Dryden Vos, a male of near-human descent, operated as the public persona for the Crimson Dawn crime organization during the Galactic Empire's imperial era. As the symbolic head of Crimson Dawn, he commanded substantial wealth and was the proprietor of the First Light. He brought Qi'ra, a native of Corellia, into his service as his Lieutenant, and contracted Beckett's gang to procure coaxium for him. His attempt to eliminate Han Solo led to his own downfall, as Qi'ra turned against him, resulting in a swift confrontation where Dryden Vos was fatally stabbed.
Succeeding his predecessor, Dryden Vos stepped into the role of public representative for Crimson Dawn, a criminal enterprise of considerable infamy throughout the galaxy during both the Clone Wars and the reign of the Galactic Empire. Unbeknownst to most, he was subservient to Maul, the Zabrak crime lord who was the true power behind Crimson Dawn. Vos used a ring to activate a hologram panel to communicate with Maul. Vos's Kalevalan yacht, the First Light, housed a study filled with artifacts, notably a piece of obsidian stone pilfered from a Sith temple. During the Clone Wars, he ascended in the criminal hierarchy, becoming a crucial figure within Crimson Dawn and a lieutenant in Maul's Shadow Collective alliance.
In 19 BBY, as the Clone Wars neared their conclusion, Vos received a holographic message from Maul, alongside Marg Krim of the Pyke Syndicate and Ziton Moj of the Black Sun. As key figures in the Shadow Collective, they were instructed by their master to retreat into hiding, as Maul foresaw the imminent end of the war, and the subsequent chaos that would follow, ultimately leading to the creation of the Galactic Empire.
During his reign as a crime lord, sometime after 13 BBY, Dryden Vos acquired Qi'ra, a Corellian, from Sarkin Enneb, who had previously purchased her from Lady Proxima, the cruel Grindalid leader of the White Worms gang. Proxima sold Qi'ra after she attempted to escape Corellia. Consequently, Vos demanded Qi'ra's unwavering allegiance to Crimson Dawn, marking her forearm and neck with the organization's symbol. Qi'ra rose to become his foremost lieutenant. She was also trained in martial arts, including Teräs Käsi. After mastering these skills, Qi'ra eliminated Enneb. At some point, Vos also established a precarious alliance with the Pyke Syndicate. On one occasion, Vos raided a warehouse belonging to the Razzi Syndicate, seizing low-quality andris spice. This led him to contemplate pressuring Zorba, the Hutt, to uncover the spice's origins.
Ten years prior to the Battle of Yavin, the rogue Tobias Beckett incurred a debt to Vos, promising a substantial quantity of coaxium as repayment. Before this debt, Beckett had assassinated the bounty hunter Aurra Sing under Vos's orders, an act that pleased Vos enough to warrant a bonus for Beckett. Beckett and his crew attempted to steal a coaxium container owned by the Empire from a conveyex transport. However, the heist failed because of Enfys Nest and her swoop pirate gang, the Cloud-Riders, resulting in the loss of the cargo and two of his teammates, his lover Val and the Ardennian pilot Rio Durant. However, his new recruit, the young Han Solo, insisted on meeting Vos to discuss the situation.
Upon their arrival at Vos's yacht, Han was reunited with Qi'ra, while Vos received Beckett and expressed his sympathy for Val's death, revealing his awareness of the conveyex heist. In his office, Vos informed Beckett that he would face punishment for his repeated failures, but Solo intervened, proposing another opportunity: stealing coaxium from the spice mines of Kessel. Initially, Vos rejected the plan due to the potential conflict with the Pykes, but Qi'ra ultimately persuaded him of its merits.
To raid the spice mines of Kessel, Beckett's crew sought the assistance of Lando Calrissian, a smuggler and sabacc player, and his droid L3-37, who transported them to Kessel aboard the Millennium Falcon. There, Beckett's crew infiltrated Kessel's spice mines, subdued Quay Tolsite and his guards, and successfully stole the coaxium, though at the cost of L3-37's destruction. After narrowly escaping the Empire's pursuit in the Maw Cluster, completing the Kessel Run in just twelve parsecs, the crew reached Savareen to refine the coaxium. Following Lando's departure with the Falcon and the crew's encounter with Nest, where they learned of her intentions to aid the rebellion with the coaxium, Solo resolved to deceive Vos and provide the coaxium to the Cloud-Riders. He and Qi'ra presented the coaxium to Vos, falsely claiming that Beckett had perished during the mission.
