Garth Ezzar

"You sought to hunt me down. You have no idea of your peril. I used a fraction of my power on Almas, to destroy the pathetic Jedi."

- Garth Ezzar, to the Heroes of Cularin

Garth Ezzar was a Human male Dark Jedi who served the Sith Lord Darth Sidious during the time of the Clone Wars. Raised on a Rim Worlds colony, Ezzar was bullied by other children from a young age. When he became a teenager, Ezzar sought revenge against his childhood tormentors and was sent to jail for arson and maiming someone. He escaped and lived as an outcast for a few years, until he was discovered by a mysterious woman from off-world who trained him to use the dark side of the Force. The pair went on a criminal rampage, eventually attracting the attention of the Jedi Order. The woman plotted to murder Ezzar, then leave his body for the Jedi to find, so that he would receive full blame for their crimes. However, Ezzar learned of her planned betrayal, and in a rage, he killed her. He subsequently traveled the galaxy, and it was on the planet Coruscant that he was discovered by Darth Sidious, who trained Ezzar and helped the young man to further develop his Force potential.

Circa 21 BBY, Sidious sent Ezzar to the Cularin system on a mission to discredit the Jedi of the Almas Academy, a Jedi institution located on the planet Almas. Posing as Lanius Qel-Bertuk, the headmaster of the Academy, Ezzar approached the owners of the Comet Broom Service, a company that monitored comet activity in the Cularin system. He manipulated the company into initiating an operation to insert a comet into orbit of Almas, then plotted to covertly plant evidence to suggest that the Jedi wanted to crash the comet into the surface of Almas, which he hoped would discredit the Almas Jedi. However, his scheme was thwarted by the Heroes of Cularin, a group of freelance agents who operated in the system. Ezzar eventually became a Sith Warrior, and he returned to the Cularin system in about 19 BBY, leading a number of pirates and mercenaries in an attack on the Almas Academy. The assault left the Academy in ruins, and Ezzar defeated the Jedi Masters Devan For'deschel and Zelice Sturm in personal combat. Afterward, the Dark Jedi returned to Coruscant and lured the Heroes of Cularin into a confrontation with him in the Darkside district of the Coruscant Undercity. Despite his efforts, the agents defeated and killed him.

Student of the dark side
A Force-sensitive Human male, Garth Ezzar lived during the waning years of the Galactic Republic, raised on a colonized planet in the Rim Worlds. Although his connection to the Force began to manifest itself while he was very young, Ezzar's abilities were not recognized. While his Force powers initially caused him to be admired by other children, he was ultimately bullied and ostracized as a result of his talents. When he became a teenager, Ezzar attempted to gain revenge against his childhood tormentors, and he was sent to jail after he maimed an individual and started a fire. He escaped and lived as an outcast for several years, becoming what some members of the Jedi Order classified as a Dark Side marauder.

Ezzar's life changed when he encountered a mysterious woman from off-world, his senior by five years and skilled in the use of the dark side of the Force. She took Ezzar as her apprentice and taught him how to use the dark side, finding him to be a talented student. Together, they went on a criminal spree, using their powers to steal and destroy property. When the woman discovered that some Jedi had been sent to investigate reports of her and Ezzar's illegal activities, she plotted to kill her student, then allow the Jedi to find his body, so that Ezzar would receive full responsibility for their crimes. Ezzar learned of her planned betrayal of him and was enraged, drawing upon the dark side and killing her in anger. Surprised by the power that he had demonstrated, Ezzar escaped in his master's starship and left behind her body for the Jedi to find, leaving her to instead be deemed responsible for all of the pair's transgressions.

