Sith Orders and Sects

Sith Orders

We take what we desire because we can. We can because we have power. We have power because we are Sith."

―Sith Proverb.

the one thing that is common in all versions of the sith is their code.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me.

The Sith Order was a sect of Force-sensitives who utilized the dark side of the Force. The term "Sith" originally referred to a species of aliens native to the planets Korriban and Ziost, who were later enslaved and ruled by exiled Dark Jedi from the Galactic Republic. These Dark Jedi had once been members of the Jedi Order, a monastic Force religion dedicated to peace through the use of the light side of the Force. The Dark Jedi, who refused to rely exclusively on the light side, challenged the Jedi by giving in to the dark side, which started the Hundred-Year Darkness. However, they had been defeated and subsequently exiled from known space, which led to their discovery of the Sith species. Following centuries of interbreeding and mixing of cultures between the aliens and the exiles, the Sith would no longer be identified by their race, but by their dedication to the ancient Sith philosophy. This religious order would survive in many different incarnations throughout galactic history. The rise of a new leader, or Dark Lord, would often cause drastic reorganizations in the cult, however the Sith would always be characterized by their lust for power and their desire to destroy the Jedi Order.

The Sith were the most infamous of all dark side religions, and the members of the cult were often seen as the pinnacle of power within the dark side. Throughout their long history, the Sith commanded several Empires and initiated many galactic wars. With such great influence, the Sith religion inspired many cults that weren't technically part of the Sith Order, nor did they consist of actual Sith. Instead, they were founded and made up of Sith devotees and other Force-sensitives dedicated to prolonging the teachings and the memory of the Sith. Such cults included the Naddists, the Disciples of Ragnos, and the Krath.

"The true Sith have spent centuries building their strength in the depths of unknown space. The Sith Emperor patiently planned for the day when his Sith Empire would repay the Jedi for the humiliating defeats of the past. In that time, generations of Sith have come and gone, working hard and devoting their lives to the dream of vengeance."

―A HoloNet dossier on the Sith Order

Sith Empire

In the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War of 5000 BBY, the remnants of the original Sith Empire established a new Sith Empire in the galaxy's Unknown Regions. This Empire, also known as the True Sith sect, was created after Sith survivors of Dark Lord of the Sith Naga Sadow's disastrous campaign against the Galactic Republic fled known space to escape persecution by the Republic and its Jedi Order. Led by the Sith Lord Vitiate, the refugees wandered aimlessly through space in search of a new home. Twenty years after their departure from the original Empire's territory, the Sith discovered the forgotten world of Dromund Kaas and settled it to begin the process of rebuilding.

During the rebuilding process, Vitiate proclaimed himself to be the Dark Lord of his order and Emperor of his people. Under the care of the Emperor and his Dark Council of Sith Lords, the Empire established its capital of Kaas City and began building a mighty war machine, with the intent of eventually returning to combat the Galactic Republic once more.

Lead by Emperor Vitiate.

secondary rulers The Dark council.

"The Brotherhood of Darkness was nothing but a twisted perversion of the Jedi Order, a dark parody of the very thing we stood against."

―Darth Bane

Brotherhood of Darkness

The Brotherhood of Darkness was an organization of Sith that rose to power in the last decade of the Galactic Republic's Dark Age. Founded by former Jedi Master-turned Dark Lord of the Sith Skere Kaan, the Brotherhood took the place of the fragmented Sith Empire after slaughtering many of its most powerful lords. Forming the Dark Army, a force of warriors and soldiers meant to rain fire upon Republic worlds, the Brotherhood existed under the leadership of the Sith Council of Lords, constantly warring with the Jedi Order's Army of Light until both armies were utterly decimated at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan.

For nearly a thousand years, the Sith had been organized into the Sith Empire of Darth Ruin; waging a centuries-long war against the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, nearly toppling both. Countless Sith Lords staked their claim across the galaxy, establishing territories from the Outer Rim Territories until they began to encroach on the Galactic Core. As the Republic crumbled, members of the Jedi Order deemed themselves Jedi Lords and took control of their own territories, holding back the Sith Empire's Coreward approach.

