SW: Darth Xerath

Darth Xerath was a Dark Lord of the Sith after the Great Hyperspace War. Xerath was born into a noble Sith family, and as such raised to be a powerful Sith Lord. He was made the apprentice of a lesser Sith Lord, whom he later killed to attain Lordhood. He later became a Darth, and have taken many apprentices, many of whom have become Darths.

Xerath has been thought to be one of the best Sith Sorcerers to ever exist, and was, for a time, Darth Vitiate's left hand, until he proved to be a threat and ordered executed. He managed to escape, and took the jungle planet Orman for his own. There he constructed a grand temple, imbued with Dark Side energy. He was able to live on Orman for centuries due to him being presumed dead by the Sith Empire, and his temple had something similar to a cloaking effect on the planet.

It was not until a group of Jedi under Luke Skywalker's Jedi Order accidentally stumbled upon the planet in 59 ABY that Darth Xerath was rediscovered. By this time Xerath had abandoned the concept of only adhering to one side of the force. He had converted his grand temple from a dark side nexus to being a powerful site of both light and dark side energy. The Jedi managed to convince Xerath to leave Orman and go to the Jedi High Council on Coruscant. There it was decreed that Xerath was to aid Jedi historians in their research, and in exchange Xerath would be able to do his own research into the Jedi Order. The council did forbid Xerath from using dark side abilities while in any Jedi facility, to which Xerath reluctantly agreed.

Xerath stayed with the New Jedi Order for 53 years, conducting research into the Jedi Order, their history, and the light side of the force. He befriended a Grey Jedi historian named Ma'har during this time, and the Jedi aided Xerath in his studies.

In 112 ABY, Ma'har was dispatched to the ancient Sith world of Kalsunor to study a Sith temple. Xerath decided to accompany him, since he knew the world from when he was a Lord of the Reconstituted Sith Empire. Initially the Jedi Council was against this, but since Ma'har was extremely cemented in the light side, he vouched for Xerath, stating that he could keep the former Sith Lord in check. After this, the council reluctantly allowed Xerath to accompany Ma'har on his expedition.

The temple on Kalsunor seemed uninhabited to the Jedi and Xerath, and they did not expect anything to be in there, since it had been abandoned since the Old Republic conquered the planet in 3639 BBY. The temple proved to be inhabited, however. A dark side cult had made the temple their home. The Jedi, with Xerath's help, did not have any true issue with clearing the temple at first. When they ventured further in, however, they discovered something that surprised even Xerath. An ancient terentatek had made the temple its home. Presumably it was awakened during the time of Palpatine's Galactic Empire, Xerath surmised. The group engaged the terentatek. They were faced with a more formidable foe than they could handle, since it could feed on the force powers of its enemies. Xerath had never encountered a terentatek of this kind before, and could therefore not provide as much assistance as he initially thought.

The terentatek managed to kill most of the Jedi in the group. When all seemed lost, Ma'har went in for the kill, and even though he succeeded in wounding the creature, he was critically wounded as well. Xerath, fuelled by rage of seeing the first true friend he had ever had being lethally injured, conjured the power to teleport onto the head of the terentatek, and promptly thrust his blade through the creature's skull. After the beast had died, he quickly went over to Ma'har, who was on the brink of death. Using the last bits of his force energy left, Xerath used the Dark Transfer ability to bring Ma'har back to life, at the price of his own life. After completing the Dark Transfer, Xerath's body started to disintegrate from

History
Darth Xerath was born as Dushûm on Korriban.

Xerath has been thought to be one of the best Sith Sorcerers to ever exist, and was, for a time, Darth Vitiate's left hand, until he proved to be a threat and ordered executed. He managed to escape, and took the jungle planet Orman for his own. There he constructed a grand temple, imbued with Dark Side energy. He was able to live on Orman for centuries due to him being presumed dead by the Sith Empire, and his temple had something similar to a cloaking effect on the planet.

