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SWTOR News
6/6/10 12:04 PM -
Paul S. Kemp on the Dramatis Personae for Deceived 
by sado
, posted June 6th, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Paul S. Kemp revealed the Dramatis Personae for his upcoming novel, Deceived.

I'm hoping to get approval in July to begin posting excerpts from Deceived, my Star Wars novel set in the The Old Republic. But in the meantime, I thought I'd post the Dramatis Personae for the novel. There are four core characters (these four are either point of view characters, or characters with a lot of screen time) and several important, but non-core characters.

The Core Characters

Darth Malgus, male human Sith lord.

Eleena Daru, female Twi-lek, a trained combatant and Malgus's companion.

Aryn Leneer, female human Jedi Knight and Force Empath.

Zeerid Korr, male human smuggler, former Republic commando

The Non-Core characters

Master Ven Zallow, male human Jedi Master

Darth Angral, male human Sith Lord.

Lord Adraas, male human Sith.

A few of the names should be familiar to fans who have read the Threat of Peace webcomic and the Biographies. The most notable character on the list is Malgus' companion, Eleena Daru, who appeared in the Deceived trailer and until now remained unnamed. Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived is due out in hardcover on December 28, 2010. You can pre-order the novel from Amazon.com. Hat tip to r2d2arm.
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39 Comments
Comment by Aeli made on June 9th, 2010 at 10:19am
Sounds good. It would've been nice if more of the characters in the book were from alien species that will be playable in TOR, though.

A lot of people's favourite Star Wars characters aren't human (Kit Fisto, Shaak Ti, Aayla Secura, etc.) and seeing so many humans as the main characters does make me worry that we'll only have playable species that are near-human in TOR, like Mirialan and Rattataki. I want those species to be playable, of course, but I want Twi'lek, Togruta, Kel'Dor and Nautolan too... amongst the other main humanoid species that I'm sure many others want.

Oh well, hopefully I'm just reading too much into this. :)
 
Comment by Evolancer made on June 7th, 2010 at 11:21am
I am disappointed. I expected that the name of the female bounty hunter would be revealed. That's an important matter :
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=144635&highlight=bounty+hunter+deceived+trailer
 
Comment by r2d2arm made on June 7th, 2010 at 5:46pm
These are core / non-core, still expect some minor characters here despite the listing on non-core given.
 
Comment by ArcherAvatar made on June 7th, 2010 at 7:06am
So the name of the Twi-lek companion is the same name as the door greeter at the entrance to the Consort's Chambers on the Citadel in ME 1... interesting I guess... also a little disturbing on some level.

Or, if it's not exactly the same, it sure SOUNDS the same when I say them out loud. Can't be just a coincidence, not with BW creating both of those games...

For myself, Zeerid Kor was the character that jumped out at me. The possible tie in (already mentioned by another poster here) to other character's with that name, and also the "former Republic Commando" part definitely sparked my imagination. I suspect I will look forward to his segments of the book the most.
 
Comment by JediCosmin made on June 7th, 2010 at 5:56am
Zeerid Korr... hmmm, i wonder if this man is an ancestor of Jaden Korr.

Also, the name Eleena is one we use here in Romania, with an 'e' less ofc, but it's nice to see some familiar things.
 
Comment by Stomp made on June 6th, 2010 at 8:04pm
Definitely excited for this, but why are all the main characters human, unless a companion? I mean, I know there will be other playable species besides humans, but they are seriously limiting them in everything I have seen so far.
 
Comment by Granados made on June 6th, 2010 at 11:19pm
I feel the same

they should rewrite them as iconic aliens races

give me some rodian love
 
Comment by Stomp made on June 6th, 2010 at 8:04pm
Definitely excited for this, but why are all the main characters human, unless a companion? I mean, I know there will be other playable species besides humans, but they are seriously limiting them in everything I have seen so far.
 
Comment by flofan made on June 6th, 2010 at 5:16pm
Hopefully we can learn more about Force Empathy, Wookieepedia doesn't seem to have much about it in their database.
 
