K'Kruhk

"I've been almost killed several times. I'm not dead. I hold no ill will to any who did try to kill me."

- K'Kruhk to Sian Jeisel on Saleucami

K'Kruhk was a Whiphid Jedi who lived around the end of the Galactic Republic and all the way to the time of the new Sith Order. The apprentice of Lilit Twoseas, K'Kruhk survived his master's death during the Yinchorri Uprising and went on to serve with distinction in the Clone Wars. A disastrous loss of life at Teyr led K'Kruhk to question his cause, and he joined a dissident movement on Ruul. Betrayal by one of his own, however, caused him to reaffirm his absolute loyalty to the Republic and the Jedi High Council and he would go on to serve on Saleucami in the final weeks of the Outer Rim Sieges.

Despite countless brushes with death, K'Kruhk survived both the Clone Wars and the Great Jedi Purge, living to see the demise of the Galactic Empire and the return of the Jedi, albeit while in hiding from the agents of Darth Vader. Only when Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order was well-established and the last elements of Palpatine's Empire destroyed did the Whiphid finally emerge from hiding.

Some period after the Yuuzhan Vong War, K'Kruhk joined the New Jedi Order and was still active even past the rise of Darth Krayt.

Early life
"You know me, Master Windu. You were there when my first master&hellip; Lilit Twoseas&hellip; was killed."

- K'Kruhk

Born over five decades before the Battle of Yavin, K'Kruhk enjoyed a conventional upbringing as a Jedi, raised from an early age in the order after being identified as an infant. He was raised in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, with his actual homeworld of Toola only a distant memory.

Before the age of thirteen, K'Kruhk was selected by Lilit Twoseas as a Padawan. Based on Twoseas's apparent youth, K'Kruhk was likely her first Padawan. As her Padawan, he fought alongside Micah Giiett, Plo Koon, and Qui-Gon Jinn during the Yinchorri Uprising. The Uprising was typical of the many isolated skirmishes of the decades before the Clone Wars&mdash;a minor, petty squabble inflamed by dark puppeteers behind the scenes. As the Jedi attempted to hold the crumbling Republic together, the Sith secretly worked to undermine them.



Along with Jinn, Koon, Giiett, and Jinn's apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi, the diplomatic group comprised such notables as Mace Windu, Tsui Choi, Adi Gallia, and Saesee Tiin. The Jedi Council, believing the Yinchorri to be cowardly bullies at heart, believed an appropriate show of force would defuse the situation without the need for military action. Unfortunately, the Yinchorri were already being goaded to war by agents of Darth Sidious, so reacted to the Jedi mission with an unusual amount of hostility and attacked the Jedi as soon as their consular ships entered the Yinchorri home system.

Giiett performed a simple trick involving simple misdirection with cups and balls to K'Kruhk and Obi-Wan Kenobi. This seemingly innocuous piece of entertainments was intended to teach the Padawans an important lesson: do not always rely on the Force, as there are far more mundane ways to confound and mislead one's enemies. K'Kruhk remembered this and used the concept to help the Jedi evade pursuing Yinchorri starfighters, by jettisoning a few empty escape pods, which the easily-fooled Yinchorri immediately chased, thinking their prey had abandoned ship. The Jedi were able to then crash-land on the planet, the Yinchorri believing their ship to be empty.

Once the Jedi arrived at their rendezvous locations, the situation escalated. Koth, Gallia and Choi were ambushed by Yinchorri on Yitheeth while Windu, Jinn and Tiin found no sign of the Yinchorri High Command on Yinchorr. K'Kruhk, a member of the group led by Koon and Giiett found himself fighting for his life on Yibikkoror, after their crash site was ambushed by Yinchorri warriors who had finally seen through K'Kruhk's ruse. In a brief moment of levity during the blaster-fire, K'Kruhk asked Masters Giiett and Koon why they claimed to be friends even though they bickered constantly. Koon gave a typically longwinded and philosophical response, whereas Giiett simply made another sarcastic remark. K'Kruhk and the others were eventually rescued by Adi Gallia's team, who arrived just in the nick of time, helping the stranded Jedi on to their still-functional ship. After their escape, K'Kruhk and the Jedi Masters at Yibikkoror reunited with Koth's team and set out to rescue Windu's squad, trapped by a large group of Yinchorri on Yinchorr.

