On the date of Donellan's Day in the year 3960 BBY, a deadly attempt to assassinate Grand Lord Lillia Venn occurred. During a rake-riding contest held in the Korsinata on the planet Kesh, uvak wrangler Campion Dey brandished his lightsaber and directed his uvak towards Venn's elevated viewing booth. Before Dey could reach his target, Venn retaliated with a burst of Force lightning, resulting in Dey's immediate death. While the reasons behind Dey's assassination plot remained unclear, his sponsors, High Lord Candra Kitai and her daughter Orielle Kitai, faced accusations of orchestrating the attempt due to their long-standing support of Dey.
As a consequence, the Kitais were stripped of their titles, lands, and possessions, and relegated to the status of slaves. To avoid further punishment, Orielle Kitai sought shelter with her acquaintance Jelph Marrian, who possessed a farm alongside the Marisota River. This event precipitated the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor, which culminated in Grand Lord Venn's demise and ignited the Time of the Rot, a prolonged period of civil conflict and instability that persisted for nearly a millennium.
By the year 3960 BBY, the Sith Tribe had inhabited the Keshtah Minor continent of Kesh for over a thousand years. The Tribe descended from ancient off-world Human Sith who were marooned on Kesh during the Great Hyperspace War in 5000 BBY. Under the command of Yaru Korsin, the Tribe dominated the Keshiri inhabitants of Keshtah Minor, asserting themselves as the Protectors, mythological deities in Keshiri lore. Following Korsin's death in 4975 BBY, his daughter Nida Korsin succeeded him as Grand Lord, reigning for 79 years. She outlived her son Donellan, who passed away at an advanced age. After his death, his mother established a merit-based succession system, where future Grand Lords were chosen from a seven-member Circle of Lords.
To honor Donellan's unfulfilled life, the Tribe established a festival called Donellan's Day, also known as the "Day of the Dispossessed." Donellan's Day was celebrated on the anniversary of his birth in 4960 BBY. By 3960 BBY, the current Grand Lord was Lillia Venn, a Sith woman elected the previous year after the previous Grand Lord's death. Venn emerged as a compromise candidate when the other six Grand Lords failed to agree on a successor. As the Circle of Lords' eldest member, Venn was selected because the other Lords considered her old and weak. By this time, two significant political factions had formed within the Tribe: the Red Faction led by High Lord Dernas and the Gold Faction led by High Lord Pallima.
After Venn's ascension to the Grand Lordship, the Sith aristocrat Candra Kitai was appointed as the seventh High Lord. Because she was not affiliated with either the Red or Gold Factions, High Lord Kitai served as an independent tiebreaker capable of selecting the leader's successor. This strategic position elevated her to the Tribe's second most influential figure. For that year's Donellan's Day celebrations, the Grand Lord and the Circle of Lords would observe a game of rake-riding at the Korsinata stadium in Tahv, the Sith capital on Kesh. Rake-riding was a violent spectator sport where uvaks with surgically weakened wings competed against each other, ridden by uvak wranglers.
While officially sporting events, these rake-riding games also functioned as a battleground for rival factions. For the games, Candra and her daughter Orielle Kitai, a Sith Saber, sponsored an uvak-wrangler named Campion Dey, whom they had known for many years. Additionally, Grand Lord Lillia Venn sponsored two wranglers recommended by Flen and Sawj Luzo, the Luzo brothers who were her closest allies. Meanwhile, the Red and Gold Factions also sponsored their own wranglers. Before the games, Orielle purchased dalsa flowers from a Human agriculturalist named Jelph Marrian, who owned a farm alongside the Marisota River. Unbeknownst to the Sith, Marrian was a stranded Jedi Shadow who had arrived on the planet three years prior.
