Kesh Sith Temple

The Kesh Sith Temple was constructed at the summit of a mountain, situated at the northern tip of the Takara Mountains. These mountains stretched across a lengthy peninsula that ran parallel to the mainland of Keshtah Minor. The temple's lower terrace accommodated service personnel and the uvak stables. A series of steps provided access to the middle terrace, which housed a training academy, dormitories, storage facilities, a wardroom, and a medcenter. Another set of stairs led to an outdoor colonnade, the location where the Tribe's founder and first Grand Lord Yaru Korsin had presided over his public court. The Temple also featured a spacious quadrangle plaza, bordered by the royal residence to the west, a towering watchtower and guardhouse to the east, and the Temple's dome to the north. A portion of the upper plaza was built atop a large chamber that contained the Omen, the ancient Sith dreadnaught responsible for transporting the Tribe's ancestors to Kesh. A narrow path, carved into the mountainside, provided access to the temple. In 4975 BBY, the second Grand Lord Nida Korsin fortified the mountain pass with The Blocks, a series of imposing granite barriers, to prevent entry to the temple. Each of these cubic structures measured ten meters in height, creating the visual effect of a staircase for the gods, intended to emphasize the Tribe's supposed divine origins. By 3000 BBY, these blocks had become heavily overgrown with vines. Due to its isolated location, uvak, winged reptilian creatures native to Kesh, were commonly used for transportation to and from the temple. The temple also overlooked a cliff, which served as the site of several deaths, including those of Devore Korsin in 5000 BBY; numerous Red Sith during the Red Sith Purge; and Jariad Korsin after a failed coup against his father, Yaru. The mountainside temple also had a cupola, offering an unobstructed view of the main quadrangle. Behind this cupola was an anteroom leading to a planetarium, whose walls were embedded with Lignan crystals to depict a map of Kesh's stars during the summer season. This smaller rotunda contained the Grand Lord's throne, which was his former command chair from the Omen, and a brazier used to illuminate the planetarium. The planetarium was designed to mislead visitors into believing that Yaru Korsin had always desired to return to the stars. The chamber housing the Omen was on leveled ground, reinforced with stonework. An open passage at the twenty-third step on the middle terrace's staircase led to the main temple building. A sealed door, located adjacent to the seventh step of the middle terrace, provided access to another chamber built into the base of the Omen's support structure. This chamber served as a map room, containing a stone-carved map of Keshtah Minor and six stone panels depicting the Endless Sea and the continent of Alanciar. Until 3000 BBY, these six panels were concealed by large blank slates. These maps were adorned with Lignan crystals, used to represent cities on Alanciar. The map room's walls were also inscribed with a message from Yaru Korsin to his daughter Nida, revealing his secret: Alanciar. These writings were in the Tapani language and were etched onto the wall using a diamond stylus.

The construction of the Kesh Sith Temple commenced shortly after the native Keshiri of Keshtah Minor accepted the Lost Tribe of Sith as their deities, the Skyborn. The temple's origins can be traced back to a series of structures erected around 5000 BBY to stabilize the Sith dreadnaught Omen, which had crash-landed on a mountain slope. To enhance stability, the surrounding ground was reinforced with stonework. A path was carved out of large sections of strata by a combined force of Sith miners, utilizing their lightsabers, and Keshiri helpers. Under the leadership of the Omen's captain, Yaru Korsin, the site became the residence of the predominantly Human Sith offworlders, which also included fifty-seven Red Sith and one Houk. While the Sith initially intended to return to the stars, a scarcity of metal minerals and spare parts prevented them from achieving this goal. By 4985 BBY, the Sith Temple housed several hundred Sith and their Keshiri servants, many of whom originated from the Neshtovar, the former priestly elite that had governed Keshtah until the Tribe's arrival. To accommodate this community, several buildings were constructed within the temple complex, including the royal residence, watch tower, guardhouse, the Temple's dome, a medcenter, a wardroom, and a creche. These facilities encircled a massive quadrangle courtyard. The mountainside temple also included at least one improvised refresher station at the royal residence, frequently used by Seelah Korsin, the wife of ship captain Yaru Korsin. This shower unit was connected to a marble slot high on the wall of the royal residence, channeling warm water downwards. This water was transported by Keshiri uvak-fliers in large kegs and regularly heated by Keshiri attendants to remove mildew and other contaminants.

