Lord Jedgar Octavius Paladin served as the second Grand Master of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. His reign was a period of growth, and saw the creation of the Dark Council and the Shadow Academy, among other things. Following his retirement, he served as the Brotherhood's first Justicar, and was adviser to Grand Masters including Jac Cotelin and Justinian Khyron. He is a holder of the Golden Lightsaber and a member of the Star Chamber. He currently serves as Deputy Grand Master of the Dark Brotherhood.
Character History
Early life
Born on Corellia in the waning years of the Old Republic to the Hereditary Duke of V'Armonde, nominal ruler of a distant and sparsely-populated moon orbiting a hardscrabble Outer Rim colony, predominantly involved in the export of luxury animal skins, Paladin was a child of privilege and wealth. He raced aircars, hunted dangerous game, and otherwise engaged in the life of a young dilettante until the death of his mother in his fifteenth year as the result of a tragic spaceship collision. Sobered, and to an extent embittered by her death, he joined the small Republic Navy just as the Clone Wars began.
Naval career
Prior to, and after, beginning to study the ways of the Jedi, Lord Paladin had a distinguished Naval Career, rising to the rank of High Admiral. He has long ago given up piloting, which he considers a young man's game, but has from time to time returned to his roots on the bridge of a capital ship.
Clone Wars
Entering the Academy in his eighteenth year, Paladin joined the small but highly trained Republic Navy just in time for its dramatic expansion during the Clone Wars. He began his training as a capital ship line officer, learning how to command men and starships, and put those skills to the test in skirmishes against the Trade Federation and, eventually, the Commonwealth of Independent Systems. The first stirrings of force sensitivity became obvious in him at during this era, but with so few Jedi and so much going on in the universe, his force potential was missed.
Pre-Battle of Yavin
At the end of the Clone Wars, the Galactic Empire emerged to bring order to the chaos that had been wrought on the Old Republic. After several years rising through the ranks of the navy, Paladin was among the first major wave of officers to swear his loyalty to the new Emperor, who promised a New Order that would sweep away all the detritus of the Republic. It was near this time that Paladin transferred to the fighter corps, spending the next decades of his career piloting a TIE fighter. A talented pilot, aided by his latent force potential, he was soon a decorated ace, rising as far as a General in the TIE Corps and winning several decorations.
Post-Battle of Yavin
After the smoldering ashes of the Empire cooled, only a dozen or so Dark Jedi of the Circle of Adepts were still alive, scattered across the Imperial Remnant. Our only knowledge of the seven years between the Battle of Endor, and the death of the Reborn Emperor at Byss come from the journals of Kane Vader. As the first Grand Master of the Brotherhood of Dark Jedi, Kane Vader realized the weakness of his position. Luke Skywalker soon established his own school of the Jedi arts on Yavin. The infant Brotherhood faced extinction under the waves of new Jedi.
Kane Vader sought out refuge with one of the rogue Imperial factions, and a fringe element called the Warriors Guild. It was there that he met the man who would become Grand Master Paladin, then serving as a minor officer in that group, and took him as his second in the establishment of a new order of Dark Jedi.
Dissatisfied with his place, Vader dispatched his apprentice, then-Adept Paladin to a nascent Imperial faction on the Outer Rim, commanded by the newly promoted Grand Admiral Stefan Ronin, called the Emperor’s Hammer. The Grand Admiral recognized this boon, and after a period of intense negotiations spearheaded by Paladin, offered the Jedi succor in his territories, augmenting his forces with the skilled Dark Jedi. For a short period, Paladin continued to act as Vader's second, while at the same time serving as the Brotherhood's liaison to the Emperor's Hammer. However, within a few months, Vader, used to ruling the Brotherhood in secret, left for parts unknown, appointing his apprentice as his successor.
Paladin's career in the Emperor's Hammer was long and storied. Following his reign as Grand Master of the Brotherhood, he served in any number of Naval offices, including the first Training Officer and Flight Officer. For the bulk of his career, however, he served as High Inquisitor, eventually rising to the rank of High Admiral, and dispensing firm Imperial justice.
Paladin would eventually leave the Imperial Fleet at nearly the same time as the Exodus occurred, departing a highly decorated High Admiral and holder of every major award in the Fleet. Since that time, he has focused completely on Dark Jedi matters, and seldom speaks of his work for the Empire.
Dark Brotherhood
During his time as Grand Master, Paladin became one of the most dynamic and influential Jedi of the Brotherhood. Two of the ancient Orders, the scholarly Krath, and the pilots of the ferocious Sith dominated. Flying missions with the Imperial fleet, they slowly pushed their reach beyond the borders of their system and the dark moon of Eos. Paladin established the Dark Council as the ruling body of the Brotherhood, his circle of advisers and administrators of the rapidly expanding organization. He inducted over a hundred new Apprentices, teaching them the ways of the Dark Side after establishing the Shadow Academy, the first school of the Dark Side in over five thousand years. Eventually, Paladin, satisfied with what the Brotherhood had achieved under his rule, departed to find his Master, and pursue his own arcane knowledge, leaving the position of Grand Master to his capable apprentice, Kreeayt Havok.
