Shalach Hal-Razab

"It has been said that anyone who knows the ways of the Force can set her- or himself up as a King on any world where only she or he knows the ways of the Force. Any Jedi could do this."

- Palpatine

Shalach Hal-Razab was a male Jedi apprentice during the time of the. Rejected by the Jedi for his disturbing views, he fled the and made his way to Kachee in the, where he used his powers to dominate the native Yarowai and become a dictator. There he ruled for decades, enslaving the natives and capturing two until a rescue party arrived to free them.

Disturbing tendencies
Shalach Hal-Razab was born on the Ho'Din home planet,, in 82 ABY. He was five years old when the Jedi identified him as a Force adept and he journeyed to to attend the  there. Most instructors found Hal-Razab to be a bright, apt pupil, learning quickly and rarely needing to be taught something more than once. He was diligent in his studies, though he had few close friends among the other students.

As the Ho'Din grew, however, his instructors began to express concern about him. Hal-Razab's Force talents grew ever stronger, but he was easily frustrated by failure and sometimes let his temper get the best of him. Having chosen to study, Hal-Razab often employed a brutal style of lightsaber combat, battering his opponents into submission with the style's emphasis on ferocity and his own great height. While the use of strength and battle fury to defeat one's enemies was the stylistic core of Djem So, the Jedi instructors began to fear Shalach was more interested in defeating enemies than in defeating the danger they represented. When sparring with training blades, he rarely employed what would have been non-lethal marks of contact in a real fight, preferring and.

In hopes of reversing this attitude, the Jedi advised Hal-Razab to take up the traditional Ho'Din practice of gardening. The young adept did so, and he cultivated a wide variety of plants in Ossus's soil. Even here, though, his desire to dominate manifested itself; rather than allowing plants to grow naturally and supporting their growth, Hal-Razab wanted a regimented, orderly garden. When plants did not grow as expected, either too little or in unusual ways, Hal-Razab would often poison them or encourage the growth of weeds to choke them out.

Exile
By the age of nineteen, Hal-Razab had unnerved his instructors. He had conducted extensive historical research, and began to discuss with others the notion that the Jedi should rule the galaxy, as the Force enabled them to tell absolute right from wrong. Many Masters sought to dissuade him, pointing out the tyrannical rule of which had arisen from that very philosophy, but Hal-Razab countered with the examples of just Jedi s of the Republic before the. When some of the other apprentices began to consider Hal-Razab's ideas seriously, the Masters who ran the academy met to discuss the idea of dismissing Hal-Razab from their rank.

Sensing their growing distrust, the Ho'Din stole numerous s on Force techniques and training styles, as well as a, and fled the academy. Stowing away aboard a merchant ship bound off Ossus, he ship-hopped at each port. Often he used s to influence crews into forgetting his presence or failing to see him all together. When this failed, he resorted to to torture or kill them, and occasionally even the use of his lightsaber.

Knowing that the Jedi would be looking for him and would likely inform the Imperial Knights of his flight as well, Hal-Razab made his way toward the edges of known space. He made his way to and inquired about  among the pilots and navigators there. When one of them expressed particular confidence in his ability to pilot Wild Space and the, Hal-Razab waited until the pilot boarded his ship, then stowed away.

Marooned
Revealing himself, Hal-Razab took the captain prisoner on his own freighter, commanding him to transport the craft to a world of his choosing. The pilot resisted until the Ho'Din d him. Even as he navigated on a combination of existing star charts and, Hal-Razab, enthused by his new power, gleefully fleshed out his plan to dominate first one world, then many, to his prisoner.

When they arrived at Kachee, Hal-Razab was delighted by the reports of numerous life forms and bow-and-arrow technology at best. As they plunged through the atmosphere, however, the pilot suddenly shorted out the control console, and the ship went into a nosedive. Hal-Razab shrieked and hurled threats even as he buckled himself in, but the pilot calmly pointed out that if the Ho'Din killed him, there would be no one left capable of fixing the vessel. Hal-Razab struggled to control the ship's descent, but just before impact the pilot undid his own and was killed as the ship struck the surface.

King of Kachee
Furious, Hal-Razab unleashed his anger on the Yarowai who came to investigate the crash, strangling two of them and hurling a third into a rock hard enough to shatter his skeleton. His lightsaber made short work of their reinforcements, and as the Yarowai fled in terror, Hal-Razab began to consider a new possibility. While even his inexpert eye could tell the ship was too thoroughly damaged for repair, and thus the dream of an interplanetary empire was out of reach for the moment, here was a planet ripe for domination by a lone being who could use the Force.

Striding confidently into the nearest Yarowai village, Hal-Razab summoned all the natives to him. Strangling those who tried to escape, he merely disarmed those who attacked him, waiting until they had all assembled warily before him. Through the use of hand signs and telepathy, he communicated his desires to them. Faced with extermination if they refused, the Yarowai built him a lordly house in their village where he could rule as their king.

Gradually learning the language of his subjects, Hal-Razab turned them into an army, conquering and absorbing neighboring villages and cities. With each new conquest, the army grew, and Hal-Razab fought amongst them both to ensure his victories and to keep fear of him alive and well in the hearts of his subjects. Within five years, all of Kachee had been conquered, and new villages and settlements were planned. The wealth of the planet flowed to its dictator, and the Ho'Din commanded his subjects to build him an opulent castle atop a nearby mountain. Many Yarowai died in the project, but with the Dark Jedi himself personally overseeing the construction, it was finished in 122 ABY.