Over the next three years, Ezzar traveled the galaxy, committing crimes as he went. Eventually, he made his way to the planet Coruscant, the galactic capital, where he planned to become involved in a criminal organization, potentially one of his own making. Instead, Ezzar encountered Darth Sidious, a Sith Lord who offered to teach him and develop the young man's full Force potential, to the point that Ezzar's power would surpass that of any Jedi. Ezzar agreed to the proposal and trained under Sidious's tutelage, becoming a Dark Jedi and learning how to wield a lightsaber, the traditional weapon of the Jedi. The Sith Lord considered Ezzar to be merely a useful tool and a potential backup apprentice, rather than a fully-fledged Sith student, and he kept his true identity concealed from the Dark Jedi. Ezzar knew his mentor only as "The Master," unaware that the Sith Lord's true name was "Darth Sidious" and that Sidious was also known publicly as "Palpatine," the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

Ezzar established a base of operations in the Darkside region of the Coruscant Undercity, forming a network of spies there. He chose not to reveal his true identity to his minions and represented himself to them as a Jedi thug, causing the spies to refer to him as "the Jedi in black." Despite Ezzar's attempts to conceal his identity, a number of criminals in Darkside learned his name, and they came to believe that anyone who mentioned Ezzar's name out loud would be met with death. Ezzar obtained a Star Courier to use as his personal starship and began carrying out assignments for Sidious, but he was repeatedly thwarted in his efforts by the Heroes of Cularin, a group of freelance agents who operated out of the Cularin system.

The Comet Broom plot
"Whoever or whatever the agent of this calamity was, the being seemed to be able to deceive the unfortunate managers of Comet Broom into believing that he was a Jedi, and a very well-known one."

- Ul-Modo, on Garth Ezzar

During the time of the Clone Wars, in about 21 BBY, Sidious sent Ezzar on a mission to discredit the Jedi of the Almas Academy, an institution that was located on the planet Almas in the Cularin system. Ezzar was to begin an operation to crash a comet into a Sith fortress located on Almas, then implicate the Jedi as having been behind the accident and allow details of the operation to be discovered, to make the Almas Jedi seem dangerous and irresponsible. To initiate the plan, Ezzar disguised himself as Jedi Master Lanius Qel-Bertuk, the Academy's headmaster, and by using the disguise and some false credentials, he arranged a meeting with the Wookiees Mronk and Rroorgli. The duo owned and operated the Comet Broom Service, a company that monitored and destroyed rogue comets that strayed into the Cularin system's shipping lanes. During the meeting, Ezzar commissioned the Wookiees to carry out the Cometary Water Reclamation Project, an operation to insert a comet into orbit of Almas, so that water could be brought to the planet and used to terraform a dead zone that surrounded the Sith fortress. He asked that the company carry out the job in secret, claiming that he intended the project to be a surprise gift from the Jedi to the people of the Cularin system, and he used a mind trick on the Wookiees to deceive them into believing that his demands were reasonable.

Mronk and Rroorgli set to work on the Reclamation Project and selected for it a comet named the Big One, which was situated inside the Cularin comet cloud. Ezzar then ensured that the computer system in the Reclamation Project command center on the comet was programmed to resemble the computer system used at the Almas Academy to further his deception that the project was linked to the Jedi. He also ensured that the computer system would ask for Qel-Bertuk's personal security code before it could be shut down, despite the fact that the code was not programmed into the comet's memory core. At some point, he also placed a pair of automatic laser cannons onto the surface of the comet to defend it from attackers.

As the Reclamation Project neared completion, the Wookiees notified Ezzar of the project's status via a secure communications code. In the guise of Qel-Bertuk, Ezzar flew to Artom Station, the headquarters of the Comet Broom Service, and upon arrival, he persuaded the Wookiees to let him dock his ship with their personal chamber, claiming that he didn't want anyone on the station to see him and thereby ruin the surprise for the people of Almas. Ezzar had brought a slicer with him, and while the Dark Jedi influenced the minds of the Wookiees, the slicer hacked into Comet Broom's computer system. The slicer changed the target coordinates for the Big One, to instead aim the comet on a collision with the Sith fortress. He then linked the information about the Big One to a small comet fragment that was posing a hazard in one of the Cularin system's shipping lanes, and deleted all the data about both, in such a way that the deletion could be detected. The slicer additionally left a Trojan program inside the system, allowing the original data to be restored at the press of a key.

