Phylus Mon, sometimes referred to as The Mon, was a notorious Chevin enslaver and a covert Dark Side Adept who existed during the final years of the Old Republic.
Phylus Mon's life began on Vinsoth, where he was both born and raised. Throughout his formative years, he experienced an innate connection to the wild creatures inhabiting the forests. Due to his Force-sensitivity, Phylus Mon possessed the ability to easily train these animals. As time passed, Phylus Mon developed a significant fondness for hunting large game and further manipulating the minds of his prey.
The family occupation of Phylus Mon was the business of enslavement, a common trade for a Chevin. While Chevins typically trafficked in Chev slaves, Phylus Mon, without dismissing Chevs entirely, exhibited a preference for more unique species, particularly enormous beasts whose simple minds he could reshape prior to selling them.
In the years that followed, Phylus Mon persisted in the slave trade, but his enterprise began to deviate from that of his family. Influenced by the dark side of the Force, Phylus abandoned the joy he found in training animals during his youth and transformed into a hateful, cruel being. He only sought after rare, monstrous fauna to serve as gladiatorial combatants, and he relentlessly pursued the ultimate beast capable of defeating any other creature. Wielding the dark side and a glowing, barbed whip with three tails, he captured and battled both animals and sentient beings, whether as prey or because they obstructed his path to his prey, from Geonosis to Coruscant's Underworld. He gained notoriety for subduing Wookiees, gundarks, and dragonsnakes. In the course of these conflicts, his skin toughened to the point where most personal weapons were ineffective against it.
Upon acquiring a new slave, Phylus Mon invariably instructed his surgeons to perform a specific procedure. An explosive device was implanted close to the slave's heart or another crucial organ, contingent on the species. Phylus Mon himself carried an emitter near his heart; in the event of his death, this emitter would transmit a signal to detonate all the explosives within his slaves, resulting in their immediate demise. While these explosives could be neutralized through ionization (a measure Phylus Mon countered by prohibiting his slaves from using ion weaponry), Phylus Mon's emitter was encased in a protective metal shell, preventing its deactivation by this method.
Phylus Mon maintained both a "zoo" of slaves for sale and/or training (often conducted by Phylus Mon himself) and a "retinue" of personally trained slaves. The latter group displayed the emblem of his organization, a pair of crossed Rancor claws, while the former bore this emblem along with a conspicuous red circle on the left side of their chest. Phylus Mon asserted that his followers were not slaves but free individuals, a claim his followers echoed. Indeed, Phylus Mon provided them with wages. However, they were forbidden from leaving Phylus Mon's service under threat of being hunted down and killed. Nevertheless, the slaves were so thoroughly broken that the thought of leaving Phylus Mon rarely crossed their minds.
Phylus Mon favored using the Force offensively. He would delay engaging in combat until he had sufficiently amplified his physical prowess and the destructive force of his whip (which would glow when primed). The full extent of his abilities remained ambiguous. Rumors circulated that, during an attempt to capture battlebirds from Orimanther, he meditated until he mastered the Force to conjure a storm, preventing them from taking flight.
To deter attacks and dissuade potential assassins, Phylus Mon invariably surrounded himself with his retinue of slaves. This group consisted of swift attackers, formidable defenders, Force-users, and creatures from his zoo. Over the years, Phylus Mon discovered and enslaved several Force-sensitive Chevs. However, should these measures prove insufficient, he always had escape routes and concealed defenses at his disposal.
A persistent rumor suggested that Phylus Mon possessed a trained wampa even more dangerous than himself. This was indeed the case: Phylus Mon had discovered Ku-Kak, a Force-sensitive wampa, on a remote ice planet, likely Hoth. Recognizing Ku-Kak's unique abilities, Phylus Mon captured and trained the animal, exclusively using Chevin to ensure Ku-Kak would not obey commands from others. He also instilled in Ku-Kak a hatred for the Jedi, teaching him to identify them by their lightsabers. Surprisingly, Phylus Mon avoided direct confrontation with the Jedi Order and never killed a Jedi or a known Jedi associate. Another known associate of Phylus Mon was Mischa Vorfren, a Force-sensitive Anzat. Ku-Kak supplied Vorfren with the lightsaber of Jedi Knight Ish-Bel Tur, and the Wampa was conditioned to regard Vorfren as an ally (otherwise, he would attack Vorfren upon seeing his lightsaber). Phylus Mon designated Ku-Kak as his personal bodyguard and armed him with a Sith sword he had acquired some time prior.
