Zodoh

During the era known as the Republic Dark Age, the Galactic Republic was unable to sustain its communications infrastructure and deactivated comm-relays beyond the Core Worlds. The Hutts swiftly exploited the shutdown of comm-relays in Hutt Space, making the Sith Lords in that area of the galaxy dependent on the Hutt clans for the transportation of equipment and personnel. Zodoh, a Hutt crime lord, profited from trading in slaves and munitions. At one point, Zodoh's clan captured a Republic task force on the planet Daalang after the local population betrayed them. The captured Republic personnel were forced to work as slaves in Zodoh's labor camps. However, after five years of imprisonment, a small group of survivors, including Captain Jenn Devaad, escaped and joined Grace Command, a humanitarian organization led by the Alderaanian Baron Lemayne that delivered supplies to those trapped in Sith space.

As the New Sith Wars progressed, Hutt Space was embroiled in internal clan warfare, with the Sith manipulating the various clans against each other. Growing tired of the infighting, Zodoh decided to expand his operations beyond Hutt Space, turning his attention to the Grumani sector in the Outer Rim Territories. The Grumani sector had previously been controlled by the Chagras Hegemony, a Sith state ruled by the Sith Lord Chagras, but had fragmented into warring principalities following Chagras's death. Seeking to capitalize on the Sith infighting, Zodoh aimed to establish a presence in the sector and offer his services to the various Sith factions. As Zodoh initiated hit-and-run attacks on Sith forces, he uncovered the true nature of Grace Command's missions in the area: the humanitarian organization was a front for Operation Deluge, an attempt to undermine the Sith war effort by flooding entire worlds with Deluge, an addictive drug that robbed its users of all motivation.

By the year 1032 BBY, Zodoh had amassed a considerable fleet of military starships, with the Voracious serving as his flagship. Zodoh's fleet also included several Stormdrivers, capital ships equipped with weaponized moisture vaporators capable of generating torrential downpours by extracting moisture from a planet's atmosphere. While the Sith Lord Daiman, the ruler of the Daimanate, was away overseeing the invasion of the Bactranate following the death of the Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra, Zodoh saw an opportunity to invade the Daimanate. Zodoh personally led a strike force of Intruder-class starfighters in an attack on Aquilaris Minor. Emerging from hyperspace within the Sith patrol zones, the Hutt launched a surprise attack on the small military garrison at the oceanic port of Capital Cay, inflicting heavy damage before the Sith troopers could mount a defense. With the Sith forces in disarray, Zodoh withdrew his fighters and positioned one of his Stormdrivers over Capital Cay's bay, using its vaporators to drain the water from the bay. This triggered a massive storm that flooded Capital Cay and swept the surviving Sith into the sea. Zodoh's attack coincided with the arrival of the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, who was on a secret mission to liberate the planet's enslaved population. Finding the population addicted to Deluge and unwilling to help her, Holt attacked the Stormdriver with a blaster pistol. While the crew was distracted, the Stormdriver was ambushed and destroyed by Devil Squadron, a unit of Fire Lotus-class starfighters affiliated with Grace Command and composed of the Daalang survivors, led by Devaad. Facing unexpected resistance, Zodoh withdrew his forces to the Voracious.

Despite the loss of the Stormdriver, the attack on Aquilaris served as a successful test of Zodoh's new weapons and provided valuable data on Aquilaris's atmospheric systems, allowing Zodoh to proceed with the next phase of his campaign. A single Stormdriver could generate a violent storm; by using his entire fleet of Stormdrivers, Zodoh could drain a planet's atmosphere of all moisture, drowning its entire population. Aboard the Voracious, the Hutt convened a live hologram conference with several Sith warlords, including Odion, Arkadia Calimondra, and Malakite. By expanding into Sith territory, Zodoh had angered the local Sith Lords, and both Odion and Calimondra expressed their displeasure at being summoned by the Hutt. In response, Zodoh accused the Sith Lords of the Grumani sector of being petty criminals more concerned with short-term gains than long-term strategy. Zodoh explained that he was in Sith space to expand his business by selling slaves and munitions to the Sith warlords. The Hutt promised that those who cooperated with him would benefit as business partners, reminding them that the Sith who had opposed the Hutts in Hutt Space were no longer around. To emphasize his point, Zodoh instructed them to have their spies in the Daimanate observe a demonstration of his abilities on Aquilaris. After concluding the meeting, Zodoh consulted with his trusted advisor, Oon Garat, who expressed her distrust of the Hutt's potential Sith business partners. Zodoh, however, was confident that his planned demonstration would convince the Sith to ally with him, and instructed Garat to send a courier to the Hutt homeworld of Nal Hutta to report that he was ready for the next step in the operation.