When the slicer had finished his work, Ezzar sent him back to the ship and supervised the Wookiees as they prepared a secure data cylinder, to be used to send off recently-gathered comet information to Cularin SpaceNav, an organization that maintained a real-time navigational data service to aid starships negotiating the shipping lanes that passed through the Cularin comet cloud. Once again, Ezzar used a mind trick to make his actions seem reasonable to the Wookiees, and after the cylinder had been sealed and encrypted, he activated the Trojan program, causing the Comet Broom Service's data to no longer match the data that they had sent to Cularin SpaceNav, which contained no record of the small comet fragment. Ezzar then left the station, confident that his interference would result in a starship crashing into the comet fragment, which would then trigger an investigation that he hoped would ultimately conclude that Qel-Bertuk and the Almas Jedi were obsessed with destroying the Sith fortress and posed a threat to the Cularin system. Ezzar planned to kill the slicer and dump his body in space if the scheme was successful, to leave no evidence that the Jedi had been set up. However, despite his confidence that the plot would work, Ezzar did not kill the slicer immediately, because he believed that the slicer's services would be useful to him in the future if the scheme failed.

Two weeks later, the YT-1300 light freighter Fricasseed Nerf crashed into the comet fragment while using data supplied to them by Cularin SpaceNav. After being hired by the ship's owner, Hedrett Shipping and Investments, to investigate why the data had been flawed, agents from the Heroes of Cularin traveled to Artom Station to speak with Mronk and Rroorgli. However, Ezzar had been monitoring the Wookiees' activities during the final stage of the project and learned of the meeting. When the agents had finished speaking to the Wookiees, Ezzar docked his ship with the Wookiees' office, planning to murder Mronk and Rroorgli and use their deaths as an opportunity to leave more data framing the Jedi for the plot. He killed the Wookiees with his lightsaber, then used a Force whirlwind to scatter objects across the room. He also destroyed the Wookiees' computer, though he took care to ensure that the computer's memory core remained intact, as it contained evidence that could incriminate the Jedi. To complete the deception, Ezzar tore a Comet Broom insignia from Rroorgli's clothing and placed in her hand a fake version of the insignia, which contained a secret compartment that housed a file about the Reclamation Project. Once he was finished, Ezzar returned to his ship and departed from the space station.

Despite all of his efforts, Ezzar's plot failed. The Heroes of Cularin deduced that Qel-Bertuk and the Jedi were not responsible for the Cometary Water Reclamation Project, and the agents stopped the Big One from crashing into Almas. At a subsequent conference on Almas to discuss Ezzar's scheme, the Cerean Ul-Modo speculated that the Dark Jedi had come from outside of the Cularin system, but had no clue as to Ezzar's identity.

At some point, Ezzar returned to Coruscant and visited Lucky You, an entertainment facility where amateur actors offered clients an hour of make-believe by allowing them to pretend that they lived successful lives in the upper levels of Coruscant. Ezzar came to the establishment dressed as an ordinary Darkside resident, claiming to be a Jedi named "Lanius," and he underwent a session of the facility's mock–upper class service. During the session, he laughed several times while the actors enacted his fantasy, in a manner that made the performers shudder. He also asked for several services that the facility did not provide, and Jeela Cthon, the co-owner of Lucky You, suggested a number of other establishments to him. Ezzar later returned and used the Lucky You service on another occasion.

Destruction of the Almas Academy
"If no one else will, I'll hunt him down and kill this Barth, or Garth, or Darth whatever, with my bare hands."

- Meera Lisso, after Garth Ezzar's attack on the Almas Academy

By the time of the latter stages of the Clone Wars, Ezzar had grown very powerful in the dark side of the Force. He became a Sith Warrior, and at some point, he killed two Jedi: a Jedi apprentice and a Jedi Knight. Reports of Ezzar's activities were received by the Coruscant Security Force, which recorded a number of sightings of an individual matching Ezzar's description eluding authorities and fleeing into the Coruscant Undercity. Rumors of a Force-using criminal who was operating in the Undercity also reached the Jedi Order, and in about 19 BBY, the Quermian Jedi Knight Jodoo Kreen was sent to investigate. Ezzar encountered and killed Kreen, his record of Jedi kills now totaling three. Despite Ezzar's power and demonstrated aptitude with the Force, Sidious planned to take the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker as his new Sith apprentice and no longer had any need for Ezzar, so he plotted to have the Dark Jedi killed. To that end, Sidious planned to send Ezzar to destroy the Almas Academy, while ensuring that the Heroes of Cularin survived the destruction. Sidious hoped that the agents would then track down Ezzar and that they would either kill the Dark Jedi or be killed by him. If Ezzar survived the agents' attack, Sidious reasoned that he could wait until Skywalker had become his apprentice, then send his new student to dispose of Ezzar.

