Ravilan Wroth

Ravilan, nicknamed Rav by Yaru Korsin and the "crimson man" by the Keshiri, was a male member of the Sith species. He served as the quartermaster and keeper of the Massassi warrior contingent on-board the Omen, a Sith dreadnaught that was intended to participate in the Great Hyperspace War effort championed by Dark Lord of the Sith Naga Sadow. When the starship crash-landed on the planet Kesh after a collision with its sister–ship Harbinger while both vessels traveled through hyperspace, Ravilan was among the survivors. The Massassi who had survived the crash and remained under Ravilan's care began to die rapidly upon exposure to the planet's atmosphere. With the Massassi all dead, Ravilan was left without his title of quartermaster. He took on a series of jobs, including becoming the leader of Omen Red-skinned Sith survivors&mdash;the fifty–seven. Following the intrusion of a native woman named Adari Vaal, the Sith were introduced to the Keshiri people. Using their powers, appearance, and technology, the Sith eventually subjugated the native people, and became the Skyborn deities of Keshiri legend.

Fifteen years after the Lost Tribe of Sith rose to power as the Skyborn, Ravilan occupied a series of strange jobs for Yaru Korsin, former captain of the Omen and now Grand Lord of the Sith on Kesh. Ravilan's most important position, however, was as the spokesperson of the fifty–seven. Since their arrival on the planet, none of the Red Sith offspring had survived passed their first day, leading to concerns amongst them about their continued existence on Kesh. Ravilan and his kinsfolk were later assigned by Korsin to research a fluorescent algae around the villages of Kesh's Ragnos Lakes. Ravilan notified the rest of the Sith back at their sanctum in the Takara Mountains that all the Keshiri had died in one particular establishment called Tetsubal. The situation became one of a crisis when the Sith discovered a Human amongst the victims, and it continued to worsen as reports of deaths in other villages around the Ragnos Lakes filtered in. Although Ravilan himself was secretly behind the deaths in Tetsubal, the outbreaks elsewhere had been the design of Lady Seelah Korsin, who had discovered Ravilan's involvement and sought to frame him and people, hoping to rid herself of them once and for all. To this end, she convinced her husband Yaru to sanction a purge of every single Red Sith on Kesh. Ravilan was captured easily due to an injury and tortured by Seelah, who revealed to him that she had also been behind the deaths of the Red Sith children from the very start. Ravilan was then killed by Seelah's son Jariad, thus ending the life of the last Red Sith on Kesh.

Biography
Ravilan was a male of the Sith species, a native to the Sith Empire during the time of the Great Hyperspace War around 5,000 BBY. During this time, a massive power vacuum had been left by the death of the Dark Lord of the Sith Marka Ragnos and his century-long rule that had brought the Sith Empire into its Golden Age. Two opposing Sith Lords stepped up to take his place as the Dark Lord, Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh. Ravilan was a supporter of Naga Sadow, who had more of an expansionist attitude toward the progression of the Sith Empire, compared to Ludo Kressh, who was more conservative and believed the Empire could survive in its current state of wealth. With the Empire split into factions under Kressh and Sadow, Sadow took control of his faction as Dark Lord of the Sith and invaded the Republic in what was known as the Great Hyperspace War.

Omen
During the Hyperspace War, Ravilan served as quartermaster of the Massassi shock troop contingent of Sith assigned to the Sith dreadnaught Omen. Ravilan had been on Omen for some time, long enough to have shared several missions with the captain Yaru Korsin. They also with fenced on occasion. Omen permanent crew was comprised of Human descendants of exiled Tapani nobles. Force sensitivity was introduced into their bloodlines over the years as they interbred with the Dark Jedi outcasts of the Hundred-Year Darkness of 6,900 BBY.

Before the battle of Kirrek, Naga Sadow had dispatched Omen and another ship, Harbinger, with the Sith Lord Saes Rrogon as captain, in search of Lignan crystals for use during this battle against the Jedi and the Galactic Republic. The mining flotilla, including Omen and Harbinger, gathered at Primus Goluud where miners were recruited to carry out the task Naga Sadow had set upon them. The Omen was a popular ship. Most people with a choice opted for it along with Yaru, who unlike Rrogon was considered trustworthy by the Sith. The Massassi were stationed on board as commandos. The mining flotilla with their crews set out to mine Phaegon III for the Lignan crystals, but as Harbinger and Omen finished and readied to leave, a Jedi starfighter attacked them. With first priority to protect the cargo of Lignan crystals, Omen made preparations to go into hyperspace. Before they could jump, Harbinger started producing nonsensical sensor readings and began to lean very close to Omen, about to collide. At the last moment the ship's experienced navigator, Boyle Marcom, engaged the hyperdrive, sending Omen into hyperspace. However, Ravilan, along with the rest of the crew, would find out that they had not avoided the collision with Harbinger, and in fact the ship had been knocked off course slightly as a result. The warped physics of hyperspace combined with the collision as they were going into it caused terminal damage to the ship. The shielding failed first, then the bulkheads gave, and then the armory exploded, but in hyperspace, the effect was not the same; instead of exploding and destroying a large part of the ship and the Massassi on board near to it, the armory simply vanished, taking along a large portion of the quarterdeck with it.

