Executives. This scheme extended even into the Sazarel, where the nomad tribes were forced to produce food and sustenance for the factory workers in the Tarbauri sinkholes.
Some Tarbauri had taken up arms against Abbey Devices, under the name of the Hrothi Independence Union, with the aim of driving the company out of the sinkholes. Their last bombing, after a period of relative calm, had been the one that Korroth had heard on the holonews. The Board of Executives had retaliated to this attack by capturing and imprisoning a certain Ivron Hroth, supposedly the leader of the HIU. Korroth had never heard of that name, but he wanted to find out how this Ivron was associated with the Hroth family, his own family.
By using old connections and acquaintances from his youth, Korroth was able to locate the HIU. He found them leaderless and in disarray, so he took command of the band and organized a second, conclusive coup against the Board of Executives. He planned to first free Ivron Hroth and then storm and destroy each of the Abbey Devices factories in the thirteen sinkholes. This, he reckoned, would be enough to make it unprofitable for Abbey Devices to continue their investments in Tarbaur.
Korroth led the HIU's assault just two months after the first bombing, and in a matter of minutes they had taken control of the detention center. There they found and freed Ivron Hroth. Before being shuttled to a safe-house, Ivron told them that Mavane Noren, Korroth's own mother, was held prisoner in another sinkhole. While she had not participated directly in the bombing of two months ago, the elderly Pau'an had been found guilty of abetting the HIU. Korroth resolved to continue the assault as planned, and to free his mother before destroying the third factory, the nearest one to the prison.
The attack on the first factory went according to plan, because the Abbey Devices security force had not been expecting such an aggressive and well-organized offensive. However, after the factory had been demolished, Korroth lost control of the HIU troops, who rampaged unchecked through the sinkhole. The Guardian attempted to rally the rioting soldiers, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Abbey Devices had assembled the security contingents of all the other sinkholes and now descended upon the HIU forces. The greatest part of the HIU became trapped in the sinkhole and was totally massacred. Korroth, Ivron and a small band of survivors managed to escape the carnage and flee north, over the Med Zathruma mountain range and into the Sazareli steppes. They hid among the nomad tribes, and the Abbey Devices forces soon stopped chasing them.
Korroth was deeply affected by the dreadful defeat. He knew that the failure had been caused by his inability to control the soldiers. A better Sith would have been able to restrain his or her troops and lead them to victory, but Korroth had simply not had the strength of character to give orders which the frenzied soldiers would obey. Because of this, the Guardian let Ivron Hroth regain command of the HIU, or what was left of it. He advised Ivron to gather the Sazareli tribes and convince them to join the HIU to strike out at the Board of Executives.
While Ivron did that, Korroth worked to secure off-world supplies of modern weaponry and provisions for an army. He was also able to set up a makeshift laboratory, where, over the course of five months, he developed a poison gas that incapacitated only Humans, which he planned on supplying to the entirely Pau'an and Utai HIU forces.
The HIU struck again in the ninth month of 27 ABY and, with Ivron's leadership of the Sazareli tribes and Korroth's supplies of weapons and poison gas, they were able to fully occupy the sinkhole of Ika. While the HIU consolidated its defenses in the sinkhole, Korroth recovered his hired shuttle, which had been impounded by Abbey Devices after the Guardian had joined the HIU. Inside the shuttle, he found an urgent but outdated message from the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. The message was garbled and filled with static, but Korroth could make out something about an Alien attack on the Brotherhood.
Without even taking his leave from Ivron Hroth, he departed immediately and set a course for Aerun. He suspected and feared that the message had been a last cry for help from the Brotherhood or Clan Plagueis to any remaining Dark Jedi; that the Alien invasion had finally and ruinously reached the Brotherhood. However, he couldn't do anything about it while traveling in hyperspace, so he tried to draw his mind away from those terrible thoughts by examining the events of the past few months.
He determined that two separate purposes had driven his actions during that time: his curiosity over Ivron Hroth's identity and connection to his family, and the testing of his skills as a Sith in an environment separate from the Brotherhood. The first purpose he had not been able to satisfy, because there simply had been no time during the preparation for the assault on Abbey Devices. He hoped to one day return to have this question answered and to check on the progress of the HIU. The second purpose, however, had been throughly fulfilled. His failure to command the HIU forces during his first assault, and the success of the second assault due to his counseling to Ivron and the preparations and the poison gas confirmed to him that he was not Sith material. He resolved to convert to the Krath Order when he returned to the Brotherhood; perhaps even a change of House or Clan was due, to start things anew. Thinking back to the message about the Force-devoid Alien invaders, he could only hope that there would be a House or Clan to go back to.