Following his retirement, Paladin spent a short period of time in self-imposed exile from the Brotherhood. He focused instead on his duties as an Imperial Officer, training new pilots for the grinding war against the New Republic as a Training Officer. His rustication was short-lived, however, as he was called back to help put down the rebellion of Grand Master Crona, now stricken from the history books and known only as "The Other."
After his return, Paladin served as adviser to the then-Grand Master, offering sage advice and training to Grand Masters Jac Cotelin and Justinian Khyron. He helped develop the Clan and House system, as well as the Art of Vendetta and the awards system. He also served as first Justicar of the Brotherhood. For his efforts, he was awarded the Golden Lightsaber. Eventually, however, fatigue with the affairs of justice and the intractable nature of the Imperial Command caused Paladin to again depart the Brotherhood, leaving behind word only that he had departed for the Outer Rim, and would return when he had harnessed the hatred that had brewed within him. It would be years before the second Grand Master would be heard from again.
Journeys Beyond the Outer Rim
Giving up his positions as High Admiral, High Inquisitor, and Justicar, Paladin left the Imperial fleet and the Brotherhood at the time of the Exodus, supporting neither side in that struggle. Instead, he took his heavily modified luxury yacht, the Fiat Tenebris, and departed for the Outer Rim and the territories beyond, the little-explored areas of wild space and the unknown regions.
Paladin would spend most of the next six years exploring, with no communication with his former friends and apprentices in the Brotherhood. Always a scholar of the Dark Side, despite his Sith training, Paladin apparently visited many previously uncharted worlds in search of Dark Side lore and history. While some of these findings are doubtless preserved in his many journals, he has shared little of his experiences, save with other luminaries of the Dark Council and Star Chamber.
Return to the Brotherhood
Following his long absence, Paladin finally returned to the Brotherhood, arriving shortly after the Vong conquest of Antei. He found a Brotherhood very different from the one he had left, with the Iron Throne no longer on Eos, and much of the Brotherhood's hard-won territory under threat. He spent some time meeting with members of the Council, and eventually accepted a position as Praetor to the Deputy Grand Master, Muz Ashen Keibatsu.
Though he had never been a member of a Clan, Paladin also discovered that they had grown more independent and powerful since the time he had left, and that he could not effectively rejoin the Brotherhood as a rogue. Accordingly, he joined Clan Naga Sadow, at the time under the Consulship of his former subordinate, Master Trevarus Caerick.
Approximately ten months after his return to Brotherhood space, Paladin was unexpectedly appointed Quaestor of House Marka Ragnos by Consul Kharon Daragon. He served in that position for six months, guiding his House through the Ninth Great Jedi War. After the resignation of Grand Master Sarin and the subsequent elevation of Grand Master Muz Ashen, Paladin was appointed to the position of Deputy Grand Master, returning to the Dark Council after a long absence.
Physical Appearance
Grand Master Paladin's lightsaber and staffNot a man of unusual size or particularly striking appearance, the Dark Side is almost palpable in the presence of the seventy-year-old Grand Master. He is a bit over six feet, and has a strongly built physique that age has not lessened. His skin is pale, as if he has seldom seen the sun of any world, and what little of his skin shows in his robes is veined in blue. His hair and beard have gone from black, to grey, to silver over the years, but he wears his hair nearly shoulder length, tied back in a queue on more formal occasions. He also wears a neatly trimmed goatee, though in the past he did wear a full beard on occasion.
His clothes tend to dark, somber colors in simple but elegant cuts, and even in his robes he often wears civilian attire reminiscent of an Imperial officer's tunic, jodhpurs, and highly polished boots. He frequently wears gloves, as well, and his only jewelry is the platinum and sapphire signet ring that he has worn for decades, bearing his sigil of a lion holding the scales of justice, his symbol since the earliest days of the Brotherhood's heraldry under Herald Master Melan Pyr. An ebony staff, formerly the mark of a Grand Master, is one of his trademarks, and he nearly always carries it. His lightsaber has a curved, arabesque style handle, suitable for Form II use.
DJB Facts
Positions Held
Outstanding Achievements
Lord Paladin was one of the founding fathers of the Brotherhood, and established many of the institutions that currently govern the Brethren. He established the Dark Council, the Shadow Academy, the current system of ranks, and the Society of Envoys. The first Dark Side Compendium was written during his reign. He solidified the hold of the Iron Throne over its first homeworld, on the moon of Eos, and oversaw the beginnings of the Dark Hall. He inducted over a hundred apprentices into the Dark Brotherhood, and several of his former apprentices rose to become Grand Master in their own right. Later in his career, he helped develop the Clan and House System, the Brotherhood Awards, and the Grand Master's Royal Guard.
Titles
- Duke of V'Armonde
- Grand Master Emeritus
- Lord of the Sith
Trivia
Grand Master Paladin's Pipe The Grand Master was the last to carry the ebony staff of office, and does so to this day. He favors a pipe, and in his meditative moments, can be found smoking fine tobaccos. Paladin carries a pipe that was custom crafted for him from rare woods that bears his armorial bearings.