Gorman Vandrayk

Gorman Vandrayk grew up on the Arkanian homeworld of Arkania, a male member of the Arkanian Offshoot sub-species. In the years prior to the Great Sith War, Vandrayk was recognized as an extremely promising and award-winning university student who impressed with his brilliance in biology, engineering, and cybernetics, and he was hired immediately after graduation by the Arkanian biotechnology titan Adascorp and set to work in the corporate labs. Around 3996 BBY, Doctor Vandrayk became the first to study the exogorths, a mysterious species of massive space slug that had been found in many disparate locations throughout the galaxy, in a clandestine Adascorp operation known as Project Black Harvest. Vandrayk led a scientific team inside a dormant exogorth and made a study of its brain, unlocking the secrets of the species—they traveled between star systems in search of sustenance, going into a sort of hibernation while riding the solar winds to their destinations. Vandrayk eventually learned how to contact and control the minds of the exogorths, and also how to speed their reproduction, make them grow even larger, and propel them with hyperdrive implants. Vandrayk believed that if properly controlled, the exogorths could be used to efficiently refine ore and other raw materials.

After studying the exogorths, Vandrayk met with research director Artonian Dobonold and Argaloh Adasca, the Sixth Lord Adasca and the head of Adascorp. Vandrayk's findings about the destructive power and reproductive potential of the exogorths intrigued Adasca, who believed that control of the beasts could greatly benefit Adascorp in the context of the ongoing Great Sith War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. When Vandrayk realized that Adasca was suggesting weaponizing the beasts, he decided that he wanted no part of it and immediately left the room—that briefing would be Vandrayk's last with Adascorp, as he broke his contract and went on the run in a junk-hauler known as The Last Resort. Hunted by Adascorp, who had placed a sizable bounty on his head, Vandrayk at some point did business with a notorious slaving ring known as the Crucible. He encountered a young Offshoot named Jarael, who had grown up as a slave in the Crucible and had spent some years as a slaver until she had finally had enough. Vandrayk helped Jarael escape her life in the Crucible, and she became his constant companion, pledging herself to protect Vandrayk as he aged and his mental faculties diminished.

Vandrayk and Jarael eventually took up residence in a run-down section of the planet Taris' Lower City known as Junk Junction, a site they chose because it was large and open enough to conceal The Last Resort. The Offshoots set traps within Junk Junction's mounds of debris to deter visitors and, surrounding their ship with tents and awnings, disguised The Last Resort as their home. Known to the world by the nickname "Camper," Vandrayk spent his days fiddling with droids and with The Last Resort itself, tinkering with the ship so much that he had lost track what he had done to which systems. Among Vandrayk's additions to The Last Resort were secret smuggling compartments known as "Camper specials," which could conceal multiple people inside. Vandrayk and Jarael took to selling Vandrayk's inventions to put food on the table, while Jarael worked as a day laborer at a Kedorzhan reclamation plant. Although the two purposely avoided the local swoop gangs in the area, Vandrayk sure enough became known in the Tarisian underworld for refitting old escape pods into shipping containers that could be used for covert transport—at one point, Vandrayk, at the behest of small-time Snivvian hood Marn Hierogryph, helped conceal wanted criminal Zovius Mendu within a crate of dried dreeka fish to be shipped to Corellia. One of Vandrayk's creations during this period of his life was a shockstaff that Jarael wielded as her personal weapon.

In 3964 BBY, the Padawan Massacre occurred in Taris' Jedi Tower—an entire class of Jedi Padawans were slain by their Jedi Masters, with the exception of Human Zayne Carrick, who was charged with the murders. After he escaped pursuit with "accomplice" Hierogryph, Carrick became the most wanted man on Taris. Remembering the role Vandrayk played in helping Zovius Mendu evade justice, Hierogryph brought Carrick with him to Junk Junction, seeking Vandrayk's help again. Upon their approach, however, they set off one of Vandrayk's traps and incurred the wrath of Jarael, who attacked and injured Carrick with her shockstaff. As Hierogryph unsuccessfully pleaded with Vandrayk to help them, The Last Resort was found by a law enforcement ship searching for Carrick, which contained Constable Noana Sowrs and several Jedi Masters from the Jedi Tower. Vandrayk immediately bolted up to The Last Resorts cockpit and raised ship with Carrick and Hierogryph aboard, escaping into outer space.

