Zaric, born as Zae Rel'Do, was a dark side Force-user and a former member of the Prophets of the Dark Side. While not well-known to the galaxy at large, he had a reputation among darksiders of the age for his ferocity and his prodigious physical strength.
Later, during the galaxy-wide conflict known as The Clone Wars, Zaric was drawn to the planet Thule where he found the ancient tomb of Sith sorceres Darth Nixza, and subsaquently became her second-in-command.
His twin brother, Rey Nal'Do was a prominant Jedi Knight during the last years of the old republic, though he was unaware of Zaric's existance until after the outbreak of the Clone Wars.
Early Life
Zae Rel'Do and his twin brother, Rey Nal'Do were born in 59 BBY on the planet Haruun Kal. Their parents were poor subsistence farmers and were delighted when they discovered that both of their sons were force sensitive. They knew that the Jedi would be able to provide a far better life for their sons than they would, and so, before either of them were a year old, they were sent to the Jedi Temple to begin their training.
However, Zae Rel'Do would never reach his destination. While their transport ship was pulling in to refuel, they were attacked by a group of Trandoshan pirates. In the commotion, Zae and his brother were separated, and Zae was left behind. Shortly thereafter, he was picked up by local law enforcement and taken to an orphanage on the planet Botajef. Zae, being too young to properly say his own name, spent the next several years in the orphanage, going by the name Zaric.
Zaric was a prolific troublemaker during his time on Botajef. He was frequently accused of stealing and destroying the other children's belongings, although the Renatasian nuns who ran the orphanage were never able to prove his guilt. Lacking the proper training, his force sensitivity manifested itself in the form of unnatural physical strength; Zaric was well known for starting fights with children much older than himself and, on several occasions, sending them to the medical ward to receive intensive care.
During his time in the orphanage he met another orphan, Kyrsa Broo. Broo was a human female who had spent her entire life in the orphanage, and her presence had a very calming efect on Zaric. She was unique in that she was never a victim to any of Zaric's cruelty or pranks. For reasons he didn't understand, Zaric felt very connected to Kyrsa and was very protective of her. When she was adopted, it had a very profound effect on Zaric. Felling no more attatchment to the orphanage, he ran away at the age of 10.
The combnation of his natural strength and his inherent malice genuinely frightened his caretakers, and they were largely relieved when he was gone. He escaped and ran to one of the many shipyards that were common on Botajef. Not remembering anything about his past, he got onto the first transport he could, stowed away on a scrap freighter destined for Coruscant. Ironically Zaric was now heading for the same planet that his brother Rey was on, learning the ways of the Jedi.
Revenge and the Prophets of the Dark Side
Zaric became a petty thief, living on the streets and taking what he could, if not through guile, then through his impressive physical strength. After spending nearly a year as a street urchin, Zaric felt a deep tremor in the force. Being untrained in the more subtle ways of the force, Zaric did not know what to make of this bizarre feeling that he felt, but he was compelled to follow it. Zaric was drawn to a small Cantina where he immediately spotted two Trandoshans. Zaric then received a flood of information from the force as it brought back old memories. He saw his brother, and how they were separated. He saw the trandoshan pirates responsible for their separation.
Zaric recognized the two Trandishans in the cantina as being part of the same group that had attacked all those years ago, and had kept him from training to be a Jedi with his brother. Suddenly overwhelmed with rage and bloodlust, Zaric attacked both of them, who were completely unprepared to deal with him. Not even eleven years old, Zaric's strength was tremendous, and where the two trandoshans had been before, he left a gruesome scene of of carnage.
Zaric's force "outburst" caught the attention of many other force sensitive beings near by, but it was the Prophets of the Dark Side who reached him first. They were an ancient dark side cult who recognized Zaric's abilities with the force. They found him and brought him off of the streets and to their stronghold on Bosthirda. It was here that he was finally able to hone his abilities with the force and receive proper instruction. He was trained in the ways of the ancient Sith, and was found to be very adept at both armed combat with a lightsaber, as well as unarmed Teräs Käsi fighting.
Zaric was also able improve his already gargantuan physical strength, allowing his arms and hands to act as a conduit for the force to flow through and grant him immense strength. However, this excessive strength was far more than his physical body was able to handle, and as time went on, he began to notice that his hands had begun to age at an unnaturally quick pace. His joints began to lose their range of motion, and he frequently suffered from excruciatingly painful arthritis in his hands and forearms.
Zaric was a skilled warrior, fueled by the vindication of his ancient Sith heratige
Zaric, who releshed his own physical strength, was terrified at the prospect of losing it. And so, after many months of study and work, Zaric constructed a pair of gauntlets to maintain his hands. Using the armor of the ancient Sith as a model, Zaric's new gauntlets were fueled by ancient, dark side magic and would keep his hands from feeling the effects of his unnatural strength.
Now well versed in combat training and the ways of the force, Zaric became an agent of the Prophets of the Dark Side, and was often charged difficult tasks such as finding and retrieving ancient Sith artifacts and killing those who stood in the Prophet's way. These missions provided invaluable training to Zaric, but where as the Prophets of the Dark Side sought to use the Force as a means of influencing others and divining the future, Zaric only viewed it as weapon, and it was not long before he was excommunicated from the Prophets of the Dark Side. Grateful for their teachings and wisdom, Zaric thanked his former masters and left Bosthirda.
Betrayal and Solitude
Having no real home or family, Zaric began a search for the only person that he knew: his childhood friend Kyrsa. He returned to Botajef and began a long search trying to find her. He eventually tracked her down on the planet Dellalt, working along side the native species. After months of observing and spying on her, Zaric finally made contact. Although she was at first happy to see her old childhood friend, she was disgusted by Zaric's revelation of what he had become and what he had done alongside the Prophets of the Dark Side.