Meanwhile, Holt had joined forces with Devil Squadron, and together they had finished pacifying the remaining Daimanate forces on Aquilaris. Zodoh's fleet returned to the Aquilaris Minor system in time for the Hutt to witness Devil Squadron departing for the Malakite-occupied world of Heptooine. Piloting one of his Intruder-class starfighters, Zodoh allowed Devil Squadron to spot him as they proceeded to their hyperspace jump point. Seeking revenge for her captivity, Devaad ignored Holt's warnings and led Devil Squadron in pursuit of the Hutt. Taunting Devaad via his comm unit, Zodoh led his pursuers back to the waiting Voracious before ordering the launch of his starfighter squadrons. With the tables turned, Devaad ordered her starfighters to disengage from the dogfight and head for any available jump point. At that moment, a large fleet of Stormdrivers emerged from hyperspace, trapping Devil Squadron in the system.

As Zodoh boasted of his intentions to drown the people of Aquilaris to demonstrate his power, Holt suggested returning to Aquilaris to begin an evacuation. Devaad, however, was determined to exact revenge on Zodoh and disregarded the Jedi's advice, leading Devil Squadron in an attack on Zodoh's fleet of Stormdrivers. Zodoh was prepared for starfighter opposition, and his Stormdrivers were equipped with defensive systems that prevented the outnumbered Grace Command fighters from inflicting significant damage. Within minutes, Devil Squadron began to suffer losses. Seeing little strategic value in attacking Zodoh's fleet and unable to convince Devaad to help her, Holt disengaged her starfighter, Devil Seven, from the firefight and returned to Aquilaris. As a final act, Zodoh ordered the crew of the Voracious to activate the tractor beam projector, using it to ensnare the surviving Devil Squadron starfighters. Brought aboard Zodoh's flagship, the squadron members were disarmed, imprisoned, and tortured within the warship's holding cells.

Zodoh had Captain Devaad brought before him, suspending her with her wrists in stun cuffs while he gloated over his victory and his plans for the Grumani sector. Zodoh revealed to Devaad that he had uncovered Grace Command's true purpose in Sith space. The Hutt planned to exploit Operation Deluge by synthesizing his own supply of the drug and using it to contaminate seafood from Aquilaris, which he would then sell to the Sith. Zodoh intended to turn entire planetary populations into drug addicts, leaving nearby Sith worlds vulnerable to conquest while also profiting from food relief efforts. Zodoh attempted to coerce Devaad into his service by offering to spare the lives of her wingmates if she cooperated in retrieving the remaining stocks of the drug that Grace Command had recently delivered to Aquilaris. Devaad reluctantly agreed and was dispatched to the planet in a shuttle, while Zodoh remained in orbit with the Voracious and his fleet of Stormdrivers.

Following a confrontation with her former ally Holt, Devaad returned to Zodoh's flagship in the shuttle with the remaining Deluge containers. With the Deluge in his possession, Zodoh gave the order for his fleet of Stormdrivers to submerge Aquilaris in water. Within hours, the planet's surface was flooded. The survivors, led by Holt and the seacropper Joad Kreel, managed to escape in a submarine to a harvester station on the sea floor. In another holo-conference with his Sith rivals, Zodoh gloated over his new superweapon that had resulted in the submergence of Capital Cay. He threatened to flood all of Lord Daiman's worlds, starting with his capital, Darkknell, which Zodoh intended to claim as his own following Daiman's surrender. The Hutt offered the Sith Lords the opportunity to become his trading partners if they agreed to keep Daiman's forces occupied while he attacked, threatening that those who did not join him would share Daiman's fate.

