Life in the Margins: Three Stories of RPG Characters and X-Wing

A lot of X-Wing pilot names come from places you’d expect. They made a couple of movies about Anakin, Luke, and Rey, after all, and I hear they did pretty well. But if you’re a seasoned X-Wing player, you’ve probably noticed that not every name in the game comes from a pilot who saved and/or destroyed the galaxy. And while many of these characters are famous pilots from TV series, novels (both classic EU and new canon), and more, some of them are a bit mysterious.

When I first joined the X-Wing team, way back during the development of Wave 9 (First Edition), one of the first tasks I did to help lead developer Alex Davy was compile a list of characters who could fly these ships, particularly the Fang fighter, which at the time only had Fenn Rau as a canonical pilot. And while some of the names were pulled from Star Wars: Galaxies or deep cut EU novels, a decent number of them came from what I knew best at the time: RPG books. And RPG characters ended up working out well - their names had already passed muster for published works, but their limited appearances generally meant that these characters were free to fly whatever ships we needed them to. For many of Scum & Villainy faction ships which had short lists of pilots (canonical or apocryphal), this made RPG characters a great option. The list of RPG characters available to appear in ships kicked around for quite some time, and continued paying dividends well into 2nd Edition.

So today, I’m going to shed some light on a few characters whose names come from other published materials you might not have heard about!

Teroch & Roll

Speaking of “old,” this frame sure takes me back…

As I mentioned above, when the Fang fighter first appeared in Rebels, it was a ship with a very limited roster of known pilots. Because it was a totally new ship, it didn’t have any EU pilots to pull from, nor did it have an extensive list of pilots in its first appearance. In fact, Galactic Civil War-era Mandalorian pilot names were a bit hard to come by at that point, since we were still quite a few years off from them coming into focus in the ever-expanding canon of Star Wars television. But we did have one excellent resource for Mandalorian active during that period: an Age of Rebellion adventure entitled Friends Like These.

Written by Keith Kappel and Ryan Brooks, Friends Like These puts the players into the role of Rebel agents seeking allies against the Empire to save a threatened world. In one act of the adventure, the PCs must prove themselves to the Beroya clan of Mandalorians, whose members include Kad Solus and Old Teroch, and if they are successful, these skilled Mandalorian fighters prove to be a major asset in the final battle with the Empire. Written a decent bit before Rebels tread a very similar story, it was one of our best resources for Mandalorian pilots at the time. Little did we know how many Mandalorians from TV series we’d have in a few short years…

Teroch Trivia: In Friends Like These, Old Teroch can teach the PCs the history of Clan Beroya over a series of read-alouds. There was no space on his X-Wing card for read-alouds, but nobody is stopping you from breaking out Friends Like These at the table so you can regale your opponent with Old Teroch’s war stories.

Who the Hel is This Guy?

Man, Pilot Skill went up to 9? Wild.

In 2012, a solid 7 years before Din Djarin made the look iconic, Viktor Hel was the often bemused, always be-helmeted protector of a Force-sensitive child (and a bunch of other weirdos in his orbit). Created by the endlessly inventive Daniel Lovat Clark for an office Edge of the Empire game run by Sam Gregor-Stewart, Viktor Hel was originally intended to be a comic relief character, based on the intrinsic comedy of a “hard” bounty hunter trying to hide from his feelings behind a cool name and a beskar helmet. Of course, he instead ended up being the “party babysitter” to the aforesaid urchin thief, a megalomaniac droid, a Trandoshan doctor/chef, and "Lando Calrissian, if he was played by George Takei.” Despite Dan’s original intentions, Viktor almost always found himself as the sole voice of reason in his group of misfits. It was the best kind of RPG hijinks.

