Darth Thanaton

Darth Thanaton was a Human male Inquisitor and Dark Lord of the reconstituted Sith Empire during the Great Galactic War. Thanaton was born in 3695 BBY as Teneb Kel, a slave of the Empire who was discovered by the Sith Lord Calypho and taken as his apprentice on the Sith holy world of Korriban. There, Kel trained in the art of assassination and the secrets of the dark side of the Force until his Master's heresy and ambition resulted in Calypho's arrest and internment by the Empire's Dark Council. Now forced to carry the burden of his Master's disloyalty, Kel was sent by the Council to serve with the Imperial Military on the front lines of the Great Galactic War against the Galactic Republic and its Jedi Order. There he was joined by his Abyssin slave Maggot and achieved many successes on the battlefield—including a vital victory in the battle for Begeren, wherein Kel's efforts ensured that the ancient Sith world would be reclaimed by the Empire.

However, even after numerous military triumphs, Kel still carried with him the taint of his Master's failures in the eyes of the Dark Council. To ensure his obedience and put the young Sith to proper use, the Council recalled Kel to the Imperial capital of Dromund Kaas in 3678 BBY. There, they forced him to combat and nearly kill the imprisoned Calypho before giving Kel a mission of the utmost importance: to locate and execute Exal Kressh, former apprentice to the Sith Emperor and traitor to the Empire. After receiving direction from the Emperor himself, Kel took Maggot to the Lenico system where he unsuccessfully attempted to kill the rogue Sith; he was beaten by Kressh and left stranded on the dead world of Lenico IV, where he experienced a Force-induced vision that revealed to him Kressh's history. He learned that the Emperor was planning on turning her and countless others into his "Children"—puppets of his will and extensions of his presence—thereby ensuring his immortality and omnipotence. Kel escaped Lenico IV with Maggot's help and tracked Kressh to Korriban, where she had sparked a massive battle to distract from her plans to destroy the Emperor's Children. In the tombs beneath the Valley of the Dark Lords, Kel caught and killed his quarry, but was also forced to murder Maggot to ensure the Emperor's secret plans would not be revealed.

His victory over Kressh and knowledge of the Emperor's Children allowed for Kel to return to the Dark Council and demand that they promote him from an apprentice to a Sith Lord. He seized the mantle of Darth Thanaton for himself and went about building a formidable power base within the Empire's Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. Throughout the remainder of the Great Galactic War, Thanaton gathered to himself a considerable amount of influence within the Imperial hierarchy and garnered a reputation as a strict Sith traditionalist—one who sought to uphold the historical precedents of Imperial politics and dark side philosophy. This disposition repeatedly brought him into conflict with Lord Zash, a young Sith witch who bucked tradition in favor of pursuing her own paths to power. Thanaton and his ally, Darth Skotia, believed Zash to be a corrupting influence, particularly given her supervisory position at the Korriban academy. Together, they worked to block her ascension until 3643 BBY, when Zash manipulated her apprentice into murdering Skotia so that she could access the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas.

Thanaton's attempts to punish Zash for the murder backfired and the Dark Council instead promoted her to Darth Zash, replacing Skotia as Thanaton's immediate subordinate. To Darth Thanaton's chagrin, Zash used her new position to pursue knowledge of immortality and essence transfer by way of her apprentice, sending the slave-turned-Sith into the Dark Temple and the galaxy beyond to gather ancient artifacts of power. Zash's gambit ended when she was killed by her own apprentice, who then took the title of Lord Kallig. Around this time, Thanaton ascended to the Dark Council and used his place on the Empire's governing body to pursue the death of Kallig, who he believed was equally as corrupt as Zash. Despite his rise to the pinnacle of Sith power, Thanaton failed to kill Kallig on several occasions, motivating him to declare that he and the young Sith would engage in a Kaggath on the contested world of Corellia. The ancient Sith honor battle ended in defeat for Thanaton, who was forced to flee the planet and seek aid from his fellow Councilors on Korriban. Thanaton was followed and again defeated by Kallig in view of the Council; the elder Sith's weakness and violation of Kaggath decorum disappointed the Dark Lords and Darth Mortis snapped Thanaton's neck for his failures. Following his death, his command of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge was passed to Kallig, who took Thanaton's seat on the Council and the name Darth Nox.

Text and facts from the “Darth Thanaton” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.