Tarre Vizsla: The First Mandalorian Jedi

1. Who is Tarre Vizsla?

Tarre Vizsla was a Mandalorian male human who used Force. During the Draggulch Period, he lived.

Few Mandalorian's ever joined the Jedi Order, including Vizsla. He was a Jedi Guardian in the final century of the New Sith Wars. As the Jedi Lord of the Mandalore region, Vizsla grudgingly assumed the role of Mandalor during the first half of the Republic Dark Age. He was conflicted, though, between his obligations to the Jedi Order and his people. Sometime before the Return, he resigned since he was unable to do both positions well.

Vizsla served in the Army of Light's Third Legion during the Light and Darkness War. Alongside Lord Hoth's hundred Jedi recruits, he was killed by Skere Kaan's mind bomb in the Valley of the Jedi. During a mission to Ruusan in 5 ABY, Jedi Knight Kyle Katarn freed his spirit from the Valley's Force nexus, where it had been imprisoned for more than a millennium.

Tarre Vizsla was seen favorably by Mandalorians during his brief tenure as Mandalor for protecting the Mandalore sector from New Sith attacks, although not being as well-known in history as Mandalore the Uniter, who spearheaded the Return. The New Jedi Order and Clan Vizsla praised him for embodying the highest Mandalorian and Jedi principles. Along with other dead heroes of the Army of Light, Johun Othone placed a large statue of Vizsla in the Valley of the Jedi.

2. How Did Young Tarre Vizsla Begin His Warrior Journey?

Around 1100 BBY, at the beginning of the Republic Dark Age, Clan Vizsla members gave birth to Tarre Vizsla. He reached adulthood at the age of thirteen, in accordance with Mandalorian custom. Vizsla then joined a large number of Mandalorian's who were employed in the war-torn galaxy as bounty hunters and mercenaries.

He concentrated on mastering the use of bladed weapons, particularly the bead, a classic Mandalorian saber fashioned from Mandalorian iron that is resistant to lightsabers.

Vizsla had rapid reflexes and became highly proficient with the bead. When he was a mercenary, his Jedi and Sith employers were drawn to these skills.

3. How Did Tarre Vizsla Become the First Mandalorian Jedi?

Even though Vizsla occasionally worked for the several Sith factions that comprised the New Sith Empire, he frequently found employment on worlds that the Galactic Republic was abandoning. Jedi recruiters approached Vizsla during one of these employment. He was invited to join the Jedi Order after they informed him that he was Force-sensitive, and he became the first Mandalorian Jedi.

Vizsla learned how to fight with a lightsaber while studying with the Jedi by using his pre-existing bead skills. He concentrated on the Shii-Cho form since it resembled the sword skills he was previously familiar with.

Vizsla studied under various Masters for several decades before becoming a Jedi Knight. As one of the most promising Jedi Guardians in recent memory, he was regarded as one of the most excellent Form I duelists of his era. He served the Republic by using his fighting abilities to defend a number of Jedi Supreme Chancellors both before and during the Republic Dark Age, as well as by fighting alongside the Republic Military against the New Sith Wars.

But because Vizsla was one of the few Mandalorian's to join the Jedi Order, several of his fellow Jedi were wary of him due to his Mandalorian heritage and his prior involvement with the New Sith.

4. How Did Tarre Vizsla Create the Dark-saber?

By the time he became a Jedi Knight, Tarre Vizsla was a skilled Form I expert and a formidable duelist, but he never felt as at ease wielding a regular lightsaber as he did with the bulky Mandalorian bead blade. He thought that the lightsaber blade was too light, which made it difficult to handle and unpredictable. Additionally, he disliked the round grips seen on most lightsaber hilts, favoring the bead's oval grip, angled crossguard, and more diminutive form.

Vizsla made the decision to design his own weapon, combining the qualities of a conventional lightsaber with the comfort of a beskad's hilt to produce a weapon that would work for him.

This led to the creation of a weapon called "the Dark-saber." The shape of its hilt was reminiscent of Vizsla's cherished beskad sword. The plasma core resembled a beskad, a thin, flat, metal blade with a point, thanks to its unique wiring system and slit-shaped blade emitter. The blade's distinctive dark hue, created by the synthetic lightsaber crystal, gave it an unsettling appearance to onlookers.