It was a short trip. The Last Resort had not flown in years, and the vessel lost power quickly after clearing the planet's atmosphere. As patrol ships approached, Vandrayk powered the ship back up, evading pursuit by flying into the Taris system's asteroid belt. The whole experience was too much for Vandrayk, who collapsed from exhaustion, believing that Adascorp had again come for him. The next day, the group traveled to the rogue moon, an anomalous planetoid within the asteroid belt that was constantly bombarded by meteorites—it was the last place Carrick and friends had all been together with their Masters before the massacre occurred, and Carrick was hoping to learn more about what precipitated the killings. Vandrayk dropped off Carrick and Jarael on the rogue moon's surface, then brought the ship around to the other side of the moon, as The Last Resort did not have functioning shields and would shortly be obliterated if it stayed where it was. Carrick soon found the remnants of T1-LB, a bulk-loading droid that been with the Jedi Masters on the rogue moon and which might have had a clue as to what had propelled the Masters to kill their students. Shortly after they found the droid, however, Carrick and Jarael were cornered by the Masters and law enforcement, who had tracked them to the moon. Vandrayk and Hierogryph saved their two companions in the nick of time, firing on the pursuers and escaping with Carrick, Jarael, and T1-LB in The Last Resort.

Once The Last Resort was safely away, Vandrayk set to work repairing T1-LB, whom Carrick believed held valuable information in its holographic memory. The extent of the damage to the droid caused some problems accessing the memory, so Vandrayk completely upgraded and restored T1-LB—he added a higher-class processor, a vocabulator, and a holographic projector to the droid, which was previously a fifth-class drone without the ability to speak. After getting T1-LB back up and running, Vandrayk accessed a holographic recording of the droid's final moments, which revealed that the Masters had killed their students after having a Force vision that they believed depicted one of their Padawans bringing about the return of the Sith and the fall of the Jedi Order. T1-LB then relived his destruction at the hands of Master Lucien Draay and flew into a distressed rampage that Vandrayk was forced to calm down. Only a few moments later, The Last Resort found itself caught in a tractor beam, captured by a ship that Hierogryph recognized as the Oroko, belonging to local bounty hunter Valius Ying. Once aboard, Hierogryph negotiated with Ying to free himself, Vandrayk, and Jarael, on the condition that Carrick come with them to cash in on the former Padawan's sizable bounty on Taris.

Carrick agreed to turn himself in to allow Vandrayk, Jarael, and Hierogryph to get away. Although they could have left him to his fate and been off, the companions instead formulated a plan to save him. As Ying brought Carrick down to Taris' surface, Hierogryph bribed the Orokos first mate to release The Last Resort in Taris' orbit. Vandrayk modified one of The Last Resorts environment suit with a trick helmet and an audio recording that would disguise Jarael as the Sith from the Jedi's vision and disturb the Jedi Masters. Jarael was then sent into the Jedi Tower wielding Carrick's lightsaber, which he had left behind on the Oroko, under covering fire from The Last Resort. Jarael arrived just in time to rescue Carrick, and together the group escaped Taris in The Last Resort.

Now carrying wanted fugitives and running low on food, Vandrayk and The Last Resort stopped by the Republic mining world of Vanquo, where they formulated a plan to clear a local mining camp of its staff by simulating an attack by the Mandalorians, a notorious warrior culture that had recently come into conflict with the Republic. Vandrayk hijacked the camp's distress channel, while Jarael posed as Jedi Master Q'Anilia—one of the Taris Jedi Masters hunting for Carrick—informing the miners that the Mandalorians had landed on Vanquo. Also influenced by Carrick's Force abilities and T1-LB banging on the side of their control building, the miners quickly panicked and fled, leaving the camp and its vast stores of food, survival gear, and power sources to the crew of The Last Resort.

However, while the group loaded supplies into The Last Resort, the Mandalorians attacked Vanquo for real. Jarael, who still was in possession of Carrick's lightsaber, was mistaken for a Jedi and captured after a brief fight, and Carrick had to physically restrain Vandrayk from going after her. Vandrayk was overcome by shock and grief and had to be carried to The Last Resort by T1-LB, who charged through a host of Mandalorian invaders on the way there. Once they reached the ship, they were overtaken by a Mandalorian captain, who attempted to steal the vessel and fly away. T1-LB managed to get a grip on the ship's loading ramp as The Last Resort took off, and the group was narrowly able to climb aboard before the ramp was raised.

