Maw was a Boltrunian male Jedi who fell to the dark side of the Force and joined Inquisitor Jerec's cadre of Dark Jedi, assisting him in his search for the fabled Valley of the Jedi, which Jerec hoped to use to help rebuild the Galactic Empire. In 5 ABY, in an effort to learn about the location of the Valley, Jerec attempted to capture the Jedi Master Qu Rahn on the planet Dorlo. Maw and fellow Dark Jedi Sariss and Yun were assigned to capture Rahn on the surface of the planet, but failed their mission. Although Rahn escaped from the planet aboard a CR90 corvette, the ship was captured in the tractor beam of Jerec's personal Super Star Destroyer, the Vengeance. Aboard the Vengeance, Jerec ripped the information he needed from Rahn's mind, but immediately afterward, the Jedi stole Yun's lightsaber and attacked Jerec's darksiders. Before Rahn was killed by Jerec, Maw's legs were severed from his body by the Jedi Master.
Maw survived and replaced his legs with a repulsorlift carriage, but eventually mastered the art of Force flight and appropriated the Trispzest form of lightsaber combat. Due to his injury, he also came to be known as the Half-Man. Eventually, Jerec located the Valley of the Jedi on the planet Ruusan, and his forces occupied the planet. However, Jerec was tracked down by an aspiring Jedi, Kyle Katarn, who tried to stop the Dark Jedi. Maw confronted Katarn on a landing pad near the cargo freighter Sulon Star and was defeated. Immobilized and defenseless, he taunted Katarn with remarks of his father's death, trying to goad him into the dark side. Katarn succumbed to his anger and murdered Maw, but was ultimately able to resist his dark thoughts and remained with the light.
Maw before his bisection
Maw was a male Boltrunian Jedi Knight born more than seven decades before the Battle of Yavin. He served the Galactic Republic during its waning years. A selfish individual, Maw refused to take a Padawan, instead focusing on rooting out any sign of the dark side as a member of the Jedi Shadows, the Jedi Order's investigator corps.
After the end of the Clone Wars and the formation of the Galactic Empire, Maw became one of the Jedi fugitives on the run from the Empire's agents, and during the early stages of the Great Jedi Purge, he was listed as being at large by the HoloNet News as "Maw the Boltrunian."
Eventually, however, Inquisitor Jerec tracked Maw's group of Shadows. Taking advantage of the Boltrunian's self-oriented nature, Jerec succeeded in turning Maw to the dark side as well, and they slaughtered the rest of the Shadows together. Taught by Jerec to smell the fear of his prey, Maw became a servant of the Galactic Emperor Palpatine, and one of the earliest members of Jerec's cadre of seven Dark Jedi. During his service to the Emperor, Maw traveled to Dromund Kaas, a forgotten world that had once been a looming Sith colony. There, Maw discovered a group of hungry and destitute Tusken Raiders led by a warrior named KkH'Oar'Rrhr. The group was worshiping a former Jedi Master–turned–Tusken tribal leader named A'Sharad Hett, who had been shunned by the majority of Tusken Raiders on their homeworld of Tatooine for being defeated in battle and having his mask removed from his face in a disgrace of Tusken customs.
After Hett left Tatooine, KkH'Oar'Rrhr and his followers tried to track him across the galaxy, but failed in doing so and ended up on Dromund Kaas. Maw reorganized the group into a swoop gang loyal to the Empire and transported them to the ancient Jedi homeworld of Tython, where they were tasked with robbing graves of valuable Force artifacts. The Boltrunian christened his newly formed squad of enforcers—who honored Hett by exposing their flesh—the "Grave Tuskens."
In 1 BBY, Jerec led an assault on the moon Sulon to capture Morgan Katarn, a member of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. After failing to extract information regarding other Rebels from the captured Katarn, Jerec decapitated him, and Maw with Boc Aseca adorned the city city wall of Barons Hed with the heads of the killed Rebels for display. Maw personally thrust Morgan's head on a spike.
With Palpatine's death in 4 ABY, Maw continued his service to Jerec as one of his seven Dark Jedi, alongside Sariss, Boc Aseca, Gorc, Picaroon C. Boodle, and Yun. Maw and the other darksiders joined the Inquisitor's search for the Valley of the Jedi, a Force nexus containing numerous Jedi and Sith souls and the source of great power, which Jerec sought to harness.
