Duel on Kuar

In 3996 BBY, the year after the Second Battle of Empress Teta, in which Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun were anointed Lords of the Sith, the two warlords made a plan through which they would expand their forces in an effort to eventually topple the Galactic Republic and destroy the Jedi Order. Part of the plan was for Qel-Droma to use the armies of his Krath cult to begin asserting his control in the systems neighboring Empress Teta. With the Krath military attempting to fulfill their commander's orders, the seven worlds of Empress Teta appeared to be overstretched by their campaigns. This, however, did not cause Qel-Droma or his co-commander, Aleema Keto, any concern, for they believed that no enemy other than perhaps a joint Republic–Jedi force could threaten them. Nonetheless, their overconfidence in their own power allowed for another enemy to attack them—the Mandalorians.

The Mandalorians were a warrior society whose beliefs were firmly ingrained with their sense of honor. Attempting to gain both territory and honor by attacking the Tetan worlds, the Mandalorian leader, Mandalore the Indomitable, led his soldiers on several raids within the boundaries of Krath space. Eventually, following the destruction of an important carbonite smelting station under Krath control, these raids managed to attract the attention of Ulic Qel-Droma. Believing that he did not have time to deal with mercenaries such as the Mandalorians, Qel-Droma contacted Mandalore and demanded that he and his armies surrender immediately. Mandalore, however, refused Qel-Droma's demands, choosing instead to challenge Qel-Droma to a one-on-one fight that would decide the fate of the seven worlds of Empress Teta. Qel-Droma agreed to Mandalore's demand for a fight, but also offered up his own terms should he win the fight—if he could defeat Mandalore, then the Mandalorian clans would pledge their allegiance to him, and thus fight under his war standards. Not wanting his honor to be tarnished, Mandalore agreed to Qel-Droma's terms.

As part of Mandalore's terms, both he and Qel-Droma, along with their respective armies, were to meet on Kuar, on the Plains of Harkul, a Deep Core world which the Mandalorians had raided and established camps upon years earlier. Believing that he could stunt Qel-Droma's use of the Force, Mandalore waited until just before the fight to advise the Sith Lord that the duel would not take place on the ground; instead, it would take place far above the plains of Harkul on a network of linked chains. Likewise, Mandalore advised those listening that to even the odds against a Jedi, he would be allowed to use his customized Basilisk war droid, while Qel-Droma would not be allowed any type of mount.

The duel began with Mandalore attacking Qel-Droma from above, using the advantage afforded to him by his Basilisk mount. Qel-Droma, however, was able to use his lightsaber and Force abilities to destroy Mandalore's mount, thus forcing the Mandalorian chieftain to fight hand-to-hand. Realizing that Qel-Droma still held an advantage over him by being allowed the use of his lightsaber, Mandalore challenged Qel-Droma to put away his lightsaber and fight with a Mythosaur axe, the traditional bladed weapon of the Mandalorian forefathers. Believing that he could defeat Mandalore regardless of the weapon he used, Qel-Droma accepted the Mandalorian weapon. The fight continued until, ultimately, Qel-Droma was able to knock Mandalore off of the chain linking, thus defeating the Mandalorian leader.

Realizing that he was defeated, Mandalore asked Qel-Droma to kill him, thus putting a proper end to the fight. Qel-Droma, however, had a different plan for the defeated chieftain; realizing that he would need a trustworthy and combat-capable lieutenant to lead his newly acquired Mandalorian soldiers, Qel-Droma advised Mandalore that he would act as his personal warlord. Thus, with the Mandalorian armies under his command, Qel-Droma began preparations to further his and Kun's plans for galactic domination, deploying his new allies to seize Republic warships from the shipyards in orbit over the uninhabited planet Foerost.

While Mandalore had accepted his defeat at the hands of the Krath warlord Qel-Droma, several of his supporters had not. One such individual was a young Mandalorian of the Zeltron species named Antos Wyrick, who was devastated that his leader, from whom he had learned martial combat directly, had been defeated. Following Mandalore's loss, Wyrick sneaked into Qel-Droma's cabin with intentions of determining what gave the Jedi a tactical advantage over the leader of the vaunted Mandalorian clans. All Wyrick found was a worn Jedi robe, which he confiscated for later study with hopes of discovering a genetic secret to Qel-Droma's superiority over Mandalore. Unbeknownst to Wyrick at the time, the stolen garment had not been worn by Qel-Droma; it had belonged to the Sith Lord's deceased Jedi Master, the Arkanian Jedi Arca Jeth.

The duel on Kuar first appeared in the initial issue of the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi — The Sith War series of comics, written by author Kevin J. Anderson, drawn by artist Dario Carrasco, Jr., and published on August 15th, 1995.

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