The Dark Temple, a sprawling Sith edifice, stood proudly on the planet of Dromund Kaas. Constructed by the adherents of Sith Lord Pharshol during the era of the Old Sith Empire, this structure served as a repository for the spirits of Pharshol, his nemesis Vacuus, and countless others for millennia. Sith Lords of note, including Aloysius Kallig and Ergast, found their final resting places within or nearby its walls. Despite its significance, the Temple faded into obscurity along with Dromund Kaas itself, remaining largely forgotten until the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War between the Empire and the Galactic Republic. In 4980 BBY, the Sith Emperor, who re-established the Empire on Dromund Kaas, claimed the Dark Temple as his own. He commissioned an extensive expansion of the structure, transforming it into a focal point for his experiments involving the dark side of the Force. Furthermore, the Emperor interred numerous adversaries within the Temple's depths, where they remained for centuries, before ultimately ordering its sealing. For nearly a thousand years, the Dark Temple harbored wrathful spirits and potent artifacts, remaining untouched until its rediscovery during the tumultuous period known as the Cold War. Fueled by the rage of Lord Kallig, the Temple's resident spirits seized control of the explorers and archaeological teams that ventured within. In the months following the Temple's unsealing, the Imperial Military and the Sith struggled to contain the myriad threats emanating from its secrets. Eventually, the Imperial Guard and the Emperor himself cleansed the Dark Temple of the possessed workers and lingering Sith spirits. However, in 3640 BBY, the Guard's defenses proved futile against an attack spearheaded by the crew of the Jedi Knight celebrated as the Hero of Tython. In a climactic showdown within the Temple's heart, the Knight and the astromech droid T7-O1 confronted the Emperor. As his essence was forced from its dying host body, the Emperor unleashed his power, causing significant portions of the Temple to collapse.
Perched atop a hill at the terminus of Dark Temple pass, a valley situated to the west of Kaas City, the Dark Temple dominated the planet of Dromund Kaas. Its primary structure consisted of a vast rectangular hall that extended deep into the adjacent mountains. The Temple's construction utilized exclusively dark gray or black stone. An imposing obelisk towered above the arched entrance, adorned with an elaborate carving of an all-seeing eye symbolizing the Sith Emperor. The Temple's exterior and roof featured slanted sides punctuated by horn-like pillars. Cracks in the roof allowed limited light to penetrate the structure. The Temple's interior stretched far into the mountains, with numerous rooms and chambers exposed to the elements due to cave-ins and structural damage. A grand processional approach, comprised of ancient staircases, walls, and statues, led to the Temple. A spacious stone-paved courtyard lay before the entrance. Statues with bowed heads lined the central path to the Temple's entrance. The courtyard's lateral sections were elevated by over a meter compared to the central pathway, and contained additional structures, though the ravages of time had reduced them to ruins, mirroring the state of the processional approach by the time of the Cold War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire.
A modest entrance hall, characterized by a high ceiling and ornate walls, provided access to a flight of stairs. These stairs bifurcated at the upper landing, leading into the Temple's main hall. Two hallways lined the chamber, with statues positioned in the center of the room, their heads bowed against the middle two of the hall's four sets of support pillars. Buttresses connected these pillars to the Temple's second level, supported in turn by the outer pillars. At the hall's northern end, furthest from the entrance to the south, stood a towering sculpture of a Sith pureblood, gazing upwards with outstretched arms. Four passages branched off from each side of the hallways lining the main chamber. The central doorway on the eastern side led to a spiral staircase ascending to the Temple's mezzanine, or second-floor balcony. The northwestern passage provided access to tunnels beneath the Temple, where the Empire constructed platforms and machinery to maintain power conduits. The passageway immediately south of the access tunnel entrance led to the Dark Temple's reliquary, where the Sith Emperor housed numerous potent relics. The subsequent passage led to a small shrine honoring the Sith Lord Ergast.
Behind the large statue at the hall's end, another staircase connected the first and second floors. A door on the staircase's upper levels led to the Dark Temple's inner chambers. The eastern staircase to the mezzanine spiraled around a tree trunk-like sculpture reaching the Temple ceiling. Decorative tapestries, reduced to tatters by the Cold War era, adorned the stairs, mirroring the main hall. Green crystals suspended from the ceiling by chains illuminated the mezzanine. Like the first floor, the second floor featured four massive doorways on either side of the hall. However, with the exceptions of the door to the eastern staircase and the door to the Unquiet Chamber, these portals were sealed by stonework or blast doors. The entire Dark Temple, particularly the central hall, was bathed in a dim greenish light. The floors were paved with gray stone featuring ornamental insets. The Emperor specifically designed the Dark Temple's architecture to contain dark side energy, allowing the Temple to function as both a prison and a secure repository for powerful artifacts.
