Dejarik

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

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Dejarik Falcon — C-3PO watching R2-D2 and Chewbacca playing dejarik aboard the *Millennium Falcon*

"No game of dejarik can be won without pawns…"

―Kreia^[1]

Dejarik was a popular game which withstood the test of time better than nearly any other game in the galaxy. It originated as a Jedi game, though as it became much more widespread over time, many beings became unaware of its origins.

Description[]

Dejarik table btm — A typical dejarik table

"He made a fair move. Screaming about it won't help."

―C-3PO scolding Chewbacca on his poor sportsmanship^[2]

Dejarik was played on a hologame table, which comprised a hologram generator within a table-sized cylindrical base, with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern on the top surface. When active, holomonsters—full-color, three-dimensional hologram playing pieces measuring between 5 and 30 cm tall—would be projected on the board. The pieces all resembled creatures, real and mythic, from throughout the galaxy, including the Mantellian Savrip, Grimtaash, the Molator, Ghhhk, Houjix, Ng'ok, Kintan strider, K'lor'slug, and the M'onnok. These pieces, when moved by the player, acted out the moves as if really specimens of their species. If the pieces were not used for a certain amount of time or the game was abandoned by both players, they would simulate boredom.

Major dejarik tournaments included the Galactic Core Interzonals.

The kintan strider death gambit was a notable tactic. Another was the fork and the K'lor'slug sacrifice, in the fork a player moved one holomonster to threaten at least two of the opponent's, and in the k'lor'slug sacrifice a k'lor'slug would destroy a piece to sacrifice itself. In the fork no matter what the opponent did one piece would be lost. It was considered a mistake in play to leave oneself vulnerable to a fork. The word fork came to be used as a generic term for facing a choice between two disasters: "We are well and truly forked."^[3]

Let the Wookiee Win by Francisco Rico Torres — Chewbacca was a great player of dejarik, but he hated to lose.

The Millennium Falcon had a dejarik table in its lounge, installed at Chewbacca's urging.^[4] It was around this table that preliminary peace talks between Gilad Pellaeon of the Imperial Remnant and Leia Organa Solo of the New Republic were held.^[5]

During the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion of the galaxy, Warmaster Tsavong Lah took a liking to the game, and had his shapers create a version of the game with actual living pieces.

Warning: The following section contains information from a Star Wars Legends source that was released outside of the Lucas Licensing process, and its licensing status was never confirmed by Lucasfilm Ltd.

The frog-like newsmonger Sti Groon referred to dejarik as "Vrax" as it was known on Dandrian, in the Dandrian system.^[6]

Unlicensed information ends here.

Behind the scenes[]

The game first appeared in the A New Hope novelization, where it is described but not named. Likewise, it is depicted but not named in the corresponding film. The first name given to it was Space Chess, in the instruction leaflet that came with Kenner Products's 1979 Millennium Falcon toy. It was named "dejarik" two decades later.