Dathka Graush

Dathka Graush, a pure-blooded male Sith hailing from the planet Korriban, existed during the particularly chaotic period between the Subterra and Manderon eras of galactic history. Graush's life was marked by the widespread violence among the native Sith as civilization on Korriban devolved into a primitive state of constant war in the millennia following the death of Sith King Adas nearly twenty thousand years prior. With no clear successor, many Sith proclaimed themselves Sith'ari, or overlord in the native tongue, as tradition had dictated since Adas's demise. This civil unrest led Sith society to relocate to the nearby world of Ziost, while those who stayed on Korriban became religious cultists. Despite the questionable claims of authority made by various Sith aspiring to the throne, Korriban remained highly fragmented, with individual Sith vying for planetary dominance.

It was during this time that Dathka Graush established himself as a formidable conqueror. In 7000 BBY, he and his forces spearheaded a civil war that resulted in the devastation of most of Korriban's population centers. Graush emerged triumphant and was crowned king of the Sith. At the peak of his influence, Graush constructed a fortress in the Naos Asteroid Belt, where he stored powerful artifacts. During his reign, Graush expanded his control across Korriban's territories until two-thirds of the planet acknowledged his rule. Graush's domination over his people was considered exceptionally brutal even by Sith standards, and his campaigns of bloodshed and terror left countless corpses in their wake. Intrigued by the abundance of cadaverous material, Graush employed ancient Sith sorcery and alchemy to perform the Tsaiwinokka Hoyakut, translated from ancient Sith as the "Reanimated Dead" spell, resurrecting an army of Korriban zombies. These entities were undead humanoids who spread their affliction to other sentient beings through their bite.

Seeking to prolong his life through unnatural means, Graush created a crystalline jewel filled with dark side spirits collected over millennia. Using both Sith magic and advanced technology, Graush replaced his natural heart with the crystal. Despite the belief that the crystal made Graush invincible, he was assassinated after only fifty years of rule. Upon his death, the spirits of his reanimated zombie army were torn from their bodies and joined those trapped within Graush's crystal heart.

An elaborate tomb was built for Dathka Graush in Korriban's Valley of Golg. Located near Korriban's equator, the ancient tomb city at Golg was one of many "Valleys of the Sith Lords" across the planet. Graush's tomb, along with others in the Valley, was adorned with stonework carvings and runes of protective Sith magic. The late King's personal crypt was in a sunless part of the Valley, within a large cavernous gallery containing shrines and pictograms of fourteen Sith sorcerers. The largest shrine held Graush's sarcophagus, where his remains were entombed with a sword, an amulet, his holocron, and his crystalline heart.

In 6900 BBY, Dark Jedi survivors of the Hundred-Year Darkness, a rebellion against their light side counterparts in the Jedi Order, known as the Exiles conquered Sith space and became the Lords of the Sith. Among them was Sith alchemist Sorzus Syn, who discovered and learned from the Heart of Graush to create her own Sith amulet, the Muur Talisman. Syn documented the history of the Heart and her experiments with the crystal in a journal, pages of which were recovered and stored in the Jedi Archives before being compiled into the Book of Sith by Sith Lord and Galactic Emperor Palpatine.

In 3963 BBY, a clandestine group of supposed lightsiders known as the Jedi Covenant undertook the task of collecting and isolating all known Sith artifacts to prevent the return of the Sith and the spread of dark side influence. Among these artifacts was the Helm of Dathka Graush, a battle-headdress believed to have been worn by the ancient Sith King. Graush's helm significantly amplified the Force abilities of its wearer and was also believed to strengthen the sword of the ancient Sith Lord Ieldis. The power of Graush's helm was so potent that, when removed from its protective nullification resin, its residual energies caused significant atmospheric disturbances within a six-kilometer radius of the planet Odryn's Sanctum of the Exalted.

Around 3643 BBY, during the final years of the Cold War, an archaeological team traveled to the Naos Asteroid Belt and rediscovered Dathka Graush's ancient fortress. The long-lost vaults, untouched for centuries, were opened, and several precious artifact fragments were recovered.

Exactly six months before the destruction of the first Death Star, pirate captain Naz Felyood crashed his ship, the Jynni's Virtue, on Korriban after being attacked by cloaked Imperial ships, resulting in a hyperdrive malfunction. The Virtue landed two kilometers north of the Valley of Golg, forcing the crew to remain on Korriban longer than planned. They hoped that the faint power emanations from the Valley would revitalize the Virtue, but the energy signatures interfering with their electrical systems were due to the Valley's lingering dark side power. Nevertheless, Felyood entered the Valley and found Graush's resting place. The captain infiltrated the crypt, targeted Graush's shrine, and planned to raid it first. As he attempted to plunder the treasures from Graush's sarcophagus, the long-dead King's spirit appeared and tried to convince Felyood that he possessed something the pirate desired, before finally possessing him.