After concluding the holo-transmission, Zodoh was confronted by Devaad, who demanded that the Hutt honor his side of the bargain by releasing her captive crew. Zodoh, however, had never intended to release his prisoners and had already executed them by releasing them into space through the airlock, as a warning to other slaves who might consider escaping. Devaad had anticipated this and had rigged the Deluge containers with explosives from the torpedoes on Holt's Fire Lotus before returning to the Voracious. She remotely detonated the explosives, causing a series of explosions throughout the ship. The blasts killed several of Zodoh's crew but did little damage to the Voracious, except to disrupt the coordination of the Stormdrivers, which had already completed their task. Zodoh himself was thrown against a bulkhead by a nearby explosion. Although Zodoh survived due to his protective armor, the distraction allowed Devaad to slip away and escape by stealing one of Zodoh's twin-seater starfighters. Unable to prevent Devaad's escape, Zodoh recalled the Stormdrivers and ordered his fleet to depart for Darkknell.

Having weakened his defense force due to the Deluge drug epidemic, and with his remaining battleships deployed to counter incursions by his Sith rivals along the Daimanate's borders, Daiman was caught off guard by Zodoh's arrival. The Hutt's fleet blockaded Darkknell, overwhelming Daiman's understaffed defense force, and the Stormdrivers entered the atmosphere, unleashing storms that submerged much of the planet, causing widespread destruction and sweeping away anything in their path. Despite Daiman's attempts to reassure his subjects through planetary broadcasts, he was powerless against the onslaught. The Southern Reservoir overflowed, flooding Daiman's palace in the city of Xakrea.

Although Zodoh's victory appeared imminent, he had underestimated Kerra Holt and Jenn Devaad. The Jedi Knight and Republic starfighter pilot joined forces to stop Zodoh's attack, using the stolen twin-seater Hutt starfighter to intercept his fleet in orbit above Darkknell. Recalling that the explosives she had detonated aboard the Voracious had disrupted the Stormdrivers' attack on Aquilaris, Devaad reasoned that the Hutt lord's flagship contained a command center with a massive data processor for coordinating the Stormdrivers. Devaad flew the starfighter into the hangar bay of Zodoh's flagship, allowing Holt to eject and infiltrate the vessel, before rejoining the fight against the Hutt's fleet. Holt quickly eliminated Zodoh's guards in the hangar and made her way to the control dome at the top of the vessel. Zodoh was overseeing the assault from the control dome when Holt arrived, and the Hutt surprised the Jedi with a blast of energy that sent her crashing to the deck, causing her to drop her lightsaber. Clad in his armor and armed with an antique Mandalorian axe, the Hutt chose to duel with Holt personally, disabling the artificial gravity and activating his jetpack to even the odds against the Jedi's Force abilities.

Zodoh swung his axe at Holt, but the Jedi evaded the blow and retrieved her lightsaber. Before she could strike, Zodoh wrapped his tail around the Jedi and pulled her close, attempting to crush her with his arms. As he prepared to deliver a killing blow, Devaad's hijacked starfighter crashed through the control dome, causing an explosive decompression. Holt escaped in Devaad's fighter, but Zodoh and the control dome's crew were blown into space moments before a series of explosions destroyed the Voracious. With the destruction of the Voracious, the Stormdrivers were unable to coordinate their global storm, allowing Daiman's defense forces to regroup. The Sith Lord's forces found Zodoh clinging to the wreckage of the Voracious and were surprised to find that he had survived, his Hutt physique proving resilient enough to withstand the vacuum of space. The unconscious Hutt was captured by Daiman's cruisers, stripped of his armor, and brought before the Sith Lord as a captive.

Zodoh was restrained in a specially designed metal cradle while Daiman's agents revived him. Upon regaining consciousness, Zodoh found Daiman and several Sith guards standing over him. Also present via hologram were fellow Sith Lords Odion, Malakite, and Arkadia Calimondra, who gloated over his misfortune. Zodoh attempted to plead for his life by proposing a deal. Daiman, however, refused to cooperate. Daiman sought revenge for the humiliation he had suffered during the Battle of Darkknell and also blamed the Hutt for the influx of Deluge into his territory, which had ceased with Zodoh's defeat. The Sith Lord explained that he had been studying Zodoh's Stormdriver technology. While he considered the reliance on a large data processor to be a flaw that made the technology impractical on a planetary scale, Daiman had developed a miniature Stormdriver capable of completely draining all water from individual lifeforms, including Hutts. Daiman, who considered himself to be the creator of the universe, dismissed Zodoh's creation as a mistake that he intended to correct and proceeded to use the device to dehydrate the Hutt.

