Gharn was a Nagai male Jedi Padawan who was active in the Jedi Order during the era of the Mandalorian Wars. The Padawan of the Jedi Master Xamar, one of five stationed at the planet Taris's Jedi Tower, Gharn was close friends with four other Padawans in his class—Humans Zayne Carrick and Shad Jelavan, the Ho'Din Oojoh, and Kamlin, a Falleen. One of very few Nagai Jedi candidates, Gharn, by 3964 BBY, was close to being named a Jedi Knight.
Gharn's final test as a Padawan, along with the rest of his class, was to cross Taris's rogue moon, which was constantly bombarded by meteors, blind. All of the Padawans completed the trial, and a banquet and ceremony was set up shortly afterward, where the class would learn which of them would be Knighted. However, the five Jedi Masters of the Taris Jedi Tower—secretly comprising a Jedi Covenant dedicated to watching for the rise of the dark side—had decided that their class of prospective Jedi would bring about the return of the Sith. After the banquet, the Jedi Masters slew Gharn and his friends. Carrick managed to escape due to a timely late arrival but was officially blamed for the murders.
Gharn, a Nagai male, was discovered as a Force-sensitive and taken in by the Jedi Order as a youth. As a youngling, Gharn lived at the Jedi Enclave of the planet Dantooine, where he became fast friends with four of his classmates—Humans Zayne Carrick and Shad Jelavan, the Ho'Din Oojoh, and Kamlin, a Falleen. The five younglings grew up together, and, along with his friends, Gharn eventually became a Padawan at the Jedi Tower of the Outer Rim planet Taris. Gharn trained directly under the Khil Jedi Master Xamar, one of five Jedi Masters in the academy alongside Human Lucien Draay, the Miraluka Q'Anilia, the Feeorin Feln, and Raana Tey, a Togruta. With his friends, Gharn, a rarity as a Nagai Jedi candidate, neared Knighthood by 3964 BBY.
Gharn and his classmates descend onto the rogue moon for their last trial.
That year, Gharn gathered with his classmates for what was to be his final test as a Jedi Padawan. He and his friends would travel to Taris's rogue moon, a planetoid in the Taris asteroid belt that was perpetually bombarded by thousands of meteors an hour, and travel blind, trusting only in the Force to guide them, to their Masters' encampment a long distance away. To reach the moon, the Padawans had to endure a rough shuttle ride through the asteroid belt before arriving high above the moon. After a quick speech from Master Draay, Gharn and the others were dropped from their shuttle, through the asteroid belt, and to the moon below.
Wearing an environment suit with his blast shield down, Gharn successfully traversed the treacherous terrain and passed the test. His classmates also succeeded, with Carrick arriving last. However, unbeknownst to Gharn and the other Padawans, their fate had already been decided. The five Jedi Masters of Taris actually comprised a secret Jedi Covenant, dedicated to guard against the return of the Sith. As they waited for the Padawans to make it to their camp, the Masters set down to meditate—together, they shared a vision of a figure in a red environment suit, the same that the Padawans were currently wearing, killing them all and driving the Jedi Order and Galactic Republic to ruin. Believing one of their apprentices to be their destroyer, the Covenant decided that they would have to kill them all in a preemptive strike.
Gharn, slain by his Master, Xamar
After the group made it home, the Masters cloistered themselves for days; when they emerged, they declared that they had determined who was to be promoted to Jedi Knight and set up a banquet and a ceremony, where the Padawans would learn their fates. Gharn attended the festivities with his classmates—Carrick, notoriously tardy, arrived late, crashing through a window while in pursuit of a criminal. Afterward, the Padawans, minus the again-late Carrick, retired to the Masters' chambers to discover who would be Knighted. However, while they waited for Carrick, Shad Jelavan deduced that something was amiss. Carrick, by far the least of their class, appeared as if he was to be Knighted by his Master, Lucien Draay. Unwilling to believe that Carrick would actually be made a Jedi Knight, Jelavan tried to get the Masters to tell them what was really going on.
Gharn and the others followed his lead, until suddenly the Masters ignited their lightsabers and attacked. The Padawans had no chance, and Gharn was slain alongside Kamlin, Jelavan, and Oojoh. Carrick, who arrived late to find his friends' corpses, escaped the Masters' pursuit after a wild chase. Carrick was blamed for the murders, and he—along with an "accessory," local Snivvian hood Marn Hierogryph—had a sizable bounty placed on his head. Meanwhile, the bodies of Gharn and his friends were carried away by medical droids. The story of the massacre became a huge news focus on Taris, and holograms of Gharn and his class could be found as far deep as the Lower City.
Gharn and his friends were publicly mourned sometime afterward, with the Masters of the Covenant speaking kindly of them at the funerals. The year after the murders, Raana Tey, her sanity eroding, had a nightmarish vision in which Gharn and his Jedi class took the place of the Jedi Covenant, and she took the place of Zayne Carrick, walking in on the murders of her fellow Masters. In her dream, Gharn wielded a red lightsaber, such as those that the Sith used. Xamar, Gharn's Master, would later confess to the murders to the Jedi Council and clear Carrick's name. Gharn's father eventually joined Carrick's Rogue Moon Project, an organization dedicated to helping refugees, wrongly accused fugitives, and the like.
Violet-skinned and dark-haired, wearing a Padawan braid, Gharn was close friends with the four other Padawans in his class, having grown up with them on Dantooine and Taris. Gharn was especially close with Zayne Carrick—although he enjoyed ribbing the Human, Gharn was overjoyed when he heard that Carrick was going to be Knighted. However, when Shad Jelavan challenged the Taris Jedi Masters on Carrick's potential Knighthood, Gharn followed Jelavan's lead, questioning whether they actually would make Carrick a Jedi Knight.
Gharn made his first appearance, albeit unnamed, in Knights of the Old Republic 1, a comic written by John Jackson Miller and released in 2006. Illustrated by Brian Ching, the character appeared in flashbacks in the rest of the issues of the Commencement arc, along with Knights of the Old Republic 0, a prequel issue. The Taris Holofeed: Prime Edition, an in-universe news report that appears at the end of Crossroads, establishes Gharn's status as a member of the Nagai species and was the first publication to identify him by name. Gharn was also mentioned in several other issues of the Knights of the Old Republic series, and in 2008 he received an entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia