Drewika Ziratae

Get in. We need to talk.”
“There's not enough room for me and your ego.
—Drewika and Kara Ziratae
**Drewika Ziratae**, born **Drew Jaing Ziratae**, was a Force-sensitive male Acrolian Human active from the last days of the Great Peace of the Republic to the post-Imperial period. One of the few figures of galactic significance to originate from the backwater world of Acrolis, he was best remembered for his part in founding the Acrolian Star Empire, a burgeoning galactic superpower for which he served as its first emperor, and for his tenure in service to the Galactic Empire as its Military Executor.

Though Force-sensitive, Ziratae's connection to the Force was tenuous enough to not attract the attention of the Jedi, though protracted training under various Force-using tutors in his youth helped him develop a basic competency in the most elementary of Force powers. Subsequent exposure to Palpatine's Enhance Force Sensitivity rituals during the Imperial period as a member of the Empire's Dark Side Adepts served to augment his weak connection to the Force; however, even at his most Forceful, he was only ever as powerful as an average Jedi Knight and was readily outmatched by more Forceful opponents.

## Biography

### Early life

Drew Jaing Ziratae was born in 55 BBY on the planet Acrolis, an insignificant backwater world situated in the Sanbra sector of the Outer Rim Territories. Eldest son of Munin Ziratae and his wife Mako Ziratae, he was the heir apparent and scion of Clan Ziratae, a family of Acrolian Humans that constituted the last vestigial traces of the ancient Mandalorian clan that had subjugated Acrolis millennia prior. Though his Mandalorian father preferred the traditional Mando'a name "Jaing," his mother, a native of Ord Mynock, insisted their son be called "Drew," a name used on her homeworld. Though he initially disliked the name, Munin Ziratae took to calling his young son by the affectionate *Drew'ika* meaning "little Drew" in *Mando'a*, a sobriquet the young Ziratae embraced in his youth and eventually adopted as his legal name after his father's death.

The young Drew'ika saw little of his father prior to the age of eight standard years old. Munin Ziratae was a noted galactic traveller with a passion for his family's rich Mandalorian heritage, a passion which frequently led him far from Acrolis and back to the Mandalorian homeworld of Mandalore. Over the course of many visits to the planet, Munin eventually fell in with one of Mandalore's more prominent clans and merited inclusion in Jaster Mereel's True Mandalorians, splitting his time between fighting the Death Watch on Mandalore, pursuing a career as a mercenary alongside a number of fellow True Mandalorians, and raising Drew and his younger sister Kara on Acrolis.

Drew'ika exhibited an interest in his family's Mandalorian history and culture from a young age, and frequently implored his father to share stories and historical anecdotes relating to Clan Ziratae during the latter's brief visits home to Acrolis. However, unlike his father, Drew'ika likewise exhibited an interest in the culture, history, and society of his native Acrolis courtesy of his mother Mako. Though warlike in nature on account of the longstanding Mandalorian influence, Acrolian culture, with its heavy emphasis on the pursuit of the arts and sciences, was significantly more palpable to the non-Mandalorian Mako than her husband's culture, and she went to great lengths to inculcate Drew'ika in Acrolian culture and history during Munin's extended absences from home.

### Early adulthood

In 47 BBY, with Drew approaching his eighth birthday, Munin Ziratae declared his intention to subject his son to the traditional five years of military and survival training that preceded the *verd'goten*, the warrior trials that functioned as a coming-of-age ritual for young Mandalorians approaching their thirteenth birthdays. Over the vehement protestations of Mako, Munin brought his son with him back to the Mandalore sector, immersing the young Drew in his ancestral heritage and the culture of his forebearers. Over the next three years, Munin oversaw Drew'ika's training