Vandrayk immediately charged the cockpit, attacking the Mandalorian with Jarael's shockstaff and quickly gaining the upper hand, before casting the intruder down into the cargo hold, where T1-LB immobilized him. Vandrayk took control of The Last Resort and fled into hyperspace toward Mandalorian Space, tracking a homing device built into Jarael's . Once the Mandalorian heard that they were headed into Mandalorian territory, he spoke up and offered to help. Introducing himself as shock infantryman Rohlan Dyre, the Mandalorian revealed that Jarael was being taken to the Flashpoint Stellar Research Station, where the Mandalorian biologist Demagol was experimenting on captured Jedi to determine the source of their abilities. Although Dyre believed that saving Jarael was an impossible task, Vandrayk and Carrick refused to let her go.

Instead, Carrick came up with a plan. Once The Last Resort reached Flashpoint, Carrick posed as Dyre's prisoner and was brought to Demagol's bunker, while Vandrayk and Hierogryph hid from a Mandalorian search party inside one of the ship's special compartments. Once Carrick was taken back to Demagol's office, Dyre incapacitated the scientist and freed Carrick, and the former Padawan switched into Demagol's armor. Once "Demagol" and Dyre walked outside, the Mandalorian station received a holographic message from Hierogryph, who was posing as a Republic admiral. After Carrick surreptitiously used the Force to attach scavenged Vanquo mining charges to the camp's solar shield generator and a number of captured Republic ships, "Admiral" Hierogryph set off explosions that rocked the camp and scared the Mandalorians into fleeing the planet. Jarael and the rest of the Jedi were saved. Reunited, Vandrayk and the crew of The Last Resort left Flashpoint behind and headed back toward Republic space.

After surviving the madness at Flashpoint, the crew of The Last Resort journeyed to the banking world of Telerath, to retrieve a large sum of money held in one of Marn Hierogryph's bank accounts frozen after the Padawan Massacre. As Hierogryph could not leave the ship for fear of being recognized and arrested, Vandrayk ventured forth disguised as a "Baron Hyro Margryph," a wealthy recycling magnate whose account was mistakenly frozen, owing to his name's similarity to that of the wanted criminal Hierogryph. Although Vandrayk mistakenly left the document with the thirty-digit account access code on the ship, he surprised everyone by remembering the code anyway. Suddenly, however, a pair of Ithorian bounty hunters emerged from the bushes and made off with their banker, a man named Arvan. Vandrayk and Jarael gave chase along with Carrick and Hierogryph, the latter of whom recognized the description of the hunters as the Moomo Brothers, who were known in underworld circles for their incompetence and stupidity. Vandrayk had to pull out of the chase after suffering a faint spell, and, while the Moomo Brothers escaped with the banker, Carrick got close enough to recognize the Moomos' prisoner as his father.

Knowing that the banker was actually Carrick's father made the situation more dire for the group, and they formulated a plan to save Arvan Carrick from captivity aboard the Moomos' ship, the Moomo Williwaw. With Vandrayk posing as Carrick, the crew of The Last Resort confused the Moomos into fighting one another, which allowed Carrick and his father to slip away. Once they safely shepherded Carrick's father onto The Last Resort, they succeeded in obtaining their money and were soon on their way. In 3963 BBY, with Carrick setting off on his own mission to clear his name, the crew of The Last Resort decided that it was time to split up. To this end, the group made its way to the planet Ralltiir, where Vandrayk caught Hierogryph trying to sell some of his projects as valuable artwork—once Hierogryph promised to cut him in on the deal, Vandrayk allowed the Snivvian to proceed. Vandrayk and Jarael eventually dropped off the two fugitives on Ralltiir, where Vandrayk gifted Carrick a pair of phrikite vambraces that he had personally made before they parted. In return, Hierogryph gave Vandrayk and Jarael a crate of hyperdrive parts the ship desperately needed. However, Vandrayk and Jarael got more than they bargained for with the package: an HK-24 assassin droid, sent by Vandrayk's former employers at Adascorp, had stowed away inside the crate and attacked once The Last Resort had gone into hyperspace.

