Savage Opress

Savage Opress was a Force-sensitive Dathomirian Zabrak male, brother to Maul and Feral. Originally a Nightbrother tribal warrior, he was chosen by the Nightsister Asajj Ventress and transformed through dark magick into a hulking, fearsome brute. He became a Sith apprentice under Count Dooku, then a renegade serving his recovered brother Maul, and spent the Clone Wars sowing death until he was struck down by the Dark Lord Darth Sidious.

Selection and transformation#

Savage Opress lived in the Nightbrother village on Dathomir with his younger brother Feral. As part of the Nightsister Asajj Ventress's plot for revenge against her former master, the Sith Lord Count Dooku, Ventress came to select a warrior who would serve Dooku while secretly answering to the Nightsisters. Through her brutal tests of Selection, which killed many candidates, Opress emerged as the strongest, and Ventress chose him.

Mother Talzin and her witches used their magicks to amplify Opress's strength and aggression, enlarging his body and horns into those of an imposing brute. To prove his loyalty, Opress choked his own brother Feral to death, the same brother he had fiercely protected throughout the Selection. Armored and armed with a mystically enhanced spear, he was offered to Dooku, who accepted him as a personal enforcer.

Sith apprenticeship#

To prove himself, Opress was sent to attack the Republic on Devaron, where he slaughtered clone troopers and slew his first Jedi, Master Halsey, and his Padawan Knox. Dooku, intending to use the new acolyte to overthrow his own master, took Opress as his apprentice and subjected him to brutal training, shocking him with Force lightning when he failed feats such as lifting a dozen obelisk stones at once.

On a mission to Toydaria, Opress accidentally killed King Katuunko while Force choking him and bulled past Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Punished again by Dooku, he was at last betrayed into action when Ventress revealed his hidden allegiance and attacked the Count. Tortured by Dooku's lightning and berated by Ventress, Opress overcame her control and turned on both, Force choking master and witch alike before fighting his way free. He returned to Talzin, who told him of his kinship to the former Sith apprentice Maul and bid him find and train under his lost brother.

Reunion with Maul#

Guided by the Talisman of Finding, Opress searched the Outer Rim for his brother, his trail leading to the junkyard world of Lotho Minor. There, beneath the tunnels of debris, he found Maul, reduced to a deranged, spider-legged shell of himself. Opress brought him back to Dathomir, where Talzin restored Maul's mind and gave him new legs. The brothers then set out together to take revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Maul lured Kenobi into a trap on Raydonia by massacring civilians, and the brothers captured and tortured the Jedi until Ventress, seeking the bounty on Opress, helped Kenobi escape. As they cut a swath through the Outer Rim, Maul asserted dominance, forcing Opress to become his apprentice in accordance with the Sith Rule of Two; when Opress challenged him, Maul defeated him ruthlessly. On Florrum, the brothers tried to seize the Ohnaka Gang of the pirate Hondo Ohnaka, but Kenobi and Master Adi Gallia arrived. Opress impaled and killed Gallia on his horns, but lost his left arm to Kenobi before the brothers fled.

Death Watch and the Shadow Collective#

Pursued and shipwrecked, the brothers were recovered by Death Watch, whose leader Pre Vizsla gave Maul new legs and Opress a cybernetic arm. The brothers allied with Vizsla to reclaim Mandalore, and as their first step toward building the Shadow Collective, Opress helped recruit the Black Sun on Mustafar, beheading its council with a single throw of his lightsaber when its leader refused. He fought through the recruitment of the Pyke Syndicate and the Hutt Clan as the Collective conquered Mandalore through a staged liberation.

After Vizsla betrayed and imprisoned the brothers, they broke free, and Maul slew Vizsla in a duel for the planet. Opress stood by his brother as Maul took the throne and installed Almec as a puppet ruler.

Death#

The brothers' growing power drew the attention of Maul's former master, Darth Sidious, who judged them a threat and came to Mandalore to destroy them. Though Opress fought hard, even hurling Sidious from a balcony with a headbutt, he was no match for the Dark Lord alone. Sidious impaled Opress with his twin lightsabers and flung him from the building. As he died in Maul's arms, the Nightsister magick left his body and his transformed physique reverted to its original form; with his last breath, Opress admitted he had never been Maul's equal. His death fueled Maul's rage for the rest of his life.

Powers and abilities#

Transformed by Talzin's magick, Opress towered over most opponents, his strength, durability, and stamina vastly amplified. He mastered the double-bladed lightsaber like his brother and fought with a style built on raw kinetic power, hammering and overwhelming his foes. He grew skilled enough to slay Jedi Council member Adi Gallia and to keep pace, briefly, with Darth Sidious. Massively powerful in the dark side, he could lift and Force choke Dooku and Ventress simultaneously and throw his lightsaber with lethal precision. Before his transformation he wielded crude Nightbrother weaponry; afterward he carried Talzin's enchanted spear and, later, a crimson double-bladed lightsaber.