It was in this rescue mission that his Master was killed, battling for her life on Yinchorr. As they  attempted to escort Windu's strike team back to the ship, they were ambushed by hordes of Yinchorri. K'Kruhk was threatened by the weapon of a Yinchorri warrior, Twoseas leapt in to save her Padawan. Positioning herself between K'Kruhk and his assailant she took the full force of the blow, dying at the hands of multiple Yinchorri in front of her stunned Padawan. Maddened by the loss, K'Kruhk went into a battle frenzy, not halting his slaughter of Yinchorri until he was able to recover his master's body. Although he would complete his training under another Jedi, the loss of his first mentor would haunt him for the remainder of his life.

Certainties and doubts
"I, too, had questions. Every battle I have with fallen Jedi like you answers them."

- K'Kruhk to Quinlan Vos



In the following decade, K'Kruhk matured into a dedicated and capable Jedi Knight. When the call for Jedi to serve as commanders came after the Battle of Geonosis, K'Kruhk obeyed without question.

In the early months of the Clone Wars, Jedi General K'Kruhk led Republic clone troopers on the planet Teyr. It was a terribly costly battle. Many clones died under his command, despite K'Kruhk's best efforts, and the Whiphid considered calling off the attack to save the lives of the others. The troops under his command, however, persuaded him otherwise. They could still achieve the objectives and their lives were unimportant in the greater scheme of things. In essence, they were born to die for the Republic.

Against his better judgment, he pressed ahead with the attack. Whether the Republic was ultimately victorious is unknown, but the high death toll deeply wounded K'Kruhk, and he was so distraught he dropped out of the war entirely, leading many to believe he was dead. It was soon discovered he had gathered with other Jedi unsure of the war on Ruul, led by Master Sora Bulq. When their refusal to serve in the war became known, Mace Windu came to negotiate with them. Unlike other dissidents, such as Sian Jeisel and Rhad Tarn, K'Kruhk never doubted that Windu's appeals were made in good faith, but he sorely misjudged the motives of Bulq.

In truth, the whole event was a set-up, organized by the Sith to either kill Windu or, failing that, kill other Jedi and blame it on the Jedi Councilor. The apprentice of Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, arrived at Ruul, ready to carry out the plan and engaged the Jedi in several lightsaber duels. After the deaths of Tarn and Mira, it became apparent Bulq was part of the conspiracy. The Weequay had gone to the dark side and allied with Dooku. His duel with Ventress had been a sham to conceal their alliance.

Chastened, K'Kruhk rejoined the war effort, declaring simply that "Evil must be opposed".

The walking dead
"Unstoppable&hellip; He is unstoppable."

- K'Kruhk about General Grievous

Soon after, K'Kruhk was chosen to be part of a strike team on Hypori, led by Jedi Masters Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti. The mission was a disaster from the start and turned into a Separatist trap. Orbital mines destroyed most of their fleet and the surviving troops and Jedi, including K'Kruhk, were marooned on the surface of Hypori, forced to make a desperate last stand against the droid armies.

It was here that K'Kruhk became one of the first Jedi to face General Grievous and live to tell the tale. Halting the advance of his legions of droid troops, Grievous took on the surviving Jedi alone, displaying dazzling ability with dual lightsabers. Tarr Seirr, Daakman Barrek, and Sha'a Gi were killed, and K'Kruhk was struck with a near-fatal blow that felled the Whiphid.



Critically wounded and thought dead, he was left behind by the rescue that recovered Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, and Aayla Secura. In reality, K'Kruhk had entered a state of hibernation, allowing himself to heal his wounds while feigning death.

After the departure of Grievous, K'Kruhk awoke, and was able to escape Hypori to once more assume the role of General in the Grand Army of the Republic. However, Grievous did steal K'Kruhk's green lightsaber on Hypori and later used it in his duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Utapau.