Yerj, a Force-sensitive Barabel, was another key figure in Phylus Mon's organization. Yerj had been owned and trained in a facility likely associated with the dark side before Phylus Mon purchased his contract around 32 BBY. For a decade, Yerj tracked animals and individuals for Phylus Mon, including at least one female Jedi. Yerj's successes earned him a distinguished reputation within Phylus Mon's records.
Phylus Mon also purchased the "freedom" of Nalz, a Spiner who had been part of a freak show. Nalz believed that Phylus Mon had liberated him, and therefore, Phylus Mon did not technically own Nalz (though Nalz underwent training and had an explosive device implanted in his chest). Nalz served Phylus Mon as a member of an elite strike force, fully aware of Phylus Mon's criminal activities. However, Nalz was known to respect Phylus Mon's principles.
Phylus Mon encountered Gorak, a freed albino Trandoshan, and offered her a position managing his animals. She demonstrated exceptional skill in handling acklays and rancors. She also developed a respect for Phylus Mon's methods (a sentiment not universally shared within Phylus Mon's security detail).
Phylus Mon also purchased the "freedom" of Kaarror, a Wookiee fighter. Phylus Mon had witnessed Kaarror fighting in an arena, admired him, and profited from betting on him. Instead of integrating Kaarror into his organization, he permitted him to join (or sold him to) the Kalmec criminal syndicate.
Phylus Mon was believed to be the power behind Rufus Trammel, a smuggler based on Cularin. While Trammel, as a "dealer in exotic items," was tolerated on Cularin, Phylus Mon was notorious there. Nirama, a Cularin crime lord, would have pursued and eliminated Phylus Mon had the Chevin entered his system, and some individuals on the fringes of society would have simply fled Cularin in such an event.
At some point, Phylus Mon acquired a massive starship, the Animiasma. This vessel possessed the ability to bypass blockades and evade detection through an unspecified method. It featured multiple layers of defense against attacks, including drone starfighters. Phylus Mon's personal quarters were situated beneath the zoo, but he always maintained an emergency exit leading to his personal shuttle.
At the onset of the Clone Wars, Phylus Mon was contacted by Len Markus. Markus, a former criminal on Cularin, had absconded from the system with a Sith artifact known as the Darkstaff. During his escape, the entire Cularin system vanished from the galaxy due to the Staff's Sith magic, and Markus was presumed dead.
Markus had discovered that the Darkstaff could be employed to create Sith battlelords. A Sith battlelord held absolute dominion over his troops; any soldier attempting to desert his Battlelord would inflict extreme pain (and ultimately death) upon the entire regiment, including himself. Phylus Mon specialized in exotic slaves, and a "slave army" was sufficiently unusual to capture his interest.
Markus offered Phylus Mon the procedure for creating a Battlelord in exchange for Phylus Mon repairing the Darkstaff. Markus provided Phylus Mon with a Sith tome, but it was written in Sithese. Phylus Mon located a slave capable of reading Sithese, obtained a translation of the tome, and then executed the slave.
Phylus Mon entered into an agreement with Karae Nalvas, a Dark Jedi who desired to become a Battlelord. However, Phylus Mon intended to betray Nalvas and exploit him to assess the difficulty of killing a Battlelord. Phylus Mon also summoned his former slaves Kaarror, Gorak, Nalz, and Yerj, intending to transform them into his first Battlelords; however, Phylus Mon concealed his true intentions from them.
During these preparations, Phylus Mon discerned that a powerful darksider situated somewhere in the Core Worlds harbored a particular interest in the Cularin system and the Almas Academy.
Phylus Mon planned to repair the Darkstaff by feeding it the Force essence of living beings, a process facilitated by the Battlelord-creation ritual. Phylus Mon then journeyed to Cularin aboard the Animiasma, circumvented the Thaereian blockade, and proceeded to the planet Almas. Mon sought to infiltrate the Almas Sith fortress and conduct the rituals there.
While in orbit around Almas, Mon abducted several Force-sensitive native Tarasin children, including Li'Iri, Honna, Tiscak, and Kaj. Phylus Mon personally whipped all of them, scarring Tiscak's face, and imprisoned them in his zoo.