The Dark-saber's blade was unstable, nevertheless, because Vizsla failed to accurately replicate the crystal's natural production process. Electricity frequently crackled and sparked along its edge.

5. What Was Tarre Vizsla's Role During the Republic Dark Age?

In the final century of the New Sith Wars, the Republic was in disarray. The Republic Dark Age was the result of this. The Republic's fall, spreading Candorian sickness, and galaxy-wide instability forced many sectors to defend themselves against bandits and the ongoing menace of the New Sith.

The Jedi Order, the galaxy's last powerful Force, had to assume greater responsibility in the battle against the Sith. Several Knights and Masters spearheaded attempts to defend undefended worlds after the fall of the Republic. As their involvement in local politics increased, they eventually rose to become the "Jedi Lords" of their own domains.

During this period, Vizsla frequently traveled around the galaxy, much to the disgust of his controlling masters on the High Council. He frequently took "knight errant" trips far into New Sith-controlled space, ignoring his responsibilities as a Jedi Knight. Vizsla returned to the Mandalore sector, where his Mandalorian people lived, more and more during his adventures. The Candorian plague, piracy, extensive banditry, and attacks by the New Sith Empire, which ruled an area roughly north of the Mandalore sector, were all problems in this region.

6. How Did Tarre Vizsla Lead the Mandalore Sector?

Concerned that the New Sith were attempting to obtain a consistent supply of Mandalorian iron, which is resistant to lightsabers, for their beskar'kandar armor, Vizsla organized the clans and oversaw multiple operations to expel the Sith from the area. Despite the fact that there weren't many Mandalorian's due to several Candorian plague outbreaks, Vizsla's leadership and combat prowess helped the Mandalorian's defeat the New Sith invasion on multiple occasions. The Darksaber came to symbolize the Mandalorian defenders and their will to maintain their independence in the face of foreign invasion during this period.

As a result of Vizsla's succession of successes, numerous appreciative clan chiefs encouraged him to assume the kyr'bes and assert the unclaimed title of Mand'alor as the official head of the clans. Vizsla reluctantly consented to "keep the seat warm" as the acting Mandalor until a suitable replacement could be found, despite his conflicting morals and continued obligations to the Jedi Order. In the Mandalore sector, he was the de facto Jedi Lord for a while. He finally got married and had a Mandalorian heir to Clan Vizsla, just like many of his Jedi Lord peers, while adhering to the Resol'nare's regulations.

Even though Vizsla was a successful traditional Mandalor, bringing the people together and giving guidance when necessary while avoiding clan matters otherwise, some Mandalorian's chastised him for his sporadic absences from Mandalorian Space because of his ongoing Jedi duty. Furthermore, despite Vizsla's attempts to set up task teams for this purpose, the Mandalorian's under Vizsla were mainly powerless to curb the pervasive banditry and piracy that afflicted the region due to their limited numbers and frequent starvation and disease outbreaks.

7. How did Aga Awaud initiate the Mandalorian Return, and what was Tarre Vizsla's role?

Vizsla, his wife, and several Clan Vizsla relatives and family members perished in the highly contagious Candorian plague outbreak that struck Mandalore and spread throughout the sector in 1060 BBY. The Mandalorian's suffered terribly, but Vizsla was able to obtain some food and medical supplies from the Republic through a combination of hard pressure and favors.

As Mandalor, Vizsla mostly held himself responsible for the sector's lack of proper preparation for a new infectious illness outbreak. Soon after, he resigned as Mandalor, blaming his inability to prevent the plague and piracy as well as his needless involvement because the Sith civil war was still occurring on and there were fewer Sith raids on the sector. Despite his feelings of sadness and remorse, he returned to the Jedi Temple to defend Mandalorian Space whenever called upon, adhering to the Resol'nare's precepts.

After operating for a long time in the broader galaxy, Aga Awaud, a Mandalorian mercenary from Clan Awaud, returned to Mandalore in 1058 BBY. Awaud made the decision to put an end to the deterioration of Mandalorian culture and usher in a time of rebirth for his people and the larger Mandalorian way of life after discovering that both his clan and the Mandalorian population had been wiped out by the Candorian plague and had been attacked by armed pirates and outlaws. Over the course of the following seven years, Awaud organized campaigns throughout the industry and cultivated a network of supporters.

