Xan Derrycc Commission

Xan Derrycc was my character from my group's version of the DarkStryder Campaign Box Set from West End Game's Star Wars Role Playing Game.

He was originally going to be the Operations Officer, just another member of the Command Crew and regular Navy-type who would run the ship. For those who are familiar with the Campaign, yes he bumped out Darryn Thyte. None of us players ever ran any of the stock characters from the game, so we changed quite a bit of the story. However, as you may know the Captain dies early on, and First Officer Kaiya Adrimetrum becomes Captain, and so Derrycc was promoted to First Officer. Later on, my GM got tired of running the Captain as well as all the NPCs she had to deal with, so soon there was excuses for her not to be there, and then later she was written out and my dude was promoted to Captain.

The basic physical template for his looks started with Sir Kenneth Branagh, from his Hamlet. When I created Xan I was just getting into Shakespeare, and Kenny's movies helped me become a fan. I always described him as looking like Branagh but with red skin, generally human, kind of a red-skinned Thrawn. Since I had no artist way back when that was the best I could do. In some anachronistic role-playing, my fellow players and GM would describe hims as "satanic" or "devilish" looking. Apparently, they called him the "Dark Lord of the Bridge" I wanted him to be humanoid, but also wanted to develop his species.

My GM was a great guy, but not always great about taking character's back grounds and working them into the story to develop them. Fair is fair, he did sometimes, jut not a lot. Derrycc's race is Eltelaran. I thought of them as a planet that was kicked out of the Old Republic a couple hundred years ago for not keeping a central unified planetary government. They were a planet with still many nations, who temporarily allied to join the Republic, but could not keep it together, so they got the boot. Many of the nation's are space-farers thru and thru, given to star sailing and tactics, many of them training from the time of adolescence in the way of naval warfare (much like British midshipmen way way back in the day). I imagined their system or sector somewhat isolated by nebula and asteroids and such, so they had little touch with the rest of the galaxy and no idea the Republic had fallen. Eventually, the Empire saw their martial ability as a threat and rolled in. I figure that they may not have advanced as much technologically given their isolation so it was only their tactical superiority that saved them from complete destruction. Those that did survive limped along to the nearby system of Dak, the Empire's next stop, only to find it in ruins as well, but they joined with the Mon Calamari and helped them convert their cruise ships into warships and train them in tactics.

Some of you may notice the uniform. It is more of what my idea of the Rebel uniform should look like. A little better tailoring than what you saw in Jedi was some slight alterations. The bug nerds will notice the BattleStar Galactica wings; that is simply to indicate a badge of some kind.

The character himself is a Navy man, born and bred. I was discovering Horatio Hornblower and the Aubrey/Maturin series at the time. Throw in a dash of Captain Picard's stoicism, Captain Kirk's ingenuity (not charm suprise suprise I was still a virgin then), with a little Commander Hunter from Crimson Tide, Bart Mancuso from Hunto for the Red October, and maybe even some Lieutenant Tyler from U-571 (altho that may have come out later)