Sith Acolyte

Every Sith Lord was once an acolyte — a Force-sensitive taken young or turned late, thrown into the crucible of a Sith academy on Korriban or Dromund Kaas and told that only the strong deserve to leave. An acolyte is not yet a Sith; it is a candidate, one of many, taught to hate, to want, and to reach for power it cannot yet control. Most die in the training itself, killed by the trials, by their masters, or by one another — the culling is the point. Those who survive learn the first lessons of the dark side: that fear is a tool, that mercy is weakness, and that an apprentice's life is worth exactly as much as the power it can seize.

Acolytes fight with borrowed ferocity and half-mastered technique. They carry Sith swords rather than lightsabers — a blade earned, not gifted — and lash out with raw, untrained applications of Force fear and telekinesis. Alone, an acolyte is dangerous mostly to the untrained; in numbers, driven by a master they dare not fail, a pack of them can overwhelm a lone Jedi or a green party through sheer aggression and disregard for their own survival.

Run acolytes in groups of two to five as the rank-and-file of a Sith encounter — the bodies a Sith Lord spends without a thought. They open with Force Fear to soften a target, then close with reckless sword work, using Cruel Opportunist to punish anyone already frightened or knocked prone. They have no self-preservation instinct worth the name, so play them aggressively; a wounded acolyte throws itself forward rather than retreating. Against a party with a Force-user, an acolyte is a good teaching foe — a mirror of what a fallen hero could become.