In a naive attempt to end the war through politics, the Jedi High Council raised their protege Skere Kaan to the rank of Jedi Master. An extremist and a radical, Kaan left the Order on his belief that it had brought suffering upon the galaxy through its failure to act and rallied his followers together to form the Brotherhood of Darkness. As the schism of 1010 BBY rocked the Order, Kaan and his Brotherhood announced to the Republic and Jedi leadership that they would take control of the remaining Sith enclaves as part of a scheme to reform the Republic. Within a few brief months, Kaan and his followers had crushed the most feared Sith Lords and taken their worlds as their own

Ruled by Skere Kaan.

"We are the select few who refuse to be carried by the Force, and who carry it instead. Thirty in a millennium, rather than the tens of thousands fit to be Jedi."

―Darth Plagueis.

The Order of the Sith Lords.

The Order of the Sith Lords, also known as Bane's Sith Order, Banite Sith, or simply the Sith, was an ancient organization of Force-sensitives who utilized the dark side of the Force. Founded approximately one thousand years before the Battle of Yavin by the Sith Lord Darth Bane, it was intended to replace the Brotherhood of Darkness and institute a rebirth of the Sith. The guiding principle of the Order was the Rule of Two, which was developed by Bane through the teachings of Darth Revan's Holocron. Under this new tenet, only two Sith Lords were allowed to exist at any given time; a master and an apprentice. The Rule stipulated that after learning everything the master had to teach, the apprentice would attempt to kill the master and take an apprentice of their own. The intended effect of this rule was to ensure that each successive master would be stronger than the last. Ultimately, Bane intended that his successors would be able to amass enough power in secret to engineer the fall of the Republic and the destruction of the Jedi Order.

Bane's expectations of the new Order were met with his death at the hands of his own apprentice, Darth Zannah. The tradition was carried on over the next millennium, even though many Sith who followed in Bane's lineage were appalled at the thought of being slain by their own apprentices. After centuries of operating in secrecy, the Grand Plan for revenge was initiated by the Sith Lords Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious. Sidious, who usurped his Master's position, ultimately fulfilled Darth Bane's dream: the return of Sith dominance throughout the galaxy. With the betrayal and near destruction of the Jedi Order, Sidious dissolved the Galactic Republic and replaced it with the Galactic Empire. Ruling as emperor in his public guise as "Palpatine", Sidious' reign was prophetically ended by his own apprentice—the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker. Though he returned in the form of several clones, each inhabited in turn by the Emperor's dark spirit, Sidious' final demise in 11 ABY ended the line of Bane and Zannah.

"The Sith way is the way of peace. To bring peace, first we must bring justice and order. To bring justice and order to the galaxy—"

"First we must control it."

―Lumiya and Jacen Solo.

Lumiya's Sith

Lumiya's Sith was a monastic organization composed of loosely connected Force-sensitive individuals who adhered to the basic tenets of Sith ideology and the ways of the dark side of the Force. When the Order of the Sith Lords collapsed with the deaths of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader in 4 ABY, Lumiya sought to preserve the Sith legacy, and thus declared herself Dark Lady of the Sith. But due to the Rule of Two, an ancient diktat that allowed the existence of two Sith Lords at any given time, Lumiya's training was far too limited and inadequate for her to be considered a true Sith Master.

Nevertheless, the Dark Lady searched tirelessly for a worthy apprentice to stand at her side, both to continue the millennium-long tradition that was established by the ancient Sith Lord Darth Bane, and to exact vengeance on the resurgent Jedi Order for the fall of the last true Sith Lords. Her first choice fell on a Force-sensitive Imperial stormtrooper named Flint. Like Lumiya, Flint was also given basic instructions in the Sith ways by Darth Vader, who sought to see which of his two secret apprentices was the better choice to have at his side when he decided to overthrow Darth Sidious. However, Lumiya's decision to rule with her rival backfired when Flint renounced the dark side after choosing the path of redemption.