Zodoh, a Hutt of male gender, possessed brown skin and striking orange eyes. Like many of his kind, he engaged in criminal activities, notably slave trading and weapons manufacturing, though he considered himself a businessman offering valuable services. Zodoh was quick to exploit opportunities to grow his enterprise. When the Republic disabled communication relays in Hutt Space, Zodoh recognized a chance to provide logistical support to the Sith forces operating there. Later, becoming disillusioned with the constant conflict among the Hutt clans, he decided to leverage the war between the Sith Lords in the Grumani sector. He strategically targeted the Daimanate, perceiving them as vulnerable, to establish a foothold while Lord Daiman was preoccupied. Upon discovering Grace Command's Operation Deluge, Zodoh devised a scheme to utilize the drug to advance his own agenda: contaminating food supplies to weaken his rivals and simultaneously generate profit.

Zodoh was inherently distrustful. His aide, Oon Garat, was one of the few he confided in, yet even she was targeted by rivals attempting to recruit her. Consequently, Zodoh actively participated in his ventures, believing it was the only way to ensure their success. Atypical for a Hutt, Zodoh enjoyed being directly involved and found combat appealing to his hedonistic nature. While his leadership style made him unpopular, Zodoh was convinced it made him more effective compared to other Hutts. He couldn't resist the allure of new challenges and eagerly anticipated the opportunity to test his combat skills against a Jedi.

Zodoh harbored immense arrogance, aspiring to become the most powerful Hutt of all. He was not easily impressed and spoke condescendingly to the Sith Lords in the Grumani sector, viewing them as mere petty criminals destined to serve him. He was a master of manipulation and deception, employing these tactics in his dealings with both the Sith and Devaad. He tricked Devaad into delivering a shipment of Deluge by promising to spare the lives of the other Devil Squadron pilots, only to betray his word and execute them as a warning against defiance. Zodoh held little value for the lives of other sentients. His callousness was evident in his willingness to addict entire populations to Deluge and his use of Stormdrivers to create artificial storms to drown his enemies. To conquer Darkknell, Zodoh was prepared to sacrifice a significant portion of its population of billions. However, he was also cunning and patient, willing to endure minor setbacks to achieve long-term goals. This was demonstrated by his acceptance of the loss of a Stormdriver during the attack on Capital Cay in exchange for vital intelligence on Aqualaris Minor's atmospheric systems, and his subsequent decision to abandon his Aquilaris campaign after Devaad's intervention to focus on his primary objective of attacking Darkknell.

Unlike most Hutts, Zodoh maintained a high level of physical fitness. He wore armor protecting his upper body and utilized a jetpack for flight. He relished duels, wielding an antique Mandalorian axe as his preferred weapon. Zodoh also used his immense physical presence as a weapon, employing his bulk to subdue opponents and constricting them with his powerful tail. His jetpack provided a significant advantage in zero gravity, allowing him to effectively challenge the Jedi Kerra Holt. His Hutt physiology enabled him to survive in the vacuum of space after the destruction of the Voracious, a feat most species could not accomplish. Zodoh was a skilled pilot who often led his Intruder-class starfighter squadrons into battle, piloting his starfighter with his arms operating controls located in the wings.

Zodoh's character was conceived by author John Jackson Miller and artist Ivan Rodriguez to serve as a central antagonist in the Deluge story arc of the Star Wars: Knight Errant comic series. He made his debut in Knight Errant: Deluge 1, which was released on August 17, 2011, and subsequently appeared in every issue of the Deluge story arc, where he was illustrated by Rodriguez, Iban Coello, Sergio Abad, and David Daza. Miller created Zodoh after discovering in The Essential Atlas by Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace that Hutt Space was under Sith control during the era depicted in Knight Errant. Upon Fry's confirmation that no prior backstory existed to explain the relationship between the Hutts and the Sith, Miller decided to incorporate a Hutt character into Knight Errant. While Daiman declares his intention to completely dehydrate Zodoh following his capture at the conclusion of Knight Errant: Deluge 5, Zodoh's demise has not been definitively confirmed in any official source.