The Character
The character of Prince Xizor (pronounced Sheezor) was developed to be a cultured crime lord to contrast the obese hedonist Jabba The Hutt. He first appeared in the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project, which included a game and a book.
The Man
Xizor is a Falleen. The Falleen are a long-lived, green-skinned, humanoid species that evolved from reptiles rather than mammals. Xizor is advanced even for their cold, rational culture. He is tall, and wears his long, black, hair in a topknot. Under his clothes, he is described as “big,” what this refers to exactly is not known. He is very strong, able to jump his own height, without a warm-up, and practises martial arts regularly. He is an expert marksman and able to breath water for up to twelve hours.
Xizor is the head of the criminal organisation known as the Black Sun. He commands it ruthlessly, planning meticulous schemes to thwart his enemies. To Xizor, an enemy is anyone who crosses him, even if that person is the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader. Xizor plans slowly and carefully, he is more than one hundred years old, and has almost never ending patience. He believes that revenge is a dish best served cold.
Xizor masquerades under the guise of a shipper, running Xizor Transport Systems, but this only accounts for a small percentage of his money. Most of his fortune, which is third only to Vader’s and the Emperor’s, has been built up through the Black Sun. This fortune provides for his expensive tastes. As a part owner of the Manarai restaurant on Coruscant, he can dine on whatever meal he chooses, whenever he chooses, even if it has to be flown in, live, specially. He is the kind of man who will throw a diamond on the floor, just because he can. He views money simply as a way of keeping score.
Being a Falleen has one more advantage for Xizor. HE is of the ability to secrete certain pheromones at will, these pheromones allow him to become irresistible to any humanoid woman. They have the unfortunate side effect of turning his skin red, but he can live with that since the women are so under his spell by then they usually don’t notice. He does find the ease with which he gains a female companion, and does sometimes have difficulty getting rid of his women when he tires of them. One of his favourite tricks is to have an expendable servant present her with a deadly, radioactive jewel, then, later, have a less expendable servant, one trained in such matters, collect it from its late owner.
His Surroundings
Xizor has the third largest palace on Coruscant, and it is here that he stores his most treasured possessions. He has a jewels room, which contains highly toxic minerals, and beautiful glowing diamonds. On the ceiling of one of his rooms he has the entire galaxy modelled in holographic form, painted by hand over a period of three months. Xizor has a personal Shuttle stationed at the palace, with some of the most loyal servants in the galaxy staffing it. The side of his palace is dotted with many landing platforms, some equipped with hang gliders.
He uses a reclining form fitting chair, which for some reason has a malfunctioning vox chip which means that it pronounces his name Sccchhhheeezor. He has on many occasions tried to have it repaired, but has on no occasion succeeded. It is from here that he commands his empire. He believes that boredom is for those with no imagination, and can spend days merely staring at blank walls, formulating intricate plots.
Xizor would like to consider himself a man of taste, and has, tot hat end, cultivated miniature tree. He prunes it slightly, perhaps less than once a year, but that is enough, and it keeps him in perspective. He views his plans like the tree. He plants the seeds, lets them grow, and prunes them when necessary, then reaps the fruit.
Xizor also has a Skyhook, known as the Falleen’s fist. He does not like to keep any treasures on there though since, although Skyhooks rarely fall from the sky, he is long lived enough not to want to risk it. At one point he attempted to lure the Emperor’s own personal gardener away to work on his Skyhook. Palpatine, however, arranged for the unfortunate man’s demise before he could begin work. Xizor saw this as petty.
His Life
Xizor was born on Falleen in approximately 103 BSW4 (before Star Wars episode 4). He was a member of the aristocracy, hence the title of Prince. He lived comfortably there, but sought to increase his power by joining the immense, galaxy-spanning, criminal organisation known as the Black Sun. Through subtle political manoeuvring and a multitude of interlocking sophisticated schemes lasting the best part of eighty years, Xizor managed to install himself not only as head of the illegal network, but in the court of Emperor Palpatine himself.