Krath of Scholae Palatinae
27 ABY to 28 ABY
When Korroth dropped out of hyperspace, he found the Jusadih System surrounded by Plagueian, Arconan, Palatinean and Alien fleets. The Brotherhood fleets seemed to be generally fighting against the Force-devoid Alien forces, but Korroth also sensed a conflict between Arcona and the other two Clans. He did not know how Clan politics had developed in his absence, so he did not want to get involved just yet. He determined to seek shelter among Clan Scholae Palatinae, the traditional allies of Clan Plagueis, until he figured out what was going on.
He followed a medical shuttle from the Jusadih System to the Cocytus System, and made a landing on Judecca. In the capital city of Ohmen, Korroth learned that, while he was on Utapau, the Aliens had assailed the gathered Dark Brotherhood fleets and had conquered Antei. The Palatineans themselves were recovering from their recent reclamation of the Cocytus System. On a different note, Korroth also found out that House Acclivis Draco, while a multi-order house, had a very strong Krath tradition. Moreover, its home planet, Antenora, was a desert world. Korroth did not hesitate long before requesting a transfer from the Rogues to House Acclivis Draco of Clan Scholae Palatinae, and from the Sith Order to the Krath Order.
At that time, the Consul of Scholae Palatinae was Phoenix Olkyssagh d'Tana Palpatine, and the Quaestor of Acclivis Draco was RevengeX Palpatine. Korroth was welcomed into the Clan by Knight Class Envoy Braecen Kaeth Kunar who, a week later, apprenticed him to SBM Rasilvenaira StormRaven. However, without his knowledge, he was also transferred to House Caliburnus, since Rasilvenaira was at that time Quaestor of that House. Korroth moved his lodgings to the Serpent's Vanguard on Ptolomea, but despite this he still spent most of his time on Antenora, familiarizing himself with its deserts and its fascinating native people. In an attempt to bring him back to House Caliburnus, his Master assigned him as a Trooper to the newly opened Nightmare Brigade, but Korroth became even more uninvolved in his House.
The Guardian eventually had himself transferred to the Rogues, but he stayed on Antenora. For around two months he camped in a canyon of the Hollow Lands and explored the complex cave networks that burrowed deep into the cliffs. However, in his infrequent but necessary communications with the nearest center of civilization, the Acclivis Draco HQ, he gained the impression that the members of the House were apprehensive about having a Rogue Dark Jedi on their planet. Korroth decided it was time to return to his homeworld, to see what had happened in the Tarbauri sinkholes since he had left them almost a year ago.
Evil for good, good for evil
28 ABY
On the shuttle to Utapau, the Guardian searched the HNN, but found no news of Tarbaur. The HoloNet was too busy reporting on the ongoing war with the Alien invaders, the creation of the High Council and the Ssi-ruuvi invasion of Bakura to worry about such a backwater planet.
He disembarked the shuttle at Pau City, since he didn't know whether there was still an arrest warrant out for him in the Tarbaur sinkholes. What he didn't account for was Abbey Device's reach, as the border guard at Pau City had been told to hold for questioning any Sazareli or Tarbauri Pau'ans. The guards recognized Korroth's ethnicity and tried to arrest him, but he was able to escape by dazing them momentarily with the Force. He escaped into the city's streets and laid low, until he found a supply convoy departing for the Tarbauri factories and stowed aboard one of the hovertrucks.
Korroth knew that the authorities in Pau City would have plenty of time to warn Abbey Devices before he got to Tarbaur. Hence, as soon as the convoy reached the north-eastern barrens of the Sazareli steppes, Korroth jumped off and fled before anyone could give chase. After only a few days' march, he encountered a minor local Sazareli tribe. The first thing he noticed was that there were only women, children and the elderly in the camp, which conveyed to him that the HIU resistance against Abbey Devices must still have been persevering. The tribal elders told him that the tribe's warriors had gone to fight against foreign invaders a year ago and had not returned since then. They directed him to Tribe Merkesher, where they said he would find a Pau'an who came from the frontline and had more information.
