With the success of West End Games’ Star Wars roleplaying game, it’s not odd that RPG magazines dedicated to the classic d6 and d20 games wanted to jump on the hype as well. The late ’80s and early ’90s saw many of these magazines publish articles related to Star Wars. Many of these adventures or character descriptions were compatible with one of the official systems, but they themselves were not actually licensed. That’s right, these RPG supplements were not considered official publications, as they were not sanctioned by Lucasfilm. What’s interesting though, is that some of these articles have been written or illustrated by people that were involved with the actual West End Games works, and some of the unofficial subjects were later referred to in official work. The best known work in this “unofficial RPG” category is the material published in Polyhedron, as this magazine (as part of Dungeon magazine) did actually produce licensed material in its final years.
I do want to clarify that the old Polyhedrons, to my knowledge are unofficial. There were a few Star Wars articles in Dungeon/Polyhedron magazine that were published after April 2003 that are official. (Leland Chee)
Anyway, with this warning that a large part of this article is not in any way part of Legends (or the “old canon”), I thought it was interesting to see what kind of aliens were discussed in these RPG adventures.
Unsung Heroes of the Rebellion
The first issue to include Star Wars content was Polyhedron 59 (May 1991), with a few character biographies in an article titled “Unsung Heroes of the Rebellion”, written by Joe Littrell. It featured four characters, the crew of the Capri Nitari, each of a different, never-before (or after) seen species. It contained some descriptions of their appearance, but no illustrations due to space constraints. An illustration by Andrew Ellis was later published in Polyhedron 63. The article links to an adventure in the original Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, titled “Class Reunion”, as it concerns the crew of Captain Scarlet Bloodhawk. The two planets mentioned in this article (Mandrine and Shar’Ack) were included in The Essential Atlas, despite not appearing in any other source.
Kelly Vermillion was a Human/Orlak hybrid, who was described as having a slight build with a prehensile tail, and red hair and light red fur on his extremities. Tyric was a Shaliz’Na, a native of the planet Shar’Ack. He was a muscular “bird-thing”, with a twelve-foot wing span, talonlike fingernails, black hair and light down covering his skin (and for some reason, Amerindian features). Nana was a Homanan, a mysterious race of shape-shifters. She was able to change size, ranging from “Ewok” to “Wookiee”. She was later forced into a Noolan body, after she lost her Homanan one (don’t ask… it had to do with some odd Bantam-era Jedi Force Crystal magic). Red was a Proliferan operative for the Proliferan Empire that was ruled by Queen Yentuki. This species was basically a species of giant, upright red ants.
Polyhedron 68 (February 1992) featured an article titled “Iron Hands, Captive Hearts”, also written by Joe Littrell. It was an Imperial communique to Darth Vader, written by Major Herrit of Imperial Intelligence, about the pirate Zhen Mirat and his crew. While Zhen himself follows a template called “Alien Student of the Force”, he’s only described as an albino from Tatooine, without any mention of a species. One of his crew was Chanchaz Iryt, a “Heavyworlder” from Kaump III (also featured in The Essential Atlas), and although his species is not named, his race is described as short with dense bone structure, caused by the high gravity of his homeworld.
The New Republic Campaign
Polyhedron 86 (August 1993) published “The New Republic Campaign: Preparing to Move Beyond the Movies”, by Bill Slavicsek (previously an editor at West End Games, who worked on many RPG sourcebooks). It was the first part in an ongoing campaign. This particular article only included two “new” aliens, a sentient and a creature. Jade (codename Watcher) was a Mikoan mercenary from Miko. She was described as a green-skinned female that could pass for a standard human, except for her pigmentation. Jade had green eyes and black hair. The Gellbeast, or Wardog, was a semi-intelligent creature with sharp claws from Gellefon. It was depicted in the article’s sole illustration, as well as the cover, both by Ray Van Tilburg. Both Miko and Gellefon appeared in the appendix of in The Essential Atlas.
Polyhedron 90 (December 1993) continued Slavicsek’s campaign with “The New Republic Campaign: The Battle for Endor from the PCs’ Perspective”. It focused on Endor and the Battle of Endor mostly, but did introduce a new species for the forest moon. The Octucor was a tentacled predator native to the Forest Moon. It had for tentacles on each side of its body, and was able to climb trees. As a predator, its diet included Ewoks. It’s attack on a group of Rebels was illustrated by Terry Pavlet. The homeworld of one of the characters, Corutarn, was again included in The Essential Atlas.