Omen exited hyperspace out of control and plunging towards an unknown planet. Korsin tried desperately to regain control of the ship but crash-landed the ship nonetheless in a sharp mountain range surrounded by sea, just managing to stop Omen before it fell off the edge of the adjacent cliff and into an abyss. Three hundred fifty-five people survived the catastrophe, but due to injuries and the hazardous terrain as they were coming down from the mountain, twenty-one died along the way. By sunrise Ravilan met up with Yaru and Seelah Korsin&mdash;previous battlefield medic and the wife of Yaru’s brother&mdash;to discuss what was happening to the Massassi. Eighty of Ravilan's warriors had survived the crash, but for unknown reasons they all seemed to be dying rapidly from exposure to the planet's atmosphere. At this point, Ravilan's assistants were already burning a third of those Massassi that had survived the crash and were now dead in a pyre.

Two days later, Ravilan split the last of the Massassi between himself and Yaru Korsin. With his portion of the Sith, Korsin went up to the crash site to test the transmitter and see if it was possible for the Sith Empire to find and rescue them and the Lignan crystal cargo. Ravilan was initially surprised to see Korsin upon his return&mdash;without his brother. After finding out that the transmitter beacon did not work, Ravilan was saddened to learn that Korsin's Massassi, like those that had accompanied him&mdash;the last of the Massassi that had been on Omen&mdash;had died.

Adari Vaal
The second night after Ravilan and the crew of Omen crash-landed on the planet, a native to the planet accidentally stumbled upon the Sith encampment, alerting the inhabitants within. The Keshiri woman, Adari Vaal, spent three days learning to talk comfortably with the Sith, while Ravilan's cyborg cousin Hestus and Yaru Korsin tried to learn her language. Hestus had a "special ear" which helped to speed up the transfer of information between the Sith and Vaal. However, this exchange was very one sided, with the Sith learning more about the Keshiri and their life on Kesh than Vaal was learning about the Sith.

Eventually, Korsin was able to inform Vaal of their concerns and need to reach the mainland. However, according to Vaal, the only way she could go to the mainland was alone and on her uvak, Nink, and then return. This caused worry among the Sith, especially Seelah Korsin, who was convinced that by letting Vaal go alone, she would abandon them there. The fact that they had learned that she would unlikely be listened to by her own species only added to their concern. Ravilan eyed Yaru and exchanged a worried look at Hestus, but this was a risk they had to take.

The crew of Omen had been stranded for a week and Adari Vaal had been gone one day when she returned. The Sith met with the Keshiri who, after observing their appearance and talents, considered the offworlders to be the God-like "Skyborn" of Keshiri legends. With their newfound authority and status amongst the Keshiri, Ravilan and the rest of the "Skyborn" took the previously ruling Neshtovar caste's quarters as their own. During this time, Ravilan was aloof after recently losing the Massassi he had cared for. He was referred to by Vaal as a minority within a minority, part of the small group of Red Sith within the small group of Sith, a huge change from what was usual within the Sith Empire.

At some point while Yaru was giving knowledge to Vaal in the Keshiri city of Tahv, Vaal had tried an experiment out on Ravilan to test if the Sith could really "read minds." She did this by sending him into the busiest quarter of Tahv to find a specific location. She noted that he&mdash;like her&mdash;would get lost in the same neighborhood as she would, and although his perceptive abilities were amazing, he still needed accurate information from others in order to find his way. She concluded from this that the Sith could read minds&mdash;to an extent.