He finally asserted his Mand'alor title in 1051 BBY with the public's backing and encouragement from Tarre Vizsla. Awaud declared the Return and urged all of the Mandalorian clans that were dispersed across the galaxy to return to the Mandalore sector and fortify their ancestral home-worlds, taking the kyr'bes for himself.

8. What Tensions Did Tarre Vizsla Face with the Jedi Council?

Throughout the ensuing decades, Vizsla took part in the Mandalor's efforts to expel the Sith, bandits, and pirates from the area on occasion. Vizsla's disregard for his Jedi responsibilities became increasingly apparent during this period, and he spent more time outside of the Jedi Temple. He eventually came into dispute with the Jedi High Council's Masters and the Order's primary political leadership after he began to receive official warnings from the council on Coruscant.

He stayed loyal to the Order and the Jedi Code, obeying the instructions of his supervising masters, but once Mandalore the Uniter called him back to the Mandalore sector, he promptly abandoned his assigned tasks, claiming the sixth rule of the Resol'nare as justification.

The Jedi Lords' combined political power in the galaxy increased during the Dark Age, and many of them started to openly disobey the High Council's directives. Gradually, the most powerful and prominent Jedi Lords gathered into their own Grand Council to manage internal affairs for their followers and resolve conflicts between lesser Jedi Lords around the galaxy.

Vizsla occasionally acted as an advisor to the main Jedi organization, which further strained his connection with the High Council's masters, although he turned down invitations to serve on the Grand Council in an attempt to preserve his tenuous ties with it.

9. Why Did Tarre Vizsla Join the Army of Light?

The New Sith remnants were drastically restructured into the Brotherhood of Darkness, a reconstructed Sith Empire under Kaan that spanned the galaxy and contained the leftover components of previous Sith factions, following the fall of Skere Kaan, a former star pupil of the High Council, to the dark side in 1010 BBY. To combat the growing Sith menace, the Grand Council organized an army of Jedi Lords led by Lord Hoth, a fabled force known as the Army of Light.

The ensuing Light and Darkness War, which saw the Jedi and Sith engage in a final, spectacular struggle for control of the galaxy on battlefields around the galaxy, prepared the galaxy for a final encounter.

In this final decade of the Republic Dark Age, the conflict between Tarre Vizsla and the Jedi High Council finally reached a breaking point. Despite the fact that many Knights simply left the Jedi Temple and High Council to join Hoth's Army of Light without authorization, Vizsla made a formal leave request and spoke to the Council in the High Council Chamber. During the ensuing discussion, Vizsla was told to remain on Coruscant and prohibited from joining what the Council considered to be an unapproved group.

Vizsla used the Right of Denial, a rarely used privilege granted to non-Councilors that allowed Jedi to formally protest the Council's decision and set aside their Knighthoods to become Jedi in little more than name, to express his disappointment at the Council's refusal to accept responsibility for Kaan's fall and his disgust at their lack of interest in both admitting the threat posed by their former protégé and the consequences of their inaction. As part of the procedure, Vizsla surrendered the Dark-saber to the Council, criticized its incompetence and cowardice, and quit the Order to join the Army of Light.

10. How Did Tarre Vizsla Contribute to the Army of Light?

Tarre Vizsla was a famous duelist, and Lord Hoth and the Jedi Lords of the Army of Light were happy to have him on board. Lord Newar Forrth immediately offered the Mandalorian a job in his Third Legion of Light as a knight bachelor.

Vizsla took part in numerous campaigns against the Brotherhood of Darkness during the ensuing ten years, including the Battle of Corsin. Along with a sizable Mandalorian task force that Mandalore the Uniter had assembled to guard the sectors along the Hydian Way, Vizsla and the Third Legion engaged the Brotherhood in combat in this specific conflict.

As the conflict progressed, Vizsla further enhanced his already impressive reputation as a fighter, receiving recognition from his colleagues and commanding officers in spite of his senior age. In order to be near the battlefield as a combatant, Vizsla was happy with field grade ranks even though they offered higher-ranking posts in the Army of Light.

11. Tarre Vizsla's Death

When the Brotherhood threatened to invade the Core Worlds in 1001 BBY, the Army of Light's soldiers assembled on Ruusan, a Sith staging site, for a decisive battle that would determine the galaxy's destiny. The once-luxurious world was reduced to a wasteland of wrecked towns and ecosystems as the Jedi and Sith engaged in seven protracted conflicts with all of their remaining armies.

Both sides were weakened and severely underfunded by the time of the final battle, equipping their surviving fighters with crude spears and even enlisting minors as combatants. Skere Kaan ordered the development of a thought bomb, a weapon of pure Force energy that could wipe out all life in an impacted area, in an attempt to eliminate the last Jedi force. Kaan made plans to drop the thought bomb on Ruusan because he and his allies believed they were unbeatable and impervious to the effects of such magic.

Kaan had escaped to the tunnels beneath Ruusan during the latter phases of the Ruusan campaign, and Lord Hoth, the commander of the Army of Light, responded by gathering a hundred Jedi to accompany him. Vizsla refused to stay with Lord Valenthyne Farfalla and the remaining members of the Army of Light when they evacuated, so he accompanied him. Despite their best efforts, Hoth and his Jedi disciples were unable to reach the fallen Jedi in time to stop the thought bomb from detonating.

The Jedi's and Sith's bodies were instantly annihilated, and their spirits were imprisoned in agony within the Force nexus that was formed upon the bomb's detonation. His beskad, beskar armor, and helmet were all that were left of Vizsla; they were buried in ash deep below the Ruusan caves, along with the personal items of both Jedi and Sith.

12. How did Clan Vizsla Recover the Dark-saber?

On his adopted home-world of Mandalore, numerous clans commemorated Vizsla's death. A brief ceremony commemorating Vizsla was conducted by the elderly Mandalore the Unite in the Oyu'baat, the downtown Keldabe tapcaf where Vizsla had originally grudgingly accepted to serve as Mandalor decades prior.

To preserve Tarre's memory, Clan Vizsla members requested assistance from the Jedi in order to obtain his armor, helmet, and beskad, as was customary in Mandalorian culture. The High Council, however, wished to forget the political humiliation of the Ruusan war and the larger Light and Darkness War, therefore their request was turned down since the Order had trouble reaching the collapsed tunnels where Vizsla and his fellow Jedi had perished.

Because of Vizsla's unresolved use of the Right of Denial and their wish to forget the war and the Jedi Lords who had disobeyed them, the Order once again rejected Clan Vizsla's request for the restoration of the Dark-saber.

After being stopped at every point, a few Clan Vizsla members devised a scheme to take back Tarre's special weapon on their own. The most cunning of them, having been trained as spies and assassins by several groups during the war, journeyed to Coruscant and gained entry to the Jedi Temple while it was mostly deserted because of the losses sustained on Ruusan.

These Mandalorian raiders successfully recovered the Dark-saber kept in the Temple by navigating its maze and eluding Order and Temple Security Force members to reach the artifact storage in the Jedi Archives. The heist became well-known in the history of the Vizsla dynasty.

Only its finest fighters kept the Dark-saber once they returned to Mandalore, and it remained a prized family legacy until the Republic Classic era. Until Darth Maul claimed it during the Clone Wars, it was owned by the Vizsla clan.

13. How was Tarre Vizsla Honored in the Valley of the Jedi Monument?

John Othone, a former Padawan of Lord Hoth, started openly requesting permission from the High Council to erect a sizable memorial on Ruusan in remembrance of the Light and Darkness War's victims shortly after the conclusion of the New Sith Wars.

The Senate and Chancellor Tarsus Valorum backed Othone and provided the young Chancellor's Guard with substantial financial support to complete the construction of his intended memorial, despite the Council's refusal since they wished to forget the conflict and bury the memory of the Army of Light.

The resulting Valley of the Jedi monument featured multiple enormous statues of prominent Jedi Lords and Knights, like as Lord Hoth and Tarre Vizsla, and was constructed around the section of the cave system where the one hundred Jedi had perished. Othone's monument endured for more than a millennium into the New Republic era, despite Ruusan's disappearance in subsequent decades due to shifting hyperspace paths.