Polyhedron 93 (April 1994) added a setting to Slavicsek’s campaign with “Crystal Web Space Station”, about the eponymous space station. The station was build around a huge crystal asteroid, anchored by three engines to avoid it drifting into the Voidfire Nebula (all these locations re-appear in in The Essential Atlas). The chief navigator and scientist on board of the station was T’kyl, a Lucent female. The name was given to the species by Baron Administrator Daran Tal, as the language spoken by these aliens was unpronounceable by humanoids. 
The Lucent were a arachnid species with unique abilities based on their special connection to the Force (or as they call it, “the Life-Web” or “the Weave”). T’kyl was able to calculate hyperspace routes without navigational computers. It was speculated the Lucent had a highly advanced civilization beyond the Voidfire Nebula. Some more details were provided in Polyhedron 94.
Polyhedron 97 (July 1994) introduced Alara Fax and Tyanna Tymb, two characters for “The New Republic Campaign”. The former was a human, the latter a Sullustan, so nothing new there. The only “new species” in this case was the Vortal Tree, a tree found on Bestal Three, with crusty seeds that could be used for medicinal purposes.
Polyhedron 100 (October 1994) published “The Tyaonon Ranger”, a ship profile by Bill Smith (another WEG veteran) for a Stathas-class Freighter. That ship was produced by Mandal Motors, and was named after the Stathas, a sleek, venomous reptile from the Mandalore system.
What Else?
Just for the sake of completeness, here’s an overview of the rest of the articles, which have not been discussed above due to lack of aliens.
Polyhedron 83 (May 1993) published “Milk Run”, by Sterling Hershey, a scenario originally run at Gen Con ’91.
Polyhedron 94 (April 1994) continued Bill Slavicsek’s campaign with “The New Republic Campaign: The Luminous Bantha”.
Polyhedron 99 (September 1994) continued Bill Slavicsek’s campaign with “The New Republic Campaign: Lightsabers and the Force”.
Polyhedron 103 (January 1995) continued Bill Slavicsek’s campaign with “Prophets of the Dark Side: Villains for the Star Wars: New Republic Campaign, Part One”, which dug into the background of the Prophets of the Dark Side such as Kadann, Jedgar, and Merili. Parts of this article were later re-used in official publications.
Polyhedron 104 (February 1995) published “Prophets of the Dark Side: Villains for the Star Wars: New Republic Campaign, Part Two”.
Polyhedron 108 (June 1995) published “What’s so Bad About the Dark Side? The Ethical Dilemma of Force-Users”, by Lester Smith (who also wrote for Challenge magazine, and the official Tapani Sector Instant Adventures).
Polyhedron 126 (October 1997) published “Vignette Characters & Scenes for Star Wars: Live Action Adventures”, by Paul Sudlow (another WEG veteran, who also worked on Decipher’s CCG).
Polyhedron 128 (October 1997) published “Personal Universal Translator”, the winning tech toy entry for “It’s Technical, Billy”, by Paul Gosselin.
Official Business
Starting with Polyhedron 157 (May 2003), the remaining issues containing Star Wars articles were deemed “official” by Lucasfilm and the Keeper of the Holocorn, Leland Chee. Issue 157 published “I, Jensaarai”, an article about a sect of Force users by Rodney Thompson, and illustrated by Ramón Perez.
Polyhedron 161 (September 2003) published “Starships of the Galaxy: Vanguard-class Heavy Assault Gunship”, a starship profile written by Christopher West and illustrated by Jeff Carlisle. Polyhedron 165 (December 2003) published “Ord Vaxal: Prison Planet of the Empire”, a planet profile that included two new creatures, the Risp and the Trigha. It was written by Gary Astleford and illustrated by James Ryman and Tommy Lee Edwards. The same issue also published “Starships of the Galaxy: Arakyd Industries Trident-class Surveyor”, a starship profile written by Christopher West and illustrated by Jeff Carlisle.
Best know is probably Polyhedron 170, which published “Star Wars Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO” a source article about the animation series, written by Abel G. Peña and Rich Handley. It included an Alien Anthology addendum for the Annoo-dat Blue.
So, while none of the pre-2003 magazines were considered “official”, the fact that some of them were written by West End Games writers, and the fact that the planets all appeared in The Essential Atlas, does give them at least some form of credibility. I’ve kept any of these species out of the Alien Appendices published on this blog (for now, who knows what happens in the future), but none of them really feel out of place in the Star Wars galaxy. We’ll have a look at some more of these unlicensed RPG magazines in the future!
Alien Anthology 