To allow the attack on Almas to take place, Sidious arranged for the cruiser Vigilance, which was defending the planet, to be sent away on a mission to raid an abandoned Separatist base located in a deserted system, with the Heroes of Cularin accompanying the attacking force. The base was rigged to seal the agents inside it for a period of time, and Sidious made an audio recording that was to be played when the agents were trapped inside the facility. While he was making the recording, Ezzar approached the Sith Lord and asked for permission to proceed with his attack on Almas. Sidious granted his blessing, then ended the recording.

Ezzar departed in his Star Courier, heading for Almas to begin his attack. However, he was tailed by the Cerean Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, who sensed that Ezzar was strong in the dark side of the Force. Mundi planned to return to Coruscant and report his findings on the darksider to the Jedi Council, but after having a premonition of the impending attack on Almas, he instead set a course for the Cularin system. On his way, he was ambushed by Ezzar near the abandoned base. Ezzar engaged Mundi in a brief fight and fled when the Vigilance and the flotilla that it was leading arrived in the system and approached the base.

After arriving in the Cularin system, Ezzar approached Almas, and the Cularin Armed Forces ordered him to dock his starship with a Thaereian customs ship that was orbiting the planet. He complied with their demands and proceeded to kill all of the crew aboard the CAF ship. He then had two astromech droids and two assassin droids that he had brought with him disembark from the Star Courier, to become the new crew of the customs ship. When the Cularin Armed Forces contacted the customs vessel, Ezzar reported that all was well aboard the craft. He also sent them some information that he had gleaned from the minds of the crew just before he killed them, in order to mislead the CAF into believing that nothing untoward had taken place. Soon afterward, a pirate ship that Ezzar had hired arrived near Almas, to assist him in his attack. He then returned to his own ship and the Star Courier, the customs ship, and the pirate vessel dropped into the atmosphere of Almas and bombarded the Almas Academy with turbolasers and concussion missiles. Simultaneously, a force of about sixty pirates, mercenaries, criminals, and Believers &mdash;members of a Sith cult that operated in the system &mdash;began a ground assault on the Academy.

Amid the chaos, Ezzar landed his ship in a ravine and flew to the Academy grounds on his speeder bike. The surviving mercenaries joined him, and together, they embarked on a killing spree, with Ezzar taking down every Padawans and Jedi Knights who came near him. To give the Padawans an opportunity to retreat, Jedi Master Devan For'deschel and the surviving Jedi Knights and Academy staff went to meet Ezzar and his minions, and the Dark Jedi engaged For'deschel in personal combat. For'deschel injured Ezzar, but the Dark Jedi soon overcame and killed her. He then attacked Zelice Sturm, the only other Jedi Master present in the Academy, and her Padawan, Meera Lisso.

Ezzar slew Sturm, causing Lisso to scream and hurl herself at him. He used Force lightning to knock her to the ground and raised his lightsaber, but before he could inflict a fatal blow on her, he was distracted by the arrival of the Heroes of Cularin, who had escaped from the abandoned base and made their way to Almas. Knowing that his Master did not want the agents dead, Ezzar turned toward them and told them to meet him in the Coruscant Undercity, then left on his speeder bike. Afterward, he stole the protocol droid E1-6RA from the Academy ruins and departed from Almas in his Star Courier.

Confrontation on Coruscant
"Fools. You face a fully trained Sith Warrior. This is your last battle."

- Garth Ezzar, to the Heroes of Cularin

Following his departure from Almas, Ezzar flew to Coruscant, where he upon arrival hid his Star Courier inside the top of a building in Darkside's Industrial Sector. He then restarted E1-6RA, hoping that the Heroes of Cularin would track the emergency signal emitted from a transmitter built into the droid, allowing Ezzar to lure them into a confrontation with him. He also hired a group of thugs to attack the agents, promising to pay the criminals undefined5,000 for every one of the Cularin system agents whom they captured. However, he intended this only to be a test for the Heroes of Cularin, and was confident that they would be able to defeat the thugs.