The Sith fortress had been seized by the Jedi of Almas Academy, but its exploration remained incomplete. However, Mon possessed information regarding the fortress's layout that the Jedi lacked. Phylus Mon intended to raid the fortress, eliminate some of the Jedi guards, and perform the rituals within Darth Rivan's crypt.
Mon launched his attack during a sandstorm, accompanied by his five prospective Battlelords, Ku-Kak, three gundarks, and three other minions. They easily overwhelmed the six Jedi guards stationed at the south entrance. Two of these Jedi, Valiri and Constanten, were incapacitated but spared, as they were intended for use in initial experiments. A third Jedi, Vorlocca, who perished in the attack, was dragged into the fortress's interior and left there, with the gundarks consuming the corpse as a trap for Jedi search parties. The remaining three Jedi corpses were left at the doorway. The other Jedi within the fortress did not intervene but attempted to contact the Academy.
Mon likely employed Force-induced illusions and the sandstorm to evade detection (although Ku-Kak's footprints remained as evidence). Phylus Mon then bypassed security cameras and even thermal sensors, ultimately reaching Darth Rivan's designated crypt (Rivan himself had not been interred there) and ritual chamber.
Mon and his minions placed the Darkstaff on Rivan's altar and performed the ritual, simultaneously humiliating the ghost of Rivan's disciple Darsin. Despite the ritual's correct execution, it failed to establish a link between the Battlelords and any soldiers. Instead, the ritual extracted the Force essences of the victims, trapping them within a crystal pyramid for the Darkstaff to consume. The victims' bodies remained alive but were rendered incapable of movement or thought. Nevertheless, the Darkstaff appeared to be repaired, or at least more repaired than before.
Phylus Mon and his minions abandoned the seven vacant bodies and departed the fortress approximately three hours after their arrival. Four hours after the attack, Phylus Mon's ship departed orbit and vanished. Phylus Mon then piloted the Animiasma to the Cularin asteroid belt, where he could examine the Darkstaff and attempt to decipher the events that had transpired.
Lanius Qel-Bertuk, a Jedi Master from Almas Academy, dispatched several search teams to the Sith fortress in pursuit of the missing Jedi. They discovered all of the vacant bodies, and Qel-Bertuk deduced Phylus Mon's involvement. He also correctly surmised that Phylus Mon was likely the mastermind behind the abduction of the Tarasin children.
Meanwhile, the Darkstaff grew in power aboard the Animiasma. It attempted to impregnate the ship with its essence, seeking to integrate the ship into itself. It was transforming the ship into a dark side nexus. It also utilized the ship's sound system to broadcast a sound that induced confusion and terror among the crew (although Phylus Mon's chambers were seemingly unaffected).
However, Oden Malksch, the Almas librarian, inadvertently entered the vacant body of Karae Nalvas. Malksch sensed the body's connection to its Force essence and its yearning to reunite with it. The body sensed the essence and, following that trail, Malksch was able to locate Phylus Mon's lair. Master Qel-Bertuk assembled a team to retrieve the stolen essences of the two Jedi and the other victims.
Phylus Mon was preoccupied with the Darkstaff and remained unaware of the intrusion. He was attempting to analyze the Darkstaff in his room, surrounded by his customary security detail (which included Mischa Vorfren; Blood Carver gunner Ke Len; Chev Force-sensitive slaves Drik, Niv, and Tosh lying at his feet; eight Coruscani Ogres and twelve Mantessan panthacs; and the concealed Ku-Kak). Suddenly, the Darkstaff vanished from his sight, and moments later, Qel-Bertuk's team breached his room.
Phylus Mon issued a coded phrase that alerted his entourage: the Chevs began utilizing their Force abilities to bolster the rest of the group, Vorfren revealed (but did not activate) his lightsaber, and the others took aim.
Phylus Mon intended to employ his powers defensively during the ensuing conflict and maintain his position, as he could only access an emergency exit by pressing a button on his throne. He believed himself to be unkillable, as he could threaten his enemies with the execution of all the slaves. Furthermore, he believed he could evade capture by threatening suicide.
During these events, Nirama learned of Phylus Mon's presence on Cularin and offered a reward for his capture, dead or alive.