Almas Sith fortress

The kaluthin terraforming plant, a creation of Darth Rivan, flourished across Almas, save for an extensive area encircling the fortress, resulting in a vast desert landscape with the fortress serving as its epicenter. It served as an exceptionally potent nexus for the dark side.

The castle was riddled with mechanical traps, undetectable by both the Force and advanced technological means. Mandalorian iron, with its resistance to the Force and lightsabers, was employed to safeguard his most prized books and as the flooring for his lightsaber training chamber. Furthermore, the fortress was ingeniously designed to sever his slaves/prisoners (including at least one Jedi) from the Force, inducing feelings of utter disorientation and despair. Darth Rivan immortalized his life story in Sithese within the fortress's inner walls. The crypt also housed the enslaved spirit of his apprentice, Darsin, eternally bound to protect the fortress.

The tower once constituted a portion of a larger, dome-shaped structure, intended by Rivan for research on the Sith battlelords. Its lack of an obvious entrance led experts to speculate about a concealed, possibly subterranean, passage or Rivan's possession of the ability to phase through walls.

During the New Sith Wars, however, the Jedi confronted Rivan, ultimately banishing him from the planet during the Battle of Almas. The larger structure suffered destruction, but the inner tower, subsequently known as the Almas Sith Fortress, demonstrated resilience against blaster fire. Despite this, the Jedi departed, showing minimal interest in the deserted fortress. Over time, both Rivan's fortress and the planet itself faded into obscurity.

Following the Battle of Almas, the Cularin system was largely forgotten, and the fortress remained abandoned for centuries until its rediscovery in 232 BBY. During her initial reconnaissance, Reidi Artom identified the fortress but found its atmosphere too unsettling to approach. She also noted the presence of kaluthin in the vicinity. Concluding that the matter was better suited for the Jedi, she deferred further investigation.

In 188 BBY, Jedi Master Qornah and his Padawan learner Kibh Jeen journeyed to the fortress for research purposes. Jeen, succumbing to the dark side's influence, murdered Qornah and initiated the Dark Jedi Conflict. Seven years later, Jeen was defeated by the Jedi, leading to the construction of the Almas Academy on the opposite side of Almas, serving as a vigilant watch over the Sith fortress. Nerra Ziveri, the academy's founder, believed in the fortress's future significance for the galaxy and dedicated time to unraveling its mysteries.

When Jedi compared the dark-side aura emanating from the Fortress to that of the supposed dark-side location known as Kaernor's Smile, within the same planetary system, they consistently concluded that the Smile was not a dark-side nexus, unlike the Fortress. Visitors sensed "something strange" from miles away (the wasteland extended beyond that distance), and those untrained in the Force often succumbed to its influence.

In the twilight years of the Old Republic, a group of dark-side adherents, known as the Believers, discovered subterranean entrances to the Fortress and briefly used it as their base of operations until the Jedi intervened.

Not long after the Invasion of Naboo, the criminal Len Markus unearthed the Darkstaff, a Sith artifact both possessed and feared by Darth Rivan. Attempting to flee the Cularin system, Markus's ship was struck by Force lightning originating from the Almas Sith Fortress as it approached Almas's orbit. This resulted in damage to the Darkstaff, Markus's presumed death, and the Cularin system's disappearance for a decade, only to reappear just as suddenly.

Subsequently, the Jedi Order assumed control of the Almas Sith Fortress. The Almas Academy, located in the planet's opposite hemisphere, dispatched a team of Jedi for both research and defense against potential attacks from the Believers. The Jedi's exploration remained incomplete, as they had not yet discovered all the traps or the full extent of the dark-side influence. Approximately twenty Jedi were stationed there at any given time.

During the early stages of the Clone Wars, a team dispatched by Markus infiltrated the Fortress. These raiders aimed to conduct a Sith ritual in the fortress's crypt, intending to create battlelords and repair the damaged Darkstaff. In the process, they killed four Jedi guards and captured two others. The ritual, however, proved ineffective, absorbing the Force essence of the victims instead of creating Battlelords. The raiders departed, leaving behind the bodies of the casualties.

The raiders left three of the Jedi corpses at their guard post, but took the fourth one and used it as a bait for an ambush with gundarks, to cover their tracks killing any search team the Jedi could send. As the raiders performed their act during a sandstorm, most of the proofs were destroyed. However, Jedi illusionist Treibeiu, who was assigned to the fortress, kept in her memory the crime scene as she had seen it, and could use her powers to reproduce it—showing, for instance, wampa footprints.

The Almas Academy dispatched at least three search teams to locate the missing bodies. Almas Jedi Master Lanius Qel-Bertuk declined to send Jedi-only teams, fearing that the attack might be a ploy to lure the academy's most powerful Jedi. The search yielded results: at least two of the three missing Jedi were recovered, along with the bodies of the intended Battlelords, and evidence suggesting that the raid's leader was the slaver Phylus Mon.

In the years following the Yuuzhan Vong War, members of the New Jedi Order were prohibited from approaching the fortress.