Gwellib Ap-Llewff

A Force-sensitive Humanoid male with a short, snout-like nose, Gwellib Ap-Llewff was a member of the Jedi Order. However, he wasn't selected to become a Padawan learner; instead, he joined the ranks of the Agricultural Corps. He was one of over a hundred Force-sensitives—made up of former AgriCorps members and others kidnapped over a duration of several years—kept on the planet Byss by Darth Sidious and his aide, Sly Moore, during the Clone Wars. They were slowly turned to the dark side of the Force, and made absolutely loyal to Sidious. When the Sith Lord's public persona, Palpatine, dissolved the Galactic Republic and created the first Galactic Empire in 19 BBY, he told his apprentice, Darth Vader, to select several of the recruits to become "extensions of his will." Vader arrived in the hall where Ap-Llewff and the other recruits were training and mocked those who had desired to become Jedi. He Force choked several of the students, though Ap-Llewff and three others—Tremayne, Halmere, and Lanu Pasiq—fended him off. Using crude sticks, they attacked Vader and kept the Dark Lord at bay. Impressed, Vader took the four to become his dark-side agents.

The four dark-siders were inducted into a new organization, the Inquisitorius, which reported directly to Vader and the Emperor. The Inquisitorius was tasked with destroying what was left of the Old Republic, including the few Jedi who had survived Order 66. They were taken to Coruscant with Vader to speak to a gathering of members of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order Sub-Adult Group. Ap-Llewff and Lanu Pasiq looked on as Tremayne made his speech, praising Vader and the Empire. After the speech, Vader took his four Inquisitors to watch them duel each other with lightsabers and begin their training. During the fight, Tremayne incapacitated Pasiq and Halmere and took their lightsabers, leaving Ap-Llewff and Tremayne to face off. Ap-Llewff, not wishing to duel Tremayne's three weapons, surrendered, and Vader left them. Tremayne was sent to hunt down several rogue Jedi while the others continued their training, though Ap-Llewff, Halmere, and Pasiq soon had to assist their fellow Inquisitor.

They forced entry into a ship on Coruscant where Tremayne had been bested by "Jodd Sonta," a fugitive Jedi. The three Inquisitors were met with Zonder, a Selonian Jedi, and several other of Sonta's affiliates. They ordered Sonta's allies to return to their cabins—bar Zonder, whom they wanted to take back to Vader. The Inquisitors were not expecting an attack and were not armed with their lightsabers; Ap-Llewff and his peers were attacked and defeated by the unarmed criminals, bound together, and left on the ship as the Jedi and their allies fled. Eventually, Ap-Llewff was released and returned to an Imperial facility, but Tremayne, who had become the de facto leader of the four, strictly forbade them to tell Vader of their failure. While Tremayne and Lanu Pasiq were sent after "Jodd Sonta," Ap-Llewff and Halmere were sent to hunt down the Jedi elsewhere in the galaxy.

Eventually, however, Ap-Llewff was transferred permanently to Byss to become one of the Emperor's Dark Side Adepts. These Adepts were hand picked by Palpatine because of their abilities and their loyalty, and they performed whatever tasks he required of them; Ap-Llewff and another Dark Side Adept, Savuud Thimram, were often stationed at the entrance to Palpatine's Imperial Citadel. While serving on Byss, Ap-Llewff took to wearing ceremonial dress from his native planet and carrying a jeweled walking stick, though he also carried his lightsaber with him at all times. Palpatine's minions, including Ap-Llewff, used Byss's natural dark-side connection to further their powers, and they fed off the life forces of the entire populace of the Core World.

After Palpatine's first death at the hands of Darth Vader—who had been turned against his Master by Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker—at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Emperor's spirit traveled to Byss to inhabit a cloned body. After several years, he and his loyal Imperials launched an attack on the New Republic, finally revealing the Emperor's revival. Luke Skywalker, now a self-proclaimed Jedi Master, decided that the only way to defeat the Reborn Emperor would be to travel to Byss and attempt to defeat the dark side from within. Ap-Llewff and Thimram were waiting for him.

When Skywalker arrived at the Imperial Citadel in 10 ABY, Ap-Llewff, Thimram, and several other Dark Side Adepts watched as the Jedi pushed aside the Citadel guards with ease; they found the altercation quite amusing. Thimram ordered his companion to keep a close eye on Skywalker as he advanced towards Palpatine's position, though they decided not to attack him and take him to Palpatine personally—it was all the same to them whether he went with an escort or of his own free will. Believing that Skywalker was walking towards his peril, Ap-Llewff and his fellows mocked him with raucous laughter. However, Palpatine was eventually defeated, and Byss was left a smoking rubble after being attacked by the Galaxy Gun superweapon. The planet took all its inhabitants with it to the grave.

Gwellib Ap-Llewff was loyal to the Imperial cause and spent the majority of his life serving others—Vader, Tremayne, Palpatine, and Thimram among them. He rarely spoke, letting others direct and guide him. Although determined, Ap-Llewff knew when to give up, and during his initial sparring lessons he surrendered rather than fight with Tremayne. Ap-Llewff and Thimram both found Luke Skywalker's plight highly amusing, and they mocked and jeered him as he strode past them toward Palpatine.

Ap-Llewff was a member of an unidentified humanoid species, with a large, protruding, snout-like nose, which continued to grow as he aged. Although he had a thin build as a youth, by 10 ABY Ap-Llewff had grown in stature and was considerably taller than Thimram, a Human male. While he was an Inquisitor, Ap-Llewff wore the traditional robes of the order, though when serving Palpatine on Byss he often carried a ceremonial, jewel-crusted walking stick and wore traditional ceremonial garb from his homeworld; many different species were represented in the Dark Side Adepts, and Byss was not mired with Humanocentrism as was Coruscant.

Gwellib Ap-Llewff was trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force by both Palpatine and Vader, leaving him with lightsaber combat abilities and myriad Force powers. However, Ap-Llewff's talents with a lightsaber were less than those of Antinnis Tremayne, and he was defeated in a duel by the Human early in his Imperial career. Ap-Llewff, Lanu Pasiq, and Halmere were also easily outmaneuvered by the Jedi Zonder and his allies in 19 BBY, when the Inquisitors opted to use blasters instead of their lightsabers. Later, while serving as the Emperor's Dark Side Adept, Ap-Llewff was able to use many Force abilities taught to him by Palpatine, though he always carried his lightsaber with him. He could use the Force to heal others, to sense attack, and to control other beings' minds, among other abilities.

Gwellib Ap-Llewff first appeared in the second issue of Tom Veitch's Star Wars: Dark Empire series, where he was illustrated by Cam Kennedy. He appeared only on one page and was not named, though Michael Allen Horne's Dark Empire Sourcebook provided his name and also listed Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game statistics. He was later reused by Paul Ens in his webstrip, Evasive Action: Recruitment, drawn by Thomas Hodges, in 2005, though he was only identified as Ap-Llewff in Paul Ens's blog. In 2008 he received an entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, which established that he was a member of the AgriCorps, as was implied by Evasive Action: Recruitment. His Encyclopedia entry was later republished on the StarWars.com Databank. Both entries misspell his surname as "Ap-Llewf."

• Dark Empire Sourcebook
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
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