As predicted in the Poem of Ages, the Jedi Knight Kyle Katarn rediscovered Ruusan in 5 ABY while on a mission there, and he relieved the agony of the tormented souls imprisoned in the Valley's Force nexus. Vizsla's eleven hundred-year existence came to an end when his Force spirit was finally freed from anguish, allowing him to depart from the world of the living and merge with the Force.

Members of Clan Vizsla dug into the Valley of the Jedi's caverns in the years after Ruusan was reopened and found Tarre's deteriorating beskar helmet, armor, and sword. They buried the items in their clan headquarters and laid their ancestor's memories to rest.

14. What Legacy Did Tarre Vizsla Leave Behind?

Tarre Vizsla was the direct antecedent of Mandalore the Uniter, the leader of the Return, but his contemporary Aga Awaud significantly eclipsed him in both his life and subsequent Mandalorian histories.

Similarly, because the High Council wished to bury the political shame of the Light and Darkness War, Vizsla was largely excluded from the chronicles of the former Jedi Order despite being a rebellious Jedi Knight who publicly criticized the High Council, invoked the Right of Denial, and openly identified with the Jedi Lords of the Army of Light.

But among the Mandalorian's who lived during his reign as Mandalor, Vizsla was viewed favorably since he was able to keep the clans together throughout the instability leading up to the Return and effectively stopped the New Sith Empire from establishing itself in the Mandalore space.

The members of Clan Vizsla also saw Tarre Vizsla as an example of Mandalorian honor, as he maintained his deep devotion to his people and his observance of the Resol'nare despite his service to the Jedi.

In comparison to the previous iteration of their order, the New Jedi Order, which was established after Kyle Katarn rediscovery of the Valley of the Jedi in 5 ABY, held Vizsla and his fellow Jedi Lords in higher regard and hailed their sacrifice on Ruusan as a model of the Jedi ideal of self-sacrifice.

15. How Did Tarre Vizsla's Personality Develop Over Time?

Being a member of an old clan of Mandalorian's, Tarre Vizsla grew up in the Mandalorian warrior culture, and his lifelong affinity for fighting and conflict had a significant influence on his personality. He shared the view of many Mandalorian's that fighting was a test that made people stronger, more resilient, and better versions of themselves rather than a source of evil. According to him, fighting demonstrated the boundaries of people's mental and physical fortitude and served as a means of testing and eventually beyond those boundaries, just like fear does.

After he joined the Jedi and became familiar with the Force's broader realm, he also began to regard warfare as a means of comprehending the Living Force via the madness of combatants. Although Vizsla saw the worst aspects of war, such as the death and hatred it caused, she also recognized the positive aspects, such as the selfless bravery of both soldiers and civilians.

For a large portion of his existence, Vizsla attempted to carefully balance his frequently incompatible responsibilities to the Jedi Order and the Mandalorian people. He adhered rigorously to the six rules of Resol'nare as a Mandalorian traditionalist with Neo-Crusader beliefs. These included having Mandalorian children, writing and speaking in Mando'a whenever feasible, returning to the Mandalore sector to defend his clan or respond to his Mand'lor's call, and dressing in stylized beskar armor adorned with Jedi symbols rather than traditional Jedi garb.

But as a Jedi Knight, he also lived by the Jedi Code and used the time that his Mandalorian colleagues did for Jedi Order mercenary activity. Despite his peculiarities and frequently outlandish beliefs, he stayed devoted to the light side and the Jedi ideal, even though he frequently clashed with his supervising Jedi Masters due to his conflicting loyalties.

Because they aligned with his Neo-Crusader beliefs, Vizsla accepted several portions of Sith ideology pertaining to rule by the strong, much to the annoyance and concern of his Jedi professors. Similar to the ancient Mandalorian's and the Sith, Vizsla believed that the Sith doctrine of the strongest and most magically gifted ruling over the weak was a good system that mirrored the natural order in which the strongest and fittest survived and ruled over the weak according to their suitability and qualifications.

Because they could more readily comprehend and carry out the Force's will without interference as selected vessels of the Force's power, he felt that it was likewise appropriate for people with strong Force talents to reign over those without.