Genocide
Fifteen years after the Sith crew of Omen had crash landed on Kesh, Ravilan's coloring had changed to more of a somber maroon hue, and in his second year on the planet Ravilan had also injured his leg in a confrontation with an uvak. Ravilan was now crippled and was forced to limp. Without the Massassi or a mission he had had a series of odd tasks to pass the time. His most important job was as the spokesperson for the Fifty-Seven; a group that included the Red Sith&mdash;those whose bloodlines ran truest to the Sith species&mdash;and those beings who were more interested in leaving Kesh than staying there. However, "The Fifty-Seven" was no longer an appropriate name, as a dozen had died over the time since they had landed due to accident or lack of ability. The fact that none of the Red Sith offspring were surviving past a single day added to their reasons for wanting to abandoning Kesh. As the spokesperson, Ravilan had earned a nickname for himself amongst the Keshiri, known to them as the "crimson man."

Crisis at Tetsubal
During a meeting, the Houk Gloyd was describing his latest idea for getting off Kesh, and to get the Sith Empire to notice them, not knowing that by this time the Sith Empire had already fallen. After he finished his speech Ravilan stepped forward. Yaru&mdash;now the "Grand Lord" of the Keshiri&mdash;addressed him, expecting Ravilan to also present an idea about getting them off Kesh; instead, Ravilan brought up the subject of ancestry and how the people under the service of Seelah were documenting the ancestry of the crew of Omen. Even though this was explained that this only applied to those of the Sith that were Human, Ravilan objected because most of the Red Sith on Kesh had at least some Human blood, and many of the Human crew had some Sith blood. For Ravilan and the Red Sith on Kesh, the subject of the interbreeding with the Dark Jedi was a moment of great pride, and picking it apart through documenting it was a sensitive topic for his people. Seelah pointed out, however, that it was necessary because of the unknown reasons the Massassi died and why the Red Sith offspring were dying. On this topic of the Sith offspring dying, Ravilan suggested that one of the Red Sith people be accepted into the crèche that Seelah was in charge of as a midwife to better understand this issue. Seelah immediately refused his suggestion, as the Red Sith were not qualified medical personnel that were necessary in times like this; the fact that she had previously been a slave under the rival Dark Lord Ludo Kressh and had since developed an extreme hatred towards the Red Sith did not help Ravilan's cause. But Ravilan was insistent; he was complimenting her work and, to him, it was only fair that the Red Sith, like her Sith, were allowed to thrive. Stopping the conversation between the two, Yaru told them that the talk would be continued later.

On a new subject after this talk, Ravilan informed Yaru that he would be in the south visiting the towns of the Ragnos Lakes where he had been assigned by Yaru to examine the eight villages&mdash;specifically the bodies of water they were on and the specimens of fluorescent algae they contained. Because they had found out that Kesh was devoid of any useful metals, these algae had potential use in lighting the Sith structures. Ravilan was to start in the vast amount of territory in Tetsubal, which was the village farthest away from the Sith sanctum in the Takara Mountains. Before Ravilan left, Yaru told him that he should bring the rest of the Red Sith, so that the work would get completed faster. He also brought Ravilan closer to him and spoke into his ear that next time he addressed Yaru, Seelah&mdash;now Yaru’s new wife after the death of Devore&mdash;wanted Ravilan to address Yaru as "Grand Lord." It was an order, and Ravilan had no choice but to obey his commands even though it was only a name for the Keshiri.

Earlier, while investigating if there was anything left on Omen that the Sith could use, he had found some cyanogen silicate&mdash;a cauterizing agent used for the Massassi by their healers. A Keshiri which was working with his group there had come into contact with it and soon died; from this, Ravilan determined that the cyanogen silicate had no adverse affects on the Red Sith, but its properties were indeed harmful to the Keshiri. When Ravilan arrived in Tetsubal he took the cyanogen silicate and put it into the aqueducts of the villages where it intensified with its contact with the water, killing all those in the village like a plague, including his Human Sith aide. Even Humans were affected by cyanogen silicate, and only Ravilan was unharmed. Following his discovery, Ravilan sent a message through the Force to the Sith sanctum in the Takara Mountains. In it he alerted them that everyone in Tetsubal had died except for him, and he refrained from revealing his involvement in the tragedy.

