Kurien

Kurien was a Human male from the planet Klind'arith on the edges of Wild Space near the Minos Cluster. He lived peacefully on Klind'arith for centuries, and believed himself to be blessed with eternal life by the gods the Klind'arithi called the Ancients–who were in truth a faction of the ancient Sith– but was in truth kept alive by a crystal created by Sith alchemy.

Early in the Brotherhood's existence, when Klind'arith was discovered, Kurien was taken and experimented on to discover the source of his long life. When he refused to yield, he was imprisoned indefinitely, but was eventually sent back to Klind'arith in 19 ABY just before the Exodus to serve as bait to lure out Clan Naga Sadow and destroy them.

Biography

Origins

Kurien was born thousands of years before the rise of the Galactic Empire on a then undiscovered world called Klind’arith. During his lifetime, the planet was visited by a race the Klind’arithi believed to be the gods and named the Ancients, but who were in truth a faction from one of the ancient Sith Empires. The Ancients wielded powerful magics the Klind’arithi could scarcely believe, bringing with them a magical crystal which would forever alter the planet’s future. In exchange for these gifts, the Ancients requested that once every generation the Klind’arithi were to offer up their sons to join the Ancients in the heavens beyond Klind’arith, and it was a price the Klind’arithi willingly made to retain the favour of the gods.

When the Ancients stopped returning, the Klind’arithi wondered if they had been cast out of the gods’ favour and for a time question whether they had done something wrong. However, as the years wore on, the Klind’arithi discovered that they no longer aged naturally and believed they had been blessed by the gods. They built a religion around the Crystal the Ancients had left behind, believing they could hear the will of the gods when they were near.

Centuries passed in the blink of an eye and yet Kurien remained in his prime. As others willingly passed on to finally rejoin the gods in the afterlife, Kurien slowly moved up in station, eventually becoming the high shaman and leader of the religious order of the Klind’arithi. He spent his time meditating in the sanctum of the Crystal, attuning himself to the ebbs and flows of the wind and the earth and all the rest of the gods’ creation, and becoming the greatest of the Klind’arithi.

Coming of the Dark Ones

In 12 ABY, the existence of Klind’arith was finally learned of by the wider Galaxy when Imperial scouts happened across it. While the planet was deemed too primitive and lacking in suitable resources to command the main Empire’s attention, an envoy from the Brotherhood discovered the Klind’arithi exhibited an unfathomably high ratio of Force-sensitives.

Kurien and the Klind’arithi thought the envoys to be a reincarnation of the Ancients and gladly accepted their invitation when invited to join them in the heavens beyond. The envoys took Kurien and a select group of the Klind’arithi’s best shamans to Eos, where they were subjected to ruthless experiments to uncover the secret behind their abnormal rate of high midichlorian counts.

Most of the shamans broke under the torture, surrendering to death after so many centuries, hurt by the betrayal of the Dark Ones they had mistaken for their ancestral gods. But Kurien persevered. The greatest of the Klind’arithi, he ensured every horror the Dark Ones could throw at him. The voices of the gods disappeared, leaving behind only the screams of countless millions, as he was forced to listen to all the pain the galaxy that ever was and ever would be.

However, far from surrender, Kurien refused to die, clinging to life, dreaming one day of exacting his revenge. The Dark Ones exposed him to torture that would have killed a normal man, but he came back from the brink of death again, and again, and again; and still he refused to reveal his secret.

Prisoner

Eventually the Brotherhood grew tired of Kurien, accepting he would never break. They thought he may one day still be of use to them, however, and so he was imprisoned rather than being jettisoned into a star, fired into a black hole, dumped on some forgotten backwater planet, or the like.

Kurien did not realise but he had grown addicted to the energy generated by the Crystal. Cut off from the source of his eternal life and well of his power, he began to hunger, feeding off the energy of the guards around him in an effort to sustain himself. He knew he could not die, but outside of the life giving warmth of the Crystal his body began to waste away, growing old, and becoming more like one of the undead than the eternally young.

He sustained himself on his hatred, holding on to the hope of one day taking his revenge and slaying all those who had harmed his people. Only Kurien had survived the Dark Ones’ experiments and he vowed to avenge his fallen brethren and all those who would be taken from their homes in the years he was to be imprisoned on the distant home of the Dark Ones. Whether he had to wait weeks, months, years, or even centuries, Kurien promised he would one day have his revenge.

Return to Klind’arith

Kurien rotted in captivity until early in 19 ABY when members of Imperial Intelligence sprung him from his cell and returned him to Klind’arith with one instruction: to destroy the Brotherhood. He had been granted his freedom in exchange for fulfilling his own quest for vengeance. But the long years in captivity on Eos had taken its toll and he could barely walk, let alone wield the power he had once commanded as the high shaman of the Klind’arithi.

To have his revenge, Kurien was forced to become a predator and prey off his own people. Shunned and cast out, he hid himself away. He had become addicted to midichlorians, his own body having mutated beyond reproach. He started to feed off others, infecting them with his own midichlorians and mutating them into mindless extensions of his will. It was a sacrifice he believed the Klind’arithi had to make to defeat the Dark Ones. He was labelled a monster—a vampire—but took strength in people’s fear, styling himself the lord of all vampires to inspire fear and lure his enemies out.

The vampire’s fold

Kurien’s gambit paid off. As the well of Force-sensitives dried up and envoys went missing, the Brotherhood turned its eye on Klind’arith and dispatched the followers of Astronicus Sadow to investigate the disturbances. A team from Clan Naga Sadow arrived, led by Xanos Zorrixor; Trevarus Caerick; Jonuss Rai; Janos Silverwulf; Robert Daragon; Raistlin Majerus; and Kalia, then known only as Ghost Angel, among others.

The Empire fulfilled their end of the bargain, trapping the Dark Ones on the surface of Klind’arith with their giant ships of iron. As night fell, the splinters of Kurien’s being spread across the planet and preyed on the Dark Ones, turning them into further mindless drones. Kurien brought the one called Ghost Angel to his lair, in the sanctum of the Crystal, to perform on her the same dark sorcery the Dark Ones had done to him; to transform her into a monster just like him.

Last stand

Three days after their arrival on Klind’arith, Majerus, Silverwulf and Zorrixor discovered Kurien’s lair and confronted him. His actions had mutated the Crystal, transforming its powers such that it no longer breathed the Force on the people of Klind’arith, but now sucked life from them, and breathed it back into Kurien. The vampire lord had become immortal, an avatar of the gods, the sanctum itself transformed into an extension of his corrupted will.

Majerus, Silverwulf and Zorrixor fought valiantly, but within Kurien’s realm they had no hope of victory. But Ghost Angel, trapped in a spiritual fight against Kurien’s influence, broke free of his hold, and poured her soul back into his, channelling it into the Crystal. Her actions reversed Kurien’s corruption, restoring the true natural of the Crystal and severing him from his power source. Before he could reach out for the Crystal, it had translocated right into Zorrixor’s hand. Kurien made his last stand against Zorrixor, but without the Crystal he was weak and easily bested, and crumbled to dust as at long last the great high shaman of the Klind’arithi surrendered to death.

Trivia

• Kurien is a character from the Fold run-on which took place shortly after the Exodus in 2003.
• Though entirely coincidental, for he pre-dated both characters by nearly a year, parallels to Kurien's character have been observed in the likes of Okemi and Darth Nihilus.