Shikkar

"If you get to your rivals before they're ready, you can do anything you want&mdash;including assassination.''" "It sounds like a bloodbath." "Normally we keep it low-key, for order's sake. Poisonings. A shikkar'' blade in the dark."

- Orielle Kitai and Jelph Marrian

Shikkars were intricate, Force-crafted daggers made out of glass that were used by the Lost Tribe of Sith of the planet Kesh. Shikkars had long, elegant blades and were both used as weapons and prized amongst the Sith for their artistic value. They were made for one single usage; after a shikkar was used to stab someone the hilt was broken off, leaving the blade in the victim's body. The weapons were crafted and used often by members of three rival glass-crafting guilds on Kesh. Tura Sanga was famous among the Sith Tribe for crafting shikkars.

In 4,985 BBY, the Sith Seelah Korsin owned a shikkar made by Kesh's native Keshiri. By 3,960 BBY, the weapons were often used be Sith in the Tribe to assassinate rivals. Millennia later, the weapons were still in use&mdash;in 43.5 ABY, several members of the Sith strike team sent to kill Luke Skywalker carried shikkars, including Sith apprentice Vestara Khai and her Master, the leader of the strike team, Lady Olaris Rhea. In 44 ABY, Khai's father, Gavar, presented Vestara with a shikkar from his personal collection in the hope that she would one day use it to kill either Skywalker or his son, Ben.

Description
Shikkars were daggers that were crafted from glass through use of the Force. They had intricate, elegant blades that were up to at least ten centimeters in length and about the width of a Human finger. The hilt of the weapon was also designed to be long and narrow, and at least one shikkar was colored black and white. Shikkars were valued by the Lost Tribe of Sith on Kesh as much for art as they were for their use as weapons.

The daggers were created for one singular usage, and although the apparent frailty of the weapons as a whole was misleading, the point where the blade met the hilt was particularly fragile. After the weapon was used to stab someone, the hilt snapped off and the glass blade remained in the victim's body so as to cause the most pain possible. Also, due to the fact that shikkars were made out of nothing but glass, they could pass through sensors undetected.

History
In 5,000 BBY, a group of Sith crash-landed on the remote planet Kesh after being knocked off-course during a hyperspace jump. The survivors were stranded there, unable to call for help or rebuild their ship, and they quickly formed a new Sith Tribe. Shikkars were in use amongst members of the Tribe within fifteen years of their arrival on the world. Seelah Korsin, wife of the Tribe's Grand Lord, Yaru Korsin, owned a shikkar fashioned for her by the Keshiri&mdash;the natives of Kesh. Within around a thousand years of their arrival on the world, members of the Sith Tribe often used shikkars for advancement opportunities, employing them to quietly assassinate a rival in order to ensure advancement within the Tribe.

Millennia later, in 41 ABY, shikkars were owned by several members of the Sith Lost Tribe, who considered them to be noble weapons. By that time, shikkars were commonly utilized by members of the three Sith guilds that held a oligopoly on the profession of sculpting glass in the Kesh capital city of Tahv. These guilds crafted shikkars, as well as sculptures, jewelry, and various structures out of glass formed from the planet's sands. Members of the guilds often used shikkars in attempts to assassinate rival guild members; to counter this, the guilds began employing bodyguards for protection.

Several members of a Sith strike team that was sent in 43.5 ABY to kill Luke Skywalker carried shikkars. During the strike team's battle with the Jedi at Sinkhole Station, a space station in the Maw, Master Yuvar Xal initiated a coup to take over the team from Lady Olaris Rhea. However, Rhea's apprentice, Vestara Khai, used her shikkar to kill Xal, throwing it into his abdomen and using the Force to break off the hilt. Later, when Rhea and Khai dueled with Skywalker, Rhea struck at the Jedi with her lightsaber while simultaneously using the Force to attack him with her shikkar. The blade was strong enough to rip a hole in Skywalker's combat vac suit before it snapped. The strike team failed to kill Skywalker, however, and Khai was the only Sith to survive the mission.

Khai's father, the Sith Saber Gavar Khai, owned a full personal collection of shikkars on Kesh. In 44 ABY, he presented one of his shikkars to Vestara in the hope that she would be able to use it to kill either Luke Skywalker or his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker. The shikkar that he gave to her had been created by the Force-sensitive Tura Sanga, who was an exceptionally famous shikkar-craftsman and whose style of shikkars was decidedly unique. Following the completion of their mission with the Skywalkers, Gavar Khai attempted to kill Luke with a shikkar when a fight broke out at the Pool of Knowledge on Abeloth's planet, but the attempt failed.

Behind the scenes
Shikkars were first introduced in Omen, the second novel in the nine-part Fate of the Jedi series. They subsequently appeared in the third, fifth, and sixth novels of the series, titled Abyss, Allies, and Vortex, respectively. The glass weapons also appeared in Lost Tribe of the Sith: Paragon&mdash;the third installment in the ongoing Lost Tribe of the Sith eBook series, which serves as a tie-in to the Fate of the Jedi saga&mdash;and later received mention in Savior and Purgatory, the fourth and fifth eBooks in the series, respectively.

Appearances

 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Paragon
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Savior
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Purgatory
 * Omen
 * Abyss
 * Allies
 * Vortex

Notes and references
Shikkar