When Yaru and Seelah Korsin arrived in Tetsubal, Ravilan lied and said that he had gone to meet his contacts in the town circle with a plaza and a large sundial. He explained how he was unable to locate his Human aide and so took up position on top of the sundial to call for her. From there, he also surveyed the plague that was consuming Tetsubal's Keshiri population. Seelah and Yaru wondered if what had happened was the result of a biological agent or an airborne disease. Their worries intensified when they eventually found Ravilan's Human aide dead, and realized that this illness not only affected the Keshiri but it could also affect the Human Sith. Ravilan suggested that because of this is it would be necessary to not only burn the village to keep the illness from spreading, but to also cease all contact between the Sith and the Keshiri&mdash;a suggestion that Yaru was taken aback by. Seelah disagreed, saying that the Sith depended on the Keshiri too much and she believed that without them they would not survive. Ravilan however, reminded them that they were Sith, and that they should not be dependent on non-Sith like the Keshiri. He even went as far as to suggest that, since they have been standing there for some time and the plague had not affected them, this plague was really a warning from the dark side. Coming back to reality at this comment, Yaru took Ravilan off on a walk through the village to discuss this, while Seelah held back and examined the body of Ravilan's aide. Suddenly she called out that she must retreat back to the Sith sanctum in the Takara Mountains. Ravilan looked back and cautioned her about bringing the plague into the Sith stronghold before she left.

Ravilan and Yaru arrived back at the Takara Mountains in the dead of the night to find that word of the crisis had spread amongst the Sith. Communications were the main problem, as the Sith had been so stirred and confused by the information of the recent event that even the most experienced heralds were having trouble fielding messages. Yaru had called for all the Sith to return to the Takara Mountains, but he had to be careful so that the word of the crisis did not reach the ears of Keshiri. He also had reconnaissance fliers check the surrounding areas around Tetsubal to see if the plague had spread.

Sith Purge
Ravilan reported to Yaru that all the Red Sith had returned safely in the Takara mountains. Ravilan was obviously pleased, but then a messenger arrived bringing news that the plague had struck again, this time at Rabolow, which was another village on the Ragnos Lakes. Ravilan was very surprised and disturbed by this news; he and his people had only planted the cyanogen silicate in the aqueducts of Tetsubal. Ignoring Seelah’s remark pointing out that his people were assigned there, Ravilan went off to talk with his associate that had just returned from there to figure out what had happened.

During this time reports of Ragnos Lake villages struck by the plague continued to pour in, and without Ravilan around, eventually Seelah told Yaru that it was obviously Ravilan and his people who were adding cyanogen silicate that he had recovered from Omen to the aqueducts and wells in all the villages. Yaru believed her; convinced that the Red Sith were plotting to destroy them, he called in all the Sith, excluding the Red Sith. They would destroy and wipe out the Red Sith for this supposed treachery; no mercy would be shown. Outnumbered and caught by surprise, the Red Sith were driven back and slaughtered. Their Human counterparts placed the heads of murdered Red Sith at even intervals along the main plaza. With only a small number of the Red Sith remnant left, Yaru and his chief lieutenants cornered them in a last stand beside the precipice where Omen had crashed and nearly fell into the abyss fifteen years ago. Those who surrendered were shown no mercy and were flung over the side of the mountain to their deaths.

The only Red Sith remaining alive on Kesh, Ravilan was captured early due to his damaged leg. As the leader of his kinsmen, he was not killed immediately; instead, he was strung up centimeters off the ground by strong cords that the Keshiri used to keep uvaks still while they are washed. Out of the stable master's stone silo where Ravilan was held, with uvak enclosures spread out all around him, water poured out of slots high up the tower for one minute at a time and drenched Ravilan, choking him to the point of complete exhaustion. Taking a while to recover, Ravilan finally registered Seelah Korsin's presence. She confirmed to him that all the Red Sith were wiped out, apart from him. Confused, Ravilan admitted that he and his people were responsible for the "plague," but that they had only done it on Tetsubal and he knew nothing about the other villages. Korsin revealed that it was her in fact who had been responsible for the other villages that led to the extermination of the Red Sith. After she arrived back from Tetsubal, she had sent her most trusted aides out to the various Ragnos Lake villages where they planted the cyanogen silicate in the aqueducts and wells of each, made possible by the fact that her ward had the last remaining supply of the chemical. While she could not determine what had happened to the Keshiri of the village due to her unfamiliarity with their biology, she deduced out that cyanogen silicate had to be the cause, due to the swollen, blue features on the tongue of Ravilan’s dead Human aide.

