Darth Zash

Darth Zash, originally known simply as Zash, was a human female Sith witch who lived during the era of the Great Galactic War and the resulting Cold War. As a Force-strong member of the Sith Order, she was trained in the tradition of the Sith Inquisitors under the auspicies of the reconstituted Sith Empire. After years of study in the arts of the dark side, Zash rose to prominence in the higher echelons of Sith politics and was promoted to the rank of Sith Lord. Under the moniker of Lord Zash, she delved into research of ancient Sith magic and rituals, and her expertise gained her a position as a supervisor of acolyte training at the Sith Academy on the holy world of Korriban. Although she was an enthusiastic seeker of knowledge and power, the dark side took an extreme toll on her body, decaying her skin and robbing her of her youth. She managed to maintain a Force illusion that hid her decrepit appearance, but the physical effects of such intense usage of the dark side proved detrimental to her bodily health. In response, she desperately searched for a cure to her terminal sickness, but faced further challenges from her superiors, Darth Skotia and Darth Thanaton, both of whom detested Zash's apparent lack of deference towards her historical predecessors and the traditions of the Sith Order.

Zash's studies eventually led her to believe that a ritual developed by the ancient Dark Lord Tulak Hord could save her consciousness by allowing her to transfer it into a new and younger host body. However, before she could complete the process she had to collect artifacts from Hord's reign and select a host body to accept her spirit. She sought to accomplish both tasks by fulfilling a prophetic dream she had experienced in which an apprentice of low birth confronted and overcame the raging spirit of the ancient Lord Aloysius Kallig in the Dark Temple of Dromund Kaas; in doing so, the apprentice would pacify the spirit and be granted the knowledge of Tulak Hord. To ensure that she benefitted from the vision, Zash proceeded to order the Sith Academy's Overseer Harkun to gather a group of Sith hopefuls, all of low origin. After a series of trials, one acolyte managed to retrieve a map that once belonged to Hord and free the ancient Sith Lord's slumbering Dashade assassin, Khem Val. Zash accepted the acolyte as her apprentice in the Inquisitor's arts and brought them to the Imperial capital city on Dromund Kaas. There, Zash used her apprentice to engineer the murder of Darth Skotia—a move that enraged Darth Thanaton but ultimately earned Zash the rank of Dark Lord and the title of Darth.

 The apprentice ultimately fulfilled Darth Zash's prophecy within the Dark Temple, proving to the Sith Lord that she had chosen her host body wisely. Zash tasked the young Sith with finding the remainder of Hord's artifacts spread across the galaxy, all while insisting that she was preparing a ritual that was designed to empower her pupil. When the apprentice completed their task, Zash summoned them back to the Dark Temple, where she revealed her true form and moved to possess her student's body. The plan, years in the making, was foiled by the apprentice's companion, Khem Val, who attacked Zash during the transfer. Val killed Zash's body, but the Dark Lord's spirit entered the Dashade and occupied it as a vessel instead. Although Zash indeed managed to live on, to her great ire she did not have full control over the new body and instead was forced to share it with Val's consciousness. Because the Dashade was bound to her apprentice, Darth Zash was also forced to live in servitude of the young Sith. During her intermittent control of the Dashade body, she helped her apprentice defeat Darth Thanaton, who was working to destroy the remnants of Zash's power base. The Dark Lord, imprisoned within her new body, advised her apprentice—now known as the new Lord Kallig—in the accruement and control of the spirits of long-dead Sith Lords. Her work and guidance helped Kallig to kill Thanaton and rise to become the newly-ordained Darth Nox. During her travels with Nox, Zash conducted research into ways she could eliminate Khem Val's consciousness so that she might gain complete control over the Dashade body.