It was not until a group of Jedi under Luke Skywalker's Jedi Order accidentally stumbled upon the planet in 59 ABY that Darth Xerath was rediscovered. By this time Xerath had abandoned the concept of only adhering to one side of the force. He had converted his grand temple from a dark side nexus to being a powerful site of both light and dark side energy. The Jedi managed to convince Xerath to leave Orman and go to the Jedi High Council on Coruscant. There it was decreed that Xerath was to aid Jedi historians in their research, and in exchange Xerath would be able to do his own research into the Jedi Order. The council did forbid Xerath from using dark side abilities while in any Jedi facility, to which Xerath reluctantly agreed.

Xerath stayed with the New Jedi Order for 53 years, conducting research into the Jedi Order, their history, and the light side of the force. He befriended a Grey Jedi historian named Ma'har during this time, and the Jedi aided Xerath in his studies.

In 112 ABY, Ma'har was dispatched to the ancient Sith world of Kalsunor to study a Sith temple. Xerath decided to accompany him, since he knew the world from when he was a Lord of the Reconstituted Sith Empire. Initially the Jedi Council was against this, but since Ma'har was extremely cemented in the light side, he vouched for Xerath, stating that he could keep the former Sith Lord in check. After this, the council reluctantly allowed Xerath to accompany Ma'har on his expedition.

The temple on Kalsunor seemed uninhabited to the Jedi and Xerath, and they did not expect anything to be in there, since it had been abandoned since the Old Republic conquered the planet in 3639 BBY. The temple proved to be inhabited, however. A dark side cult had made the temple their home. The Jedi, with Xerath's help, did not have any true issue with clearing the temple at first. When they ventured further in, however, they discovered something that surprised even Xerath. An ancient terentatek had made the temple its home. Presumably it was awakened during the time of Palpatine's Galactic Empire, Xerath surmised. The group engaged the terentatek. They were faced with a more formidable foe than they could handle, since it could feed on the force powers of its enemies. Xerath had never encountered a terentatek of this kind before, and could therefore not provide as much assistance as he initially thought.

The terentatek managed to kill most of the Jedi in the group. When all seemed lost, Ma'har went in for the kill, and even though he succeeded in wounding the creature, he was critically wounded as well. Xerath, fuelled by rage of seeing the first true friend he had ever had being lethally injured, conjured the power to teleport onto the head of the terentatek, and promptly thrust his blade through the creature's skull. After the beast had died, he quickly went over to Ma'har, who was on the brink of death. Using the last bits of his force energy left, Xerath used the Dark Transfer ability to bring Ma'har back to life, at the price of his own life. After completing the Dark Transfer, Xerath's body started to disintegrate, since he did not have the power to resume his self healing soon enough. Only one Jedi was concious to witness Xerath's sacrifice, that being Ma'har's padawan. The padawan later told the story of how Xerath sacrificed himself to save Ma'har to the Jedi High Council, and right when the story was finished, Xerath appeared in front of the high council as a force ghost, being the first of the sith race to do so.

Lightsabre Combat
Having mastered all major forms of lightsabre combat, Darth Xerath was an unparallelled swordsman. His fighting style relied on using several forms simultaneously according to the needs of the battle. His most used forms in a lightsabre duel were Form II: Makashi, Form III: Soresu and Form IV: Ataru as the templates, with elements of the other forms implemented where ever needed. This made him a very versatile lightsabre duelist, which granted him many victories, since most during Xerath's earlier years didn't expect a sorcerer to be adept to the point of mastery in the art of lightsabre combat. The Darth's weakness was that even though he was in as best a shape he could be, he wasn't particularly strong compared to most Sith, or Jedi for that matter. This made him rely more on agility in his fighting rather than strength, as he would lose to most opponents in a competition of physical strength.

In addition to having mastered every form of lightsabre combat, he also utilised several techniques outside of the standard forms, and was adept in the use of Trakata, Dun Möch, and Jar'Kai. At some point he also learned Teräs Käsi, so as to be able to defend against fellow force-users even when disarmed.

Though adept in the use of every kind of conventional lightsabre, he preferred the use of a single lightsabre. His had a curved hilt and a dual-phase function, with the settings being the standard 1m along with 1,3m. The sabre utilised a single naturally red crystal, which is very uncommon due to the extreme rarity of lightsabre crystals being naturally red. Darth Xerath also possessed a double-bladed lightsabre with a synthetic red crystal and a lightsabre shoto with a purple crystal and curved hilt, though both were rarely used. Despite this, he always had the shoto on his person in case he would require an additional blade.