After spending some time without an apprentice, Lumiya eventually settled on Carnor Jax as her apprentice and Flint's successor. The young Sith prospect was a highly-trained Imperial Sovereign Protector within Darth Sidious' Royal Guard. Unlike the super majority of his fellow guardsmen, who were unquestioningly faithful to Sidious, Jax was loyal only to himself and his ambitions. When Sidious returned from the dead by inserting his spirit into several clone versions of himself in turn, Jax masterminded a plot to bring a premature end to the return of the resurrected Emperor. His machinations led to the poisoning of the Emperor's clone supplies, which proved to be the catalyst behind the final death of Darth Sidious. Jax immediately attempted to install himself as the next emperor, but his ambitious designs on the Imperial throne were ended along with his life by fellow guardsman Kir Kanos. Left without an apprentice once again, Lumiya decided to go underground and disappear from the forefront of galactic events.

During the many years she spent in hiding, Lumiya eventually crossed paths with the former Jedi Knight Vergere, who once had the opportunity to learn the ways of the Sith from Darth Sidious years before the creation of the Galactic Empire. Under the Fosh's tutelage, Lumiya fulfilled her training which had begun years ago by Darth Vader, and thus she truly achieved the full status of Dark Lady of the Sith. While she still sought to undermine the rapidly increasing power of the Jedi Order, her first priority became the survival of the Sith. With her devotion to the Rule of Two intact, she became determined once more to find a new apprentice that would carry the Sith legacy into a new generation. Yet due to the disadvantages of having so cybernetic attachments to her body, Lumiya believed that she would never reach her true potential.

Thus, she required an individual who was exceptionally powerful in the Force; the one who would become a Sith champion by restoring the Order back to its former glory. Her choice for a third and final apprentice ultimately fell on the Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, who happened to be a grandson of her former Master, Darth Vader. The Jedi philosopher took fairly little convincing to turn, and the young man who had once been Jacen Solo underwent a gradual metamorphosis that resulted in the birth of Darth Caedus, the first active Dark Lord of the Sith since the time of Sidious and Vader.

Rulers Lumyia and later Darth Caedus

"Don't look so amazed. The Sith were always born and re-born within the ranks of the Jedi."

―Darth Krayt to Cade Skywalker

One Sith

At some point before 30 ABY, a Sith known as Darth Krayt founded the One Sith or the New Sith Order on Korriban, the ancient Sith burial world. In this new Sith cult, most of the followers were trained from birth, sported a red-and-black tattooed appearance and carried lightsabers with a yorik coral-styled hilt design. This Sith Order was considered heretical by the holocrons of Darth Andeddu and Darth Bane. By the year 130 ABY, the One Sith had risen to take the place of Lumiya's Sith faction, itself the remnant of Darth Bane's Order.

Darth Krayt, formerly the Jedi Master A'Sharad Hett, was the founder and leader of this new generation of Sith Lords. A witness to a galaxy deeply wounded by the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, and the Yuuzhan Vong War, A'Sharad came to believe that the galaxy was fractured and weak, and that a single will was needed to make it whole and strong again. Equipped with knowledge gained from Sith holocrons found on the ancient Sith burial world of Korriban and renaming himself Darth Krayt after the fierce creature of his homeworld, he reestablished the Sith Order under his leadership, thus claiming the title Dark Lord of the Sith. Krayt's Sith differed significantly from Darth Bane's Order of the Sith Lords in that he decided that his nascent Order should not be limited by the ancient Rule of Two. Instead, he introduced the Rule of One—a new system in which many lesser Sith served under the will of the Dark Lord. He believed that the Sith needed to grow in strength over the decades, while the Jedi Order would become increasingly weakened and compromised by their lack of ruthlessness. As such, the One Sith kept their existence a secret, even while Darth Caedus launched his war against the Jedi. When the balance of power had shifted sufficiently, Krayt and his Order would execute their agenda to restore the absolute rule of the Sith to the galaxy.

