Major Faction Crakull Crushed

Detailed Description

At its core, the Brotherhood of the Maw was a rampaging horde let loose upon the galaxy. However, after the alliance with the vile Sorcerers of Rhand, the Heathen Priests found themselves with a powerful home base from which to strike at known space. The subsequent conquests of Osseriton and Lao-mon brought stable sources of labor, equipment, and raw materials under the Brotherhood's control. As a result, the horde ceased to be nomadic; though its strikes would be wide-ranging, all slaves and plunder would be brought back to a single location, where they could be incorporated into an increasingly-centralized war machine.

This change in tactics meant that, for the first time, the Brotherhood had something to defend. Following the old idiom about the best defense being a good offense, along with the base and violent instincts of its blood-crazed soldiers, the Dark Voice decreed that all potential threats nearby would be forcefully swept away. The only major civilization in that isolated sector of the Unknown Regions was the mysterious Croke Reach, a collection of loosely-affiliated (and often internally-divided) colony worlds. They had been settled over the past several millennia by the Croke, tiny arthropods with a natural Force gift for creating illusions.

The Brotherhood attacked Crakull, capital of the Reach (and also the Croke homeworld), with overwhelming force... and without warning. The massive invasion fleet jumped into the system and immediately opened fire, targeting most of its orbital bombardment on the administrative center of Alkonost. The Croke defenders were accustomed to raids, though not anything of this magnitude, and reacted quickly. Huge shield generators protected the cities, and distress calls went out to the various colonies, begging for help from their fleets. As a huge force of marauders landed, intent on disabling the Croke shield generators, further defenses were activated.

Using their powers of illusion, the Croke cleverly hid their real automated defense grid, allowing it to fire invisibly into the ranks of oncoming marauders... and thus slaughter them with impunity. At the same time, the Croke conjured up phantom defenses to further distract and disorient the attackers. Although the death toll wreaked by this tactic was high, the Brotherhood soon discovered that the phantom defenses had no power signatures when scanned, while the real ones did. With the aid of jetpacks, a force of marauders under Zachariel Steelblood bypassed the defenses and was able to locate and destroy the power generators.

As the bombardment resumed and marauders swarmed the streets, Alkonost was soon laid waste. Crakull's remaining defenses fell shortly afterward.

Meanwhile, a delegation of Brotherhood warlords traveled to Explume Minor, a former Croke colony destroyed during a civil war. There they negotiated with the Lugubraa, a voracious species from deep space often employed by the Croke as mercenaries... usually against each other, a practice that all too often got out of control when the Lugubraa slaughtered and devoured both sides. Impressing the Lugubraa with their tremendous martial prowess and promises of an endless feast of blood, the Brotherhood was able to recruit the strange aliens into their ranks. The newly-formed Legion of the Leech soon left the planet on Maw shuttles.

As the battle raged and dark alliances were forged, one ray of hope shone through. Jedi Master Cedric Grayson, accompanied by his nephew Mikhail, launched a daring mission to infiltrate the Holy City of Gehinnom and rescue the Jedi prisoners taken on Jakku. Although their ship crash-landed, they were able to steal a Brotherhood shuttle from the surface of Crakull, allowing them access to the Maw's worldcraft. At the same time but independently, Jedi Master Vexander Graves - with the same goal in mind - snuck aboard a returning Brotherhood dropship and also made it aboard Gehinnom. All three of them soon converged on the prison cells.

As they approached, the Dark Voice itself was in the middle of interrogating its Jedi prisoners, Romi Jade and Aaran Tafo.

With word of Master Grayson's crash reaching his allies in the Galactic Alliance, the GA Navy dispatched the 71st Recon Group - accompanied by Padawan Dagon Kaze - to attack the Brotherhood invasion fleet from behind and extract all of the Jedi, prisoners included. Master Graves, reaching the prison first, was able to break Master Jade's bonds. She then unleashed a Force Scream, stunning the Dark Voice and its minions long enough for all of the Jedi to band together and effect a fighting withdrawal. As Crakull died far below them, the five heroes managed to escape to Gehinnom's hangars and reach the safety of Padawan Kaze's recon group.

These few survivors would be among the only non-Brotherhood witnesses to the fall and genocide of the Croke Reach.

In the weeks that followed, the invasion fleet brought a vast host of marauders and Lugubraa mercenaries to all of the colony worlds throughout the Croke Reach, burning and pillaging each of them in turn. The Croke, one of the few stable powers in the Unknown Region for countless millennia, were brought to the very edge of extinction, as few were taken prisoner (under the assumption that they would be difficult to control and would make poor slaves). This meant the end of the only interstellar power threatening the Brotherhood's immediate area of influence, though a few individual worlds remained... such as Mar'Zambul, the horde's next target.