Tal (Jedi)

Tal was a Jedi Master during the time of the later Draggulch Period. A Human male, he fought in the Ruusan campaign.
==Biography==
===Early life===
As a young man who flourished as the New Sith Wars raged around the galaxy, he had explored many star systems, including a planet of ice and snow. He had once been in love with a woman who died long before him.Dark Forces: Jedi Knight 
===Jedi Master===
As a Jedi, Tal mastered a discipline that was not only physical but also partially spiritual, making use of Force powers. Eventually, after about eighty years following the ways of the Jedi Order, he retired and kept his lightsaber above the hearth of his house. As the Light and Darkness War erupted and evil spread, one of his apprentices had joined the Brotherhood of Darkness. 
===Return to action===
Eventually he overcame his age and infirmity, took his lightsaber again and joined Lord Hoth. They created the Army of Light almost from nothing. Without warships, using converted freighters in battle, they liberated star systems and worlds and hunted the Brotherhood of Darkness to Ruusan. During the Ruusan campaign, the Jedi managed the most victories against the more brutal and numerous Sith and Dark Jedi, and the Army of Light expected their surrender.
In the aftermath of the victorious Seventh Battle of Ruusan, Hoth woke Tal up in his tent and said about the upcoming surrender of the Sith; but Tal knew there would not be one. Hoth was sure that their enemies had no option other than surrendering owing to the victories of the Jedi, and pressed Tal to name his doubts and fears, to which Tal could not explain his premonition with words. That morning they assembled their troops and marched towards a Valley. During the march, Tal, more than the other Jedi, could feel the Force thick, akin to congealed blood in the atmosphere and could physically feel the burden of the unreleased energy. The road was flanked with dead bodies and overlooked by the remaining Sith, including his own former apprentice. Certain about their fate, he wished Hoth would turn everyone back, as sure as he was that begging him would be useless.
===Death===
Tal's painful walk came to the end when they reach the Valley, where Dark Lord Skere Kaan welcomed the victors; but Tal's premonitions were right: instead of surrender, Kaan unleashed a Thought bomb that destroyed every Force-sensitive being present. Tal felt the impact, his body hurling to the stars; but his happiness of being one with the Force was cut short, as his spirit was pulled inside the vacuum of the explosion, and was trapped there, as with everyone else. After his own passing, Tal, like the other Jedi, was buried in the Valley of the Jedi.
===Legacy===
Tal's spirit was one of the thousands that remained trapped in the Valley of the Jedi for the following centuries. A millennium later, during the Galactic Civil War, the Dark Jedi Jerec was after the Force nexus of the Valley, but the light side of the Force sent self-taught Jedi Kyle Katarn after him, guided by the spirit of Jedi Master Qu Rahn. During a crash on the surface of Ruusan near the Valley, Katarn joined the Force and saw again a vision with Rahn, who wanted him to feel how the great battle was like. Kyle felt the presence of Tal, and that, although Tal did not know him, he was aware of Kyle's presence, and the young operative experienced through him the prelude of the massacre. However, the self-taught Jedi accessed also his memories and wisdom; while dueling with Sariss Katarn called upon Tal and conjured his knowledge on mental attacks and techniques of combat.
==Personality and traits==
Tal had gained Hoth's trust. Tal however was aware how sycophants and charlatans surrounded Hoth and bombed him with various opinions; he preferred to remain silent, except in the most serious matters. In the time around his death, Tal's body had lost much of its strength and speed; his mind was tired, but was well atuned to any stirring of the Force. Despite faced with certain destruction, he was determined to follow Hoth everywhere.
==Powers and abilities==
Tal was a practicioner of a "no-less-formal" school of Lightsaber combat that combined physical fencing with mental/spiritual Force powers, which included the Flowing Water Cut and the Falling Leaf. Thanks to his long life and experience, Tal was well atuned to any stirring of the Force and seemed to have foresight that many other Jedi did not have, and he was perhaps the only one who knew that the Sith would not surrended, something not even Hoth could see.
==Appearances==
*Dark Forces: Jedi Knight 
==Notes and references==
Category:Army of Light members
Category:Force ghosts
Category:Humans
Category:Jedi Masters of the Jedi Order
Category:Males