Rulers Darth Krayt.

secondary Wyyrlok Family.

Sith Sects

"Hear me people of Iziz! Freedon Nadd gave this city strength against the wild men and their beasts—as long as King Ommin and Queen Amanoa carried on that noble rule…the great power of Freedon Nadd remained with us!"

"Now that power has been taken from us by the hateful Jedi Knights. These meddlers have destroyed the ancient Onderon society!"

―Naddist propaganda spread by Rask and Nebo.

The Naddists

The Naddists were a Sith cult on Onderon that worshiped the fallen Dark Lord Freedon Nadd. Many of them were capable of using ancient Sith magic. Two such individuals were King Ommin and his wife Queen Amanoa. They were largely eliminated following the Freedon Nadd Uprising.

Leaders : King Ommin and his wife Queen Amanoa.

The Senate members may think they are running things, but they are only acting in a shadow play. We are tired of serving their weakness, and we will work toward our own ends from now on. The Sith Brotherhood controls the galaxy."

―Exar Kun, Dark Lord of the Sith

Brotherhood of the Sith

The Brotherhood of the Sith or Sith Brotherhood was a group of Jedi Knights led by Exar Kun who broke away from the Jedi Order to study Sith techniques. During the Great Sith War, they received the allegiance of the Krath and the Mandalorian Crusaders led by Mandalore The Indomitable.

In an impassioned speech on Ossus, Exar Kun sowed the first seeds of doubt in his fellow Jedi Knights. After the terrible and pointless death of Arca Jeth on Deneba, many Knights had become disillusioned with the Order, losing their idealistic ideas of the immortality of the Jedi. Fearing for the safety of the future, several Jedi Knights were swayed by Exar Kun's promise of further "lost" Jedi powers.

Unfortunately for the young Knights, Exar Kun was not concerned for the future of the Order and had come to Ossus in hopes of creating a powerful rank of commanders for his impending war with the Republic. Kun's trip to Ossus had two objectives. Besides recruitment, Kun was eager to lay his hands on the famed Sith holocron of Odan-Urr. Breaking his way into Odan-Urr's chamber, Kun slew the aged Jedi Master and claimed the ancient holocron for himself.

Caught in the act of removing the artifact, Kun lied to his new followers, claiming that Odan-Urr had declared him a Jedi Master and bequeathed the artifact to him as a symbol of the induction as he died of old age. With the increasing awe of his fellow Knights, Kun loaded his ship, the Starstorm One with his twenty knights and left for Yavin 4, a place of dark side power.

Leader: Exar Kun.

"I thought the Sith teachings that were active here had been contained. Apparently I was wrong."

―Arca Jeth

The Krath

The Krath were a secret society founded by aristocrats Aleema and Satal Keto in the year 3998 BBY, in the Empress Teta system.

The cult was formed by a clique of bored youths of the Tetan nobility, led by Satal Keto, the heir-apparent, and his cousin Aleema. They named the cult after a magician-god from the fairy tales of their childhood. For some time, the Krath secret society was of little note and played no major part in Tetan politics. All this changed shortly after the Naddist Uprising on Onderon. The catalyst for this change was the influence of the spirit of the former Dark Lord of the Sith Freedon Nadd, who took an active interest in Satal and Aleema. He became their Master and progressed them quickly down the path to darkness, teaching them many of the secrets of the ancient Sith.

Fuelled by the ambition of the dark side, the young aristocrats began plotting their rise to power. Aleema and Satal engineered a military and political coup in 3997 BBY, encasing Lord Keto in carbonite and murdering all nobles and guildsmen opposing them. They created a new order on Empress Teta, replacing the previous governmental institutions with the monolithic rule of the Krath, based on the ruthless oppression of all dissent. A minor civil war broke out, as certain Tetan factions chose to rebel, but the Krath proved victorious thanks to Aleema's magical talents, despite an attempt to intervene made by the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order.