Although the HK-24 succeeded in taking down Vandrayk despite resistance from Jarael and T1-LB, another stowaway emerged to save the day— Demagol, disguised as Rohlan Dyre, who had been hiding on the ship since Flashpoint, revealed himself and destroyed the droid. With Vandrayk's health failing, "Dyre" attempted to treat the old Arkanian but was unable to do much about Vandrayk's delirium and weak pulse. As Vandrayk laid incapacitated aboard The Last Resort, Jarael took the ship to Arkania in the hopes that someone there would be able to help him. Jarael tried to evade Arkanian discrimination against Offshoots by disguising herself as a pureblood Arkanian and bribed a doctor into helping her get a diagnosis for Vandrayk, but Adascorp recognized its former employee's genetic profile from the sample Jarael provided and saw its opportunity to bring Vandrayk back into the fold. Lord Arkoh Adasca, Argaloh Adasca's grandson and the new head of Adascorp, brought Jarael aboard his flagship, the Arkanian Legacy, and promised to help Vandrayk if Jarael led them to him, a proposal that Jarael accepted. Vandrayk finally stirred on The Last Resort, only to see a holographic message from the Arkanian Legacy with Jarael at Adasca's side—when Vandrayk realized that the company from which he had fled for years had finally found him, he fainted once again.

Vandrayk was immediately ushered away by an Adascorp medical team once aboard the Arkanian Legacy, with Adasca claiming to Jarael that his weakness was caused by a pathogen called "Balinquar's Virus," which Vandrayk had supposedly contracted during his years in the Adascorp corporate labs. The existence of the virus was a lie—what was ailing Vandrayk was actually molds and allergens running through the air circulation on The Last Resort, from which he recovered quickly after coming aboard the Arkanian Legacy. Once he was healthy enough to move around, Vandrayk learned that he was being held until he finished the exogorth project he had begun all those years ago, and that Jarael would also be kept to ensure that he complied.

With Vandrayk's help, Adasca hoped to finally fulfill his grandfather's hopes to use the exogorths to benefit Adascorp. Adasca invited representatives from all sides of the still-ongoing Mandalorian Wars to the Arkanian Legacy, planning to sell control of the exogorths to the highest bidder and turn Adascorp into a galactic power. To this end, Vandrayk was forced to help a team of Adascorp scientists affix with implants a large number of exogorths near the star Omonoth to bring them under their control, in preparations for Adasca's sales pitch and demonstration for the interested parties. Once the work was done, Vandrayk retreated to his spacesuit stowage closet and contacted Jarael, still held aboard the Arkanian Legacy, over her locator bracelet. Jarael apprised Vandrayk of what was happening on the ship, including the presence of Zayne Carrick, while Vandrayk informed Jarael that Adascorp had for years been actively working to wipe out the Offshoot population. Their conversation was interrupted when Adasca arrived on the scene, and the head of Adascorp ripped the bracelet from Jarael's wrist and threatened to make her a test subject for Adascorp plague designers if Vandrayk did not continue to comply with his plans.

However, Carrick, who was present as a prisoner of Republic Navy Admiral Saul Karath, came up with a plan to foil Adasca. Working together with Republic pilot Carth Onasi, Carrick provoked a fight between the Republic and Mandalorian contingents, which served as a distraction and allowed Lucien Draay and the Jedi to advance on Adasca. After Vandrayk, still aboard the command station, received an excited message from Carrick saying that Jarael had been freed, Vandrayk put his plan to destroy Adasca's exogorth initiative into action. First, Vandrayk transferred the station's controls into one of his own computers, effectively locking out the other scientists, and then overrode the HK-24 droid guarding him and directed it to destroy the station's airlock. While Vandrayk was safely sealed in a spacesuit, he had ripped large gashes into the other suits aboard the station, dooming the Adascorp scientists.

Vandrayk then remotely directed The Last Resort out of the Arkanian Legacys docking bay and to the control station, boarding the vessel and using it to send a transmission to the Arkanian Legacy. Vandrayk taunted Adasca over the Arkanian Legacys comm system, before commanding the exogorths to devour the ship whole. Vandrayk then sent a message to Jarael, explaining that this would be their final parting—Vandrayk planned to take The Last Resort and lead the exogorths away from civilization and into Wild Space, then remove their implants and allow them to be what they originally were. Remarking that he was thinking clearly for the first time in years, Vandrayk bade his last farewell to Jarael, who escaped the Arkanian Legacy before its destruction.