In contrast to Sith individualism, he believed that the strong and Force-sensitive had an obligation to treat their power and authority as burdens and duties of care, act honorably toward those they led, and act as "philosopher kings" for the benefit of society because he embraced traditional Mandalorian values regarding personal honor, community spirit, clan loyalty, and the behavior expected of Mandalors.

As a result, he denounced the New Sith Empire's excessive violence and abuse of power as dishonorable and immoral, instead citing the Jedi Supreme Chancellors and Jedi Lords as examples of his ideal due to their selflessness in the service of their people and their honorable behavior in performing their duties.

16. What Were Tarre Vizsla's Combat Skills and Force Abilities?

Tarre Vizsla was a Jedi Guardian who specialized in lightsaber combat, but he lacked the Force strength and Force-based combat skills of his fellow Jedi Sentinels and Consular. Despite this, his years of Jedi training had given him a basic degree of proficiency in several typical Force powers, making him a trained Jedi Knight.

He showed mastery of fundamental abilities such Force telekinesis, Force punch, Force speed, and Force jump when he was made a Knight, some of which he employed in his lightsaber fights.

Growing up on the battlefields of the Light and Darkness War, he also learned how to use Enhance Attribute and Force valor to push the boundaries of his body and temporarily boost his other Force abilities in order to overcome the limitations of his advanced age and keep his mastery in single combat.

Several of his Jedi Order peers regarded Tarre Vizsla as one of the greatest Form I practitioners of his time. Vizsla joined the Order considerably later than many of his fellow initiates, and during his lightsaber training, he applied his already impressive sword fighting talents. Vizsla thought Form I was the best form because it was created when the Jedi were switching from using Force-imbued blades to the protosaber. This allowed him to use his skills with a Mandalorian beskad sword to their full potential while still gaining access to more advanced lightsaber-specific combat techniques. Vizsla refined his lightsaber combat skills over the next few decades by studying other forms, combining offensive one-on-one dueling tactics from Form II with certain defensive techniques from Form III and Form V.

17. What Weapons and Armor Did Tarre Vizsla Use?

Prior to joining the Jedi Order, Tarre Vizsla's primary close-fight weapon was a regular Mandalorian beskad sword, which he utilized after invoking the Right of Denial in 1010 BBY. The beskad's basic Mandalorian iron sword was capable of withstanding both energy weapons, such as lightsabers, and sophisticated melee weapons, such as vibroblades coated in cortosis.

Even though the beskad was a very heavy weapon that required a strong arm to wield effectively, Vizsla was regarded as one of the best swordsmen Clan Vizsla had ever produced in its history. When Vizsla created the Darksaber in the latter years of the New Sith Wars, his sword skills were eventually transferred and modified to the use of the lightsaber.

Due to his familiarity with the beskad and his dislike of the perfectly round grips of most standard lightsaber hilts, Vizsla created the Darksaber, his own lightsaber, with the beskad's distinctive oval grip, angled crossguard, and thinner shape in mind. The weapon's plasma core also resembled a beskad, a thin, flat, metal blade with a tip, thanks to the adoption of a special wire configuration and a slit-shaped blade emitter. The synthetic lightsaber crystal that was used to manufacture the blade gave it a shimmering black tint that appeared to absorb light, but because of defects in the crystal's design during production, the blade was unstable and frequently flickered and crackled with electricity along its edge.

Tarre Vizsla, a Mandalorian warrior from a powerful clan, possessed multiple costly sets of bear Mandalorian armor over his career.

His favorite armor during the Republic Dark Age was a pair of bulky beskar'kandar, which were common among Force users in the Light and Darkness War.

 Although his bear helmet had the familiar Mandalorian T-shaped visor, it was a highly stylized, open-faced version with a distinctive design. There was also a pointed, "sugar loaf" shape in place of the conventional spherical skullcap, which was intended to help deflect and redirect strikes to the head. This helmet, in accordance with long-standing Mandalorian custom, bore the clan's shriek-hawk emblem. In addition to being memorialized in his massive statue in the Valley of the Jedi on Ruusan, this specific piece of armor helped create the style for which Vizsla was most famous in artwork from the time.