Leaders: Aleema and Satal Keto.

The Mecrosa Order

The Mecrosa Order was a group of assassins that served the Tapani sector's noble House Mecetti. Possessing a long history, the Mecrosa Order was closely linked with the Sith and the dark side of the Force.

Leaders: Viscountess Mireya, High Lady Brezwalt III and Lady Estalle Balis.

"To be united by hatred is a… fragile alliance at best."

―Darth Traya

The Sith Triumvirate

he Sith Triumvirate was a loose alliance of what remained of Darth Revan's Sith Empire that almost destroyed the Jedi Order during the era of strife that took place after the Jedi Civil War. It was solidified sometime after the Battle of Rakata Prime. This organization was made up of several, if not hundreds of Sith apprentices, Sith Masters, and, most importantly, Sith Assassins. It was responsible for the near complete destruction of the Jedi Order during the First Jedi Purge and the attack on Katarr.

Leaders: Darth Traya, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion.

The Dark Force

The Dark Force was the dark side religion that sprang up around the Dark Force Temple, an ancient Sith temple on Dromund Kaas. It followed the teachings of Plaristes and Dak Ramis.

The Dark Force cult emerged nearly a thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. At the time, the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith were Darth Cognus and her disciple, the three-eyed mutant Darth Millennial. As members of the Banite Sith, they followed the Rule of Two, which decreed that only two Sith could exist at any given time: the master and his or her apprentice. Millennial, however, came to find that doctrine too restrictive. While he had often been at odds with his master, Millennial rebelled against the teachings of Cognus once too many. Barely escaping the confrontation with Cognus, Millennial took refuge on Dromund Kaas, a planet that had long history with the Sith. In his new haven, Millennial kept meditating on the teachings of the Sith while also studying the works of Plaristes and Dak Ramis, two controversial philosophers who had lived over 25,000 years earlier.

Leader: Darth Millennial

"Our combined strength will be rewarded. Mandalore will be yours, and Kenobi, this Sith pretender Dooku and all our enemies...will fall."

―Darth Maul to Pre Vizsla

The Shadow Collective.

he Shadow Collective was a criminal organization founded during the Clone Wars around 20 BBY by Sith Lord Darth Maul. Maul rallied the Mandalorian Death Watch to his cause first, then the Pyke Syndicate, a Black Sun faction, and lastly several Hutt enforcers.

"Ragnos? What can a dead Sith Lord give you?"

"Everything I have ever wanted."

―Kyle Katarn and Tavion Axmis.

The Disciples of Ragnos

The Disciples of Ragnos, also known as the Cult of Ragnos, was a Sith cult that worshipped the ancient Sith Lord Marka Ragnos, who died shortly before the Great Hyperspace War some five thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. Their ultimate goal was to resurrect him and use his power to take over the galaxy. The cult's efforts were

eventually thwarted by the Jedi but not before they had wrought havoc across the galaxy.

The Disciples were led by Tavion Axmis, former apprentice to the Dark Jedi, Desann, and member of the Empire Youth. When an Imperial Remnant faction—the Empire Reborn—occupied Bespin's Cloud City, Kyle Katarn defeated Tavion, sparing her life when she revealed the ruse surrounding his partner's death. Katarn then went on to kill Desann and Imperial Admiral Galak Fyyar and destroy most of the Reborn forces. The Empire Reborn and its leader, Hethrir, were finally destroyed by Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa on Crseih Research Station.

Having fled the Empire Reborn after Katarn's mercy, Axmis eventually found an ancient Sith artifact on Commenor, killing the trader who possessed it. Known as the Scepter of Ragnos, it could siphon Force energies from locations that possessed some residue of Force power, known as Force nexuses. Initially this energy could be used to artificially empower her cultists and eventually, when enough energy had been collected it would be siphoned by the wielder of the scepter to resurrect Ragnos from the netherworld of the Force, thus issuing a new era of Sith rule.