To their astonishment, Vos revealed that he was aware the coaxium aboard his yacht was counterfeit, having been forewarned by his "inside man" about Han's deception. Although Han initially suspected Qi'ra's betrayal, Vos disclosed that Beckett was the informant, having betrayed his crew in exchange for Vos sparing his life. However, anticipating Beckett's treachery, Solo had delivered the genuine coaxium to Vos, only informing Beckett of the fake shipment. Nevertheless, Beckett chose to take Chewie hostage and flee with the real coaxium, leaving Vos to confront Qi'ra and Han, resulting in a battle during which Vos inadvertently damaged several artifacts in his study, including the masthead of Xim the Despot. In the ensuing struggle between Han and Vos, Qi'ra intervened to defend Han, attacking Vos with a vibrocutlass retrieved from the corpse of Toht Ra, one of the Hylobon Enforcers. During the intense confrontation, Vos severed the blade of his opponent's sword, causing his own weapon to become lodged. Disarmed and vulnerable, Vos was ultimately impaled by Qi'ra and collapsed to the floor, dead. After assuring Han that she would retrieve valuables from the yacht and meet him outside, Qi'ra instead sealed the room following Han's departure and used Vos's ring to falsely inform Maul that Tobias Beckett was responsible for Vos's demise, and was instructed to transport the yacht to Dathomir.
Dryden Vos, a near-human male crime lord, was a merciless enforcer and recognized as a gangster of refinement and affluence. Vos mingled with the galaxy's elite on his yacht, the First Light, surrounding himself with luxury. Furthermore, Vos took pleasure in showcasing his remarkable collection of antiquities. His wealth and status were also reflected in his culinary preferences, which included delicacies such as colo claw fish eggs. As a near-human, Dryden possessed several alien characteristics, including a claw extending from his thumb and intricate striations on his face that correlated with his circulatory system's activity and adrenaline levels. In moments of stress or anger, Dryden's scar-like markings would intensify in color and his eyes would become bloodshot.
Although Vos was known for his ruthlessness, though not as a cold-blooded killer, he exhibited courteous behavior toward his guests, as demonstrated during his meeting with Han Solo. However, his politeness should not be mistaken for weakness, as he could swiftly transition from a gracious host to a ruthless killer. Ultimately, Vos was merely a subordinate of the crime lord Maul, the true mastermind behind Crimson Dawn.
Dryden Vos was a highly skilled martial artist. He received specialized training from Maul in Teräs Käsi, a fighting style specifically designed to counter Force-wielders. To complement this, Vos favored a pair of twin petar blades, which limited his effectiveness at long range but provided him with formidable versatility in close combat. As a practitioner of Teräs Käsi, Vos excelled in close-quarters engagements, as evidenced by his ease in fighting and disarming Han Solo.
Thanks to these abilities, Vos was able to easily outfight Han Solo (who was armed with a blaster pistol), as well as hold his own against Qi'ra; albeit eventually losing, he managed to force her to a defensive position with his attacks.
Dryden Vos was brought to life by Paul Bettany in the 2018 Star Wars Anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story. Initially, the character was intended to be portrayed by Michael Kenneth Williams as a motion-captured alien resembling a mountain lion. However, when the original directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were dismissed from the project and replaced by Ron Howard, Williams was unavailable for extensive reshoots due to scheduling conflicts with Gideon Raff's 2019 film The Red Sea Diving Resort, leading to Bettany's recasting. Despite sharing the same last name as Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, Lucasfilm has confirmed that this is purely coincidental.
One of the inspirations for Dryden Vos was the character Leo from Michael Mann's 1981 film Thief. Coincidentally, Leo's portrayer Robert Prosky collaborated along Solo director Ron Howard in the 1992 film Far and Away. Another influence for the character was Don Draper, the protagonist of AMC's drama series Mad Men. The initial draft of the film's script described Vos as a Tom Hagen-esque figure, a key character from The Godfather film series. Interestingly, the original Star Wars films inspired Bettany to pursue acting. The film's crew intended Vos to be the physical opposite of Jabba Desilijic Tiure, the Hutt crime lord from 1983's Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi.
Early concept art for Vos depicted him as an avian alien, then a reptilian alien, and ultimately a Lasat, possibly the version originally intended for Williams. In the original draft of the film's script, Vos was going to be based on Taanab. According to Paul Bettany, Vos's facial markings were created using CGI, a revelation he discovered when Howard sent him a photograph. Jake Lunt Davies suggests that Dava Cassamam's design may have originated as a potential concept for Vos. The facial markings, which redden when Dryden becomes angry, bear resemblance to those of Naare, a character from LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, a Star Wars TV series that debuted in 2016, two years before Solo: A Star Wars Story. This similarity was noted by Leland Chee of the Lucasfilm Story Group, who clarified that it did not imply any canonical connection between the two.