Despite the Sith offworlders enjoying a luxurious lifestyle and having their needs met by their loyal Keshiri servants, tensions eventually arose between the Human and Red Sith. The Human Sith were descendants of Tapani space travelers from House Nidantha who had ventured into the Stygian Caldera and were subsequently enslaved by the Sith Empire. Due to their experiences as slaves, many of the Human Sith, particularly Seelah, harbored animosity towards the Red Sith. Seelah exploited her position in the creche to secretly murder all of the Red Sith newborns. By 4985 BBY, the Red Sith leader Ravilan Wroth lobbied for the Tribe to return to the stars, driven by his people's inability to reproduce. He also secretly poisoned the Keshiri city of Tetsubal with cyanogen silicate in an attempt to pressure the Tribe's leadership to support his plans. However, his plot was foiled when Seelah discovered his intentions and used her own supply of cyanogen silicate to poison several other Keshiri cities in the Ragnos Lakes region, resulting in thousands of deaths. Seelah successfully framed the entire Red Sith community for these crimes, leading to the Red Sith Purge. During the conflict, the heads of the deceased Red Sith were impaled on the colonnade in the main courtyard. The remaining Red Sith were thrown off a cliff on the edge of the Sith Temple. The sole surviving non-Human was the Houk Gloyd, a close friend of Yaru Korsin. Ravilan and Seelah's actions fueled the emergence of an underground Keshiri resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing and expelling the Tribe from Keshtah. This resistance movement was led by Adari Vaal, a geologist who had initially made contact with the Tribe and formed a friendship with Yaru Korsin. She turned against her former benefactors after her eldest son Finn Vaal died in a construction accident, and Korsin was unable to revive him, confirming her suspicions that they were not gods. Prior to her initial meeting with the Sith offworlders, she also witnessed Yaru murder his half-brother Devore Korsin, Seelah Korsin's first husband. Seelah later learned that Yaru was responsible for her first husband's death and vowed to avenge him. She also groomed her eldest son, Jariad Korsin, to succeed him as the Tribe's leader. In 4975 BBY, the self-appointed Grand Lord Yaru Korsin announced the Tribe's relocation from the Sith Temple to Tahv, the main settlement on Keshtah. By this point, the Lost Tribe had abandoned any hope of returning to the stars due to Kesh's remote location and the lack of spare parts to repair the Omen. As part of the Tribe's relocation to Tahv, a skeleton crew of Sith and Keshiri finalized affairs on the mountain. Unbeknownst to the rest of his people, Korsin had managed to retrieve data from one of the Omen's cameras, depicting a vast sea and an unknown continent referred to as "Keshtah Major". Korsin and his Keshiri servants replicated this data onto a large wall map, kept inside a secret map room at the base of the Omen's support structure. Yaru only revealed this information to his younger daughter, Nida Korsin, entrusting her with keeping this secret to provide a reason to reunite the Tribe in the event of a disaster. That same year, Seelah and Jariad launched their coup against Grand Lord Korsin. This coincided with Adari Vaal's planned uprising against the Tribe, involving the Keshiri rebels stealing the Tribe's uvak. However, both rebel factions were defeated by Korsin's daughter, Nida Korsin. First, Nida sabotaged the Keshiri rebels' plans with the help of Adari's younger son, Tona Vaal, by safeguarding Kesh's uvak herd. The defeated Keshiri rebels then fled into exile, eventually landing on Alanciar, led by Adari. Secondly, Nida and her Skyborn Rangers attacked Seelah and Jariad's rebels, killing Jariad. Seelah was also crippled during the fighting when her legs were crushed by falling debris caused by Yaru's ally, Gloyd, detonating his proton torpedo during a final stand against Seelah's aides. As punishment for her rebellion, Seelah was permanently exiled to the Temple until her death.