However as he was securing his hold on the Black Sun, Xizor heard news of terrible events on his homeworld. It had transpired that Lord Vader had constructed a chemical and biological weapons lab on the planet, next to the capital city. Unfortunately a tragic accident occurred and a deadly virus was released into his world. Fearing the disease might get off planets, the Dark Lord ordered the planet be sterilised. Sterilisation meant the bombardment from orbit of the planet with turbolasers. In the ensuing massacre hundreds of thousands of Falleen were killed, including Xizor’s family. Upon hearing this Xizor had the records of his family’s death erased, and began to plot his revenge against Darth Vader.
Using the money he made from various underworld deals Xizor purchased an HRD or Human Replica Droid. Her name was Guri, and she could pass for human unless scanned using very specialised equipment. She was a ruthless, heartless, machine, and could be trusted to keep all of Xizor’s secrets, even ones he couldn’t trust to his lieutenants known as Vigos. Guri became his second in command, dispatching justice to his underlings, and recruiting new minions, but Xizor never relied on Guri, he knew that would be his undoing, and studiously avoided it.
Xizor kept close ties with the criminal organisation controlled by Jabba the Hutt since it was the only crime syndicate that rivalled his own. He did this in two ways. He first and most obvious way, was allowing Jabba to be privy to some secret, but trivial information. This made the Hutt feel important, and therefore vulnerable to manipulation. The second way was manipulation another Hutt named Durga. Xizor knew that Durga’s father Aruk had been murdered by Jabba and when Durga began an investigation into the cause of death, Xizor planted several false leads, forcing Durga to come to him for help. In return for highlighting Jabba as the culprit, Durga became a Vigo in the Black Sun, enabling Xizor to control even more of the Hutt Empire.
Xizor also had his stake in the War against the Rebel Alliance. He was one of the Emperor’s favourite courtiers, and desired to remain so. He believed that the Emperor knew of his illegal activities, and, fearing retribution, he toadied to the mater of the Galaxy. He did, however, believe that the Rebels may just win the war, and if that should happen he wished to look like a friend to them. So he devised a plan.
He convinced Emperor Palpatine that the Rebels could be crushed with a new Death Star. The idea of allowing the Rebels to receive the plans and location of the part built superweapon was his. He couldn’t lose. If the plan worked and the Rebels were crushed, Palpatine would remember his service to the Empire and reward him by keeping him in favour. If the plan failed and the Rebels won the war, he would be remembered as a friend to them, rather than an evil crime lord.
Xizor’s undoing proved to be his belief that he could bring Princess Leia under his control. He lured her to his castle and began to seduce her. The object of this exercise was to capture her brother and kill him, thus humiliating Vader, who had promised to deliver the boy to his master. The princess and he exchanged passionate kisses before Chewbacca intervened and alerted Leia. Although she continued to flirt with him, even stripping off some of her clothes, it was only to give Chewbacca enough time to escape and get back up. She ended the pretence with a knee to Xizor’s groin.
Enraged at her escape, Xizor chose to persue her and her backup (Luke, Lando, Chewie and Dash Rendar) through his vast palace. He had them cornered when Skywalker produced a Thermal Detonator, powerful enough to destroy his palace. This wouldn’t be a problem, except the detonator was on a dead man switch. Rather than call something he wasn’t sure was a bluff, Xizor let them go. He was more than a little irritated when Luke threw the device down a laundry shoot on a five minute timer.
Xizor escaped to his skyhook where he launched his own personal starfighter navy in a bid to destroy the Millennium Falcon, which contained Skywalker and Leia. He might have succeeded, even though Dash was flying his own ship, the Outrider, if not for two things. One was the arrival of Rouge Squadron, the elite Rebel X-wing group, and the arrival of Vader, bent on capturing him, or killing him. Although Vader offered Xizor the chance to give up, Xizor refused. He died when Vader ordered the destruction of his Skyhook.