A massacre took place in 980 BBY on the planet Doan. Tensions between the planet's Royal Family and mining caste rose when the miners accidentally killed Prince Gerran while attempting to capture him. As a result, Gerran's wife, Serra, became depressed, prompting her bodyguard, Lucia, to hire the assassin known as "the Huntress" to assassinate Gelba, the miners' leader. At the same time, the Jedi Order sent Jedi Knight Medd Tandar to mediate the situation between the miners and the Royal Family, as well as to obtain a collection of recently excavated Sith artifacts. During the meeting between Tandar and Gelba, the Huntress attacked, killing the mining leader and the five other miners that were accompanying her. She used her powers to disrupt Tandar's ability to use the Force and killed him as well.
Fearing that the Jedi would suspect the Royal Family to have ordered Tandar's assassination, Doan's King agreed with Serra that she should travel to the Jedi Temple to assure the Jedi that the Royal Family had not been behind the attack. At the Jedi Temple, Serra discovered that her father had been killed by a Sith Lord ten years previously. Around that time, Draado, the miner who had found the Sith artifacts on Doan, began calling for war with the Royal Family as a result of Gelba's death. Meanwhile, on Ciutric IV, Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Bane sent his apprentice, Darth Zannah, to investigate the death of Tandar.
In the years following the New Sith Wars, the Royal House of Doan came into conflict with the planet's lower-class mining caste. Gelba, a leader of the miners, ordered the capture of the Doan Prince Gerran. When the miners tried to force Gerran's airspeeder into an emergency landing, they accidentally destroyed the vehicle, killing him and sending his wife, Princess Serra, into depression. Lucia, Serra's bodyguard and a member of the Doan Royal Guard, hoped to remedy Serra of her depression by getting revenge on those who had caused Gerran's death. She traveled to the space station Paradise, where she found the Iktotchi assassin known as "the Huntress" and hired her to assassinate Gelba.
Meanwhile, the miners contacted the Jedi Order on Coruscant and convinced them to dispatch a Jedi Knight to help mediate the situation on Doan. After the Jedi received permission from Doan's King to send a Knight to meet with the miners, the Cerean Jedi Knight Medd Tandar was dispatched to discuss negotiations between the Royal House and the mining caste. Tandar's main objective, however, was to recover several Sith artifacts that had recently been excavated by the miners on Doan.
Tandar met with Gelba and five other miners along with two of Gelba's bodyguards and three of her top lieutenants at a mining facility on Doan. There, Gelba began to read off a list of demands that the mining caste had accumulated. Tandar attempted to explain that the Jedi Council did not have the power to grant the miners their demands, revealing that he did not possess the Senate's authority to act. Instead, he was only able to negotiate with the Royal Family. Gelba, in turn, revealed that the nobles refused to negotiate with the miners, but Tandar pointed out that the miners were the ones that had killed Gerran. Gelba then accused him of defending the Royal Family, despite the fact that the nobles imprisoned the miners without trial, tortured them, and even executed those who resisted. When Tandar reinforced his point that he was powerless do anything other than to negotiate, Gelba asked why the Jedi had come at all. He revealed to the miners that he had traveled to Doan mainly to acquire the Sith artifacts. Gelba became indignant, claiming that anything the miners had excavated was rightfully theirs and stated that the Jedi cared more for artifacts than the suffering of living beings.
Tandar began to reassure Gelba that he would try to help, but his rebuttal suddenly stopped. Sensing a disturbance in the Force, the Jedi announced that someone was coming. The Huntress suddenly arrived and shot Gelba in the chest, killing her instantly. The other five miners scattered, but the Iktotchi assassin quickly shot and murdered two more. Tandar drew his lightsaber in response, but as he reached out with the Force, it felt strange and cold to him—as a blow to the gut—and he staggered back. The Huntress then fired on him, but Tandar quickly crawled behind a nearby rock formation.
The surviving miners returned fire on the Huntress from behind their cover, but she quickly dispatched with them. As Tandar tried once more to draw on the Force, he realized that it had been tainted with the dark side. He stepped out and ordered that the assassin show herself. Instead, the Iktotchi just fired a shot at him from the shadows, which he was barely able to deflect. Tandar again tried to envelope himself in the Force, but the Huntress used her own power to interfere with his ability to touch the Force. He ordered that she leave the miners alone and requested once more that she show herself. In response, the Iktotchi assassin stepped out of the shadows and revealed to Tandar that she had already killed the rest of the miners. She then fired on Tandar again, and the Jedi was barely able to dodge her shots.
Scolding himself for his clumsiness, Tandar called the assassin's blasters to him with the Force. To Tandar's surprise, the Iktotchi remained calm. He offered her a fair trial if she surrendered, but the Huntress retorted that there would be no trial and quickly retreated. Tandar realized his mistake, too late, as he saw that she had tricked him and overloaded the weapons' power cells. As they exploded, he tried to protect himself with a Force shield, but the dark side continued to interfere with his powers. Unable to protect himself, the Jedi Knight was killed.
The massacre caused the King of Doan to fear that the Jedi would believe that the Royal House had ordered Tandar's assassination. As such, the day after the incident, he met with Serra and agreed for her to travel to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to assure the Jedi Order that the Royal Family was not behind the attack. Lucia later revealed to Serra that she had hired the Huntress, but Serra decided not to report her bodyguard's action. At the Jedi Temple, Serra learned that her father, Caleb, had been killed ten years previously by a Sith Lord. She thus had Lucia contact the Huntress to hunt down and capture Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Bane, whom she mistakenly believed to be her father's killer.
On Ciutric IV, Bane became aware of the death of Tandar and decided to send his apprentice, Darth Zannah, to investigate as he believed that anyone who was powerful enough to kill a Jedi was worthy of their attention. He also used it as a means for solitude so that he could go on his own secret mission to find the holocron of Darth Andeddu, which was rumored to hold the secret to immortality.
All the while, Draado, the miner on Doan who had dug up the Sith artifacts, became corrupted by the talismans he wore. The artifacts, coupled with Gelba's assassination, caused him to call for war with the Royal Family. Nevertheless, he was killed soon after by the Dark Jedi Set Harth, who had also traveled to Doan in search of the artifacts.
The massacre on Doan appeared in Drew Karpyshyn's 2009 novel, Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil, the final installment in the Darth Bane Trilogy.