Graush also resurrected his undead army, whose hunger for living flesh drove them to attack the Jynni's Virtue's remaining crewmembers. The zombies spread their affliction throughout the crew, but in a final act of desperation, the uninfected crewmembers activated the ship's self-destruct mechanism, killing themselves. The resulting explosion vaporized a large portion of the army that Graush had unleashed. The remaining zombies took the crystalline heart from Felyood, and Graush's shade departed with it. Felyood, now alone and immortal, was compelled by the power of Graush's heart to search Korriban for its master for eternity.

In the time between the Battle of Yavin and the Empire's defeat at Endor, the former Emperor's Hand known as Lord Cronal dedicated his life to studying ancient and forgotten knowledge, including that of the ancient Sith and other masters of what the Sorcerers of Rhand called the Dark. Guided by his Darksight visions to various locations across the galaxy in search of ancient Sith lore, Cronal was led to Dathka Graush's spirit in the Valley of Golg. Using knowledge from the Temple of Korman Lao, Cronal captured Graush's spirit and forced the ancient Sith King to reveal his most arcane alchemical secrets. From Graush's teachings, Cronal constructed his Sunset Crown, a device used to control the electrochemical crystalline meltmassif substance of the planet Mindor.

Eventually, trusted Jedi researchers from Master Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy were sent to the Sith homeworld of Korriban and discovered Graush's tomb. There, they recovered recordings from the crew of the Jynni's Virtue, detailing the events leading to Graush's awakening years prior. A brief written message containing Captain Felyood's last known words was also found with the tapes. Although some historians and Jedi dismissed the tapes as fraudulent, insights from them led Jedi researchers to attempt to locate Graush's crystal heart. Despite a thorough search of his crypt, surveyors found nothing, risking their lives to explore Graush's tomb.

Dathka Graush was a pure-blooded member of the Sith species. Sith like Graush were typically known for their glowing yellow eyes, crimson skin, sharp predatory features, and Force-sensitivity, particularly attuned to the dark side of the Force.

Graush's fifty-year reign and the actions that led to his rise to power, such as the mass accumulation of corpses and the devastation of Korriban's cities, earned him a reputation as a bloodthirsty conqueror and tyrant. The acts of terror he inflicted upon his subjects were considered cruel even by Sith standards—a species that valued violence, war, sentient sacrifice, and blood consumption as highly as peace. This behavior was often attributed to the absence of his biological heart, which he replaced with a Force-sensitive crystal.

Dathka Graush wielded his personal Sith sword effectively, proving himself a formidable force on the battlefield. His tactics secured victory over his enemies, and those who survived became his subjects. A powerful Sith magician and alchemist, Graush's Force talents and scientific aptitude aided him in creating his Korriban zombies and performing his cardiac transplantation procedure. Graush's mastery of Sith alchemy was legendary, and he is credited with pioneering the "Reanimated Dead" spell, Tsaiwinokka Hoyakut. The Sorcerer of Rhand Cronal believed that the ancient Sith had limited understanding of the Dark and destruction but acknowledged the impressiveness of Graush's accomplishments. He reasoned that studying and pursuing Graush's ancient lore would enable him to achieve even greater feats. It was through Graush's knowledge that Lord Cronal learned to construct his dark side–oriented devices called Shadow Crowns.

Dathka Graush was first mentioned in Korriban: Planet of Lost Souls, a roleplaying supplement written by Cory J. Herndon and published online on October 2, 2003 by Wizards of the Coast. Korriban: Planet of Lost Souls mistakenly refers to Dathka Graush as a "pureblooded Sith Dark Lord" who ruled over two-thirds of Korriban before 7000 BBY, despite later sources, such as Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force, establishing the consecration of the first Dark Lords of the Sith fifty years after Graush's death. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, a 2008 novel by Matthew Stover, identifies Dathka Graush as a Sith king.

Graush received a brief mention, misspelled as "Grausch," in the twenty-ninth issue of the Dark Horse Comics series Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, written by John Jackson Miller and published on May 29, 2008. Graush was later referenced in the 2012 publication Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side, by Daniel Wallace. The book included an illustration of the Dark Jedi Exile Ajunta Pall beheading the Sith king Hakagram Graush, as Wallace initially intended for Dathka Graush to be the murdered king. However, realizing that this would conflict with Dathka's established timeline, Wallace introduced Hakagram instead, as a probable descendant of Dathka.