After that campaign, most of the characters from it showed up somewhere in the roleplaying supplements for Edge of the Empire at one point or another. Viktor Hel appeared in semi-retirement in a blurb in Suns of Fortune, then got pulled out of retirement for one last job in the introductory fiction to No Disintegrations, where he appeared alongside his mentor/rival from the campaign, Koshka Frost. They might also have dated? That was always a little ambiguous in the story, or at least the other PCs never believed Viktor when he denied it.

Viktor Hel made his way into X-Wing when Frank Brooks was working on Guns for Hire, an Aces pack including the StarViper and Kihraxz starfighters. Ever inquisitive, Frank came to me and asked who these people on the list were, and I gave him a rundown of each one. Frank really took to the idea of poor, put-upon Viktor constantly pursued by his inflated reputation from the successful franchise of holo-films using his likeness, and decided to use him for one of the Kihraxz pilots, giving him an ability that intimidates foes by causing them stress.

When 2nd Edition rolled around, we needed an extra pilot for the Firespray, and Frank and I knew exactly who it should be: Koshka Frost. We designed her ability to synergize with Viktor’s, rewarding her for attacking stressed targets and making the two a natural pair. Of course, the player is incentivized to use Viktor as bait and then have Koshka use the opportunity to bring down the target, reflecting their somewhat one-sided relationship.

Viktor Hel Trivia: The helmet stays on.

The Good, The Bad, and the Nom

Sure looks like he’s in that Kimogila’s bullseye… Not a great place to be, Nom.

Nom Lumb first appeared in the Edge of the Empire as Viktor Hel’s costar in the introductory fiction to No Disintegrations, but I first encountered him in an RPG campaign (again run by Sam Gregor-Stewart), played by my friend and coworker Michael Gernes. Nomb Lum was a Sullustan gunslinger, who lived recklessly and preferred to let the threat of his blaster or grenades do the talking. Though they didn’t appear in the same campaigns, when I was working on No Disintegrations, I chose to put Nom Lumb alongside Viktor Hel in the introductory fiction because they were a great comedic pair: a famous but reluctant fighter drawn back into the hunt by his obligations, and a pure mercenary willing to cut a deal with (or gun down) anyone for a payday. It was a classic Western teamup, and the right tone to start a book on bounty hunters.

This appearance got Nomb Lumb’s name onto the list, and when Brooks Flugaur-Leavitt needed a name for a scummy new pilot for the JumpMaster 5000 during 2nd Edition, Nom Lumb seemed like a strong option. Brooks had already designed an ability that caused the pilot to snap guns on target in response to fire, creating the feel of a high noon showdown, which was a great fit for Nom’s skills as a gunslinger. Sometimes, the name creates the mechanics, but sometimes, the mechanics find the name and fit perfectly.

Nom Lumb Trivia: Nom Lumb’s ship of choice in the campaign where he originated was a Z-95 headhunter, but a JumpMaster 5000 would be a logical ship for a bounty hunter to upgrade to eventually, if only because it would mean not needing to store captured quarry in the torpedo tubes.

Bonus: Unexpected Stardom

Who knew it was Jad Bean behind the stick?

This one doesn’t come out of the RPG, but is no less interesting a story. When 2nd Edition was in development, we decided to assign names, or at least callsigns, to all “unnamed” limited pilots. This meant that characters like Zeta Leader needed callsigns when they were updated to the new version of the game. “Scorch” was a First Order callsign that we came up with on the rationale that “it sounds like something someone in the First Order would call themself:” dangerous, edgy, and a little bit like a video game handle I’d have picked as a teenager, so it fit the bill. However, destiny had other, much greater plans for “Scorch.” When the TIE Fighter Owner’s Manual came out some time later, it revealed that “Scorch” is an alias of the legendary Jad Bean, and that he had joined the First Order after surviving the Battle of Endor, making the appearance of Zeta Leader/“Scorch” in X-Wing a small part of the larger Jad Bean Saga written across the margins of Star Wars history.

Jad Bean Trivia: Jad Bean became an instructor in the First Order, and has a speech to cadets in the TIE Fighter Owner’s Manual.