During his life, Vandrayk theorized the existence of a machine known as the Vandrayk Generator, which he was unable to construct because it would run on a form of energy that did not exist at the time. The Vandrayk Generator remained just an idea for the next several centuries, until the time of the Cold War, when it was finally built by Doctor Tharan Cedrax, a well-known scientist and technologist who constructed the device to display at a symposium held by the Lumenatus Club, a secret society of scientific geniuses. However, instead of showcasing the Vandrayk Generator, Cedrax had a change of heart and used the core of the device to increase the sentience of Holiday, his holographic assistant and companion.

By 3964 BBY, Vandrayk was a hermit, a gruff, and direct man who spent his days fiddling with droids and talking to himself, always fearful that Adascorp would eventually find him and ready to run at the first sign of trouble. Even in his days at Adascorp, Vandrayk had a reputation for overlooking small details and often did not finish the jobs that he started. Vandrayk frequently dealt with criminals as he worked to support himself and Jarael, but he held little love for those with whom he came into contact. He especially regarded Marn Hierogryph, whom he referred to as "Snout," as a lowlife. Vandrayk also held distrust and disdain for the Mandalorians, especially Rohlan Dyre. Affected by the allergens in The Last Resorts air filtration system, Vandrayk's mind and body became progressively more addled after he left Taris. Vandrayk's memory began to fail him, and he often could not remember what he had done to which system on The Last Resort—but he still remained sharp enough to remember long number combinations, such as Marn Hierogryph's bank account access code on Telerath.

Vandrayk was fiercely protective of Jarael, his constant companion, as she was of him—Vandrayk tracked Jarael through a locator bracelet she wore on her wrist and was more than willing to fight the Mandalorians himself to save her when they captured her on Vanquo. Vandrayk's first reaction when he realized that Jarael had led Adascorp to him was to immediately faint. Though he hated "the Company," his need to protect Jarael was his weakness, and Adascorp succeeded in forcing him to resume work for them by threatening her life. Vandrayk was fascinated by the exogorths, studying them despite having an idea what the Adascas wanted for them. Vandrayk's interest in the beasts was purely scientific, and he wanted nothing more than to let them "be what they were." Vandrayk despised the entire Adasca line, and that feeling extended to anyone associated with Adascorp, even scientists who filled the same positions he once did. In the end, Vandrayk made the decision to leave Jarael behind for the greater good, trusting in Zayne Carrick, for whom he felt great affection, to take care of her. Vandrayk had white skin, white hair, and blue eyes.

Vandrayk was renowned for his aptitude in the fields of biology, cybernetics, and engineering before he had even graduated university, and he was widely regarded as a brilliant scientist during his years at Adascorp. After he fled Adascorp, Vandrayk spent his days tinkering aboard The Last Resort—Vandrayk had intricate knowledge of many types of droids and technological systems. Although many of his creations in those years did not work, Vandrayk succeeded in building such items as Jarael's shockstaff and Zayne Carrick's phrikite vambraces. Vandrayk was extremely skilled with droids. After Carrick found the shattered husk of T1-LB on Taris' rogue moon, Vandrayk completely restored and upgraded the droid, something that Carrick thought only a "miracle worker" could do. Vandrayk was still a skilled pilot even in his old age and, when his head was clear, was capable of planning and executing complex plots. Vandrayk became prone to fainting spells as the years advanced, but he was still spry enough to attack and overcome Rohlan Dyre with Jarael's shockstaff after Jarael was kidnapped on Vanquo.

The character of Camper first appeared in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Commencement, the first story arc of John Jackson Miller's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic series, released in 2006. Vandrayk was designed by artist Brian Ching, who drew most of the Commencement arc. Early on in the creative process, Ching submitted drawings of Camper and Jarael that were unique from how Arkanians had looked in past Star Wars media—this played into the general theme of segregation that Miller wanted to explore, and so the concept of the Offshoots was born. Camper's real name was not given as "Gorman Vandrayk" until Knights of the Old Republic 17, and the ensuing issues revealed his backstory. In addition to Ching, Vandrayk was illustrated by Dustin Weaver, Harvey Tolibao, and Bong Dazo during his Knights of the Old Republic run.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook
• Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia