Darth Bane

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**Darth Bane** was an ancient and legendary Human Dark Lord of the Sith, it was Darth Bane who survived the fall of the Sith Order at the hands of the Jedi Order near the end of their old war a thousand years before the Clone Wars. As the last Sith, Bane recognized that all to often the Sith infighting weakened them to the point that the Jedi could destroy them. In order to rectify this, Bane reformed the Sith and created a Rule of Two, mandating that there could be only a single Sith Master and a single Sith Apprentice at any given time, one Sith to embody power and another Sith crave it. The Sith had operated in the shadows, favoring guile and conspiracy to enact the complete destruction of the Jedi. Bane's Sith after a thousand years did succeed in creating a new Empire and destroying the Jedi, a short-lived victory, as Anakin Skywalker ended Bane's legacy.

## Biography

### Aspiring Lord of the Sith

The Human male who would rise to be **Darth Bane** was born with the name **Dessel** in the Outer Rim a millennia prior to the Clone Wars to an abusive miner. He had often been bullied by his father and the other miners. Bane's father had blamed him for the death of his wife due to her dying in childbirth, he also took to blaming Dessel for his own miserable life, considering his son to be a bane of his existence—so much that he often called him "Bane" frequently. At the age of sixteen, Dessel did start to work in the mines. He learned how to fend for himself, ignoring the threats and insults hurled at him by his father and the other miners, and he grew into a muscular young man as he worked deep in the mines despite insults and harassment.

#### Feeling the Call of Darkness

Unknown to anyone, Dessel was a Force-Sensitive, and he occasionally felt the call of the Force's Dark Side. One day, when Dessel was still at eighteen, his drunken father berated him until Dessel stood up to his father and then challenge him. Irate, his father beat him until his ribs cracked, although Dessel withstood the pain without sound. Then that night, Dessel, filled with hate, envisioned his father dying by picturing a giant hand squeezing his heart. The next morning, his father was dead. Unknown to Dessel, he had used the Force to kill his father. After his father's death, his friends tried to continue with their harassment of Dessel, but a young miner now had the confidence to stand up for himself, and so he proceeded to best many of them in fights until they learned to leave him alone. On the fifth anniversary of Lord Bane's father's death, a man decided that he would put Dessel in his place. In a drunken stupor, the man attacked Dessel and tried to gouge out one of his eyes. With a premonition granted by the Dark Side of the Force, Dessel severed the man's thumb with his teeth. Returning to town on a Republic cargo ship, Dessel began playing sabacc a cantina against other miners and a group of Republic soldiers who had arrived to pick up cortosis shipments. A skilled gambler, Dessel then proceeded to win many games while also tossing frequent barbs at the Galactic Republic to the soldiers in the cantina.

Successfully driving every other player out of the game, Dessel played his final hand against an ensign, and both ended up with the rarest hand possible. In a final sudden death round where whoever was dealt the highest card would be the victorious, and Dessel beat the ensign's hand, and giving him sabacc and the ten thousand credit sabacc pot. The irate ensign attempted to attack Dessel, but was stopped by the Neimoidian cantina owner. The owner also had then ordered everyone but Dessel out, and explained to the Human that he was worried as Dessel had somehow played the soldiers, twisting them to his advantage and never relenting. Furthermore, the crowd had somehow fed off of Dessel's anger, the owner had believed. Dessel reassured his friend, but the Neimoidian still tried to warn him to be careful. As Dessel then left the cantina, he was attacked by the ensign and two soldiers. Easily dominated by the miner in physical combat, the ensign pulled out a vibroblade. However, Dessel's own unconscious use of the Force allowed him to detect the weapon. Reacting without even thinking, Dessel stabbed the ensign to death with his own weapon. Panicked, the other Republic soldiers fled to alert their superiors. The miner was forced to turn to a cantina owner, saving him from being imprisoned by the Republic by arranging to have him smuggled off-planet to join the enemies of the Republic and the Jedi, the Sith.

#### Becoming a Lord of the Sith

Dessel was taken to join the military of the Sith to become a foot soldier and took part in their war against the Republic, eventually became a sergeant. His Force powers made him a better commander and his unit came to respect him more than the commander. Their unit was regarded as one of the best in the army, taking on important missions. However, at one point they received an order their commander knew was a mistake. But he went along with it, and fearing the wrath of the Sith-Lord who gave the order. Dessel turned on his commander, before taking command, only to be blinded by a flash grenade. However, he found he could still see the enemy, unaware it was the Force, and gunned them down. After the battle, Dessel discovered that the commander had told the Sith-Lord of his actions. Expecting punishment, he was saved from this fate by the Dark Lord, who offered to have him enrolled at Sith Academy. Dessel had decided to accept the Sith's offer. Having been offered the chance to create a new identity, he thought back to the cruelty of his father, and decided to take a new name, one which would signify his new life, **Bane**. Bane dedicated himself to the Sith teachings, studying the academy archives in his own time. His teachers discouraged this, stating the archives were outdated, and so Bane focused more on his training and his Force abilities started to become greater than many of the other students.

As he quickly became one of the top students at the academy, he was challenged by another student to duel. Bane was beaten and his opponent mocked him, only for Bane to unleash a huge wave of dark energy at his opponent in his rage, which was against the rules. The end of the fight caused Bane to realize he had killed his father and fear the Dark Side’s powers. Bane desperately returned to Sith archives and learned more of the Sith’s history and the Dark Side’s potential. He began to think that the current generation of Sith were wrong in how they did certain things. Bane had also began to question why the use of the title Darth was not as widespread as it had been in the past, with some claiming using such title was part of what encouraged the internal conflict that had ravaged the Sith. Bane continued studying the archives, learning much more than he’d thought possible and adding to his Force knowledge. Bane mastered his powers and his Lightsaber skills, challenging his foes and humiliating them in duels. Disenfranchised with the current Sith Order, he had angrily left for the Valley of the Dark Lords to find answers in the Sith-Lord tombs. He did find no spirits of previous Sith-Lords, deciding that they felt the current Sith were unworthy of their presence. Bane decided that the ruling Sith focused too much on their Order as opposed to their Dark Side, which held their Order of the Sith back from destroying the Jedi.

Nearly dead from exhaustion and hunger, Bane returned to the academy two weeks later to learn that the students were to be raised to the level of Sith-Lords on the orders of the ruling Sith-Lord, then sent to help fight against the Jedi. In the archives, Bane was betrayed by one of his allies and attacked by several rivals who wanted to have him killed. But a ally of Bane did double cross them and gave Bane his Lightsaber, before fighting alongside him. Darth was able to disarm a rival of his, and the dismayed Zabrak tried to plead for his life after his allies were killed, offering his servitude to him but only to be beheaded. In that moment, Bane let go of all his fears and guilt in the process and fully opening himself to the Dark Side. Shortly after Bane marched to one of the instructors chamber, where Darth Bane asked if he had ordered his rival to kill him. Bane ignored his anger, denouncing the masters as cowards. Bane then took the title of Darth, and after acquiring one of the Sith starships and boarding it, set a course for deep space, hoping to find true understanding of the Dark Side. Making his way to the world Lehon, Darth Bane searched an ancient temple, and felt closer to the Dark Side than ever. Bane searched the temple for relics and discovered a Holocron made by Darth Revan, which he studied and learned more from it than he did in the academy, reinforcing his belief the current Order had to be rid of for a future Sith.

### Striving for Sith Supremacy

Meanwhile, the ruling leader of the Sith, fearful of Bane and what his intentions might bring, dispatched one of his Sith-Lords to go after him. The Twi'lek Sith-Lord made his way to the planet, and then confronted Darth Bane in the temple, revealing that he intended to kill him. After one heated Lightsaber duel, Bane gained a great advantage, and forced the Sith Twi'lek into a corner. However, the Twi'lek split his double-bladed Lightsaber, wielding it as two separate weapons. But Bane used his knowledge of the temple to the advantage by unleashing his anger into a blast of dark energy, which caused the temple to collapse on the Twi'lek killing him. Bane then dispatched a drone, informing the Dark Lord of the Twi'lek's death and stated that he wished to return to their brotherhood of the Sith. But the brotherhood of Sith believed they did not need Dark Lord Bane and sent his old love interest from the academy to kill him. Bane spent the time trying thinking of who he could take as his apprentice when the brotherhood was gone. She arrived and they kissed, but Bane tasted poison, realizing she’d been sent to kill him. Bane considered making her his pupil, but while she understood the Dark Side properly, he found she was too devoted to and the brotherhood. Darth Bane sent her away, thinking that her poison was too weak to bother him, but realized she’d used a lesser poison to cover the presence of a far greater one.

#### Training an Apprentice

Through the use of pain and suffering, Bane was able to overcome his weakness from the poison and gain his strength. In time, the lust for power which had often fueled the Sith would prove to be their undoing, with the Sith turning against their own kind, and the infighting leading to the defeat of their Sith Order, as the Jedi Order was able to all but destroy a great weakened Sith. The result of this disastrous loss was the near extinction of the Sith, with Bane as the sole survivor of the long war between the Jedi and the Sith. While these conditions proved well for Bane's vision of the future, he still needed to find an apprentice. Exploring the planet Ruusan, he encountered a young Force-Sensitive child who had the name Zannah. A young Zannah had been taken to the planet by the Jedi several months earlier, but she was separated from them, and had spent all her time on Ruusan merely trying to live on. Upon finding her, Bane sensed her potential in the Force, as well as the anger inside her. In addition, Zannah did not back down from Bane, and she proclaimed herself as a killer. Impressed, Bane informed the girl that she would become his apprentice. Recognizing it was a infighting that brought down the Sith, Bane created a new philosophy, the Rule of Two, in which there could be only two Lords at any time: a master to embody power and an apprentice to crave it, a philosophy he would teach his student, Darth Zannah.

#### Fulfilling his Purpose

Bane and Zannah established a camp after his apprentice had proven herself, a place where Darth Bane made plans to continue training Zannah over the years. Thanks to the credits they had obtained from one of the highest ranking Lords of the Sith account, the two built up a vast network of intelligence, learning secrets that they hoped would one day allow them to destroy the Jedi through manipulating and subterfuge and gain galactic control. He taught Darth Zannah in the ways of the Dark Side as well as the philosophy that future Sith were to be taught the virtues of patience, planning, and secrecy, and each was to take on the title of Darth, a tradition that had dated back to ancient times. With such ancient knowledge, he learned the secret to creating a successful Sith Holocron of his own, one that held all of his knowledge, and, posing as a simple collector, the Dark Lord had acquired a great number of Sith artifacts. However to their dismay, the Jedi learned of the Sith's continued existence and of Bane's new philosophy, and, while they were able to vanquish Bane himself, falsely believed that they had destroyed the Sith forever. However, Darth Bane's plans continued through his apprentice Darth Zannah. After Bane's death, his remains were placed into a sarcophagus in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Moraband, ancient Sith homeworld. As of the Clone Wars, Darth Bane was the last Sith buried on Moraband.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

**The Force:** Darth Bane was very talented in the Force. As a miner of the Outer Rim, Darth was able to use the Force on occasion, though he had no understanding of it and his use was largely instinctive. However, after Bane received formal training, Bane became one of the most skilled students of the Sith. Darth was highly dedicated to his training and spent hours reading ancient Sith texts, knowledge that was forsaken by the school's other attendees. He desired to be a great and powerful Sith, and spent a tremendous amount of time practicing, in hopes of perfecting his skills. Bane was a very fast learner, and quickly passed many students in just a few months. Bane possessed great skills in usage of telekinetic power, and could easily shatter his opponent's Force barrier. Darth Bane was able to cast electric voltage so strong that his opponents could die instantly upon contact. He was able to plunge deep into his hate and draw fully on the power of the Dark Side to unleash Force waves, the strength of which devastated almost anything in their path. Bane owned and had access to a vast collection of Sith scrolls, tomes, and texts, while being able to obtain ancient Sith manuscripts and artifacts. Bane personally discovered the hidden lore of legendary Sith-Lords from their Sith Holocrons. Darth Bane had great willpower and determination. In addition, Bane was able to resist mind tricks, while the other Sith-Lords were not able to do so. Bane was a master of deception, and used his skills to fool others even before he received Sith training.

### Abilities

**Lightsaber Skills:** Darth Bane was trained in forms of Lightsaber combat by the Sith. He became a deadly duelist, and wielded a red-bladed, curved-hilt Lightsaber presented by a Twi'lek Lord of the Sith in recognition of his skill. Darth had developed a slightly altered style with his unique weapon, the subtleties of which were recognized only by some of most experienced weapon handlers. Bane favored a furious, all-offensive style of Form V, and capitalized on his own physical strength to overwhelm opponents. His battle prowess was realized when Bane had held his own against a total of three battle meditation-invigorated Jedi in combat. Bane in time adapted a more complex and unpredictable style which then incorporated feints and defensive maneuvers. Bane was also skilled in Form III, and taught his apprentice Darth Zannah Form III to complement her own petite physical frame. In Bane's later years, Darth's speed was such that he was able to deflect torrents of rain with his Lightsaber. Bane was even proficient in Form VII, which he may have used in a duel with Zannah, and was an excellent brawler and unarmed combatant, thanks to his time in the mines. At one time, Bane had displayed mounted Lightsaber combat while controlling a warbeast and he managed to deflect blaster bolts from every single one of his opponents in the sky. He was also extremely adept at utilizing the type of Lightsaber Form called Dun Möch technique, outsmarting and demoralizing his own rival, in their rematch at the Sith Academy they were instructed.