When he reached the tribe, he was greeted by none other than Ivron Hroth. After finding an empty tent to talk privately, Korroth asked Ivron to explain all that had happened in Tarbaur since he had first left Utapau in 85 BBY, since the information he had gathered until then was too sketchy to understand the current situation. Ivron begun with how the off-world slavers, who had since then been raiding the Sazareli tribes, had moved on to richer pickings in the Tarbauri sinkholes in around 60 BBY. At first the Tarbauri Utapauns tried to fight them off, but soon the came to see that resistance only caused more death and destruction; during the next decade they basically allowed the slavers to take whomever they wanted. In 53 BBY, Ivron escaped in secret from the Tarbauri sinkholes with the intention of seeking help for Tarbaur. After a three year journey he found Pau City, and there he implored the Utapaun Committee to send military help to the Tarbaur sinkholes. The Committee decided that it would employ a division of the Buuper Torsckil Abbey Devices security force to drive the slavers away and to protect the sinkholes indefinitely. In exchange, Abbey Devices would be allowed to build starship factories in the sinkholes and employ the local population to operate them.
This arrangement bore its fruit for both Abbey Devices and the Tarbauri Utapauns for 31 years, as the factories could employ a plentiful and cheap workforce, and the natives were allowed to advance to modern standards of technology and wealth. However, with the creation of the Galactic Empire in 19 BBY, the safeguards and supervisors that protected the Tarbauri workers from exploitation were removed, and Abbey Devices did not waste time to capitalize the situation. They dissolved the Tarbauri Council, whose authority had already been weakened since Abbey Devices' arrival, and placed their Board of Executives in its place. They began restructuring the Tarbauri economy to make the factories the only source of wealth in the sinkholes, thus forcing all the Tarbauri Utapauns into jobs within or closely related to the factories. This way the Board of Executives was able to lower the standards of living of their Utapaun employees, to make savings, without fear of repercussions.
Ivron, who had remained in hiding until then for reasons he would not yet explain to Korroth, assembled a group of ex-Tarbauri politicians who wanted to actively oppose the Board of Executives. For the first two years this assembly attempted to persuade the Board of Executives to relent its grip by diplomatic means, but to no avail. As a last resort they contacted the Imperial authorities in Pau City, but they soon understood that the Imperials were well aware of the situation and had no intention of interfering. At this point many of the assembly members, including Ivron, decided that the diplomatic efforts had failed and forceful action had become necessary. They formed the covert Hrothi Independence Union and began recruiting partisans from among the discontented workforce of the factories. Mavane Noren, who had until then apparently retired from political life, became the HIU's underground recruiter and supplier, using the many contacts and alliances she had built over her four hundred years on the Council. For the first two decades of the resistance movement, the HIU limited itself to sabotage and bombings of Abbey Devices factories, always very careful to preserve the lives of both Utapauns and Abbey security guards. Their main goal was to make it economically impracticable for Abbey Devices to continue its investments in the Tarbauri sinkholes, since they presumed that profits were what drove the unsympathetic actions of the Board of Executives. The HIU's operations during this period were relatively successful, but not to the desired extent, because Abbey Devices received substantial subsidies from the Empire to continue its production of cheap starships.
The situation changed to the HIU's advantage when the New Republic was formed in 4 ABY. External financial support for Abbey Devices ceased, and the Board of Executives begun to live in the fear of coming under the scrutiny of the Republic. Using the threat of Republic intervention, the HIU was able to force many concessions out of the Board of Executives. Among many other things, they improved working conditions in the factories, re-introduced the traditional Tarbauri currency, and began the development of services and businesses for the Tarbauri Utapauns. Mavane re-established the Tarbauri Council and removed much of the administrative and legislative powers that the Board of Executives had over the sinkholes. Over the next two decades, with the Board constantly under the scrutiny of the Council and HIU, conditions in the Tarbauri sinkholes were finally reformed to the satisfaction of its native inhabitants.
Unfortunately, this idyllic state of balance did not last for long. In 27 ABY the Board of Executives realized that the New Republic was so preoccupied by the War that the HIU's threats of republic intervention had become hollow. This recognition was followed by the arrest of the entire Council and HIU leadership, including Mavane and Ivron. They were incarcerated in secretly-built prisons, and their reforms of the past twenty years were reverted in the space of a few months. Conditions in the sinkholes returned to how they were during the Empire, while the HIU fell to pieces without its leaders. What remained of the HIU executed one last bombing of a factory, simultaneously contacting the HNN to claim responsibility for the attack, as a last desperate cry for help.