Leader : Tavion Axmis.

"We are not your Sith. We are something new, a chance to do something right. A new tribe."

―Seelah Korsin.

The Lost Tribe of Sith

The Lost Tribe of Sith was a marginal Sith Order that formed on the remote planet Kesh. It was founded in 5000 BBY after the warship Omen, carrying members of Sith Lord Naga Sadow's Sith Empire, was ambushed, knocked off-course, and forced to crash-land on the world. The Tribe quickly dominated the native Keshiri species, who believed the newcomers to be their gods. Sith Captain Yaru Korsin became Grand Lord of the Tribe and of the Keshiri, a title that was passed on to his daughter, Nida, after his death. Isolated from the outer galaxy for years, the Sith built a Temple in the Takara Mountains over the Omen's crash site and moved their headquarters to the capital city Tahv. Although the original Tribe consisted of several members of both the Human and Sith species, Yaru Korsin ordered a purge of all members of the latter in 4985 BBY. Over time, the Sith formed a ruling Circle of Lords, made up of Lords and High Lords, and ruled by the Grand Lord. Although one Jedi Knight, Jelph Marrian, discovered the Sith in 3963 BBY, the destruction of his strikefighter permanently stranded him on the world as well.

The Sith remained isolated for millennia, but after the end of the Second Galactic Civil War in 41 ABY, the Sith Meditation Sphere Ship found the Tribe. Ship informed the Tribe of the Jedi's newfound dominance in the galaxy and of the recent destruction of the last remnants of the Sith. Ship assisted the Tribe in traveling offworld and forming a new armada, and two years later, the Tribe felt the presence of Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker in the Force and determined to kill him. However, Ship was suddenly overcome by the will of Abeloth, a dark side entity living in the Maw, and deserted Kesh for Abeloth's world. The Sith quickly launched a strike team to recover Ship and assassinate Skywalker. The team encountered Abeloth in the Maw, and she weakened the strike team before allowing Ship to return to them so that they could continue on their mission. Their attack on the Jedi failed, however, and Skywalker and his son Ben tracked Vestara Khai, the team's sole surviving member, to the planet Dathomir. There, a team led by Viun Gaalan captured a group of the darksider Nightsisters and dueled with the Skywalkers while attempting to retrieve Khai, although again the Sith were defeated.

Shortly afterward, a fleet led by High Lord Sarasu Taalon convinced the Jedi to form an alliance against Abeloth, who was causing a psychosis among the Jedi Knights. The allied mission resulted in the Sith betraying the Jedi in hopes of killing the Skywalkers and forcing Abeloth to serve them, but the Sith failed yet again to kill the Jedi. Abeloth was defeated, and the Jedi and Sith temporarily repaired their alliance in order to learn more about her origins. However, the alliance was soon broken, and a later confrontation between the two parties and Abeloth resulted in the death of Taalon. Meanwhile, the Sith perfected their piracy techniques and built a war fleet in preparation to conquer the galaxy.

Leader: Sarasu Taalon

"For over a century, generation after generation, we have kept ourselves isolated here, imbuing ourselves with the energy of the dark side! We are its children!"

―Gerlun.

Malevolence

Malevolence was a cult of dark side practitioners who resided on Prakith, in the dilapidated fortress of the ancient Sith Lord Darth Andeddu. The cult survived for thousands of years after Andeddu's death.

Originally recruited by Darth Andeddu to serve as his disciples, the cultists secluded themselves in Andeddu's Keep after his death, studying and harnessing the power of the dark side of the Force. They had sent some of their members out to recruit new guardians to replace those who died of age while waiting for their master's resurrection. Owing to Prakith's isolation from the galaxy after the expiration of the hyperspace lane leading to the planet, the cult's existence remained largely unknown to the galaxy, until 137 ABY, when chief lieutenant of the One Sith Order, Darth Wyyrlok III arrived.

Leader : Darth Andeddu.