The Jedi Temple Guard was a security force maintained by the Jedi Order and tasked with the protection of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the capital planet of the Galactic Republic. An ancient and honored tradition in Jedi history, the Temple Guards were Jedi Knights pulled from the ranks to become anonymous sentinels as part of their lifelong commitment to the Order. Concealed within formal robes and a mask, the life of a guardsman was a higher calling that demanded absolute emotional detachment. Armed with lightsaber pikes—a double-bladed lightsaber that produced yellow plasma blades—, or similar hinged double-bladed lightsabers, the Guards served under the head of security, Jedi Master Cin Drallig. During the Clone Wars, Padawan Barriss Offee was arrested by the Temple Guards for committing treasonous acts against both the Order and the Republic.

With the end of the Clone Wars, the fall of the Jedi Temple and the Galactic Empire‘s rise to power, one survived the Great Jedi Purge by pledging his allegiance to Emperor Palpatine, and joined the Inquisitorius—Jedi hunters trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force by the Emperor’s Sith apprentice, Darth Vader. The former Guard was granted the title of Grand Inquisitor.

During the Age of the Empire, the Grand Inquisitor committed suicide after failing to defeat Padawan Kanan Jarrus. At the Emperor’s command, Vader deployed additional Inquisitors to hunt the Jedi fugitive and his compatriots. Upon journeying to the abandoned Jedi Temple on Lothal, Jarrus encountered the spectral forms of several Temple Guards, including the Grand Inquisitor as he appeared during his time as a Jedi through a Force vision. After passing the Jedi Trials, the specter knighted Jarrus, declaring him a full-fledged Knight of the Jedi Order, a status the Inquisitor once held before his fall from the light side of the Force.