Following Yaru's final testament, Grand Lord Nida Korsin commanded all Sith to vacate the mountainside temple in honor of the Tribe's founder. No Sith or Keshiri were permitted to return to the temple during her lifetime. Under her directives, massive barriers known as the Blocks were used to obstruct the narrow pass leading to the temple. Until Seelah's death, regular uvak flights delivered food to the crippled Seelah, who eventually died in her old sick ward. For the subsequent two millennia, the Kesh Sith Temple was designated as a forbidden place within the Tribe. Aerial patrols of uvak-riders protected the former Sith Temple from intruders. Over the following centuries, the Tribe's descendants lost knowledge of how the Omen functioned, and any study of the ancient Sith starship was restricted to scholars who no longer had access to the vessel. Nida's ban was upheld by successive generations of Grand Lords, including Lillia Venn, who ascended to the Grand Lordship in 3961 BBY. While the Keshiri had initially assisted in building the temple, they were forbidden from entering it, as their presence was considered sacrilegious. In 3960 BBY, the assassination of Grand Lord Venn during the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor initiated a millennium of chaos and anarchy known as the Time of the Rot. Later generations remembered this as a "dark age" in Keshtah's history, during which Kesh's cities fell into ruin. By 3000 BBY, the Lost Tribe of the Sith had fragmented into twenty factions, including the Golden Destiny, which advocated for the Tribe to cease fighting, reopen the Sith Temple, and return to the stars. They were opposed by the Korsinite League, which argued that the Tribe should adhere to the political structure outlined in Korsin's testament. Due to Seelah's efforts to distort the Tribe's history and a loss of knowledge over time, many Sith came to believe that their ancestors were descended from a race of powerful beings and gods destined to rule over the native Keshiri. These popular myths were disproven by revelations during that year's Pantheon's Peace that the Tribe's ancestors had actually been slaves to the Sith Lord Naga Sadow. These revelations about the Tribe's "inglorious past" triggered the Great Crisis, resulting in the deaths of many Sith and the destruction of Keshtah's cities. Recalling that Korsin's testament mentioned that the "true power was behind the throne" and that the Tribe should remember this in the event of a disaster, the Tribe's Caretaker and historian Varner Hilts and his Keshiri aide Jaye Vuhld decided to unseal the temple and explore the Omen to uncover this secret, hoping to save the Tribe from its self-inflicted spiral of destruction. After several days of traversing the challenging Takara Mountains, Hilts and Jaye finally reached the mountainside temple. They also had to climb over a series of granite barriers placed there under Nida Korsin's orders. Meanwhile, Iliana Merko fled to the temple on an uvak, escaping the other Sith factions. Several Sith leaders, including Korsin Bentado, Neera, and Edell Vrai, followed her, intending to settle scores for the numerous injuries and disfigurements she had inflicted on them.