Comment by Lugano made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:45pm
Although I'm excited for a book based in the TOR timeline, little tidbits of information like this only serve to frustrate me because I'm so excited for the game. Is it time for E3 yet??!?
 
Comment by Hewo made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:47pm
next week.
 
Comment by Hewo made on June 6th, 2010 at 3:56pm
This game is going to have so much background. Has any game ever had so much before launch? I mean comics, books, timelines, biographies, etc.
 
Comment by Fiasco made on June 7th, 2010 at 10:58am
WAR had much more info. Considering WAR was a table top game 20+ years ago (when I played it, who knows how long it was out before I got my mits on it). I think I read 10+ books waiting for WAR beta to start.
 
Comment by DarkImperialAgent made on June 6th, 2010 at 5:05pm
2 Books
2 Comics
Timeline vids
Biography entries
KOTOR 1 & 2 (in a way)

...No, no game matches the backstory that I know of. Of course, Warhammer Online has a ton of lore attached to it. WoW had the previous Warcraft games. LOTRO has massive books of lore. The only difference between these MMOs and The Old Republic is that these things have come out specifically for TOR. It's something Bioware did already though with Mass Effect. But I'm sure Fatal Alliance and Deceived will sell more books and the Mass Effect novels (which weren't all that good IMHO).
 
Comment by Darth_Infamous made on June 6th, 2010 at 2:58pm
Force Empath, Republic Commando, could we be seeing a sneak preview at advanced classes for Jedi Knight and Trooper?
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:08pm
Jedi Empath sounds like it'd be Advanced Consular if anything. Commando for Trooper works, makes me think of that game Republic Commando, which was sweet. :D Also, Commando and Shock Trooper are the advanced classes for the Soldier in Mass Effect, maybe that means Shock Trooper will be the other advanced class for Trooper?
 
Comment by r2d2arm made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:27pm
I also enjoyed Republic Commando! Commando is very likely as an advanced class path for Trooper. I think another possible path is a light armor version of the trooper, sort of like Imperial scout troopers. The closest example would be the troopers seem at the beginning of the Deceived trailer. There was also mention of this being a possible path in Developer Dispatch 3.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:57pm
I'm sure Commando could work as that, maybe. The 2 paths for Soldier classes in ME1 were Commando with higher dps, and Shock Trooper with higher health and defenses. If they were divided as such, the DPS-heavy Commando could wear lighter armor. Not sure if I'd classify Scout Troopers as Commandos though. Maybe TOR will divide Troopers up some other way. It would be nice if the advanced classes were a heavily armored tank class and a lightly armored buffer-type dps class.
 
Comment by r2d2arm made on June 6th, 2010 at 3:39pm
Empath seems to be too specific of a class path, but I also think we may learn some additional insights about advanced classes.
 
Comment by DarkImperialAgent made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:58pm
I agree. Force Empath seems more like a single ability, not an entire advanced class.
 
DH Team
Comment by sado made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:42pm
Glad to see Angral making another appearance since Threat of Peace, even if he is a non-core character to the novel. Also, for some reason when I first saw the name Adraas I thought of Andross from Star Fox 64, go figure ;).
 
DH Team
Comment by Sleeper made on June 6th, 2010 at 2:14pm
Haha I first glanced that as well...
 
Comment by MrPhire made on June 6th, 2010 at 2:12pm
Do a Barrel Roll?

Lol I agree though.
 
Comment by DarkImperialAgent made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:33pm
I think I may have to pick up Deceived when it comes out.
 
Comment by Loekii made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:20pm
A little bummed to see so many 'Human' characters, but that is just my preference. I am sure the novel will be good, despite it.
 
Comment by Elkesai made on June 6th, 2010 at 3:56pm
I think the main characters are usually human in order for the reader to form a connection and relate to them. Few writers, I think, are able to have any main characters who are far-from-human without de-humanizing the story.

And if it's a non-human character and he or she is given too many human traits, it takes away from that "alienness," and so might as well be human.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on June 6th, 2010 at 4:12pm
"Tales From Jabba's Palace" and "Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina" handle lots of alien main characters just fine. I think my favorite character from it isn't even human, Kardue'sai'malloc, the Devaronian.
 
Comment by Elkesai made on June 6th, 2010 at 6:36pm
Indeed. Note that I said few writers could write aliens like aliens without losing the connection to the reader. I didn't say none of the writers could do it.

However, if you think about it, how many of those stories were truly alien, and how many were simply the story of a human in the body of an alien? I do like some of those stories because though based on us, really, they incorporate enough cultural difference to make us feel otherworldly, but still maintain the connection to the emotions and situations we're familiar with. But, I've read some of the stories where you can almost feel the difficulty in the writing as far as what the hell this character is really about, almost like a tug-of-war between the alien and the human writer.

There's a balance to keep. The trick is to uphold that balance without swinging one way or the other.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on June 6th, 2010 at 7:44pm
Would aliens really be all that different from us though? Once you translate their thoughts into proper English, it'd just be a matter of varying morals and opinions, which we have on Earth too.
 
Comment by Elkesai made on June 6th, 2010 at 9:27pm
That's the funny thing--being humans who haven't had contact with an alien species (that we know of...), can we truly write a story based on a 100% alien species character? Would we even want to if we could? Would it even make any sense? The way Lucas bases many of his aliens on human races is an example that comes to mind.

Yes, I believe aliens would be that different from us, in ways we probably can't presently conceive of.

Anyway, I'm just saying, "Why not human?" It puts *us* into the story, and into a place we might imagine ourselves in, without throwing on some blue skin or tails growing out of our heads, or, in the case of Star Trek, your standard forehead appliance.

But, to the original point, I think writers use humans often to ensure that connection with the reader. I guess none of this other philosophical crap really matters.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on June 7th, 2010 at 4:09am
Well like that Stephen Hawking "Into the Universe" series on Discovery said, we can establish some things about aliens based on common sense of nature on Earth. Like prey animals need eyes on the sides of their heads to see in all directions to watch for predators. And predators need eyes on front so they have binocular vision and depth perception to capture prey.

Their moralities can't be too outrageous either. No sense underestimating human imagination. I guess the tvtrope "Blue and Orange Morality" comes close to what you're trying to say though, with aliens so alien that their morality wouldn't fit into the Black and White moralities we're used to. But we also have people like that on earth, with our thousands of distinct cultures.
 
Comment by sgtsavage made on June 6th, 2010 at 2:20pm
From my experience of all the star wars novel's I have ever read (30+), the main characters are always 'Human' and even when I read the Thrawn Trilogy, it was hard to imagine him as a "chiss" because he just seemed more human than humanoid (from the reading perspective). Usually there are a good amount of side characters who are non-human that fill that void tho. The book looks exciting nonetheless and I bet it will contain its fair share of creatures and species we will encounter in the game.
 
Comment by Drudenfusz made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:11pm
Force Empath? Now I start to wonder if the non-force classes in the game might have some ways to get the force nevertheless.
 
Comment by DarkImperialAgent made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:31pm
How so? Aryn Leneer is a Jedi so she doesn't fall under a non-force class. Force Empathy is said to be like Force Sense. It's about being able to pick up on another's emotional state. Yoda was regarded as a Force Empath, but I doubt it's something only Consular's know how to learn. Seeing as how Aryn Leneer is a Jedi Knight.
 
Comment by Keshrin made on June 6th, 2010 at 12:38pm
Well this should put to rest the idea that Vette and the Twi'lek in the trailer are one in the same.
 
Comment by Drenarb made on June 6th, 2010 at 1:14pm
Agreed. My first thought, too.
 
Comment by sgtsavage made on June 6th, 2010 at 2:24pm
well now.... maybe its her long lost mother, sister, or cousin!!!!!!!! hahaha. I can see that on the swtor forums as we speak lol.
 
Comment by Korrick made on June 6th, 2010 at 7:35pm
Correct me if im wrong but didnt it say somewere that Vette has a sister? I can't remember the name right now so it might not even be the same Twi'lek.
 
Comment by Drenarb made on June 7th, 2010 at 10:27am
It did in her Aurebesh writing on her Bio, but the sister's name is different.