During the construction of his castle and over the following decades, Hal-Razab studied the Force in greater depth, using the datacards and holocron he had stolen. He experimented with different techniques on his subjects, demanding one sentient sacrifice per month. In this way he perfected his control of and. With the Yarowai thoroughly cowed and being now armed with Force techniques able to subue them should they resist, Hal-Razab neglected lightsaber practice, preferring to focus on the Force.

The prisoners
In 146 ABY, Imperial Knights Tarash Grainer and Axelia Solios crashed on Kachee in an. Sensing their arrival, Hal-Razab hurried to confront them, even digging out his lightsaber from where he had stored it for decades. The starving, exhausted Knights were no match for Hal-Razab's potent Force abilities and were quickly disarmed and captured.

Hal-Razab had his Yarowai drag the Knights back to the castle, where he kept them as prisoners, interrogating and torturing them. Between bouts of questioning, he asked them with almost childlike curiosity about the state of affairs of the galaxy, having been apart from it for over four decades. Both Knights were trained to, and refused to talk even about mundane subjects. Unused to being denied anything, Hal-Razab was both infuriated and intrigued. Sometimes he vented his anger on the Knights or the Yarowai, but others he viewed the Knights as a sort of ongoing project.

The rescue mission
Unbeknownst to either Shalach Hal-Razab or Tarash Grainer, Axelia was the sister of Jarek Solios, and by extension the cousin of Rin Sakaros, Queen of the Golden Empire. At Jarek's request, Rin sent a force from her Empire to find Axelia, who had gone missing in the Unknown Regions more than a decade before. The Centurions Vem and Khoro`ly`ooho`sh`lyhoo finally happened upon Kachee and sensed the power of the Force on the surface.

Hal-Razab could feel their approach, and awaited them in the throne room of his castle. When the two Centurions entered, he confirmed that he had the Knights, but then lashed out at the Centurions with the Force. Vem was able to escape, retreating to his shuttle to advise Rin of the news, but Hal-Razab killed Khoro with a blast of Force lightning.

Vengeance of the Order
Hal-Razab spent a little time taunting the two Knights about the failed rescue attempt, but he also wondered whether more Centurions might arrive. He resolved to keep the next one alive, in hopes that he might break more easily than the two Knights.

The Ho'Din had less than two standard weeks to wait. Vem returned, now accompanied by Aria Nikina and Te`net Organi. Hal-Razab initially mocked their intentions of rescuing the Knights, but when Organi sent his siblings off to find them, the Ho'Din used the Force to hurl a stone bench at the childlike Centurion. Intrigued when the Qua deflected the projectile with one a flick of one hand, Hal-Razab tried to recruit Organi as a disciple, but the Centurion was obviously not interested and promised to kill Hal-Razab and avenge Khoro. Outraged, the Ho'Din attacked.

The duel which followed destroyed the entire castle and most of the mountain on which it had been built. Hal-Razab and Organi were both masters of telekinesis, but Organi was fit and in shape, while Hal-Razab had allowed himself to grow sedentary during his reign over Kachee. In addition, Organi's Qua physiology allowed him to heal quickly from injuries. Eventually, trading blows over the cracking mountain, Organi pushed Hal-Razab into a landslide, which carried the Ho'Din a hundred meters down the rock face. When Organi found him, Hal-Razab was cut in numerous places, had several broken bones, and had one arm pinned under a rock. Without a word, the Centurion levitated a boulder and smashed it down on the tyrant's head.

Powers and abilities
Te`net Organi, himself widely regarded as one of the greatest telekinetic masters in the Order of Keltrayu by his siblings, thought Hal-Razab approached or equaled his own command of the discipline. The Ho'Din was able to levitate enormously heavy weights or simultaneously manipulate a number of small objects; during his duel with Organi, he shattered the stained glass windows of his throne room and hurled hundreds of glass fragments at the Qua.

As a consequence of his early introduction to gardening, Hal-Razab had some connection to plant life, and could manipulate its growth within limits. However, the corrupting influence of the dark side usually led his experiments on Kachee to wither or develop unnaturally, and eventually he gave up the discipline.

Having grasped the basics from his stolen datacards and holocron, Hal-Razab taught himself to conjure and control Force lightning. He also demonstrated the ability to manipulate nature during his duel with Organi, real lightning.

Appearance and personality
Shalach Hal-Razab towered over most beings at 2.79 meters (9'2"), but he had the lanky frame typical to Ho'Din. His snakelike hair was red-violet, and his yellow-green flesh paled over his decades of rule on Kachee when he rarely left whatever building was serving as his palace.  He had a lightsaber with a hilt and blade slightly longer than the average to accommodate his height; it had a green blade.

From an early age, Hal-Razab desired control over his environment and others. He detested feeling weak or exposed, and sought to put himself beyond the power of others. He felt by keeping people under this thumb, he could ensure that he would never be under theirs. He felt the power of the Force gave the Jedi the right to rule; as a Jedi himself, he also had some concept of the responsibility to rule, but this faded as he settled in on Kachee.