As Abbey Devices expected, the Republic did not respond. Nonetheless, Korroth's intervention was enough to resuscitate the HIU, and with Ivron back at the helm, they conquered Ika and, after Korroth left, the neighboring sinkhole of Toque, also freeing Mavane Noren in the process. Yet, Ivron and the other HIU leaders (now mostly Sazareli tribal chieftains) were taken by surprise when Mavane disclosed to them documents giving proof that it had been Ivron who had, in 50 BBY, brought Abbey Devices to Tarbaur in the first place. With this, Mavane put to the HIU chieftains that Ivron had ulterior motives which contrasted with the aims of the HIU. Ivron, before any of the chieftains could pass judgment, left the Tarbauri sinkholes and went into self exile among the Sazareli tribes. He spent the time since then meditating on what he had done wrong, and he had concluded that his mistake had been to trust Mavane.
At first, Mavane's duplicitous actions did not match Korroth's memory of his mother. In the past it had always seemed that she strove uniquely to serve the people of Ika and the other sinkholes, as demonstrated most of all by her pivotal role in the overthrowing of the Tuvon regime. Yet, the more he thought about Mavane's past, the more he was persuaded that she had always had more selfish end goals. To corroborate his theory, Korroth decided to meet Mavane in person. Ivron accompanied him to the southern edge of the Sazareli steppes, and then Korroth flew by dactillion to Ika.
As he flew over the sinkholes, he could see a clear divide, a no man's land, between the HIU and Abbey Devices sinkholes. When he landed in Ika, he was met by the HIU chieftains and was told that he could not meet with his mother, and in fact he had to leave the sinkholes forthwith, as per the sentence of exile made upon him in 107 BBY. Korroth was taken by surprise, but he immediately recalled how he had murdered his twin brother and had consequently been exiled from Tarbaur. Instead of leaving, he went to talk privately to several of the chieftains whom he knew from his time as an Ezzekieli tribesman.
These chieftains told him that Mavane had known that he had met with Ivron in the Sazarel, and that she had therefore ordered the renovation of his exile because she suspected that he might take Ivron's side. The chieftains further explained that there was much discontent in the HIU leadership. While Mavane was leading a successful campaign against Abbey Devices, she was doing so with no concern for the lives of Utapauns in sinkholes of either side. She sent her soldiers to certain death and bombed Abbey sinkholes full of Utapauns. The chieftains became more and more enraged as they spoke, without Korroth's intervention. The Guardian knew that they only needed to vent their anger, which had been suppressed by their fear of Mavane for so long.
Meanwhile Korroth reflected on his mother's true ambitions in her long life. It seemed to him that, while she may have outwardly acted for the good of her people, her plans had always placed her in the supreme position of power in Tarbaur. Six centuries ago she had married Tuvon and had thus become the consort of the sinkholes' autocratic dictator. Centuries later she led a revolt against Tuvon which made her the most important member of the Tarbauri Council. Soon after the Council elected her own two sons as future leaders of a reformed Tarbaur. After the ruination of the Abbey Devices yoke in 4 ABY, she formed a new Council with her at its head. And now she had banished Ivron; she taken leadership of the HIU and she was attempting to take all of Tarbaur back by military force.
He had established long ago that his father Tuvon had ruled over the Tarbauri sinkholes with a harsh and pitiless hand because he thought he was doing the good of his people. Now Korroth had discovered the complete opposite in his mother; she had gained power and prestige for her own gain through doing what superficially appeared to be the good of the people. What Korroth could not understand now was why, after having built such a selfless reputation over the centuries, Mavane would destroy it by wasting the lives of Pau'ans and Utai unnecessarily. Her long-term goals would be much better served by appearing to preserve and protect her people. But that was just it, Korroth realized: Mavane was 656 standard years old, she no longer had the luxury of a "long term goal." She was throwing everything she had at her enemies, with no concern for legacy or consequences, so that she could end her life on the throne of power.
The chieftains had stirred themselves to a state of outrage, they resembled more a lynch mob than a governing council. Korroth did not lose the opportunity, and convinced them to bring justice upon Mavane. The chieftains stormed the elderly Pau'an's quarters and in the ensuing scuffle they killed Mavane. Their blood cooled, and they remained in shock to realize that they had murdered their own supreme leader. Korroth told them not to waste time and proposed that Ivron Hroth return to lead the HIU. Ivron's perceived misdeeds were put aside and he was recalled from the Sazarel.
