Valin Draco

Valin Draco, a male Human, served the Jedi Order as the Galactic Republic neared its end during its final years. Draco trained under Jedi Master Denia as her Padawan. During the Clone Wars, he fully embraced his role as a commander within the Grand Army of the Republic, earning the nickname "Valiant Dragon" from those under his command. However, as the war progressed, his determination to vanquish the Separatists intensified, drawing him closer to the dark side of the Force. Draco participated in the Battle of Parein II 4, a conflict between the Republic and the Confederacy on the fourth moon of the planet Parein II, serving under Jedi General Sannen. After the Republic's defeat, Draco was wounded and left for dead, feeling abandoned and losing his loyalty to the Republic. While injured, he was attacked by a nighthunter, a dangerous, Force-sensitive predator species thought to be extinct. Draco fought back, and the two nearly killed each other. He eventually subdued the creature, but not before it bit off his thumb and severely scarred his throat. Instead of leaving it to die, Draco nursed the hunter back to health, named it Crant, and kept it as a pet.

Draco escaped Parein II 4 and joined the Galactic Empire, the newly formed galactic government replacing the Republic. He became an Inquisitor, one of Emperor Palpatine's, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Side Adepts. He received a cybernetic thumb to replace the one Crant bit off and used his Inquisitor tunic to conceal his neck scars. He commanded the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Assiduous and had the 12th Squadron of TIE/LN starfighters assigned to it at his request. Draco expanded his armory by constructing a red-bladed lightsaber and acquiring a Star Courier.

Draco soon took on the Dark Jedi Raik Muun as an apprentice. Muun harbored resentment toward the Jedi, but their destruction at the Clone Wars' end prevented her from avenging herself. She went to Coruscant, the galactic capital, seeking those who ordered the Jedi's execution, but instead, she met Draco. He saw her potential and invited her to join him, which she accepted, feeling loved for the first time. She accompanied him on various missions. Around this time, Draco assisted Darth Vader in torturing the captured Jedi Halagad Ventor. Vader rewarded Draco with a squad of Noghri Death Commandos for his personal use.

Around 17 BBY, Draco collaborated with Admiral Gilder Varth of the Imperial Navy to infiltrate the Alderaanian Resistance. Their goal was for Varth to become a member, gather evidence of Senator Bail Organa's betrayal, and prove he secretly led the Resistance. Draco had Varth express interest in joining the movement and, to avoid suspicion, had him imprisoned at a facility on Felucia, an Outer Rim planet. Draco wanted the Resistance to free Varth and limited the number of Imperial troops at the facility under the guise of secrecy. The Resistance took the bait and sent a team to free Varth. To maintain the appearance of Varth's defection, Draco sent a message to the prison stating he would arrive in the system aboard the Assiduous to take custody of Varth and requested interrogation chemicals be administered upon his arrival. The plan worked, and Varth gained a position in the Resistance.

Around this time, Draco became involved in the Sarlacc Project, the secret construction of a Super Star Destroyer prototype to serve as a flagship for the Imperial Navy. He oversaw a deal with the Hutt Darga Jiramma Mionne, who agreed to provide tibanna gas in exchange for Nazren slaves. Igren Demos, the Hutt's majordomo, secretly contacted Draco, hoping to use his Empire connection to seize control of Darga's organization. Draco's former master, Denia, had been held captive in Darga's palace on Cato Neimoidia since the Clone Wars, captured by the Separatists and placed in an artificial coma. When an Alderaanian Resistance team reawakened and freed her, Darga fled, and Demos contacted Draco via HoloNet. The Majordomo said he had cornered Denia and offered to trade her for Draco's assurance that Darga would never return to Cato Neimoidia. Draco agreed and said he would travel there aboard the Assiduous, but threatened Demos if he failed to hand over Denia. However, the Jedi Master escaped before Draco arrived.

Darga relocated to Bespin, and Draco traveled there aboard the Assiduous to oversee the secret transfer of funds to the Hutt during the Cloud City Sabacc Tournament. The Alderaanian Resistance team tracked Darga to Bespin, infiltrated the tournament, and discovered the truth about the deal. To cover up the arrangement, Draco used slave circuitry to control a Tibanna gas hauler and tried to crash it into the slave ship Shackles of Nizon, killing all the slaves and destroying the evidence. The team commandeered several Z-95 Headhunters and prevented this. While there, Draco sensed a presence through the Force that he hadn't felt since being with Denia, suspecting it was the same team that rescued her on Cato Neimoidia. As the team left the system, Draco transmitted a message, vowing to find them and make them pay.

Several months later, Draco traveled to Almas, a planet in the Cularin system, accompanied by Raik Muun, a contingent of Imperial troops, including his Noghri, and a detachment of elite clone shadow troopers, who he believed were good enough to guard him, as they had guarded the Emperor's storehouse on Utapau. He was sent to investigate the growing power of a Force nexus centered around the Almas Academy, a former Jedi academy, and because he had learned from torturing Force-sensitive prisoners about a Sith holocron there.

Draco arrived in the system aboard the Assiduous, accompanied by the Lictor-class dungeon ship Revelator. He first searched for any Jedi who survived the destruction of the Almas Academy at the end of the Clone Wars, but failed. Then, he headed for Almas. His ships were too large to navigate the system's comet field, so he and his entourage traveled to Almas in a Theta-class shuttle, landing in the remains of the Forard spaceport. Draco arrived at the academy ruins, immediately entranced by a surge of dark side energy. Seeking its source, he went into the caves beneath the academy, where he found the holocron of Darth Rivan, a Dark Lord of the Sith who ruled Almas over a thousand years prior. The growing dark side energy on Almas had enhanced the holocron, giving it greater power and allowing the holocron gatekeeper to believe itself to be the spirit of Rivan.

However, Draco and his entourage were not alone. Jedi Master Vhiin Thorla and his Padawan, Dorv'Tilsta, had arrived, seeking Jedi survivors of Order 66. They encountered Draco and Raik Muun, engaging in a lightsaber duel. Draco threatened to turn Tilsta to the dark side if Thorla refused to fight, and Muun used the Force to coerce the young Padawan into a murderous rage directed at his Master. Thorla struck down his apprentice, and the grief allowed Draco to easily capture him. The Inquisitor imprisoned Thorla in a Force-annulling Universal Energy Cage and left Crant to guard it, planning to turn Thorla to the dark side with the Rivan gatekeeper's help.

Draco took Rivan's holocron to a chamber beneath the Academy's archive room, studying it and learning Sith techniques. Influenced by the gatekeeper, Draco set traps and creatures around the academy to deter intruders. The holocron persuaded him to release two parasitic Guardian Spirits in the Academy's library. He also used techniques to create a Force illusion in a room that made anyone who entered fall asleep and experience a Force-induced nightmare about being in a familiar but unreal room, causing claustrophobia, disorientation, despair, and allowing Draco to sap their moral strength.

In the same room, Draco created a K'kayeh dreambeast through the Force, similar to those used to create Sith Dopplegängers, linked to a larger K'kayeh hidden beneath the Academy. The holocron also revealed the location of the Qornah Holocron, made by Jedi Master Qornah, concealed in a bronzium bust of the Jedi Master in the Academy's library. Draco sliced the bust in half, retrieved the holocron, and kept it strapped to his wrist. He hired the pirates of the Red Fury Brotherhood to patrol Almas's orbit and prevent outsiders from landing.

Meanwhile, Master Denia sent the Alderaanian Resistance team to the academy on a mission to recover the Qornah Holocron. They found Thorla's prison and killed Crant, which Draco felt through the Force. He continued studying the holocrons but was interrupted by the Resistance team. Realizing they were formidable foes, having survived his traps, he urged them to surrender, but they refused, leading to a fight between them, Raik Muun, and Draco's Shadow troopers. The Rivan gatekeeper used its Force connection with Draco to provide him with advanced Sith fighting techniques, turning his eyes golden.

Draco drew his lightsaber and used Force rage to enhance his power. He confronted them and attacked with his saber. However, the team severed the gatekeeper's connection to the holocron, causing it to dissipate and overload. With the Shadow troopers and Muun incapacitated, Draco, weakened by the holocron's loss, became desperate and fled to a large cavern's entrance. The gatekeeper summoned a K'kayeh dragon, which emerged from the academy's depths as Draco fled to a bridge. Draco used the Force to control the dragon, preventing it from devouring him, and threatened to destroy the Qornah Holocron, holding it over the chasm while firing Force lightning at the team. The team attacked again, causing him to drop the holocron, which tumbled into the abyss.

Against all odds, Draco pulled through the confrontation, subsequently undergoing extensive cybernetic augmentation, notably including a cybernetic replacement for his right eye. In an effort to conceal these enhancements, he adopted a black face-plate featuring a red optic lens at its center. He then placed a bounty on the Resistance cell, dispatching the Zabrak Vril Vrakth to claim it. Vrakth located them on Nizon, a world within the Centares system, anticipating Draco's favor upon delivering them. However, his mission ended in failure, resulting in his death during the Battle of Nizon. Some weeks later, Gilder Varth provided Draco with the coordinates of an Alderaanian Resistance task force positioned near Coruscant. Leading a squadron of Imperial-class Star Destroyers, Draco launched an assault on the task force, personally leading an Imperial boarding party onto the Alderaanian Resistance Nebulon-B frigate Resurgence, the flotilla's command ship. Three additional Inquisitors accompanied him, dispatched to offer assistance, though they resented being diverted from their own assignments and placed under his authority. Once aboard, Draco swiftly apprehended Master Denia, intending to depart with her in custody.

As Denia was being escorted to a shuttle, the Alderaanian Resistance team, whom Draco had previously encountered on Almas, appeared. Disregarding them, he boarded the shuttle carrying Denia, which promptly launched. He transferred Denia to his personal Star Courier and proceeded to the Citadel Inquisitorius on Prakith in the Deep Core, the Inquisitorius headquarters. He installed her in the Citadel's torture chamber, an octagonal room situated high within the structure, and began to subject her to torture. Despite his efforts, she remained unbroken, and after several months, her mind remained intact. This prompted impatience from his superiors, leading Draco to employ increasingly cruel methods.

The Alderaanian Resistance team, Draco's long-standing adversaries, journeyed to Prakith in an attempt to rescue Denia. They infiltrated the Citadel and confronted Draco in the torture chamber, where he was tormenting his former Master with the assistance of two T0-D interrogation droids. He immediately engaged them, initially adopting a defensive stance, utilizing an examination table for cover while employing the Force to attempt to incapacitate and disarm them. Subsequently, he engaged them in close-quarters combat. He seemed invincible, on the verge of defeating the agents. However, Denia, summoning her remaining strength, used the Force to grab Draco. The energy of her attack rebounded onto both of them, resulting in Denia's death and Draco's weakening. With the Alderaanians seemingly poised for victory, he retreated from the room. He fled to a landing platform and escaped the Citadel aboard his personal shuttle.

Draco journeyed to Byss, the location of the Super Star Destroyer prototype's construction, guided by visions indicating that his final confrontation with the Alderaanian agents would occur there. With Varth's consent, Draco assumed command of a Golan space defense platform, tasked with protecting the Star Destroyer and maintaining its position with tractor beams. However, Draco withheld his visions from Varth, intending to allow Varth to fail in defending the Star Destroyer, then intervene, secure the Star Destroyer, and seize control of the Sarlacc Project and its supporting fleet. While awaiting the Alderaanian Resistance's attack, Draco housed his Star Courier in Docking Bay 616 of the Golan platform and was assigned two Imperial Shadow Guards as part of their training.

Draco's premonition proved accurate when an Alderaanian Resistance fleet attacked Byss, seeking to destroy the prototype. During the battle, Draco's old enemies, the Resistance agents he had encountered on Almas and Prakith, boarded the Golan station, intending to use its weaponry against the Super Star Destroyer. The Inquisitor awaited them on the station's auxiliary command bridge, accompanied by a contingent of stormtroopers and his two Shadow Guards. He activated his lightsaber, allowing the agents to reach the bridge. Upon their arrival, he remarked that he had underestimated the threat they posed to the Empire when they first met on Almas. He offered them swift and painless deaths if they surrendered. However, their conversation was interrupted by Varth, who contacted Draco via a display screen, demanding to know why the Inquisitor had not deactivated the station's tractor beams, preventing the Star Destroyer from engaging the Alderaanian forces. Draco ordered his men to release the tractor beams and was immediately attacked by the Alderaanian agents. The agents killed Draco, enabling the Resistance to successfully destroy the Super Star Destroyer.

As a Jedi, Draco was characterized by heroism and idealism, aligning himself with the Republic at the outset of the Clone Wars. However, as the conflict progressed, he increasingly questioned the cause he was fighting for, ultimately abandoning his belief in the Republic following the Battle of Parein II 4.

Draco was known for his ruthlessness and calculating nature, avoiding hasty decisions. He favored manipulating situations to his advantage rather than outright destruction. This was evident in his efforts to restore Crant's health and his attempt to sway Vhiin Thorla to the dark side of the Force. He fully embraced his role as an Inquisitor, demonstrating skill in torture. However, he viewed his allegiance to the Empire as a matter of necessity, facilitating his own ambitions without feeling bound to it. Despite this, he considered being an Inquisitor his destiny, enabling him to discover his true self. By the time Draco reached Byss, he had begun to perceive himself as the Empire's future, believing he should emulate the Emperor by personally eliminating any Jedi he encountered. He aimed to secure a high-ranking position within the New Order by crushing the Alderaanian Resistance, hoping to deter future rebellions against the Empire.

Draco harbored a desire for revenge against those who had wronged or betrayed him, but he was also cautious about confronting opponents he could not defeat, knowing when to retreat. An example of this was his capture of Denia aboard the Resurgence and his decision to leave without engaging the Alderaanian Resistance team, a persistent annoyance, despite his previous vow to eliminate them. Draco genuinely cared for Crant and was saddened by the night hunter's death, though he attempted to conceal his emotions.

Draco stood nearly two meters tall, with black hair and fair skin. During his tenure as an Inquisitor, he received various cybernetic implants, including a cybernetic thumb and eye.

Draco exhibited a range of Force abilities, including Force lightning, Force Rage, telekinesis, and Beast Control. He also acquired techniques from Darth Rivan's holocron, such as the creation of dreambeasts. The holocron significantly enhanced Draco's connection to the Force, allowing him to draw power from it, though he lost most of this after its destruction. By the time of his confrontation with the Alderaanian Resistance on Prakith, his power had substantially increased since their previous encounter on Almas, due to the dark side energy he had absorbed within the Citadel Inquisitorius. After Denia's sacrifice, his power diminished, rendering him unable to continue the fight.

Draco was proficient in multiple languages—in addition to Basic, he could converse in Bocce, Dosh, High Galactic, Honoghran, and Huttese.

Valin Draco was conceived as a recurring antagonist for Dawn of Defiance, a campaign developed by Wizards of the Coast to complement the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. However, he was first mentioned in the sourcebook Starships of the Galaxy in late 2007, shortly before the release of Dawn of Defiance in 2008. Draco also later appeared in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia and was indirectly referenced in an adventure hook in the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide.

In Echoes of the Jedi, the fourth scenario of the Dawn of Defiance campaign, the outcomes of several events involving Draco are contingent upon the actions of the players, who assume the roles of the Alderaanian Resistance agents. If the player characters are captured or incapacitated by Draco's Noghri Death Commandos, they are immediately taken to Draco. Furthermore, if the players confirm to Draco that they were responsible for Crant's death, his eyes momentarily lose their intensity, though he quickly regains his composure. The players have the option to free Vhiin Thorla from his confinement, and if they do so, he joins them in fighting Draco. If they lack the knowledge to sever the Rivan gatekeeper from its holocron, Thorla performs this task for them. Draco then seizes the holocron and hurls it at Thorla, causing it to shatter and forcing Thorla over the edge of the chasm.

In Sword of the Empire, the ninth scenario of the Dawn of Defiance campaign, the player characters may encounter Draco either after infiltrating the Citadel Inquisitorius or after being captured by Imperial forces and taken there. However, given that the plot summary of the scenario in Dawn of Defiance: Gamemaster Primer indicates that the player characters encounter Draco after infiltrating the Citadel, this can be considered the canonical option. The manner in which Denia sacrifices herself during the events of Sword of the Empire can also vary, depending on player actions. If they successfully inflict significant damage on Draco and are on the verge of defeating him, he turns on Denia and attacks her with Force lightning, which she reflects back onto him. Alternatively, if it appears that Draco is about to prevail, Denia uses telekinesis to attack Draco, and the resulting Force energy rebounds onto both of them. The Gamemaster Primer asserts that Draco was about to defeat the player characters, so this article assumes that this outcome is the canonical one.

The players confront Draco again in the final scenario of the campaign, Jaws of the Sarlacc. If any of the player characters present during this encounter are Jedi, Draco engages them in a duel, prepared to fight to the death to defeat them, while relying on his Shadow Guards and stormtroopers to attack any non-Jedi player characters.

The release of the Legacy Era Campaign Guide—another supplement to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game—in 2009 suggested the possibility that Valin Draco is an ancestor of Antares Draco, an Imperial Knight of the Fel Empire. While the Legacy Era Campaign Guide does not explicitly confirm the familial connection, it is strongly implied in Antares Draco's entry; it is noted that an ancestor of Antares was a member of the Inquisitorius under Emperor Palpatine.