Star Wars/Characters/Malus Nightborn
Malus Nightborn
Early Life
Malus Nightborn is a 5-foot-10-inch, 190-pound Zabrak Nightbrother born at a Nightsister fortress on Dathomir in 275 ABY. His mother, Wicca, was a witch of the Nightfall Coven, one of the clans associated with the traditionalist Bone Keepers.
Malus’s dark smoky-gray skin was unusual among the males of his community, and other Nightbrothers treated him as an easy target. He grew up fighting in formal training grounds and in personal challenges. Wicca expected more from her son and secretly trained him in Dathomiri Force magick, even as she reminded him that the coven would never allow a male to rise beyond the role of assassin.
Her relentless training produced the intended effect. Malus learned to combine his fighting ability with his developing Force powers until his peers no longer dared ridicule him.
Training under the Night Mothers
When Malus was ten, the Mothers of Dathomir ordered the covens to send their most talented Force-sensitive younglings to the grand arena. Malus survived a series of tests that ended in ritual combat among the ten strongest candidates. His victory earned him advanced instruction as an assassin of the Night Mothers.
For five years, the Mothers subjected him to harsh training, deprivation, and torture intended to harden him for future missions. The experience strengthened him, but it also fixed his thoughts on freedom. At fifteen, Malus fled into the mountains. He survived alone for five weeks before discovering a forgotten temple dating to the Old Republic era.
The Temple and Darth Pestilence
The temple contained Sith relics and a single skeleton dressed in black robes. Malus built a stone sarcophagus for the remains and spent six months cleaning the site and using its training equipment. Strange sounds, moving objects, and faint voices followed the burial.
One night, the spirit of Darth Pestilence appeared. Pestilence was an ancient Sith whose own master had once prepared to steal his body through essence transfer. Now trapped at the temple, Pestilence saw Malus as a promising host. He disguised his purpose behind gratitude and offered to teach Malus knowledge from millennia past.
Malus recognized the danger but accepted because of his hunger to understand the Force. For nearly ten years, Pestilence trained him through difficult and dangerous tasks. Malus stole components from Nightsister settlements to restore Pestilence’s Fury-class interceptor and later infiltrated a guarded temple to obtain a kyber crystal and ingredients for a final test of Sith alchemy.
Malus used those materials to create the first Nightsaber and the Staff of Woe. The staff possesses no independent supernatural power, but its alchemical treatment allows it to block lightsabers and redirect blaster bolts.
Escape from Dathomir
When Pestilence finally attempted to possess him, Malus used the defensive rites taught by the Night Mothers to keep the spirit from taking control. He fought his way to the restored interceptor and escaped with only his robes and staff. The original Nightsaber remained inside the temple.
Pestilence pursued him into the ship, but the spirit could not cross the temple’s boundary and was torn back through the hull as the vessel departed. Malus later rebuilt the Nightsaber from memory. This second weapon became the signature saber he carries during the campaign.
Now Malus roams the galaxy in search of knowledge and artifacts from every Force tradition. He refuses allegiance to the vanished Jedi and Sith orders, the Sisters who raised him, or any other authority. His goal is complete knowledge of the Force.
Code of Malus Nightborn
There is no light or dark;
there is only the Force.
There is no good or evil;
there is only knowledge.
I am neither self-destructive Sith,
manipulative Nightsister,
nor self-righteous Jedi.
I am something in between.
I am Malus. I am myself.
The Nightsaber
The Nightsaber is Malus’s signature lightsaber design. The replacement he built after leaving Dathomir consists of two individual hilts joined by locking mag-clamps. He can wield it as a single two-handed saber, a double-bladed saber, paired blades, or one independent blade. Each hilt also has two small crossguard vents.
An A-45-style quantum power core in each hilt feeds a Czerka-style multiphase plasma emitter. A tri-faceted kyber crystal chamber focuses the primary blade and the crossguard emissions.
The Black Ark
Malus escaped Dathomir aboard the restored Fury-class Imperial interceptor once used by Darth Pestilence during the Great Galactic War and its following Cold War. The ancient vessel is roughly four millennia old and now serves as Malus’s personal base of operations under the name Black Ark. Its weapon systems are currently nonfunctional, but its hyperdrive allows him to search the galaxy for artifacts and lost knowledge.
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Length | 100 meters |
| Width | 88 meters |
| Height | 33 meters |
| Maximum atmospheric speed | 1,200 km/h |
| Hyperdrive rating | Class 1 |
| Crew capacity | Up to 15; minimum flight crew of 1 |
| Facilities | Bridge, captain’s quarters, conference room, crew quarters, medbay, and bacta tank |
| Communications | Pangalactic holo-conferencing suites |