The rake-riding games began without incident. Shortly after the start, Campion Dey and his uvak broke away from the pack and jumped into the grandstand, scattering the spectators. Dey and his uvak charged towards Grand Lord Lillia Venn's private box. However, Lillia used Force lightning to kill the uvak, causing her would-be assassin to fall onto the seats. The two Luzo brothers promptly eliminated him. Orielle and her mother Candra were shocked and horrified by the event, as they had known Dey and supported his training for years. They were aware they had not ordered the assassination of Venn but anticipated suspicion would fall on them. Candra instructed her daughter Orielle to return to their family's estate at Starfall, located south of Tahv, while she attempted to resolve the situation.
Because Dey was killed before he could be questioned, the true instigator of the assassination remained unknown. The Red Faction alleged that Candra had conspired with the Gold Faction to assassinate Venn. Similarly, the Gold Faction claimed that Candra had conspired with its rival. Lillia Venn seized the failed assassination as an opportunity to reprimand her political adversaries. As Dey's sponsor, Candra was accused of orchestrating the assassination. As punishment, her entire family was stripped of all ranks, titles, and possessions to make a public example of them. As a warning to other potential political rivals, Candra was also forced to publicly shovel manure at the city's zoo. Furthermore, Venn ordered the immediate execution of High Lords Dernas and Pallima within their respective boxes in the arena.
Two hours after the assassination attempt, Orielle returned to her family's estate at Starfall only to find that her family had been disenfranchised and reduced to slavery. Under Grand Lord Lillia Venn's orders, her own family's Keshiri slaves burned the Kitai family's belongings in a large bonfire. To emphasize her status as a slave, Orielle was called "Ori" by one of her family's slaves. While Orielle was comfortable with the use of her shortened nickname among fellow Humans like her friend Jelph, she had prohibited her Keshiri servants from addressing her by that name. This minor change reflected her family's significant decline. Seeking to avoid retribution, Orielle sought refuge with her friend Jelph.
During her stay, Orielle and Jelph discussed whether her family's "downfall" was the result of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Grand Lord. Jelph advised Orielle not to return, believing that her life was in danger. He speculated that Lillia must have ordered the attempted assassination on herself to make the Kitai family political scapegoats. The fact that she had spared them instead of executing them indicated that the Grand Lord intended to make a public example of them. Ultimately, Orielle agreed to stay with Jelph until it was safe to return to Tahv. Nevertheless, she remained determined to restore her family's position.
While Jelph was out hunting one day, Orielle was visited by Flen and Sawj Luzo, the two Luzo brothers recently promoted to High Lords by Lillia. They killed her uvak Shyn on the pretext that slaves were not allowed to own uvaks. Prior to Dey's failed assassination attempt, the two Luzo brothers had been Orielle's rivals during her training as a Sith Saber. They also produced two confessions from her mother Candra, claiming that she had conspired with both Dernas and Pallima. Under duress, the Luzo brothers also confiscated her lightsaber. To signify her new status as a slave, Orielle was given a spade.
After the Luzo brothers left, Orielle was so distraught that she flew into a rage. She damaged and destroyed several items of Jelph's property, including his plants, wooden cart, and barn. During this time, Orielle discovered an Aurek-class tactical strikefighter beneath a pile of manure. Orielle quickly realized that the starship could provide a means for her and her mother to regain their lost status within the Tribe. Because the Tribe's ancestors had crash-landed on Kesh, the Tribe had been unable to leave the planet and return to the stars for over a millennium. The Tribe had always hoped to return to the wider galaxy to create their own interstellar empire.
By the time Jelph returned to the homestead, he found that Orielle had already left and that his starship had been uncovered. As a member of the secretive Jedi Covenant, Jelph was committed to eradicating any Sith influence and preventing the Tribe from posing a threat to the galaxy. Fearing that the Tribe would pose a threat to the galaxy, he resolved to stop his friend Orielle from revealing the presence of a Jedi and a hyperspace-capable starship to her people. This set the stage for a duel between Orielle and Jelph at Tahv's aqueduct.
The assassination attempt in the Korsinata served as the climax of John Jackson Miller's EBook Lost Tribe of the Sith: Purgatory, which was published on October 25, 2010. The narrative was presented from the perspective of Orielle Kitai, one of the primary characters.