After a heated argument, She asked Zaric to stay away from her, saying that she never wanted to see him again. Having broken the only real connection he had ever had with another living being, Zaric's rage overtook him. Drawing his lightsaber, he killed Kyrsa on the spot. Filled now with remorse and anguish, Zaric began a slow descent into madness.
Using an aincient Sith ritual, Zaric worked quickly to contain Kyrsa's life force within a red synthetic lightsaber crystal, imbuing it heavily with the dark side of the Force. But instead of using it within the construction of a lightsaber, Zaric fashoned it into a pendant that he wore on a chain around his neck, not only as a source of dark side energies, but also as a reminder of what he considered to be Kyrsa's betrayal.
Zaric was now alone in the galaxy. He initially toyed with the idea of trying to find his long-lost brother, Rey, but sensed from the force that, if he ever were to be reunited with Rey it could only lead to conflict. Zaric was profoundly troubled by this premonition, and was eventually driven mad by it. Zaric became obsessed with the duality between himself and his brother. He left for Korriban, ancient birthplace of the Sith. After exploring the planet and it's Sith ruins, he spent nearly six months in a meditative trance-like state, trying to gain the wisdom and power of his Sith predecessors.
Zaric left Korriban by unknown means and, after many months of wandering the galaxy, was finally drawn to the planet Rakata Prime and it's potent connection with the Dark Side of the Force. There, Zaric felt a much stronger unity with the dark side than he had on Korriban, much like Darth Bane had millenia before. In a further parallel to Darth Bane, Zaric felt the presence of an artifact, heavily steeped in the the force, and began an extensive journey to find it. Weeks later, after a copious search, he arrived at the Temple of the Aincients where he discovered the remains of Darth Revan's Sith Holocron.
Though partially destroyed by Darth Bane more than a thousand years earlier, Zaric became determined to rebuild it and learn the secrets of the Force that had been passed down by his predecesor. Although posessing a technical and esoteric understanding of the holocron, the device's technology was far more advanced than anything Zaric had experience with. Working on the holocron only seemed to fuel Zaric's already profound madness, despite the impressive progress he had made in restoring the device. Whether or not Zaric ever fully restored the holocron to it's original state remain's unknown.
Drawn to Thule
After spending many years on Rakata Prime and being driven mad by his attempts as re-building Darth Revan's holocron, Zaric felt a deep awakening through the Force. Compelled to find the source of this rift in the Force, Zaric entered a state of meditation. In his meditative state, Zaric recieved visions of the aincient Sith catacombs on Thule . Having been to the planet before on missions for the Prophets of the Dark Side, Zaric recognized the location and made preperations to make his way back to Thule.
The Sith Temple on Thule
Zaric's ship, a old Whitecloak fighter had been in disrepair when he had initially stolen it, and had fallen into further neglect after its long tenure on Rakata Prime. After modifying it with the few parts he could find, Zaric left the planet and made the long journey to Thule.
Almost immedieatly after his arrival on the planet, Zaric became aware of activity within the system in the form of a secretive Jedi training academy, run by Jedi Master Caff K'iron. Zaric knew that he was outnumbered by the Jedi and was forced to forgoe his initial instinct to attack, instead investigating the camp and the Jedi from a safe distance.
Alliegence to Darth Nixza
Zaric eventually made his way to the Sith Temple where he was greeted by Darth Nixza, who had been hand-selected to take part in a secretive hibernation program, devised by the ancient Sith Empire. She had been placed into stasis freeze and hidden within the catacombs on the ancient Sith Temple. However, after the Sith had lost the Great Galactic War, Nixza was forgotten and spent the next four thousand years perfectly protected by stasis freeze, unharmed and un-aged.
Believing Zaric to be one of the Sith overseers of the stasis program, Nixza showed no hostility towards him. Though initially confused, Zaric deduced the true origin of Darth Nixza and informed her of her time displacement. Thoroughly disoriented, Nixza and her comrades were disheartened to learn of the outcome of the Great Galactic War and the current state of affairs within the galaxy.
Though still tainted by his madness, Zaric did his best to bring the newly-awoken Sith up to speed on the current surroundings, informing them of the Jedi encampment and its proximity to the temple. It did not take long for Nixza to notice Zaric's madness, nor his inherent physical power.
Zaric, receiving his mask from Darth Nixza
Realizing that she needed to ally herself with somebody not affected by time displacement as she was, Nixza made Zaric an offer: she would use her own talents with the Force to restore Zaric's sanity, and Zaric would in turn act as her right hand servant, sharing his knowledge of Sith alchemy and acting as a bodyguard for Nixza. Zaric, desperate to be rid of his crippling madness, accepted her offer. As a sign of their pact, Nixza offered Zaric an ornate Sith mask. Though it would have been subjected to weathering over time, the stasis freeze had preserved the ancient mask in pristine condition.
Grateful for the relief from his madness, Zaric was eager to please his new master. For his initial assignment, Zaric was sent on a scouting mission to survey the surrounding areas and gather any intel that might be useful to Nixza so she could plan her next move.
Zaric, during his first confrontation with Jedi Knight Trapp Radmal, during which his mask was damaged by Radmal's lightsaber
Traveling on foot through the dense forrests surrounding the temple, Zaric was warry not to make contact with the Jedi. Nonetheless, Zaric's trail was eventially discovered by Jedi Knight Trapp Radmal, who eventually caught up to and confronted Zaric. Not wanting to give away his presence to the other Jedi, Zaric drew his lightsaber and engaged Radmal in combat. However, Zaric was caught off guard by Radmal's own physical strength, and was forced to retreat back to the Sith Temple.