Ravilan was horrified by Korsin's revelation, disgusted with the knowledge that she had orchestrated the genocide against his people. His captor saw the eradication of the Red Sith in the Empire as an inevitability based on the way things were going in Naga Sadow's hands, with his expanding and allowing other species into higher ranked positions. Ravilan disagreed, stating that Sadow valued both the old and the new, the new potential Sith and the old Sith. Seelah gestured to the guard beside Ravilan, releasing more water down upon him. This time it took him much longer to recover. He explained how he thought the Sith society could have worked on Kesh, like the Dark Jedi and the Sith species had done millennia earlier, if only his children had survived on Kesh. Then, he let out an agonized scream in horror and disgust as he realized that Korsin had also been responsible for deaths of all the Red Sith children who had been born on Kesh, as it was she who was in charge of the Sith crèche and had a deep hatred towards the Sith species. At this, Seelah told him that his people would have eventually done the same thing to the Human Sith. With Ravilan still moaning in horror at what she had done, Korsin told the guard&mdash;her son, Jariad Korsin&mdash;to finish him off. Jariad stepped forward and Ravilan saw him coming as he wielded a jagged vibroblade. Jariad leaped at him, drew his lightsaber and cut him down. Ravilan, the last of the Red Sith on Kesh, was finally dead, leaving Gloyd as the only non-Human Sith alive on the planet. Although it seemed that the plan to exterminate the Red Sith was completely Seelah Korsin's idea, it turned out that she had been manipulated by the Keshiri Adari Vaal and Tilden Kaah in their larger plan to rid Kesh of all of the Sith.

Personality and traits
Ravilan was a crimson-skinned Sith with yellow eyes, as well as eyebrow-stalks and cheek tendrils which were all common physical characteristics of the Sith species. Ravilan's skin color changed over his time on Kesh from a red color to a more somber maroon. Over this time Ravilan continued to wear his earrings and other Sith ornamentation, which eventually only served to make him look more dull with his more maroon coloring. Yaru Korsin believed that Ravilan looked as pure-blooded as possible for a Red Sith. Also, in his second year on Kesh, Ravilan crippled himself in a confrontation with an uvak, damaging his leg. This was an injury that never healed for Ravilan and partly contributed to his ultimate fate at the hands of Seelah and Jariad Korsin.

Ravilan was a Sith that was very proud of his Sith heritage, especially the period of interbreeding between the Sith species and the Dark Jedi exiles from the Hundred-Year Darkness. Although this period of interbreeding was a very proud moment for him and the Red Sith on Kesh, he felt it was a very sensitive topic, going as far as to try to stop the Sith on Kesh from researching the Sith ancestry, to stop the ancestry of the Red Sith from being revealed, even if it only applied to Human individuals.

Ravilan was also a supporter of Dark Lord Naga Sadow instead of Ludo Kressh during the Great Hyperspace War. He believed that through Naga Sadow's progressive ways, Naga Sadow valued power, and that he saw it in the old and the new. He believed that Naga Sadow valued and saw potential in the new species brought into the Empire as well as the old species&mdash;like the Red Sith.

As quartermaster and keeper of the Massassi on board Omen, Ravilan became very attached to the Massassi&mdash;or at least his job of looking after them. Saddened by their deaths once they had all died due to exposure to Kesh's atmosphere, Ravilan became aloof from that point onwards. He was unable to fully replace his job he had of looking after the Massassi with any other job he had over his fifteen years on Kesh, perhaps with the exception of being the spokesperson for the Fifty-seven.

Powers and abilities
As keeper of the Massassi on-board Omen, Ravilan was able to control the Massassi warriors. The feat of gaining the loyalty of the Massassi had to be earned, and could not be bought or forced.

Ravilan was a Red Sith who, like all the other members of his species, had the ability to manipulate the Force. He demonstrated his skill of telepathy numerous times on Kesh; he was able to determine that Yaru Korsin had found something out and met someone when he came back from checking if Omen transmitter worked. Also, once Ravilan had become one of the Skyborn on Kesh, Adari Vaal carried out an experiment on him to test if the Sith could really read minds. She did this by sending him into the busiest quarter of the city of Tahv to find a specific location. Without ever being in the city before, Ravilan was able to find his way through the city, but in one particularly busy neighborhood he could not find the location without the aid of accurate information of others through asking them directly. He was also able to answer Seelah Korsin's thoughts when she had unconsciously left them unguarded, picking up the exact lines of her thoughts.

Behind the scenes
Ravilan first was introduced as a quartermaster aboard Omen who had crash landed on Kesh with the rest of the crew in the eBook Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice, released on May 28, 2009, which was written by John Jackson Miller. He then appeared again in the sequel Skyborn, and then also in the third eBook in the Lost Tribe of the Sith series, Paragon, where his character was explained more in-depth than the other two stories and where he was eventually killed.

Appearances

 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Skyborn
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Paragon
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Savior

Notes and references
Ravilan