The Heroes of Cularin&mdash;along with Lisso, who was assisting them in their hunt for Ezzar&mdash;traveled to Darkside and began searching the district for him. Ezzar located them and staged a brief flyby attack on them from his speeder bike, before flying off. A short time later, Coruscant fell under attack from the Confederacy of Independent Systems. While the battle raged across the world, Ezzar encountered Lisso and the agents a second time. The Dark Jedi taunted and belittled his adversaries, claiming that they only way that they could survive was by joining him, before launching an assault on the agents. During the fight he mocked Lisso about Sturm's death, claiming that the Padawan was useless and lacked power. However, despite his efforts, he was defeated and killed by the Heroes.

Personality and traits
"Who outside of the Cularin system could have such a hatred of the Jedi as to want to blacken their name throughout our entire system?"

- Ul-Modo

Garth Ezzar was tall, with a large, heavyset stature. He spoke with a deep voice and had shoulder-length black hair and gray eyes. While he didn't lack natural beauty, a lifetime of using the dark side of the Force rendered his face physically unattractive and gave his eyes a hungry, haunted appearance. Particularly unkind, he was convinced of his superiority over other individuals and enjoyed mocking and killing others. He hated everyone around him and had a particular dislike for Jedi. Furthermore, he had no compunction against sacrificing his minions, because he believed that their purpose was to serve him. Under Darth Sidious's tutelage, Ezzar developed into a megalomaniac and convinced himself that he was indestructible. He was trained to follow his emotions and focus inwards, becoming selfish and self-aggrandizing, and he planned to dispose of Sidious once he had learned all of the Sith Lord's knowledge. He liked to collect lightsabers as trophies.

Equipment
Ezzar flew a modified Republic Sienar Systems Star Courier, which was almost identical to the Star Courier flown by the Sith Lord Darth Maul, and he registered the starship in the name of Lanius Qel-Bertuk in an attempt at ironic, subtle humor. Aboard the Star Courier, Ezzar carried a scratch-built, custom speeder bike, which resembled a speeder bike that Darth Maul had owned.

Ezzar wore a black, armored, custom-made body suit, which contained its own air supply and could also act as a space suit. The suit included a metallic chest-piece, armored gauntlets, and a rounded helmet that had an internal comlink and a featureless faceplate with macrobinocular properties. In addition, the suit had some limited self-repair capabilities, which were activated if the suit was slashed or punctured. He normally wore a black, hooded cape on top of his armored suit because he considered it fashionable, and it served to obscure the features of his body suit. On his back, Ezzar carried a set of rocket pack mounts, although he rarely used such a pack because doing so prevented him from wearing his cape. In combat, Ezzar wielded a customized BlasTech DY-225 heavy blaster pistol and a double-bladed lightsaber with a red crystal, which he had constructed himself. He was also equipped with a set of electrobinoculars, a glowrod, and some medpacs.

Powers and abilities
"I have been on the trail of a being who is very strong in the dark side of the Force."

- Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, on his pursuit of Garth Ezzar

Garth Ezzar was strong in the Force, but despite his prowess, Darth Sidious considered him to be too old to learn all of the dark side philosophies that the Sith Lord knew. Ezzar was adept in performing mind tricks on other individuals, and he was also powerful enough to resist the effects of such tricks, even if one was performed on him by a Jedi Master. He knew how to use the Force to move objects, perform illusions, dissipate energy, and boost his speed. In addition, he was trained to use the powers battlemind, Force lightning, Force rage, and Force stealth. Ezzar was multi-lingual, and besides Galactic Basic Standard, he could speak Huttese and the Sith language. In battle, he used Form V lightsaber combat against his adversaries.

Behind the scenes
"Not yet. Come to me in Coruscant's Undercity."

- Garth Ezzar, to the Heroes of Cularin, if the agents arrive on Almas in time to meet Ezzar

Garth Ezzar was first mentioned, albeit unnamed, in At Your Service, a 2003 Wizards of the Coast role-playing supplement that was written by Ronald A. Heintz and formed part of the Living Force campaign. He later appeared in the 2005 role-playing scenario Destruction, the second part of the Heart of Evil trilogy, which was the first source to identify him as "Garth Ezzar." The Dark Jedi subsequently appeared in A Hero Seeks Not Vengeance, the concluding installment of the Heart of Evil trilogy. In 2008, he received an indirect mention in the role-playing supplement Echoes of the Jedi.

