Darkstaff

"It is an emptiness, a slice of the universe where there is no light and no heat, but also no cold and no dark. Light moves around it but does not come into its grasp. It doesn't want the light. It wants the Force."

- Darth Rivan

The Darkstaff was a powerful Sith artifact owned by the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Rivan. This ancient Sith artifact was believed to have been the cause of the disappearance of the Cularin system, from shortly after the Battle of Naboo until the Clone Wars.

History
"It wants energy, power. It wants to destroy. It wants to end lives. It wants&mdash;and that, by itself, is the most disturbing aspect, the reason that I fear it and desire it and seek to destroy it."

- Darth Rivan

According to ancient tomes unearthed on Almas, the Darkstaff was originally discovered by Darth Rivan, who had strange dreams about being called by the artifact. Rivan believed that it was the Darkstaff that drew him to Almas and the Cularin system, hoping to use him as a way to leave the system. Further investigation led Rivan to believe that the Darkstaff was not intentionally created, but was rather the byproduct of another experiment.

Measuring a meter in length and four centimeters in diameter, the Darkstaff seemed to consume any light around it. It also devoured any Force energy around it, literally feeding on the Force. According to Rivan's dreams, the Darkstaff had already caused some ancient tragedy in the Cularin system, and had been hidden away to prevent any further catastrophe. Rivan believed that the destruction of the planet Oblis, which created the Cularin system asteroid belt and a nexus of dark side power, was the aftermath of this event. The Darkstaff wanted to be discovered by Rivan so that he could use it as a weapon against his enemies, so it invaded his dreams. Its release would allow the Darkstaff to gain power, both for itself and over Rivan, until it eventually consumed Rivan himself. Rivan, however, refused to go in search of the artifact, fearing that its release would cause great damage to the galaxy.

Darth Rivan, understanding that the Darkstaff was sentient (or semi-sentient), considered that such an artifact should be destroyed and, if his disciple is to be believed, he was afraid of the Darkstaff.

Centuries later, Darth Rivan's writings were discovered by the Jedi Knights who built the Almas Academy. Word of the Darkstaff reached the ears of Len Markus, who set out to search for it. Len Markus was observed removing something from the Cularin system's asteroid belt, an event which preceded the appearance of strange creatures hiding among the asteroids. Shortly after the Invasion of Naboo, Markus found the Darkstaff, but his ship was shot by Force lightning from Darth Rivan's Sith Fortress on Almas. As a result of this, the Darkstaff was damaged, Markus was presumed dead and the Cularin system disappeared for one decade, before reappearing just as suddenly. Many believe that Markus found the Darkstaff, and that its release from captivity was the cause of the disappearance of the entire Cularin system.

Markus contacted the infamous slaver Phylus Mon. He wanted Phylus Mon to travel to Cularin and repair the Darkstaff there. Markus offered Phylus Mon the knowledge to create Sith Battlelords - Dark Side military commanders who had absolute control on their troops. Attracted by the idea of a enslaved army, Phylus Mon agreed with Markus. Phylus Mon recruited some of his slaves, Kaarror, Gorak, Nalz and Yerj, to experiment on them and made them his first Battlelords; he also allied himself with Dark Jedi Karae Nalvas, who wanted to become a Battlelord.

Phylus Mon traveled to Almas alongside with his minions and the Darkstaff. He intended to raid Darth Rivan's fortress, where he could perform the Sith Battlelord rituals. At the same time, Phylus Mon would feed the Darkstaff with the Force essences of living beings, which could be handled throughout the same rituals.

Phylus Mon managed to enter the fortress, killing four Jedi guards and disabling two others (Valiri and Constanten - who would be used in the same Battlelord rituals). Phylus Mon reached the ritual chamber and humiliated the ghost of Rivan's apprentice Darsin, but not before Darsin could identify the dreaded Darkstaff. Although Phylus Mon performed the Battlelord ritual correctly, the victims did not become Battlelords. Instead, their Force essences were uprooted and held in a great crystal, from which the Darkstaff could use them and feed on them. Phylus Mon then abandoned the empty bodies of the victims and returned to his ship, where he intended to analyze the Darkstaff.

While the ship was in the Cularin system asteroid belt, the Darkstaff began modifying the galaxy around it to its own image - meaning the ship, Animiasma. The ship was becoming an extension of the Darkstaff, becoming a darkness that appeared to suck the light of faraway stars. At the same time, the Darkstaff used the sound system from the ship to generate a high-frequency noise spreading horror and confusion among the crew.

However, Almas librarian Oden Malksch accidentally possessed the empty body of Nalvas, and felt the urge of the body to join its essence. Malksch could then track the essence&mdash;which was trapped in a crystal in Phylus Mon's quarters of the Animiasma. Malksch travelled there with a special team.

The Darkstaff did its best to stop the team, making the air fuzzy in the sides and leading them to an ambush in Phylus Mon's slave zoo. As it did not work, the Darkstaff decided to teleport from Phylus Mon's grasp and possess a young human slave, Alianda, so that it could speak easily with the intruders. The possessed girl's eyes went black from one eyelid to the other, and its voice was unexpectedly manly. In this conversation, the Darkstaff tried to threaten the intruders to leave "its" ship. When this failed, the Darkstaff abandoned the woman's body (which would suffer a lethal shock) and vanished to another part of the ship. At this point, the Animiasma had already become a dark side site.

Behind the scenes
If the player characters end A Mon Alone, they probably destroyed the pyramid with the Force essences, returning them to their rightful owners and stopping the Darkstaff's schemes to repair itself and be whole again. Although the player characters would probably destroy the Animiasma, the Darkstaff is no longer there at that point.

Appearances

 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi
 * Echoes of the Jedi