Force Powers
Being a Sith sorcerer, Xerath was a master in the use of the force. He was one of the most powerful force-users in Vitiate's Sith Empire, and utilised his ability in ways of which most were incapable. He was capable of using several rare abilities, such as Dark Transfer and Deadly Sight, though both of these were rarely used due to them being very draining of the user, and as such Xerath would usually only use them in dire situations.

An innovation Xerath made was making Deadly Sight a far more concentrated ability. Standard usage of the ability would harm anything in the user's field of vision, but Xerath managed to make a concentrated version of the ability which could instantly kill whomever he looked directly at, though this was even more straining than the standard version. Despite this, it was an efficient way of using the ability since it would rarely have to be sustained for a longer period of time.

Abilities that Xerath would use more often included telekinesis, tutaminis, force lightning, force teleport, force drain, various forms of telepathy, among others. His use of telekinesis was an unorthodox one. Whereas a common use of telekinesis was to crush the throat of a victim, Xerath would instead crush the heart. Though he enjoyed inflicting pain as much as anyone, he did not particularly enjoy physical torture. He would more often utilise telepathic attacks.

An extraordinary power which Xerath had developed was an extreme version of force healing. He could stave off aging and even dark side degradation with his extreme mastery of force healing, effectively making him immortal. He would have to use the ability almost constantly to maintain himself, though, which reduced his capabilities most of the time. This was a weakness that could make any straining duel fatal. This is why he would often utilise force teleport to end duels as quickly as possible, because if a duel dragged on he would inevitably be weakened extremely, making one of his greatest accomplishments his greatest weakness.

During his time in the New Jedi Order Xerath learned how to transcend the physical plane and become a Force Ghost. After

Weaknesses
As mentioned earlier, one of Xerath's weaknesses was that he was comparatively weak in terms of raw strength. Even though he made up for this with agility and skill, it was still a major weakness when he was engaging in close-quarters combat. If he was pushed into a position where he would require raw strength, Xerath would not be able to deliver, even if he used force empowerment. This made masters of Djem So a counter to Xerath, something which Darth Malgus took advantage of in a duel.

Again mentioned earlier, Xerath's force abilities were constantly being strained due to him constantly using force healing to maintain his body. This took its toll on his stamina and potential force output in a battle, despite Xerath's immense force power. He was still able to use most force powers, but any ability that required a lot of force power to use was always a huge risk to Xerath. For instance, Xerath would only use abilities such as Deadly Sight whenever he knew he had no other way out, but he would have to do this early on in a fight, since if he used overly straining abilities to late in a battle, it could kill him just as quickly as it would kill his opponent.

Apprentices
Darth Xerath trained several apprentices in his time.

Darth Famis
Darth Famis was Xerath's first apprentice. This Human Sith Lord was a highly adept force user, and in his prime he almost rivaled his master. He was trained to be a sorcerer, and he served the Empire thusly. He came to achieve lordhood and Darthhood by defeating many ancient foes of the Sith. He eventually trained the fallen Jedi Yseeas Ka'kres. Ka'kres was an ambitious martial master, which became the end of Famis, because Ka'kres was given the task to kill his master to prove himself worthy of becoming a Darth.

Darth Suaros
Darth Suaros was Xerath's second apprentice. He was a Sith halfblood, and talented in the use of the lightsabre. Xerath trained him to combine force abilities and lightsabre combat to make him even more lethal. Suaros mastered this, and after he had mastered Shii-Cho, he quickly came to master Ataru, Niman, and Juyo. He preferred using two curved-hilt lightsabres, and as such was highly proficient in Jar'Kai. He tried to kill Xerath to take his seat, but was quickly beaten, and killed by his former master.

Darth Evge
Darth Evge was Xerath's third apprentice. The Wookiee was extremely adept at empowering himself with the force, and mastered Form I, Form II, Form III and both aspects of Form V. He served Xerath loyally, for Xerath had raised him since infancy. Evge was essentially Xerath's son, and Xerath raised him as such. Evge died of natural causes at an age of 513.