In 5 ABY, Jerec discovered that a Jedi Master named Qu Rahn had some clues to the location of the Valley and tracked him to the planet Dorlo, where Rahn was on a mission on behalf of the New Republic. Blockading the planet with his Super Star Destroyer, the Vengeance, Jerec dispatched Maw, Sariss, and Yun to the surface to capture Rahn. The assault team consisted of two skimmers, one carrying the Dark Jedis and a helmsman, and the other some Imperial troops. Using his ability to sense the fear of his prey, Maw navigated the skimmers, following Rahn's trail. The skimmer with the troops was soon destroyed by one of the members from Rahn's group, buying the rest of Rahn's team time to reach their CR90 corvette.
Maw forcing Rahn to his knees aboard the Vengeance
As Rahn's team departed the planet, Duno Dree attempted to attack the dark-siders's skimmer; Maw spotted it first, roared and armed his lightsaber to defend himself, but the vessel was caught in the corvette's slipstream. The helmsman could not handle the controls and rammed the skimmer into a stonewall. Maw jumped in time, and everyone aboard survived the impact, but, angered because of the mission's failure, Maw beheaded the helmsman.
Rahn, however, was not able to leave the planet, as the corvette was caught in the Vengeances tractor beam. Rahn and his companions were escorted to the ship's bridge, where Jerec, accompanied by his Dark Jedi, and after expressing his disappointment to the trio who failed to capture them on the planet, he started interrogating Rahn. The Jedi Master refused to answer, even after the rest of his team were executed one by one, and was released by the guards, only to be tortured by Maw. After the floor was stained with the old Jedi's blood by Maw's blows, he expected for one more kick from the big creature, when Jerec stopped him; he approached the Jedi and with a touch ripped information from Rahn's mind. Maw then bore witness as the Jedi Master Force-pulled Yun's lightsaber from his belt and attacked the seven Dark Jedi. Boc and then Sariss faield to stop him, and Maw lunged at Rahn, but the Jedi Master performed a Sai tok maneuver and severed Maw's legs from his torso; by that time medics had arrived to the bridge and pulled him clear, leaving his legs behind. Moments later, Rahn was killed by Jerec.
Drawing from his hate, Maw survived his injury. He replaced his lower body with a repulsorlift carriage to preserve mobility, but he soon learned to rely only on the dark side by mastering the art of Force flight. Flying became Maw's second nature, enabling him to become one of the few persons who appropriated the Trispzest style of lightsaber combat initially developed by the airborne S'kytri Majestrix Kharys; in this method, he used a devastating spinning lightsaber attack. From that time on, Maw also became known as "the Half-Man." In the meantime, having read Rahn's thoughts, Jerec learned that the man he had executed years ago, Morgan Katarn, had known the coordinates of the Valley and had hidden the information leading to it somewhere on his farm on Sulon. Eventually, Jerec located the Valley on the planet Ruusan and moved his forces there, establishing an excavation operation on the planet's surface.
Maw in a fierce duel with Kyle Katarn
Soon, however, the Jedi Kyle Katarn—the son of Morgan Katarn—infiltrated Ruusan in an effort to stop Jerec. Having sensed his presence in the Force, Maw awaited Katarn at the docking platform of the occupied by Jerec's personal cargo freighter, the Sulon Star. As soon as Katarn emerged from the turbolift that took him to the platform, Maw attacked him from behind, knocking him onto the walkway, goading him into a duel. Katarn, however, taunted Maw with remarks about how Rahn had cut him in half; enraged, Maw charged at Katarn with great speed, but the Jedi evaded the attack and injured Maw severely with a counterattack. Maw fell onto the walkway and taunted the man with lies about his father's cowardly death, trying to force Katarn to kill an unarmed opponent and give in to the dark side. He partially succeeded in this, as Katarn acquiesced to his anger and killed the injured, immobilized, and unarmed Maw, but cutting diagonally his remaining torso in half. Maw's last feeling was the delicious smell of Katarn's loathing, as he came closer to the dark side.
However, when Jerec arrived immediately afterward, offering Katarn a chance to join his cadre by executing captured Jan Ors, Katarn's partner, the young Jedi refused to do so and stayed true to the light side. Ultimately, Katarn was able to defeat the remaining Dark Jedi and killed Jerec, preventing him from possessing the power of the Valley.
