From space, Malachor seems no more than a lifeless ball of ash. In the center of an open crater, however, lies the ancient Sith Temple. This colossal pyramid of black stone is the relic of a disastrous battle between the forces of darkness and light thousands of years ago.

Though the surface of Malachor has a breathable atmosphere, the air is dead still, and there is no sign of life. The caldera housing the Temple is a tableau of the terrible struggle that took place here so many millennia ago. Scattered through the causeways and crumbling boulders are the petrified figures of the foregone combatants, their hands raised eternally against whatever cataclysm took the life from their bodies. Some still grasp their Jedi weapons, though most likely the life is gone from them too. The pallid white light of the sun spreads unhindered through the crater, but it does little to illumine the intrinsic darkness of the stones.

The Sith Temple is not a place of the light side. It is said the very stones react to the touch of the dark side. The pyramid itself is seemingly inaccessible, though its blocked entrance is associated with an old saying: “Two must lift these stones, no more, no less.” Despite its undeniable age, the crater is littered with signs of a more recent calamity; ash and debris, columns toppled outwards from the Temple, broken arches. It is as though the millennial dust stirred, briefly, then returned to its repose under the sun.