With Mavane gone, Korroth was sure that the HIU would prevail over Abbey Devices. His mother's aggressive tactics had blown a hole in the resources of both factions, but now the territorial advantage stood with the HIU. Ivron and the chieftains would now be able to replenish their forces and plan for one last surge against Abbey Devices. Satisfied with the turn of events, Korroth travelled to Pau City and stole away on a shuttle back to the Cocytus System.
Claw of Suffering
28 ABY to 29 ABY
Once back on Antenora, Korroth joined House Acclivis Draco, and soon after enlisted in the Ebon Cloak Battleteam. One of the first things that he did was to run a hunting competition, an idea that had come to him in the Sazareli steppes. He encouraged the Dark Jedi of HAD to hunt any species of animal on any planet, and bring them back as a gift or a trophy; however the event wasn't taken up with much enthusiasm in the House and only two Dark Jedi took part. During this time he also fought and won an ACC Quick Skirmish battle against Jedi Hunter Nokkon Wud in the swamps of Dagobah.
He was later appointed as apprentice to then Prelate Lucien Kaeth, Proconsul of Scholae Palatinae. Under his guidance he enrolled on a project to study and document the Clan Artifacts. The first one that he was assigned was the "Void Probe", a Massassi frieze from Yavin IV. On one side the frieze depicted a battle scene from the Great Hyperspace War, and on the other side was a winged eye. It was while experimenting on the winged eye that Korroth and his team of scientists discovered that the artifact reacted to the Force. It allowed a Force-sensitive person to enter deep trances, and even have out-of-body experiences. Further experiments uncovered that, during these out-of-body experiences, the subject's conscience could travel to any place in the galaxy (by recalling the appearance of that place), while their body remained in front of the frieze. Korroth hypothesized that a very powerful Dark Jedi would be able to not only travel in space, but also forwards and backwards in time. In the meantime Prelate Lucien also began preparing his trials for Jedi Hunter, which would have involved the hunting and capture or assassination of an actual Jedi Knight. However, due to his duties in the Clan Summit Korroth's master was never able to find the time to organize the hunt. Towards the end of 28 ABY Guardian Korroth Karn was named Claw of Suffering of the Order of the Dragon, a prestigious cadre of the most active members of House Acclivis Draco.
At the start of 29 ABY, Korroth took part in the Independence Games. Drawing from his experience of the Clan Artifacts project, he won a medal for his documentation of an alchemical artifact in the Emperor's Storeroom. After the Independence Games he took part as a Temporary Auditor in the classification of a large number of files in the Holocron Center of the Brotherhood. He was later assigned three more Clan Artifacts to study and document, the Ray of Throes, Tukan's Armor and the Soul Blight. The Ray of Throes was a hssiss bone kris used by the Inquisitorius as a torture device in the time of the Galactic Empire. When the blunt blade of the kris touches skin, a Dark Side force inside the artifact inflicts excruciating pain upon the victim, without causing any physical harm. Tukan's Armor is a full suit of plate armor, originally worn two million years ago by Prince Tukan Akar of Voon. Prince Tukon, a Force-sensitive, perpetrated such bloody atrocities during the wars on his planet that the armor became imbued, through the Force, with the suffering of the Prince's victims. Even to this day, if a Force-sensitive approaches the armor they will experience the waves of agony and torment that the armor has witnessed, and those weak of mind will inevitably go mad if exposed to it for too long. The Soul Blight, the last artifact, is a great two-handed sword used by the same Prince Tukan, later crafted into a Sith sword by the Emperor's Guard, and then cursed by a duinuogwuin's dying breath. This curse meant that the smallest cut with the Soul Blight would cause the victim to go mad with the drive to inflict pain to those around him and even to himself. The curse basically robbed the victim of their soul and made them a bloodthirsty beast.
Later on Korroth also designed the interiors of the Baudo-class Star Yacht Enchantress, a luxury shuttle assigned to the Consuls of Scholae Palatinae. However, because of changes made by the Dark Council to the Clan regulations for the possession of artifacts and assets, Korroth's work on the Yacht and, crucially, the Clan Artifacts became obsolete and superseded. While the Guardian was still awarded for his work, he was greatly disappointed that his studies and research had essentially been in vain. He decided to retire for a while from Dark Brotherhood life to travel across the planet of Antenora.
(Note: the remainder of the history is in summary form. It will be expanded in the future.)
