Aaras Ayeena (Duke)

> *"Sorry, sorry, you win. Oh, Dav, my old friend, how dearly it warms my heart to see you healthy and well after the battles and trenches we both have crawled our ways out of."*
> — Duke, to Cadaver
>
>

**Aaras Ayeena**, better known by his alias of **The Duke**, was a human male businessman who later contributed to the establishment of The Path and the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. He was born on Coruscant in the lower levels and grew up in relative poverty, but quickly discovered his talent for negotiation and deals when he got involved with some of the shadier businesses on Coruscant as a teenager. He quickly built rapport and climbed the ranks in underworld circles until he had established his own "business" brokering peace deals between gangs, investing in groups under the table, and forming connections with an extremely wide web of people all across the galaxy. He himself did not participate in things such as spice dealings, arms circles, and he was not a member of a crime family, but he routinely dealt with all of these groups, and as such earned himself the title of *The Duke* and a brutal reputation within Coruscant's underbelly to go with it.

He met Cadaver, a clone trooper medic, in 22 BBY after the start of the Clone Wars. They shared an interest in the jazz scene on Coruscant and quickly built a friendship with each other and their friends Dvas and Druzy. The four of them met up every time Cadaver was on shore leave.

Cadaver and Duke grew closer over the course of the Clone Wars and ended up sharing their first kiss in 19 BBY, just before Cadaver was deployed to the Siege of Mandalore. After this, they did not see each other again for six years.

## Biography

### Early Years

Little is known about Duke's early years beyond the fact that he was born and raised on the lower levels of Coruscant.

### Beginnings in the Underbelly

As a young teenager, Duke's mother became indebted to a collective of criminals that profited off of poor and fearful Coruscantis—taxing them unreasonably, forcing payment out of them for "protection", and dealing arms. He himself became involved with the group in an effort to protect her and quickly found himself as the right hand to the leader; quiet, skinny, obedient, but with a meaner streak than most gave him credit for, he earned the nickname "Scrap".

Duke had always been close with his mother; by this time in his life, she was the only one that still called him by his name. His only tether to his name and identity were tied to her and her knowledge of him. It worried him, the liability of being known, but his worry was tragically taken care of for him when his mother passed away after contracting a virus that could have easily been cured had Duke been able to afford treatment for her. With her death, so died Aaras Ayeena. He cemented himself fully in the shadowed world of Coruscant's criminals, but his position wouldn't remain stagnant for long.

Duke loathed the group and the crime lord at its head—a vindictive and unprincipled man—but he rapidly discovered his talents for observation and communication tracking the sly gazes of the gang leaders that his lord met with and forming deals in the shadows with the other members of the collective and those beyond. He spent months building rapport and connections within the group, which, while not small, was far from a big-time crime cartel. He watched, waited, and planned.

During one meeting with the group's leadership—the lord, enforcers, top lieutenants—the lord gave an order to no response from the group. He tried again, his voice growing angrier, until a shadow fell over him—Duke, shifted from his position behind the lord's chair. Duke, coming to relieve the lord of his duty.

Over years of careful dealmaking, observation, investment, and cunning, Duke had entirely rearranged the internal structure of the group. He did so quietly, leaving the group's lord completely unaware. When his work had completed, the power at the head of the group had settled in his hands. The lord's eviction was an anticlimactic ending to years of effort.

There's no specific moment that he can recall when *Scrap* became *Duke*, but the transition was irreversible. Duke dissolved the collective almost as soon as secured power over it, having never changed in his resentment of their activities. He used these foundations, though, to create his future: The Interregnum.

### The Interregnum

The Interregnum was the group that Duke formed after the dissolution of his first crime organization. Despite his origins, he'd always disliked getting his hands dirty, and so he faded somewhat from the front of the underbelly. He did what he did best; he worked as a bridge. Though the group started mostly as just Duke and some of the distant connections he'd formed, but his reputation rapidly grew. Throughout all of the lower levels, whispers of the man who'd destroyed a crime lord's group from the inside out spread, and soon enough a name came along with them: *The Duke of the Interregnum.*

Duke developed a new living working with the kinds of groups that he'd previously been a part of—organizing resources, brokering peace deals, investing, and having ears all over Coruscant (and, in time, all over the galaxy) feeding him a constant stream of intel and business. It was said that if you needed something you went to The Duke—but that there was no need to worry about finding him, because he would always find you. His job description was something difficult to nail down. He wasn't a spice or an arms dealer (though he did have dealings with such groups), he wasn't the head of a crime family—he always just preferred to call himself a *businessman.* A middleman, a stock broker, an investor, a lawyer, a peace dealer, a high society elite—a man who got things done.

The Interregnum grew massively in the decade following its formation. Little was ever revealed about its mysterious Duke beyond his reputation for effectiveness. The Duke was efficient, but far from a brutish crime lord—he was a white-collar king. He let his employees dirty their hands for him; he never touched a blaster if he could help it. He was deceptively charming, friendly, and outgoing. He was like a shapeshifter, slotting himself into every role required of him. His biggest strength was that no one knew him; he was The Duke, the untouchable mask-wearer. The Duke could never be pinned down. Even those who knew his face, who had seen him in countless meetings still viewed him as someone fascinatingly anonymous; not even a face was enough to give him a genuine identity.

### Music on Coruscant

Beyond The Interregnum, Duke developed an investment in the jazz world on Coruscant. His position (and the wealth he had started to accrue as a result of it) granted him exclusive invites to the newest, fanciest jazz clubs that popped up in the lower levels, but he always found himself enjoying the clubs lower in the planet, dimmer and dirtier and filled with so much more life. It was here, in one of these clubs, that he met Cadaver, Dvas, and Druzy in 22 BBY.