Spirit protector For more than a thousand years , the malevolent spirit of a long - dead Sith Master served as the protector of an ancient spellbook forgotten within a hidden armory of dark side lore deep in the jungles of the planet Onderon . Several years before the Great Sith War , the book over which the spirit protector maintained stewardship was discovered by a young blacksmith named Shas Dovos . The Sith specter corrupted Dovos and taught its unsuspecting apprentice for more than a decade until finally , under the Master ' s secret guidance , the blacksmith created a suit of armor imbued with Sith magic . The spirit then revealed itself and its true plan to restore the lost glory of the Sith Empire . It renamed the apprentice Warb Null and descended upon him with the magic al armor , binding man to metal through the power of the dark side of the Force . Biography . Steward . The spirit of a deceased Sith Master resided within the pages of a book of sorcery , to which it was also confined . The object of the spirit ' s imprisonment was also its charge , and for more than a thousand years it protected the volume from the adversities of time and toil alike . Unable to personally partake in restoration of the fabled Sith Empire of antiquity , the ghost hoped to one day encounter an individual whom it deemed worthy of its power . More than a decade before the Great Sith War , the spirit protector permitted the discovery of its literary accommodation , when a young blacksmithing student named Shas Dovos happened upon the tome in an ancient dark side bunker hidden deep in the jungles of the Inner Rim world of Onderon . Dovos stole the book , and the spirit protector recognized in him the potential to become its unwitting servant . For more than ten years the spirit protector obscured its clandestine exploitation as it taught Dovos — albeit slowly and unconsciously — the intricacies of Sith magic . Nominal amounts of knowledge were imparted in such a manner that Dovos forsook all other aspects of life as he pursued the ancient spirit ' s wisdom . The protector routinely embellished the apprentice ' s dreams with suggestions of destined greatness realized through fruit born of his profession and given strength through the rituals of ancient Sith sorcery . Numerous attempts to craft an object of power were met with failure until , on the fourth evening of one such endeavor , the spirit protector ' s apprentice completed his masterpiece : a blackened suit of armor imbued with the dark side of the Force . Treachery . At first hesitant to make use of his creation , Dovos ' misgivings were quickly eroded by the innuendos of the spirit protector , through whose mental coercion Dovos ' confidence in his own fine craftsmanship was restored . Bewildered by the mental intrusion , Dovos cried out as the spirit protector , appearing before him as cinders , confessed its involvement in the blacksmith ' s affairs since he had found the spellbook in the jungles of his homeworld . With a burst of energy , the spirit protector changed its alien – like shape into that of a fiercely - expressive near - Human ; it then advanced upon and commended its terrified thrall for doing exactly as it had commanded . The ability to comprehend the spellbook and the subsequent creation of the armor had been the spirit protector ' s design all along , and , but for its involvement , the young blacksmith would have been otherwise incapable on all fronts . Nevertheless , the spirit demanded remuneration for its granted endowments ; Dovos had to become an extension of its will , to further the protector ' s agenda where and whence it could not . Oblivion was the apprentice ' s expectation , but the spirit protector assured him that destiny had reserved a special place in history for him : Dovos was to participate in the restoration of the long - forgotten Sith Empire . Before he could perform his new task , however , the spirit protector needed to empower Dovos and chose the armor as the means by which he would do so . To symbolize his rebirth , Shas Dovos was renamed by the spirit protector " Warb Null , " which it thought suited a being whose new existence was to be an amalgam of flesh and metal . It then swarmed Null and , with the power of Sith magic , bound him to his armor — the crowning achievement of his former existence . Null went on to become a Dark Jedi and was selected to serve as the guardian of another Force entity , the spirit of the long - dead Dark Lord of the Sith Freedon Nadd , in whose name he participated in an attempted revival of Sith prominence , exactly as predicted by the spirit protector . Thousands of years later , the failed Jedi Padawan Telloti Cillmam ' n discovered Null ' s armor on the planet Nicht Ka . When he tried to take the armor ' s lightsaber , the suit seemed to come to life and clamped his wrist , and when he finally managed to rip the lightsaber from the suit ' s grasp , the armor fell over onto the floor . A cloud of bone dust was released into the air , and when Cillmam ' n unintentionally breathed it in , he was subjected to visions of the past — memories of a warrior from the time of Adas , as well as Shas Dovos ' s creation of the armor , his corruption by the spirit protector , and his time as Warb Null . The dark side within the armor corrupted Cillmam ' n , leading him to kill his companions and assume the name Malleus . Personality and traits . The spirit protector first appeared to Shas Dovos as a hovering gout of predominately red flame , occasionally accented by violent flares of yellow ember . Afterward it assumed the form of an identifiably near - Human guise , clad in long flowing robes , with the hood thrown back to expose an intense demeanor . Always translucent , the Spirit protector increased in size as it moved in the young man ' s direction , until it seemed as though its mass had taken up the entire room instead of simply moving toward him . The protector restricted knowledge of the existence of its lore book to only those whom it deemed worthy . It chose to guide the hand of Shas Dovos , despite the contempt it initially held for the young man ' s arrogance , secretly advancing him in power and knowledge while he remained none the wiser . The spirit availed itself of Dovos ' metallurgist talents and subtly manipulated him into the creation of what the protector referred to as " new skin . " Even then , the spirit chose to reveal itself only after Dovos had proven himself suitable to the protector ' s purposes . Once visible , the spirit protector became extremely vocal and was moved to fits of sinister laughter at the terror its presence caused Dovos . Powers and abilities . It was through the power of the spirit protector that the compendium to which it was restricted was able to withstand the ravages of time . Had it not been for its influence , the book would have disintegrated centuries prior to its discovery by Shas Dovos . Well - versed in Sith lore and magic , the spirit protector was also privy to the entirety of the book ' s secrets , and it refused to share them unless it felt the potential recipient worthy . It foretold Dovos ' destiny as a champion in the quest to restore the Sith to galactic importance and was also skilled in the infusion of inanimate objects with dark side energies , knowledge that was imparted to Dovos . The protector was likewise able to permanently clad its apprentice in his magically - empowered armor . The ancient Sith spirit was able to enter minds and influence dreams or even compel beings into action . From bursts of flame to blinding flashes of light , humanoid to alien in likeness , the spirit protector was able to change its size , shape , and appearance at will . Behind the scenes . The spirit protector was first mentioned in Warb Null ' s entry in the " Tales of the Jedi Companion " , a sourcebook for " " , published by West End Games in August 1996 . The protector is only referred to as " spirit protector , " " protector , " or " Sith spirit , " with no definitive specification of species other than " alien , " and no gender or name . The spirit protector was later mentioned in the entry for Warb Null in the 2008 release of " The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia " . In his personal blog , " Star Wars " author Edward M . Erdelac noted that the design of Warb Null ' s battle armor may be seen as an aesthetic allusion to King Adas , an ancient Overlord of Korriban whose story was created by George R . Strayton and developed by Abel G . Peña . For that reason , Erdelac theorizes that the spirit protector may have been that of the Overlord himself , which is why he included a vision of Adas in " Hammer " , a short story in which a troubled Exploration Corps member discovers and dons Null ' s armor .