Antenora
29 ABY to 30 ABY
The Krath Guardian met nomad and settled tribes, and visited cities and landmarks principally to learn about the origins of Antenoran religions, and to document the ancient history of the planet. He also researched the existence of two lost civilisations, extinct by tens of thousands of years, which inhabited the planet before its last major climate change. He found evidence of one of these civilisations, the Homoglyphs, in a sacred cave in the city of Aknah, and he suspected that more remains would be found in the cave networks of the Hollow Lands. However, he did not have the resources to excavate the site, so he returned to Acclivis Draco and the Ebon Cloak Battleteam.
The Scholar
30 ABY to 33 ABY
Korroth proposed the construction of a new base of operations for the Ebon Cloak. His offer was accepted and the Guardian oversaw the design and construction of the base, the Sedes Doctrinae, in the Hollow Lands. Coincidentally, during the construction works extensive Homoglyph runic writings were found in one of the caverns. However, Korroth did not have time to study these runes in 30 ABY as he took part in the Unification War on Antei, where he earned a battlefield promotion to Jedi Hunter.
After the Great Jedi War Korroth was assigned a new and more stimulating task: to document the planet of Antenora, its inhabitants, tribes, cities, cultures, religions, climate, tides and ecosystem. In 31 ABY Korroth was promoted to Dark Jedi Knight for his work on this project and the Sedes Doctrinae. The Guardian remained fully dedicated to the Antenora project for the next three years. This time spent among the people of Antenora began to erode at Korroth's resolve to hold to his creed, to serve only the self. He began to question the purpose of gaining power for oneself, and he drew near to the conclusion that power was only a tool, that the true purpose could only be to serve others, to help those in need. However, he knew that these heretical thoughts could be fatal in the Brotherhood, so he decided to hide his sentiments for the present.
In 33 ABY the Krath participated in the ACC Journeyman Ladder, the Scholae Palatinae Spring Games and the Rite of Supremacy: Disorder. In that same year, Scholae Palatinae was demoted to House status, and later Acclivis Draco was disbanded. Korroth was shifted to Battleteam Caliburnus, but in secret he planned a defection to the newly-forming Light-Side House of Odan-Urr.
To Serve the Light
34 ABY to 35 ABY
In 34 ABY, Korroth officially renounced the Dark Side and joined House Odan-Urr on Harakoa. While working to consolidate his conversion to the "Light Side", the Jedi Knight documented the biology and culture of the native Harakoans for the records of the House. For this work and for his past projects on Antenora Korroth was promoted to the first Equite rank by the Summits of both Odan Urr and Scholae Palaitinae.
Profile
Appearance
Korroth belongs to a subspecies of Pau’ans that show slight differences from the more common strain of the species. He is gaunt and spindly, with scrawny arms and long bony fingers (unlike most Pau’ans, he keeps his fingernails trimmed so that they are not clawed). He has five-fingered hands and five-toed feet. His skin is vertically pinstriped and taupe grey in color, and it’s is very dry and raspy; he sweats very little. He is completely hairless, apart from bristly dark eyebrows. Below a high forehead and bushy eyebrows, his sunken eye sockets are stained with a pale red pigment, and he has very wide inky black pupils. Covering his ears (which have no pinnae) are oval eardisks made of pale chitin. He has a thin nose, sunken cheeks and high cheekbones. Behind thin pale lips, his upper teeth are jagged and pointed, while his lower set of teeth is like that of any Human.
The physical differences between the Tarbauri-Sazareli Pau'ans (Korroth being one of them) and common Pau'ans may have been caused by the fact that Tarbauri-Sazareli Pau'ans have been living in arid, desert lands with the direct equatorial sun since before the climate change of 10,000 years ago.
Attire
Korroth's normal attire is a beige high-collared shin-length cassock, with a wide dark green waist sash and a tan elbow-length shoulder cape. He latches dark leather bracers to his wrists and dons supple Sullustan leather boots. Over the waist sash he wears a leather utility belt which usually holds his lightsaber, sometimes his sonic blaster, nutrient capsules and hydration tablets, dermaseal spray, disinfectant spray, small bactade capsules, a personal holoprojector remotely connected to his eardisk and some power cells.
When he prepares for combat, Korroth usually dresses in a loose dark brown thigh-length tunic and breeches, held by the same dark green waist sash, and the same leather boots and bracers.
When going to cold places, he always puts on a voluminous robe or cloak lined with synthfur, thick gloves and boots and a warm hat.
