The cultists are a Sith service in the game Star Wars: Jedi Academy. The story of the cultists started long before, in the era of the Jedi Outcast, when Desann planned to use an army of Reborn Jedi to invade the Academy and restore the Galactic Empire. Kyle Katarn was able to stop the invasion and killed Desann, but his apprentice, Tavion Axmis managed to escape along side with some of the remnants of the attacking Reborns. Years later, Tavion returned with a Sith Cult named the Disciples of Ragnos. The left over Reborns from Desann's army joined Tavion's cult as the "New Reborn". Also, Tavion made her own troops using the power from the Scepter. Members of the cult had been empowered with the Force by Tavion's Scepter of Ragnos and wore different color suits depending on their abilities. Some of Tavion's Sith cultists were Force-users, carrying no weapons and instead specialized in using offensive Dark Side Powers such as Force Grip, Force drain, and Force Lightning as well as in acrobatics, but a few were armed with a blaster rifle and some with a lightsaber, and the most had basic knowledge of several Dark Side Powers, such as Force Grip, or Force Lightning, or Force Drain. The cultists, who used Force Grip wore a green battle suit. On the chest you can see a big V shaped form, which symbolizes the horn-like headgear of Marka Ragnos in my opinion. And the Grip cultists had a green mask, similar that some ninjas wear in several movies. These green fellows are the Grip cultists, they can apply Force Grip against an enemy.  While they are using Force Grip, their hand emits some kind of red light, also, the opponent's neck is surrounded some kind of red aura, symbolizing the effect of the choke. These Grip Cultists are a brand new and a very unique Sith service in the gaming world, so I decided to make a custom green Grip Cultist, that you will find on the bottom of this article. There are some other kinds of Force user cultists, for example the Lightning Cultists wore a blue battle suit, and could apply similar Force Lightning like Dooku or the Emperor himself. The red battle geared cultist service were able to drain the Force from a Jedi therefore they are called Drain Cultists, I have mentioned their ability earlier. The Saber Cultists wore a brown battle suit. Most of these brown cultists were trained in the basics of lightsaber combat. They were able to defeat ordinary enemies pretty easily, though they were not skilled or disciplined enough to defeat an average Jedi from Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy, normally only having the rudimentary knowledge of just one lightsaber style. They had little skill in Force powers, but all were trained to use Force Jump and to employ Force Push defensively (if they were choked, they could Push the enemy away). To a well-trained Jedi Academy gamer the cultists only posed a threat when confronted in groups. Generally cultists operated in pairs or small groups, typically with one lightsaber-using cultist backed up by a force user to maximize their abilities. That is pretty pesky, they like to attack together, while the saber cultist or the new Reborn rushes you, the Grip Cultists like to stay behind, and support the Reborns by choking you, and lifting you up. While you are being choked, your lightsaber is being deactivated, so you can not use it. You are quite helpless, that is the time when the Reborns like to attack you, throwing their saber in your stomach, or cutting you into tiny little pieces, so quickly push away the Grip Cultist, and finish him off. After you took care of him, you can play the game with the Reborn, who is not a big hero without his Grip cultist supporter... :-) In this screenshot one of the readers of CustomStarWars, nicknamed Darth Stryker of the Sith is just introducing you how to cut the saber cultist into REALLY pieces, you can see the green parts of the yet killed grip cultist, and its time to meet Marka Ragnos for the remaining saber cultists. And knowing Stryker, they will surely meet him very soon... :-)

In combat, the cultists usually taunted their opponents heavily and arrogantly. They like to say things like is that all, Jedi, I expecting more from you big guy, and things like that. If you die, the cultist are laughing at you, stand over your body they praise themselves, and abuse you. I let myself be killed by one to be able to make this screenshot, this Grip cultist rushed to my dead body, and he was opprobriating me for at least 2 minutes, singing glories for himself... :-)

The cultists and New Reborns were present on Korriban and fought the Jedi furiously to prevent them from reaching Marka Ragnos' tomb and halting Tavion's resurrection of the ancient Sith Lord. Jaden Korr penetrated their defenses, gaining access to Ragnos' tomb. Many of the cultists and New Reborn were slain by Jaden Korr on Korriban. You could quickly kill the Grip cultists first while controlling Jaden in the game, and without them you could play joust with the Reborns. The other tactic is to apply Force Resistance, so you'll be resistant against every kind of Force Powers, so you can deal the Reborns first, the Grip Cultist can not harm you, and after everybody is dealt with, you can go to "speak" to the still choking cultist... :-) In this screenshot our reader is somersaulting towards a grip cultist, aiming his torso with the lightsaber, poor alone grip cultist cannot do too much without his Reborn friends... :-)

Darth Stryker sent us some really cool screenshots, which he made to illustrate some really typical things about the cultists. He used a very new program, the Knights of the Force (KOTF), which is a great adaptation of the old Jedi Academy engine with many new scenes, many new characters, new customizable lightsabers, and battle events, hopefully we can introduce you this program very soon, if I receive enough screenshots and information about the new game.

written and translated by: Norbert Rostas