Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction is a novel by Drew Karpyshyn, published by Del Rey on September 26, 2006. The work belongs to Star Wars Legends, the Expanded Universe material that was moved outside the official canon after 2014 but has retained its significance as a standalone body of stories.

The story is set in the era of the Old Republic, roughly a thousand years before the events of the classic trilogy, at the time of the protracted wars between the Jedi Order and the Sith Brotherhood of Darkness, which culminated in the battles on Ruusan. The book opens the Darth Bane trilogy and traces the title character's path from life on a mining world to training at the Sith academy on Korriban.

The novel explains the backstory of the Rule of Two, the principle that defined the Sith in the era of the prequel films. It was followed by the sequels Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil and was later reissued in the Essential Legends Collection.