Beliefs and Personality
Korroth's principal personal tenet is to help others, as explained by his motto "Servant of the Light". The object or essence in which Korroth places the most value, and from which all his principles derive, is the life and welfare of other sapient beings, in whatever form they are and whatever their past may be. His aim is to ensure that, by what little he can do, these lives are not harmed (through disease, accident or violence). His experience in xenobiology and genetics allows him to help others afflicted by disease, and his training as a Jedi allows him to protect others from violence. When violence erupts between two sapients, he believes that the least harm possible should be perpetrated in trying to stop the violence. He believes that killing is the most extreme measure to stop violence, and should only be inflicted when the alternative leads to certain and inevitable loss of innocent life. Killing should never be used as punishment, but only to directly prevent or stop irrefutable grievous violence.
Since his conversion to the Light Side, Korroth has found it difficult to harm others. He is not certain that he would be able to kill to protect an innocent. He recognizes this as a severe hindrance, and he is training to overcome this instinct so that he may protect others more effectively.
The Light
To Korroth the "Light" represents the set of values (whether they be self-made or dictated by the Force or by the community) which one applies to one's actions in order to make those actions beneficial to others. He is skeptical about the validity of following one's instincts in the belief that they are directed by the Force, simply because he has seen no convincing evidence that the Force does command one's instincts and, even if it does, that it directs those instincts for the purpose of doing good. Therefore Korroth shapes his personal values according to his own experience whenever he can.
While Korroth does not consider himself a Gray Jedi, he does not explicitly ascribe to any one specific Jedi doctrine. Instead he prefers to draw from his own experiences, the experiences of the community and his own rationalisations to formulate a fluid set of moral and ethical values.
Education
Korroth spent five years in the University of Sanbra (in the 70's BBY) learning first general science and then specializing in xenobiology. He has also carried out many studies involving genetic engineering of animals, so that he has become quite proficient in the field of genetics. In his subsequent travels he was able to put into practice and improve his knowledge on many occasions. Since joining the Brotherhood, Korroth has undertaken to expand his knowledge in all fields, as attested by the variety of Shadow Academy courses he has passed.
Korroth's first language is a dialect of Utapese spoken in Tarbaur, which in turn is slightly different in Ika compared to the other Tarbauri sinkholes. He can, however, understand the other Utapese dialects, and also the Utai language. He speaks Basic with almost no accent, and he in fact puts great import in correct grammar and spelling. He can also communicate at a basic level in a few other alien languages, which he learned mostly in his travels with the League of Cavaliers Corsaire.
Name
Korroth is only the last of a number of names that the Pau'an has adopted. His birth name was Korren, from his mother's surname, Noren. When he discovered his father's name, he changed his own name to Korroth Von Hroth, his father being called Tuvroth'von Hroth ('von is a title adopted by self-made autocrats in Tarbaur; the title is passed on to the autocrat's heirs, but in the form of Von, unless the heir becomes an autocrat himself or herself). When he married into Tribe Ezzekiel, the appellation "Ezzekieli" was added to his name. His Dark Side surname "Karn" meant "cold" and "heartless" in the Sazareli language; he has dropped this from his name since his conversion to the Light Side.
Hroth
Hroth is a surname he has used unofficially since joining House Odan-Urr. It is his family name, and it encapsulates the peculiar struggle of his parentage. From ancient Tarbauri records to the most recent history, every bearer of the name Hroth has endeavored to serve his or her people, doing their utmost to achieve the good of whatever Tarbauri sinkhole they called home. The singular aspect of this struggle is that each Hrothi has used their own very idiosyncratic methods to accomplish this, from Tuvon Hroth's harsh dictatorship to Ivron Hroth's valiant fight against Abbey Devices. The history of his forebears somewhat expresses Korroth's own views (see "Beliefs and Personality").
Possessions
Coat of Arms
Korroth's coat of arms consists of a golden serpent with a mane of feathers, on a field of dark green. The full blazon is "vert, a feather-maned serpent erect or". According to some desert tribes of Harakoa, the feathered serpent is a spirit-deity whose sphere of influence is personal enlightenment. This spirit inspires in in people personal and adaptive virtue, beliefs and behavior, as depicted by an ancient Harakoan fable:
File:FeatheredSerpentKh.jpegKorroth's coat of arms since 35 ABY
- One day a feather-maned serpent was drinking at a well when a furred serpent slithered into the oasis. The feathered serpent made room for him to drink as well, but then he asked the furred serpent "Why do you have such a mane of wispy hair, and not a full crown of golden feathers?"
