Darth Drear Darth Drear was a male Sith Lord who served the Sith Empire around 4645 BBY . He founded a Sith academy on the planet Odacer - Faustin and worked his students to death as they labored in the construction of the academy . Beneath the academy library , Drear built a temple , where he practiced Sith alchemy and searched for a pathway to immortality . He developed an elixir to fulfill his goal , effectively creating a disease that turned all those infected into zombies , knowledge he recorded into a holocron . Before Drear could successfully implement the final stage of his project , however , he succumbed to the effects of the disease and died . Biography . Darth Drear was a male Sith Lord of the Sith Empire . Circa 4645 BBY , he founded a Sith academy on the snow - covered planet Odacer - Faustin . Drear used the initial Sith students at his academy as laborers , tasking them with constructing chambers and corridors using only the Force . Moving tons of ice and snow proved too much of a strain on many of the apprentices , but Drear saw to it that they worked until their exhaustion killed them . When the building efforts were completed , the Sith Lord populated the chambers with his personal collection of " specimens . " Drear also partook in construction , crafting himself a hidden Sith temple located beneath the academy ' s library . In this private fortress , its walls engraved with his plans for the destruction of the Jedi Order , he experimented in Sith alchemy . Over time , he searched for a way to achieve immortality and used the rare Murakami orchid to produce a formula that would help him achieve his goal . Drear ' s efforts produced an elixir that , when consumed , shut down the body before reanimating it as a homicidal zombie . The pathway to eternal life , however , could only be completed once the user ate the still - beating heart of a strong Force - sensitive ; the midi - chlorians found in the blood in the heart were enough to halt the decaying process induced by the elixir and prevent the user from devolving into a mindless , undead creature . Drear stored the knowledge of the formula in a Sith holocron before moving to complete his plans and cheat death . The Sith Lord dispatched underlings to kidnap a Jedi on a nearby world and prepared to utilize the Force - user in the final stage of the process . Furthermore , Drear had a sword fashioned exclusively for the procedure of cutting out the Jedi ' s heart . When the time came , Drear ingested the elixir , but his plans for immortality were foiled when it was realized that the captured Jedi possessed an insufficient midi - chlorian count to keep the Sith Lord alive . Deprived of his triumph , Drear perished as a result of the disease he had engineered to grant eternal life . Legacy . Although Drear died , the knowledge of his elixir did not die with him . Safely stored away in his holocron , the formula was kept hidden until the Sith Lord Darth Scabrous discovered the holocron and its contents around 3645 BBY , during his tenure as headmaster of Drear ' s academy . Scabrous sought to succeed where Drear had not , but his experimentation with the elixir ultimately leaked out , turning the entire faculty and student body of the Odacer - Faustin academy into zombies . Despite his perseverance , Scabrous ' s own bid for immortality ended in failure when he was killed by Jedi Hestizo Trace in the final stage of the process . Thousands of years later , the Galactic Empire replicated Drear ' s elixir as a bioweapon , which infected the entire crew of the " Imperial " - class Star Destroyer " Vector " . Personality and traits . As the founder of the Odacer - Faustin academy , Drear employed his first students as a work crew and forced them to labor in the construction of the academy ' s buildings . The strain produced from the repeated moving of snow and ice with the Force exhausted the acolytes , but Drear continued to push them until many died from fatigue . Although he relied on student labor for the majority of the construction effort , the Sith Lord single - handedly fashioned a secret temple for himself beneath the academy library , where he practiced the Sith ritual ceremonies of old . It was in the Sith temple that Drear experimented with pathways to immortality , eventually developing a successful formula . His search for eternal life ultimately killed him , however , as he was unable to complete the process before the elixir ' s effects overtook him . Powers and abilities . Within his subterranean temple , Drear practiced the rites of Sith alchemy , which were stored within a Sith holocron . His alchemical practices , which he in turn also stored in the holocron , led him to develop an elixir that would enable him to cheat death , had he not perished during the final stage of the experiment . Drear possessed a Sith sword , specially made for use in his quest for immortality . Behind the scenes . Darth Drear was first mentioned in author Joe Schreiber ' s 2010 novel , " Red Harvest " . In the book , Darth Scabrous , the primary antagonist , provides a brief synopsis of Drear ' s life in the chapter appropriately entitled " Drear . " Scabrous ' s story reveals Drear to be the origin of the virus that turns a majority of the characters into zombies .