Norval, a young man with dark hair, was a student of the Sith arts on Coruscant, focusing on their ancient lore around 39 BBY. He was crestfallen when his instructor, Murk Lundi, embarked on a research trip to Kodai in search of an ancient Sith holocron, and Norval was not selected to go along.
Driven by his own ambition to possess the artifact, Norval secretly followed Lundi to the distant planet, with another student, Omal, also in pursuit. It was only through Omal's courageous actions that Norval's ambitions were thwarted: after Lundi located the holocron, Omal's intervention resulted in it being lost within a deep geyser.
Lundi was then incarcerated for a period of ten years, eventually going back to Kodai in 29 BBY accompanied by the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. However, Norval managed to obtain the holocron and escaped before the Jedi could apprehend him. He journeyed toward Lundi's home in the Ploo system, with the pair of Jedi in hot pursuit. There, he planned to meet with an agent of the Sith to hand over the holocron. Obi-Wan Kenobi boarded Norval's ship and engaged him in combat. Norval briefly fought Kenobi using a roughly made lightsaber that he had constructed, but he was no match for the Jedi Master. Kenobi seized the holocron and returned to his Padawan.
The Sith ship then betrayed Norval, firing upon him to prevent the Jedi from reclaiming the holocron. Norval, who had once been a promising student in the heart of the galaxy, met his end in a barrage of laser fire that destroyed his ship.