Tirog

The biography of Tirog, a male Human, consisted primarily of incomplete, disconnected anecdotes about his career as a bounty hunter, the sequence of which was not always clear. Most of these anecdotes involved brushes with danger, such as operating an AT-AT walker while avoiding fire from a speeder, commanding a platoon-sized group of forty soldiers, getting involved in a landspeeder chase that ended in a collision, firing his light freighter's weapons at a speeder, or attacking a snowspeeder flying overhead. It appeared he came out on top most of the time, and managed achievements that could be described as heroic. He did not always meet with unqualified success, however. He was once forced to flee from a mob of angry Wookiees, and when lost in the Yar'En region of Goroth Prime without supplies, suffered from debilitating cramps and nausea from eating the native mosses.

While traveling together, Tirog and GT-9R found themselves in the office of Imperial Governor Dermeg of the planet Ansillivog. While in Dermeg's office, the governor accused Tirog of working for known criminals, consorting with Rebels, and committing crimes against the Empire for pay. During this interview, the governor threatened to have Tirog summarily executed.

Whatever the details of these alleged crimes or the truth of Dermeg's allegations, Tirog was involved in at least two recorded firefights against Imperial stormtroopers and Imperial Army personnel. He also tangled with the forces of the Imperial Navy, once trying to escape three TIE fighters while at the controls of a YT-1300 light freighter. His ship was also captured by the tractor beams of an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer at one point, though this may have been during the same incident.

Tirog also frequently found himself at odds with local authorities. While on a mission to the planet Besero on behalf of the Tagge Mining Corporation, Tirog was treated as a nuisance by the local bureaucracy—not due to his own actions, but because Tagge had caused them so many problems in the past. Tirog himself came into conflict with the authorities on Tatooine on several occasions, making it difficult to get their cooperation when he revisited the desert world.

Neither of these conflicts seem to have been as serious as his problems with the Gettiarn Space Station administration, however. While visiting that station with GT-9R, three armed guards leveled their blaster rifles at the hunter and his droid, demanding their surrender. Though GT-9R suggested negotiation, Tirog pulled out his own blaster rifle instead and returned fire.

Tirog also made enemies in the galactic underworld. For example, Tirog and GT-9R once ran afoul of the loan shark and crimelord Ploovo Two-For-One. Ploovo tried to set up an ambush for the hunter and his droid, but the element of surprise was lost when Tirog and Niner captured two of Ploovo's agents and learned about his plans.

Another confrontation with the underworld occurred when Tirog, Ace, Drebble, and GT-9R visited an open-air marketplace on a world with a bright blue sun. During this visit, they were accosted by a gambler accompanied by two armed thugs, who had been pursuing the group for some time. When the gambler and his cronies prepared to fire on the foursome, Tirog fired back. His counterattack immediately killed one of the gambler's thugs and stunned the other. Tirog's companions were not so effective in the skirmish, with GT-9R and Ace taking refuge in a nearby cantina and Drebble hesitating too much to take any action.

Tirog claimed to have dealt with people ranging from a Human Jedi to a Wookiee smuggler in the course of his career. Not all of them became Tirog's enemy, of course. He frequently met with friendly contacts, such as the Rodian bounty hunter Reeveid, in cantinas. He was on good enough terms with smugglers such as Platt Okeefe and the Rebel pilot Evinn Dastt to ask them for favors. When an unidentified individual paid Tirog to act as a "guide to the galaxy" for one or more novices, Okeefe and Dastt helped him give lessons.

GT-9R, Ace, and Drebble—his most common traveling companions—helped him out on several occasions. For example, Drebble once tried to repair a power coupling on Tirog's ship at double speed in order to hurry them off-world, while Ace once rushed to Tirog's aid when the hunter was knocked unconscious by a stun bolt from a stormtrooper's blaster. GT-9R may have been his closest associate, or at least his most frequent companion, despite their clashing personalities. While Tirog was a rough-and-tumble sort eager to fight in a crisis, GT-9R was a somewhat snobbish droid whose programming led him to avoid combat, sometimes attempting negotations in the middle of a firefight.

Tirog was a man of action, used to a violent and adventurous lifestyle. He was comfortable in disreputable cantinas like the Dancing Dewback, which he called "a good bar fight waiting to happen." His first instinct when confronted was to try and fight his way out. This was in direct contrast to many of his acquaintances. Some, like Ace and GT-9R, were non-combatants who usually tried to get out of the way when blasters started firing. Others, such as his smuggler acquaintances Platt Okeefe and Blaine Hansom, would try to talk their way out of trouble: a practice Tirog called a "waste of effort."

While Tirog seemed to enjoy combat, he had seen too much to have any illusions about it, and believed that people without the courage or experience to handle themselves in a fight were better off staying clear. He gave novices two pieces of advice: first, "don't get shot," and second, "always have a medpac or two…or three." Tirog saw the galaxy as a whole as a dangerous place, where some familiarity with weapons and combat was necessary for survival. He also knew enough not to enter potentially dangerous situations unprepared. When entering the Dancing Dewback with GT-9R to meet with a Devaronian contact, he made sure to check for potential entrances and exits and any heavily armed patrons before proceeding.