Originally, the structure that would become known as the Dark Temple was erected by Sith Lord Pharshol and his servants, who were among the original colonists from the Old Sith Empire on Dromund Kaas. The majority of the colonists resided within this expansive building, as it was the only man-made structure on the hostile jungle planet. However, Vacuus, Pharshol's rival, and the followers of the Dark Path, a Sith philosophy, infiltrated the structure and besieged Pharshol's servants. Pharshol, his apprentice Anyarah, and Vacuus were among those who perished in the ensuing conflicts, their spirits lingering within the building for millennia. When Aloysius Kallig, another Sith Lord, was betrayed and killed by his fellow Sith Tulak Hord in an ambush, Kallig was entombed in the structure's upper levels, his spirit remaining behind like those of Pharshol and Vacuus. Around the time of Kallig's death, another Sith Lord named Ergast was interred in one of the adjacent mountains.
Dromund Kaas eventually vanished from the larger Empire's awareness, only to be rediscovered by survivors of the Great Hyperspace War with the Republic in 4980 BBY, two decades after the Empire's defeat. These survivors established a new empire under the leadership of the Sith Emperor, who was drawn to the echoes of the dark side emanating from the seemingly deserted structure. Inspired by Brontes's insights into the nature and purpose of Sith artifacts, the Emperor ordered a significant expansion of the newly christened Dark Temple. This expansion coincided with the construction of nearby Kaas City. Over the following centuries, the Emperor utilized the Dark Temple to house both the tombs of his enemies and the artifacts he created. He also conducted numerous experiments and dark side rituals within the Temple, transforming the structure and its surroundings into a nexus of dark Force energy as he drained the knowledge and life essences of his most powerful adversaries.
Nil Venerous, another Sith Lord, was among those entombed within the Dark Temple. In 4606 BBY, the Sith Kel'eth Ur was slain by the Emperor due to his radical advocacy for the Sith to embrace the light side of the Force. Ur's body was interred on the Dark Temple's second level. While Ur's spirit did not persist like the others, as he became one with the Force, he managed to create a holocron containing his teachings and arranged for its placement on his tomb's door. Shortly thereafter, the Emperor ordered the Dark Temple sealed, leaving the building undisturbed for almost a millennium.
Around 3643 BBY, a group of ambitious Sith sought to exploit the Emperor's renewed absence during the Cold War. They led an expedition of at least a hundred slaves, soldiers, and archaeologists, breaching the Temple's gates. However, these Sith unwittingly awakened the spirit of Kallig. Disoriented, the Force ghost lashed out in fury at the intruders. The Empire's ruling Dark Council could not punish the rogue Sith, as none survived the expedition. In the week following the Temple's opening, violent electrical storms surrounded the Dark Temple.
The Dark Council soon authorized Captain Fizik of the Imperial Military to dispatch additional expeditions into the Temple to assess its condition after a surge of seismic activity. However, Kallig, unaware of his own death, inadvertently awakened the spirits of other Sith Lords within the Temple. Many of the workers, soldiers, and Sith from the expeditions were possessed by these Sith spirits, while others were driven mad by the dark side energy. After the third expedition failed to return, Fizik enlisted the aid of additional Sith and Imperial forces to venture into the Temple and retrieve the expedition's data. Fizik's team discovered that Dorian, a member of one of the expeditions, was recovering from Nil Venerous's possession. The group secured several of Venerous's symbols of power in exchange for the expedition data, allowing Dorian to remain in the Temple and rule over the possessed workers. Over the following months, the Dark Council tasked the Imperial Military with containing the threats within the Temple as the influence of the Sith spirits gradually spread down the Temple's processional approach. Alaric, a Sith Lord, dispatched a team into the Temple to seal the burial chambers of dormant Sith Lords. When the team failed to return, Alaric was forced to recruit external assistance to complete the task of fusing the 500-kilogram hinges on the tomb doors. The group succeeded, but encountered Kel'eth Ur's holocron and destroyed it to prevent the spread of his teachings.
Darth Baras, a Sith Lord, sent his apprentice to the Dark Temple to locate the Ravager, a device created by the Emperor to extract knowledge from its victims' minds. The Sith Warrior had to battle workers possessed by Lord Vacuus and his followers to retrieve the device and its missing components. Darth Zash, another Sith Lord, dispatched her own apprentice into the Temple to fulfill a Force vision of a slave-born apprentice pacifying Lord Kallig's spirit. The apprentice, a descendant of Kallig, successfully contacted Kallig's spirit and recovered an artifact belonging to Tulak Hord.
Pharshol's spirit found a vessel in a Twi'lek workman, assuming power over his possessed colleagues. However, the Human female possessed by his apprentice Anyarah resisted the possession, leading Pharshol to believe she was swayed by the Dark Path. He ordered her retrieval from the Temple's depths. Commander Gargun led a team into the Dark Temple but failed to return, leaving his subordinate Captain Medle unable to prove his superior's death and claim his position. Medle hired a bounty hunter participating in the Great Hunt to enter the Dark Temple and retrieve the commander's insignia. However, the bounty hunter killed Medle when he attempted to betray the mercenary to conceal his actions. The Eagle, leader of a terrorist network, attempted to detonate power conduits beneath the Dark Temple as part of an attack on Kaas City. The Imperial Agent Cipher Nine foiled the attack, eliminating the dissidents before they could detonate their bombs in the access tunnels.
Darth Zash later summoned her apprentice to the Dark Temple after the Sith Inquisitor recovered the remaining artifacts of Tulak Hord. Within the Temple's inner chambers, Zash attempted to use Hord's rituals to steal her apprentice's body. However, the resulting duel resulted in Zash's spirit being transferred into the body of her apprentice's Dashade servant, Khem Val. Shortly afterward, Zash's superior, Darth Thanaton, attempted to eliminate the young Inquisitor, who had assumed the title of Lord Kallig, by sending Kallig to the tomb of the Sith scholar and alchemist Darth Andru. After escaping Andru's spirit with assistance from Aloysius Kallig, the young Sith traveled to the Dark Temple and learned the ritual of Force walk, enabling the Sith to bind Ergast's spirit for increased power. Kallig then left the Dark Temple to bind Darth Andru as well, but the added power was insufficient to overcome Thanaton during their confrontation.
In 3640 BBY, the Emperor returned to the Dark Temple with his Imperial Guard. The Guard purged the Temple of all intruders while the Emperor forced the Sith spirits back into submission. The Emperor awaited the arrival of his nemesis, the Jedi Knight known as the Hero of Tython, in the Temple's inner chambers. The Jedi had thwarted the Emperor's servants' attempts to initiate his life-consuming ritual. The Knight, informed of the Emperor's location by Jedi Master Tol Braga after the Emperor's control over him was broken, infiltrated Kaas City and stole the Sith Emperor's shuttle. Meanwhile, Grand Master Satele Shan of the Jedi Order led an attack on the Imperial capital. The Hero's crew fought through the Imperial Guardsmen and Sith defending the Dark Temple. After rescuing a companion from overwhelming Imperial Guard forces in the access tunnels, the Hero and the astromech droid T7-O1 ascended the Temple's staircase and entered the inner chambers, where they engaged the Sith Emperor in a final battle. Despite the Emperor's power, he was defeated. His essence relinquished control of its dying host body and used the Force to collapse sections of the Temple, attempting to kill the Hero. However, the Hero and T7-O1 escaped the collapsing Temple with their companions, and the group fled Dromund Kaas with the Republic fleet.
The Dark Temple serves as a significant location on Dromund Kaas in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a video game released in 2011 by BioWare and LucasArts. Functioning as the Imperial counterpart to the ruined Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Republic capital, the Dark Temple is the setting for the final Dromund Kaas missions for all four Imperial classes and features in several side missions. The Sith Inquisitor class revisits the Dark Temple at the end of Act I, and the Jedi Knight class confronts the Sith Emperor in the "Doomsday" mission. The Dark Temple was initially pictured on the Dromund Kaas entry in the Holonet section of the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website. The 2012 reference guide Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia provided additional details about the Temple. The Dark Temple's name echoes the Dark Force Temple from the 1998 video game Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Hall Hood, a writer for The Old Republic, remained ambiguous when questioned about a connection between the two.
Diego Almazan was the concept artist responsible for much of the Dark Temple's design. A Studio Insider article released on February 18, 2011, detailed Almazan's process. Almazan began with the concept of the Sith structure serving as both a tomb and a prison for the dead. The hallways' basic shapes were intended to convey power and resilience. He then added organic sculpture patterns to the walls, reminiscent of incantations and runes. Almazan then applied chips, cracks, and discoloration to the surfaces, adding patterns to the floors and roofs. The pillars lining the hallways were added to create an aggressive feel and suggest they were locks for the Sith tombs within. Almazan's final designs incorporated mood lighting, adding greenish lamps to break up the darkness and including webs to convey age.
The Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, and Sith Inquisitor are Imperial characters and are assumed to consistently choose dark side options. Therefore, this article assumes that both class and side missions were completed using dark side choices and refrains from specifying which character completed the side missions. Conversely, as the Jedi Knight is a Republic character assumed to consistently choose light side options, this article assumes that the player redeemed Tol Braga and rescued their companion from the Imperial Guard before facing the Emperor.
Several Codex entries and a Heroic Mission initially present in the Dark Temple during The Old Republic's beta release were removed for unknown reasons and are considered cut content.
After creating the Phobis devices, artifacts capable of manipulating fear on a vast scale, the Emperor locked away the Phobis Core in the Dark Temple's depths. Koval Renge, the Emperor's personal enforcer and a Sith Executioner, was imprisoned in the Dark Temple after his attempted betrayal.
Around 3683 BBY, the Sith Lord Parnax deliberately invaded the Dark Temple, breaking the seal only to find himself trapped inside. Becoming lost and disoriented, Parnax descended into madness. His journals recorded his discovery of the Emperor's plans to consume all life in the galaxy, though his incoherent writings were incomprehensible. In his insanity, Parnax committed suicide, believing he could survive the galaxy's end by merging with the Force. The Dark Temple was resealed shortly afterward.
Valen Korik, a Mandalorian bounty hunter, betrayed the Imperial-Mandalorian alliance by killing two Sith Lords in Kaas City. Korik fled to the Dark Temple when the Dark Council issued a bounty on his head. He was quickly possessed by the spirits within the Temple and inhabited the building's western reliquary until an Imperial team killed him.