Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/August 31, 2009

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, abbreviated as TotJ, is a comic book series covering eight story arcs, all published by Dark Horse Comics. The first story arc, entitled Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon, was written by veteran Star Wars author Tom Veitch, and was part of the first series of comics, which eventually became known as Knights of the Old Republic. Veitch went on to write the next two story arcs, The Saga of Nomi Sunrider and The Freedon Nadd Uprising, and co-authored the fourth story arc, Dark Lords of the Sith, with fellow author Kevin J. Anderson. With the successful completion of Dark Lords of the Sith, Anderson continued the TotJ series as the sole storyline writer, with Veitch opting not to continue writing for the series. Anderson went on to write the final two story arcs, involving the main protagonist Ulic Qel-Droma, completing The Sith War in the spring of 1996 and Redemption in the fall of 1998. In the years between the writing of The Sith War and Redemption, Anderson pioneered two more story arcs, both taking place 1,000 years before the other TotJ stories, and introducing readers to the events surrounding the Great Hyperspace War. The Tales of the Jedi story arcs are the currently the earliest-set Star Wars works.

Set during the Old Republic era, six of the eight Tales of the Jedi story arcs take place during the time surrounding the events known collectively as the Great Sith War, a conflict instigated by Sith forces aimed at galactic domination. These six story arcs nominally focus on the Jedi Knight turned Sith Lord Ulic Qel-Droma, his love interest Nomi Sunrider, and a cast of supporting characters, including Ulic's own brother Cay Qel-Droma. Likewise, first appearing in Dark Lords of the Sith, the fallen Jedi Exar Kun would go on to become a Dark Lord of the Sith and wage war against the Republic and Jedi. The remaining two story arcs, The Golden Age of the Sith and The Fall of the Sith Empire, occur in the year 5,000 BBY and revolve around Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his schemes to invade Republic space through his manipulation of the Daragon siblings, Gav and Jori.

The Tales of the Jedi saga also produced several non-comic productions, such as the Tales of the Jedi Companion, a sourcebook for West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and two different audio dramas based off of various TotJ comics. Tales of the Jedi was the inspiration for the popular Knights of the Old Republic video game series, and a bridging comic is currently being published by Dark Horse Comics.