During the Galactic Civil War, Tirog described himself as someone in the "middle," affiliated with neither the Rebel Alliance nor the Galactic Empire. While he disliked the Empire, describing the Imperial Military as no better than armed thugs, he was pessimistic about the Alliance's chances in the war. Nevertheless, he did have at least four separate violent encounters with Imperial forces, and was a known associate of Rebels like Platt Okeefe and Evinn Dastt.

Tirog had a completely shaved head, save for a long fringe of hair at the back reaching past his shoulders. This fringe was mostly white, with red coloring at the ends. He sported several tattoos: red markings on his right forearm and temple, and a purple design surrounding his right eye.

Tirog was an expert with blasters, especially blaster pistols. He once sharpened his skills by training with a marksman named Hist. After a week's training, Tirog had equaled his teacher's skill.

Tirog was also skilled in piloting repulsorlift vehicles and space transports, especially Ghtroc Industries light freighters. As an able bounty hunter, he was also proficient at searching for hidden objects and individuals, and at avoiding blaster bolts and other weapons fire. Though Tirog was not an expert sentientologist, he knew a good deal about Wookiees.

In the course of his career, Tirog took care to improve his skills—and not just his combat skills. As time wore on, he learned to drive a hard bargain in the marketplace, and became more generally knowledgeable than he had been as a rookie. According to Tirog, his wide range of acquaintances, friendly and otherwise, meant he knew how different people would react to a given situation.

Tirog owned a battered Ghtroc Industries light freighter—possibly a Class 720 freighter. He had some smuggler "friends" customize his ship in return for letting them go free, reasoning that the bounty on their heads was worth less than the ship's modifications.

Tirog's personal equipment included a comlink, a pair of macrobinoculars, a jetpack, and two medpacs. His arsenal included a heavy blaster pistol, a light repeating blaster, a blaster rifle, a holdout blaster, and a knife. He also used a vibro-ax at one point. Tirog typically wore light armor including a protective vest and leg armor. During his time with Ace, Niner, and Drebble, he carried about 800 credits in cash.

Tirog's first appearance is as a sample character in "Tirog's Story," a series of gameplay examples in Bill Smith's 1992 roleplaying game book Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, published by West End Games. "Tirog's Story" covers the creation of Tirog as a player character, the setup for a meeting with Reeveid, a confrontation in a marketplace, with Ace, Drebble, and GT-9R appearing as other player characters, to provide a simple combat example, and an example of skill use—Tirog's failed attempt to fix a broken droid. Other short examples of combat and skill use throughout the rulebook refer to Tirog. Tirog's player in "Tirog's Story" is identified as "Greg," while the gamemaster in "Tirog's Story" is named "Bill."

Appendix One of the rulebook, "Roleplaying Basics," contains more roleplaying examples featuring Tirog. In these examples, Bill, Greg, and "Ted" (GT-9R's player) play through Tirog and GT-9R's meeting with a contact in the Dancing Dewback, their confrontation with Governor Dermeg, and an encounter with guards on Gettiarn Space Station. It also describes Bill's setup of a conflict between Tirog, GT-9R, and Ploovo Two-for-One as an example of an ongoing villain who is unaware of the players' plans. Tirog's second appearance, in Nigel D. Findley's sourcebook Goroth: Slave of the Empire, is also an example of game mechanics—in this case, an illustration of the debilitating effects of eating Goroth Prime's native plant life when nothing more edible is available.

Tirog's game statistics and equipment are based on the "Bounty Hunter" character template in the second edition rulebook. Though the template in that rulebook is for an Iotran character, Tirog is later depicted as a Human in Smith's 1996 game book, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded.

In the Revised and Expanded rulebook, Tirog appears along with Platt Okeefe, Airen Cracken, and various other characters in order to introduce the Star Wars universe and the rules of the game to players. Though Tirog and the other characters remain in character, they "break the fourth wall" by addressing the readers directly and discussing the rules of the game. Tirog, for example, claims to have been paid to act as a "guide to the galaxy" for readers. Tirog appears in the introduction, chapter 3 ("How to Gamemaster"), and chapter 5 ("Combat and Injuries.")

Tirog himself does not appear in the revised rulebook's gameplay examples. GT-9R does appear, but as part of a different group of player characters. This group includes Thannik, another bounty hunter character played by Greg. This gameplay example is identical with the "Dancing Dewback" scene in the previous rulebook, but with Thannik replacing Tirog and several other player characters added. Thannik's creation as a player character in the revised rulebook is also nearly identical to the character creation sections of "Tirog's Story." Several other examples of gameplay involving Thannik appear to be rewritten versions of the earlier rulebook's examples involving Tirog, including a passage where Tirog's associate Drebble fixes Thannik's ship.

• Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
• Goroth: Slave of the Empire
• Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded