It can be hard to role play with a universe as big and expansive as the one in Star Wars. For the most part, the Star Wars universe has decent continuity and direction. Where do you start when trying to find out more information about a specific race in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Unfortunately, it can take a lot of time and even money to be totally versed in Star Wars. There are over 120 books, six movies, and thousands of comics that are considered part of ‘canon’, or stories that are accepted as being part of the Star Wars storyline.

Where do you find more information on the ‘Blue Man Group’? (1)

On top of that, LucasArts breaks canon down into three levels when there are story conflicts. The top level includes the six movies. If there is a conflict between information found in one of the movies and one of the books, for instances, the information in the movies takes precedence over what is found in books. The second level includes the books, TV shows, and LucasArts videogames. Everything else falls into level three. This level includes comic books and other items. Some roleplayers like to keep their stories as ‘pure’ as possible. If you’re one of those people, choose information from the highest level you can find.

Locating some of these items to do more roleplaying research can be hard. Some of the comics are now out of print. Purchasing all the books can get pretty expensive. Like me, you might not have had the chance to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) or KOTOR II: The Sith Lords (TSL). However, there are still some great places to get information at little or no cost. I turn to these sources all the time when I’m creating a roleplaying (RP) character.

• The in-game Codex
• Wookiepedia
• Books in the Old Republic timeline (buy them used or borrow from the library if money is tight)
• SWTOR wiki

Other great sources include the swtor.com website. The Holonet has sections on every planet and class in the game. The SWTOR Encyclopedia is a very helpful book. Sites like Steam and GameFly will let you buy or rent KOTOR and TSL.

Wookiepedia and the TOR wiki have some great species entries. (2)

There is a system I use when I create a new RP character. This process might be helpful to you if you’re not sure where to start when researching your new character.

The first thing I god is decide on a race and do a little bit of research. In this case, I picked the Chiss race. There is a Codex entry that game me some basic information, but I needed more. There are several books based on the race, like the Thrawn Trilogy. However, those books aren’t set in the same time as SWTOR. So, I looked at Wookiepedia for some ideas. There is a fantastic article about the Chiss. In includes information on their biology, society, imperialism, foreign policy, and more.

Then, I chose a class. I read up on how the Chiss fit into that class and how it worked with my faction.

Finally, I decided how that character should be dressed. The class-specific armor is generally correct for the Chiss. The end game armor pieces can be atrocious for this race, but species-specific items like the Chiss Explorer chest work well for anyone RPing this race. Fortunately, the mod system lets us use the look we want. We should enjoy ‘looking the part’!

For the Empire! (3)

If you have some favorite sources, be sure to post them here. The more RP sources we have, the better we can build our characters.

Image sources: (1) and (2): swtor.wikia.com, (3) TORWars.com