Possible outcomes
In At Your Service, Destruction, and A Hero Seeks Not Vengeance, the players role-play as the Heroes of Cularin, and their decisions can affect the actions and fate of Garth Ezzar. At the end of At Your Service, it is possible for Ezzar's scheme to discredit the Almas Jedi to be uncovered by the Heroes of Cularin. Destruction states that the agents thwarted Ezzar's scheme in At Your Service, thus making the failure of his scheme canon.

In Destruction, the player characters become trapped in the abandoned Separatist base and can only encounter Ezzar on Almas if they manage to find a way of escaping from the facility within a set time-frame. If they don't escape early enough to meet Ezzar, he tells Meera Lisso to inform the player characters that the agents can find him on Coruscant. If the player characters escape the base and arrive on Almas while Ezzar is still there, it is possible for them to enter combat with him, although the scenario states that Ezzar should not be killed on Almas and suggests that if the player characters come up with a plan to defeat Ezzar, the Force ghost of Lanius Qel-Bertuk will appear and attempt to persuade them to flee instead. Should the players enter combat with Ezzar, he attempts to deflect any blaster bolts fired at him and tries to incapacitate the player characters, rather than kill them. During the fight, it is possible for a group of six mercenaries to run over and aide Ezzar, and if the Dark Jedi or his minions incapacitate any of the player characters, Ezzar and his minions immediately switch fire, rather than try to finish off any injured individuals. If all of the player characters are incapacitated, Ezzar either orders his minions to stabilize them, or treats the player characters himself, and then leaves Almas. If at any point Ezzar has an opportunity to flee, he uses the power Force speed to get to his speeder bike, then returns to his ship.

The player characters encounter Ezzar during the events of A Hero Seeks Not Vengeance and can meet him in a number of ways. If the agents travel to the Vice Central region of Darkside without intending to find Ezzar in the area, it is possible for Ezzar to sight them and then leave, using E1-1RA's signal or another sign of his presence to lure the agents to a different part of Darkside. Ezzar can also stage a brief flyby attack on the agents from his speeder bike, using the Force to either topple some columns onto the agents or to spill molten plastic onto them. The players eventually have a final confrontation with Ezzar, which can take place in any of the four districts of Darkside: the Industrial Sector, the Recycling Sector, the Residential Sector, or the Services Sector. If the battle takes place in the Residential Sector, and if the agents helped any of the area's inhabitants earlier in the adventure, it is possible for those residents to aid the players from a distance by throwing projectiles at Ezzar, or by dropping objects onto him. If, during their battle, the player characters attempt to trick Ezzar into entering disadvantageous situations, he is initially duped by their ploys, but becomes more wary after the fight starts to go against him.

The player characters can kill or incapacitate Ezzar during the adventure, but if he starts losing the fight and is able to retreat, he flees and is attacked by an unidentified dark side user, who uses a lightsaber to cut off Ezzar's hands and then stab him in the chest, killing the Dark Jedi. Similarly, if Ezzar succeeds in defeating the players, he is attacked by the darksider and killed in the same manner. If the players find Ezzar too powerful to defeat, they can then retreat to the Jedi Temple, the Coruscant headquarters of the Jedi Order, and report to the Jedi everything that they know about Ezzar. If they then return to Darkside with some of the Temple Jedi, Ezzar leaves the area before they arrive and meets an off-stage death at the hands of the unidentified darksider. During their battle with Ezzar, the players can choose to surrender to him and are subsequently disarmed and taken away. Meera Lisso then attempts to fight against him on her own, and Ezzar is killed by the unidentified darksider soon afterward. Alternately, the players can capture Ezzar, in which case he is imprisoned in the Jedi Temple and is killed during the events of the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which depicts an attack on the Temple by Sidious's apprentice, Darth Vader. As all of the possible conclusions of A Hero Seeks Not Vengeance result in Ezzar's demise, it is therefore canon that he dies on Coruscant in 19 BBY, although the exact nature of his death is dependent on the actions of the player characters.