The Kesh Sith Temple played a crucial role in revitalizing the Lost Tribe of Sith after a millennium of chaos and internal conflict. Upon arriving at the temple complex, Varner Hilts and Jaye Vuhld encountered Iliana Merko, who had just discovered the remains of her fallen idol Seelah Korsin, and convinced her to join their quest to uncover Yaru Korsin's "secrets behind the throne." They then entered the chamber containing the Omen but found that Korsin's command chair, the Grand Lord's throne, had been removed from the vessel's bridge. However, Hilts and Jaye discovered that the ship's chrono still functioned, a technology that served as the prototype for the Tribe's Sandpipes, a device used for timekeeping. Hilts' party also noted the presence of several newcomers, including Korsin Bentado, Edell Vrai, and Neeera. Believing that the Tribe was doomed, these other Sith sought to destroy the Omen to eliminate the last remaining relic of the Tribe's "inglorious" history. While these Sith had been bitter rivals before the Great Crisis, they were willing to collaborate on something they could agree upon. Due to his expertise in mathematics and engineering, Edell was appointed as the chief project officer for this demolition project, which included thirty Sith warriors from various factions and several uvak, winged reptilian beasts of burden. The Sith participants came from various factions, including the Golden Destiny, the Korsinite League, Force 57, and the Sisters of Seelah. For this demolition project, Edell planned to topple the temple's giant watchtower onto the chamber containing the Omen, crushing the ship. Edell instructed the Sith warriors to loop long leather cables around the supports of the watchtower. Several teams of Sith on the ground and uvaks in the air worked simultaneously to lower the building. While the chamber below was well-constructed, Hilts noted that the resulting impact would cause it to crack like an "uvak egg" under a hammer. While the impact of the tower may not have destroyed the ship, it would have completely buried it. Meanwhile, Jaye managed to find a latch leading to the temple's planetarium. This chamber contained Korsin's command chair and a brazier. However, they quickly discovered that the dome only depicted Kesh's stars in the summer sky. These stars were Lignan crystals etched into the ceiling. Hilts found an ancient Tapani cant within the upholstery of the seat, which turned out to be a letter from Yaru Korsin's mother, Takara Korsin, to her son. The elder Korsin predicted that their descendants would one day rule a "great people" free from the Red Sith. She also prophesied that if Yaru guided his people well, they would always have a mission. However, Hilts realized that this was not Yaru's secret, as he had mentioned that the "true power was behind the throne," not inside the throne. Based on their knowledge of the Tribe's history, Hilts' party reasoned that Korsin could not have made his final recording within the temple's planetarium, as he would have been unable to climb the stairs with a gaping chest wound that led to his death. Jaye then recalled a chamber beneath the Omen's support structure. He reasoned that the starship had landed on a slope and recalled that they had earlier passed a sealed door on the seventh step of the middle terrace. Jaye's theory was ultimately vindicated, and Hilts' party discovered a map room. Most of the room was covered by black slates. While searching for glowrods, Jaye was murdered by Korsin Bentado but not before alerting the other Sith to the presence of Hilts' party and the room. While the Sith were intent on killing Iliana, Hilts managed to defuse the situation by using the Force to yank the black slates off the walls, revealing a large map that confirmed the existence of a second continent on Kesh known as "Keshtah Major," or Alanciar to the native Alanciari. After reading Takara's letter and a message on the wall from Yaru to his daughter Nida, Hilts succeeded in convincing the other faction leaders to end their conflict and work towards the new goal of reaching and conquering Keshtah Major. The other Sith quickly submitted to Varner Hilts and elected him as their new Grand Lord. Hilts then asked Iliana Merko to be his wife to forge a marriage alliance and protect her from Bentado and his companions, who were still vengeful towards her. Edell and the other Sith also abandoned their plan to destroy the Omen and traveled throughout the mainland to spread news of Hilts' ascendancy to the Grand Lordship and the discovery of Keshtah Major. Varner Hilts and Iliana Merko also married at the Temple's colonnade. The wedding was attended by large numbers of both Sith and Keshiri, who welcomed Hilts' ascendancy as an end to the Time of the Rot. To honor Jaye's contribution to saving the Tribe, Hilts planned to allow Keshiri to join the Tribe itself, which had previously been a purely Human institution.

The Kesh Sith Temple also marked the site of the Tribe's emergence and return to the wider galaxy. By 41 ABY, the Sith Temple had become a significant center for Sith training. Vestara Khai, a Sith apprentice, began her Sith training at the temple under the guidance of Olaris Rhea, a Sith Lady. In that same year, Ship, a Sith Meditation Sphere, landed in the courtyard of the Sith Temple. The Tribe's Circle of Lords promptly convened at their meeting place in the capital Tahv to discuss the importance of Ship, considering it a discovery of "Kesh-shaking" significance. The Sith Tribe then decided to use Ship to rebuild a new Sith armada to invade the galaxy. Ship carried a Sith party, including Vestara Khai, that ambushed a Damorian s18 light freighter and salvaged its parts for repairs. They also ambushed a freighter, slaughtered the crew, and brought the vessel's parts back to Kesh. The Tribe continued its attacks on various vessels, leaving no survivors, until the Omen was successfully repaired, at which point they focused on capturing intact ships. The Sith also built a spaceport for their fleet at Tahv, and by 43.5 ABY, the armada consisted of over two dozen vessels. After sensing the presence of Luke Skywalker, an exiled Jedi Grand Master, through the Force, a strike team was assembled to hunt down and eliminate Skywalker. It was also at this time that Ship departed from Kesh. In response, the Circle of Lords decided to track down and recapture Ship, setting aside their plans to hunt Skywalker. This brought the Lost Tribe into contact with both Abeloth, a Force entity, and Luke Skywalker, along with his son Ben Skywalker. Eventually, the Lost Tribe formed an alliance with the Skywalkers to stop Abeloth, who was responsible for causing a Force psychosis that was affecting Jedi in the Galactic Alliance, a successor state to the Galactic Republic that ended after the Clone Wars.

The Kesh Sith Temple, as depicted on the book cover of Lost Tribe of the Sith: Savior, is inspired by the real-world Sumerian [Ziggurat of

Consider these examples of structures that have stood the test of time: the Ziggurat of Ur found in Iraq, the Jumeirah Mosque located in Dubai, which is in the United Arab Emirates, and the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague, situated in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, Kesh represents an ancient Sumerian city that also served as a temple.