Sorcerers of Rhand

The Sorcerers of Rhand were the sect of the Sith Emperor, created so as to assure the Sith would always have the capacity to return and defeat the Jedi. Their most famous attempts on the galaxy includeDarth Nihilus and Lord Cronal.

Foundation
The Sorcerers of Rhand were founded within days of the Great Hyperspace War by the Sith Emperor, whom was concerned that he would not live long enough to enact his revenge against the Jedi and the Republic. The Sorcerers assisted the Sith Emperor in mastering his Sith Alchemy, though they themselves never reached his mastery over it, and continued their line by normal means. The Sith Empire was a weak entity, and advanced slowly into the darkness, burrowing into the Unknown Regions and away from the enemy.

The Sith Emperor during this harrowing age became interested in the tools left behind by the Celestials and Rakata. Using records from Korriban he assembled a picture of the True Sith War, and created a Sithspawn species to ferret out these relics, a great deal which seemed to have been left in the Unknown Regions – and at Corellia and the Maw – the former the Celestials home-system, the latter one of several Celestial redoubts.

Investigations revealed that the Celestials had settled in the Unknown Regions, behind their hyperspace barrier, and stayed clear away from the Sith and Jedi. The Sith Emperor, unwilling to use resources on anything else other than recovering, let the creatures into the area, and they began assembling a Covenant with local species to discover the location of many more relics – a religious tool which allowed him control of the Covenant with little effort. To finish off this religious scheme, the Sith Emperor picked at a second seemingly random human colony and named it Earth, wiping out the planets previous inhabitants and letting the primitives grow at their own pace. The Sith Emperor intended to harvest them for slaves at a later date, knowing he’d require a new slave caste, placing them under the auspices of the Sorcerors.

Heydey
They influenced the creation of Darth Nihilus as the culmination of their philosophy on the Dark and Darksight, creating a monster which could only consume. His eventual defeat was nothing to them.

Circa 4000 BBY they began to experiment on a colony of humans they discovered in the Unknown Regions. The Sith Emperor knew they would be useful as slaves, but realised he would never be able to control them when he departed for known space, which he intended to in a few short years. So he infiltrated their society on Kobol and influenced them to create Cylons, and twelve colonies based largely around a concept of ‘Earth’ – a tool of control that would be most useful later on. The concept was to create a massive droid force which the Sith Emperor could throw at the Republic. The ingenuity of these tribes was beyond that of those he enslaved and tortured to make advances, and the Sith Emperor left them mostly alone thereafter, focusing on fending off the invasion of his territory by Revan and the Jedi Exile. The damage they did to the Sith Empire put back his plans for three centuries, and focus wandered elsewhere. In the meantime, the Cylon project made headway into creating humanform Cylons, which would be perfect for infiltration – and far too intelligent for their uses.

The Sith Emperor intended to use some of these, but found himself engrossed in other concerns – a costly war with a high tech Cylon society he had created wasn’t ideal, and so he shelved invasion plans until after he’d dealt with the Republic – he knew he had to establish himself quickly.

When the Sith Emperor departed the Unknown Regions to fight the Great War, the Sith Emperor left behind the Sorcerers of Rhand as an insurance policy. Concealed in the Nihil Retreat, they were completely hidden from the enemy – the Sith Emperor believed the Jedi and Republic wouldn’t reach this far into the Unknown Regions in the next four millennia. The death of the Sith Emperor left them rudderless, the Sorcerers continuing surviving and simply watching their Cylon-human machinations.

Darth Ruin, studying ancient texts, caught wind of the ancient sorcerers and sent elements to restart the Cylon scheme on Kobol, understanding that the Unknown Regions would allow his Sith to survive countless engagements. The remaining elements on Kobol worked on new models, and the Sith returned to report – only to discover Darth Ruin was dead. They were slaughtered as loyalists to the old regime, and the Cylon-human plot became more complicated as a thirteenth tribe departed Kobol.

The mangled threads began to become convoluted, the Sorcerers too weak to do much other than watch as the Cylon-human-Colonists-Covenant concern grew in size and magnitude in the following centuries. Their controls guaranteed nothing, and Sorcerers simply allowed events to play out, using their resources to resurrect the Sith Emperor, who himself launched a rampage throughout Known Space for almost three centuries, before again being defeated. The Sorcerers of Rhand watched as the aftermath played out, not seeing the need to intervene as they had by resurrecting the Dark Underlord. The Sith went into hiding, and the Sorcerers of Rhand continued to watch, content that their schemes would reach fruition eventually.

The Modern Era
The rise of Darth Sidious meant the Sorcerers felt the need to contact the Sith. But, they were unsure how they would react, despite the Rule of Two Sith allying with the Prophets of the Dark Side and the Sorcerers of Tund, both heretical sects. A creature named Cronal, whom had a particular affinity to the Dark, left and joined the Sith, rising high in the regime, before departing to make his own plans. The Sorcerers were convinced the Sith would fail again, and Cronal would be a safety net. He eventually was, but failed numerous times, betraying the concept of the Dark by attempting to survive – the Sorcerers themselves accepted their deaths often, and always, continuing their line to engineer more destruction.

They began to watch the Covenant as it made headway through the galaxy, growing powerful, as to did the humans of ‘Earth’. The Colonials also began to grow stronger, technologically catching up with what was to be expected of them after several long winded civil wars. The Cylons themselves began to exist in multiple incarnations, as to did the humans, and the entire issue began to collapse into itself in the decades following Cronal’s demise.

The Sorcerors of Rhand began to consider their options – it was obvious to them that they require a tool from amongst themselves. But this was a scheme four millennia in the making – they could feel in the Dark that the devastation that would be wrought across the galaxy would be impossibly immense.

And so, when Darth Insipid discovered the Nihil Retreat in 95 ABY, they suddenly found themselves known to a Sith, who quickly worked his way into the Sorcerers and established himself, taking utter control of the scheme. The Sorcerers accepted this, quietly watching, as they always did. Insipid introduced advanced technology to the humans in both theatres, speeding up advance and allowing them to invent new technology – the Colonials FTL drives were far more precise than the modern hyperdrive, and the designs for the old [i]Katana[/i]-class Dreadnaught were perfected by them. On Earth, AI’s were perfected, and a ‘Supersoldier’ program put into place.

Within a decade, Insipid returned to stasis, setting up this as his third plan to conquer the galaxy. Events went into motion as the Cylons declared war on the Colonials, and the Covenant upon ‘Earth’, as Insipid returned from stasis and resurrected the ‘Earth that was’ religion to the humano-centric Sith Empire. The Dominion of Darkness was defeated, as too were the Vapid Sith, and Insipid marched on, assembling contingency after contingency.

And so, in 145 ABY, in his second body and ready for all his opponents at last – Darth Insipid started the Shadow War.