Maw was a very selfish, animalistic, and brutish individual—traits that, combined with his unwillingness to take a Padawan, contributed to the fact that he never became a Jedi Master. During his days as a Jedi, he was determined to root out any sign of the dark side. Already a relentless tracker, his skills were improved by Jerec, and he took pleasure in sensing the fear of his prey, leading Yun to compare him to a Nek battle dog. Even in the moments before his death, Maw enjoyed the strong feeling of loathing that Katarn emanated. Maw fed on anger and hatred to the point that they allowed him to survive his dismemberment. He took the loss of his legs in stride, quickly adapting to use the Force to fly. Maw was also short-tempered and could not stand Katarn taunting him, responding by attacking him in anger.
The Boltrunian had brown eyes. Maw had diligently invested much in intense grav-workouts to hone his body; he used his anger, letting the Dark Side to flow with his bodily fluids. In his later life Maw was a massive volume of sturdy muscle. He managed to feed off the hate of others so that the Dark Side didn't corrupt his body, and as a result, he looked several decades younger than his actual age.
Maw using the dark side of the Force to levitate.
Maw's most well-developed ability was the variation of Force sense that allowed him to smell the fear and panic of his foes like a trained bloodsniffer. Jerec himself held this ability in great esteem, although he believed that it lacked subtlety. Maw used his skill on Dorlo to follow the trail of Rahn. When he witnessed Rahn's corvette blasting off the planet, his senses told him that his enemies' fear was great and that they would try to escape. On Ruusan, he also sensed Kyle Katarn in the Force, considering his taste to be "putrid." The other power that Maw mastered was Force flight, which, initially employed to preserve his mobility, soon became his second nature; the Boltrunian found many advantages in it and performed it easily. When he utilized Force flight, his usage of the Force extended to small objects in the vicinity, and various bolts, pebbles, and wires orbited his body like planets orbiting a star. To balance his flying skills, he also learned the art of Trispzest, the flying combat that combined the ferocity of the seventh lightsaber form Juyo with traditional S'kytri flying combat techniques, and made use of an aerial "Whirlwind Attack".
Although Maw's talent laid in battle, his fighting skills were deficient, as he was easily defeated by Rahn and performed a sluggish attack that was easily evaded and counteracted by the inexperienced Katarn. He had some skill in Force healing, Drain Energy, and telekinesis. In addition to these powers, Maw was proficient in the use of some simple weapons and blaster pistols. He could write and speak Basic.
Maw, seen here traveling with Sariss and Yun on Dorlo, is mistakenly depicted without legs even though this takes place before the encounter with Qu Rahn.
The character of Maw first appeared in the 1997 LucasArts video game Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, in which he served as one of the antagonists. As the game featured full-motion video cutscenes, Maw was portrayed by actor Morgan Hunter. The character also appeared in the two novelizations of the game, Dark Forces: Rebel Agent and Dark Forces: Jedi Knight, written by William C. Dietz. Additionally, Maw was featured in the audio dramatizations of both Rebel Agent and Jedi Knight, in which he was voiced by Martin Ruben. The article Building a Better Jedi from Star Wars Insider 31 was the first source to delve into Maw's background. According to it, Maw was a tortured soul who grew in the streets and started his speeder gang, before becoming a Dark Jedi and eventually joining Jerec. Maw's backstory was rewritten in the fourth installment of The Dark Forces Saga, a series of web scenarios written by Abel G. Peña and Jason Fry and published on Wizards.com, which contained completely different and contradictory information regarding Maw's early life such as that he was a former Jedi.
Maw is mistakenly depicted without legs in Dark Forces: Rebel Agent in scenes that occur before his clash with Rahn aboard the Vengeance. Additionally, in the audio dramatization of Rebel Agent, it is Sariss who executes the skimmer's pilot instead of Maw. The audio dramatization also omits the scene of Rahn attacking the Dark Jedi aboard the Vengeance. Instead, Rahn accepts his fate and is killed immediately after being robbed of his memories. This way, Maw never loses his legs in the audio drama.
In a Twitter post left by Lucasfilm Ltd. Holocron continuity database keeper Leland Chee on October 13 of 2011, Chee provided Maw as an example of an individual who survived being cut in half. This way, he hinted at the potential reappearance of the Sith Lord Darth Maul in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series, after the latter was sliced in half by Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in a similar manner to Maw in the 1999 film Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and was presumed dead since then.