Tjulan Kwaad, a Master Shaper within the ranks of the Yuuzhan Vong, held authority as the head of Domain Kwaad and also as the lord governing Domain Yim. The incidents on the moon of Yavin 4 in 26 ABY brought about a downfall of his domains. Mezhan Kwaad, a subordinate under the Master Shaper's command, along with her adept, Nen Yim, were guilty of heresy, having broken the sacred laws that dictate the conduct of the shaper caste by employing unconventional methods in their biological experiments. As a consequence, Kwaad's domains suffered a loss of reputation, and Kwaad refused to help Yim when she contacted him later that year to request assistance. However, only a short time following Yin's request, Kwaad dispatched Master Shaper Kae Kwaad to assist her.
Tjulan Kwaad achieved the status of Master Shaper and the dual role of leader of Domain Kwaad in addition to the senior master position within Domain Yim. As an elder during the Yuuzhan Vong War that engulfed the galaxy, he firmly upheld the laws that governed the shaper caste, leading to profound anger over the events that took place on the moon of Yavin 4 in 26 ABY. Mezhan Kwaad, one of Kwaad's subordinates, had been assigned the task of experimenting on a captive Jedi. In conjunction with her adept, Nen Yim, Kwaad committed heresy while performing her mission, disregarding the shaping protocols' stringent rules to carry out unorthodox experiments. Given the sacred nature of the shaping protocols to the Yuuzhan Vong gods, their violation represented a grave transgression, usually resulting in a sentence of death. The two shapers were discovered by other Yuuzhan Vong, and Mezhan Kwaad was killed. The entire situation became clear soon after, and Domains Kwaad and Yim were both disgraced, which caused Tjulan Kwaad considerable shame.
A short time after the Yavin 4 events, Adept Nen Yim contacted Kwaad. Warmaster Tsavong Lah spared her from execution as a heretic because of her unique knowledge of the Jedi, and she was subsequently moved to the worldship Baanu Miir. Yim used a villip, a Yuuzhan Vong organic communications device, to contact Kwaad and asked the old shaper for help. Yim said the Baanu Miir was dying and asked the senior master for a shaping protocol that could stop the ancient vessel from dying. Kwaad did not want to give knowledge of protocols that were beyond Yim's current level, not only because of standard shaping procedure, but also because Yim had asked. As Yim kept pushing the issue, Kwaad got angry. He blamed Yim for what he thought was the disaster on Yavin 4 and, when she tried to appeal to him to save those on the Baanu Miir, Kwaad reminded the adept that everything died.
The Master Shaper was not interested in continuing the conversation. Yim's ongoing attempts to get his help to save the worldship's inhabitants—whom Kwaad believed were useless for the war effort anyway—were ignored, and Kwaad ended the transmission. However, Kwaad contacted the adept again by villip several minutes later and told her that he would send a Master Shaper to the worldship. Kwaad told the adept that he was doing this so that Yim would not bring more shame to his domain.
Tjulan Kwaad was unwilling to compromise with Yim to save members of his species for multiple reasons. First, the Master Shaper was angry at the adept for her role in shaming the Kwaad and the Yim and for not reporting Mezhan Kwaad's actions. Second, the Master Shaper believed that the laws of the shapers should not be defied. Finally, Kwaad believed that those on the Baanu Miir were not worth saving, not only because they were not valuable in terms of the war effort, but also because he believed they were all going to die anyway. Kwaad was also easily angered and had little patience for sophistry.
Tjulan Kwaad only appears in Greg Keyes' The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, for one chapter, where he talks to Nen Yim, a key Yuuzhan Vong character in The New Jedi Order series. His words show some of the effects of the events of the previous novel, such as Domain Kwaad's embarrassment.
Kwaad's sudden change from his first response to Nen Yim's requests is not explained, but the more likely reason than the Master Shaper's explanation—that Yim should not be left unsupervised—is that he is ordered by Supreme Overlord Shimrra Jamaane, or forced by Onimi, the real power behind the Yuuzhan Vong, who controls Jamaane using the Force, to contact the adept again. The "Master Shaper" that Kwaad sends is actually a disguised Onimi, who uses the name "Kae Kwaad" to watch Yim's heresy. It later becomes clear that Shimrra Jamaane—as Onimi's puppet—needs Yim to do secret, heretical research into advanced Yuuzhan Vong technology.
The Master Shaper's words also bring up the question of the relationship between the Kwaad and the Yim. While he says that Mezhan Kwaad was his subordinate, Tjulan Kwaad also calls himself the leader of Domain Yim. He later says that Yim shamed "our domain" and mentions the "Yim crèche," which suggests that the Yim may be a domain that is part of the Kwaad.