The Dark Lord of the Sith Tulak Hord forged Tulak Hord's holocron, a Sith holocron, to transmit his lightsaber combat skills. During the Jedi Civil War in 3956 BBY, Revan and the Ebon Hawk crew managed to infiltrate the Sith Academy located on Korriban. Revan, seeking prestige, competed with fellow students, and a Sith acolyte called Lashowe enlisted Revan's aid to retrieve Tulak Hord's holocron from the Dark Lord's tomb.
After battling and overcoming a group of Tuk'ata, Revan and Lashowe extracted the holocron from inside the Tuk'ata queen. Accounts of what happened to the holocron after this point are inconsistent. One version states that Lashowe, unwilling to share the prestige from the discovery, engaged Revan in a fatal duel, which she lost. Another version claims Revan declined to fight Lashowe for the holocron, and Lashowe then delivered it to Uthar Wynn, the Academy's Master.
There are inconsistencies in the timeline regarding when Hord governed the Sith Empire and when lightsabers became the preferred weapon of the Sith. Although he is said to have reigned from 6,900 BBY to 5,100 BBY, Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force indicates that Marka Ragnos passed away in 5000 BBY while still the reigning Dark Lord. Naga Sadow then took over as Dark Lord, holding the title until his own death. Moreover, in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – The Golden Age of the Sith, both Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh are shown dueling with ancient Sith swords (for the Dark Lord mantle, no less), instead of lightsabers. Other Sith Lords of that era were also known to wield alloyed swords. These timeline discrepancies remain unresolved, although one potential explanation is that Ludo Kressh and Naga Sadow chose to fight with Sith warblades despite having access to lightsabers.