- And the furred serpent said, "'Tis because the bantha told me that a mane of fur is so much better. Verily the serpents of all the other oases don fur after they meet the bantha. In fact, now that you know about the bantha's revelations, you should adopt fur and wear it thinly."
- "I will keep my feathers," The feathered serpent replied, "Because I like them best, and what the bantha thinks I care not a jot." With this the furred serpent turned in indignation and slithered out of the oasis.
- The next day the two serpents met again at the oasis, and again they argued over the fur and the feather until nigh on midday. Yet, when the sun was at its zenith, a scabby womp rat came into the oasis, and there was no doubt that he was hungry for snake. The furred serpent slid forward and hissed and raised his hackles at the womp rat. The beast, seeing his prey had but a pathetic wisp of hair around his head, jumped on the furred serpent and devoured him in one mouthful.
- Then the hungry beast came to the feathered serpent, but the scaled reptile upraised his broad golden feathers and hissed and waved his head from side to side. The womp rat thought that the serpent was too big for him to swallow or even battle with, and thus he turned around in fear and scampered out of the oasis. The feathered snake lowered his feathers; he mourned his fellow snake for a time, but then he drank and laid himself to rest in the shade of the peaceful oasis.
File:CoA droplet.jpegKorroth's discarded Dark Jedi coat of arms Before his conversion to the Light side, Korroth's coat of arms was a russet-colored shield with the Sazareli runes for "KK" in gold. These were the same runes that he carved in 90 BBY on the Med Ushibri peak in the Karnashu desert of his homeworld of Utapau. The color of the runes on the shield represented the golden sands of the Karnashu desert, a lifeless expanse of dunes in which no being lived. To Korroth it symbolized his own cold and pitiless mind. The Karnashu was also the origin of his discarded surname Karn, acquired by spending years in that desert waste.
Gear
Eardisks
The Pau'an's ears, lacking pinnae, are covered by a pair of pale chitin eardisks, as is customary for all Pau'ans. However, Korroth's eardisks are not vestigial or just ornamental, since he has concealed several devices inside them. In his left eardisk is a comlink able to transmit and receive audio at a range of about 50 kilometers without satellite amplification (satellites present around most civilized worlds). The comlink has scrambling capabilities and it can generate a distortion field one meter in radius. The right eardisk contains a small audio-pickup device which can be set to amplify distant noises or to isolate a single sound from among loud background noise. Both comlink and audio-picking device can be operated by concealed buttons on the edge of the eardisks, or through a pen-shaped controller which slots inside the right eardisk.
While both eardisks are sealed against dust and fine particles, they are not completely waterproof, so the devices will be damaged by prolonged immersion in water. Korroth can remove the devices himself if he has access to a toolkit.
Test Subject THY-16.3
Normally called "Thy", this genetically modified ludos has been traveling with Korroth since it was born in vitro in 56 BBY. Thy is the result of a study carried out by Korroth on the elimination of senescence through genetic engineering. The ludos, now almost 90 standard years old, is a testament to the success of that experiment.
Thy is much smaller than normal Ganlihk ludos, being about 10 cm (~4 inches) in length; Korroth sometimes carries it in his pocket or on his shoulder. Its body is shaped like a flattened, knobby ball, with a set of small round photoreceptors at the front. From underneath its body protrude ten prehensile tentacles, lined with suckers. The two front tentacles are agile and muscular, and they end in two fingers, thus allowing the ludos to climb vertical surfaces. Unlike the ludos of Ganlihk, Thy has a dry, pale-cream skin, and it uses its bioluminescent abilities infrequently.
Thy's most useful trait is its twittering vocalizations. Korroth has found that the ludos' "song" can help a meditating Force-user to enter an even deeper state of concentration, where they will be able to interact more profoundly with the Force. Korroth is reluctant to divulge this finding with others, so he has trained Thy to remain silent in public.
DJB Facts
Achievements
- Initiated into HAD’s Order of the Dragon as the Claw of Suffering towards the end of 28 ABY (March 2008).
- Designed the Sedes Doctrinae, the headquarters of the now defunct Ebon Cloak Battleteam.
- Completed an extensive report on many aspects of the planet Antenora, home to the now defunct Acclivis Draco Battleteam.
Trivia
- Even though he was born in 135 BBY, Korroth has not even reached middle age by Pau’an standards [1].
- Korroth has been taught by five different Masters in his time as a Journeyman: Armand al’Tor, Scorpius, Rasilvenaira Stormraven, Lucien Kaeth and Thran Occasus.