Recuperating, K'Kruhk was reassigned to Coruscant, and charged with the protection of Senator Viento. He silently observed his ward as the Senator went about his business in the Senate and at political functions. At one such soiree, Viento was deep in discussion with the Supreme Chancellor when K'Kruhk noticed a mysterious Kiffar taking unusual interest in the pair of politicians. The Kiffar was a disguised Quinlan Vos, and he managed to leave the premises before the Whiphid could discover his plans. Later that evening, Vos bypassed K'Kruhk as the Whiphid guarded a sleeping Viento, and broke into the Senator's apartment, preparing to dispatch Viento there and then. The sound and smell of the ignited lightsaber alerted K'Kruhk to the crime, and the Whiphid was forced to battle the rogue Jedi to protect the Senator.

K'Kruhk unfortunately, failed in his mission. Vos murdered Viento and eluded capture. K'Kruhk suffered severe injuries from the battle after falling from an airspeeder. The physical injuries were great, but perhaps less so than the enormous emotional trauma. Vos had been a childhood friend of K'Kruhk and Vos's apparent betrayal of the Jedi wounded the Whiphid deeply. In anger, K'Kruhk declared Vos no better than Sora Bulq, Dooku, and the countless other traitors to the order.

The Siege of Saleucami
"We will stand, Master Hett."

- K'Kruhk to A'Sharad Hett during the Siege of Saleucami



After extensive bacta treatment and months of recovery, K'Kruhk returned to the front line during the Siege of Saleucami. Ironically he would serve alongside Quinlan Vos, recently returned to the fold after the Rendili crisis.

To the surprise of other Jedi like Jeisel, K'Kruhk had apparently forgiven Vos, accepting that the Kiffar's actions had all been done with the sole intent of maintaining his cover and that no malice had been intended. By this stage, K'Kruhk's many injuries and brushes with death had given the Whiphid a developed sense of gallows humor, and he joked that he had learned to carry basic medical supplies with him at all times. He had witnessed much death, and more was to come: in the early days of the siege, the Jedi Ausar Auset was vaporized before the stunned eyes of both K'Kruhk and A'Sharad Hett.

K'Kruhk trusted totally in the leadership of Oppo Rancisis and believed that with the Jedi Councilor's fine grasp of tactics and battle meditation, the battle would swing the Republic's way. Understandably, K'Kruhk was devastated when Rancisis was murdered by Sora Bulq and, though he believed Quinlan Vos to have good intentions, was horrified by the fellow Jedi's plan to "read" Rancisis's battle plan from the head of the Thisspiasian's corpse.

The next morning, K'Kruhk attended Rancisis's funeral presided over by A'Sharad Hett. There, the assembled Jedi remembered those who had already fallen on the fields of Saleucami. Hett began with the memory of Auset, a comrade-in-arms of A'Sharad's late father. Then, the others followed: Xiaan Asmeru recalled Xeltek, Jeisel recalled Durnar, Aayla spoke the name of Master Tholme, and K'Kruhk himself honored the memory of T'Bolton. After the ceremony was complete, K'Kruhk and his compatriots prepared for the final battle against the Separatists.

Tholme in fact, was not dead after all, but had merely hidden his presence, hoping that his absence would help Quinlan Vos come to terms with his true beliefs. While the Jedi Master remained in the shadows, still presumed to be dead, the remaining Jedi launched their attack. Vos and Aayla Secura infiltrated the Separatist base and K'Kruhk and Jeisel led the ground assault, while A'Sharad Hett coordinated actions from the air. With help from Tholme, the Jedi were victorious, and Saleucami fell to the Republic. In the ensuing melee, the Separatist leaders were all defeated: Aayla Secura slew the Morgukai Bok, and Quinlan Vos finally ended the lives of Sora Bulq and his lackey Tol Skorr. Their task over, the Jedi were able to leave Saleucami. K'Kruhk prepared for departure and redeployment, but did so reluctantly. He believed it was shameful for Jedi to leave war-ravaged worlds so devastated when in the past, Jedi had assisted with reconstruction. Vos's assurances that it was merely the way of "war" did not assuage the Whiphid's doubts.

Survival
"I've died any number of times in my life. Or so I've heard."

- K'Kruhk

The Jedi's reservations about the war were confirmed when the Supreme Chancellor initiated Order 66. While the Jedi Order was decimated, K'Kruhk was one of the few survivors of the Great Jedi Purge. He took a fellow survivor under his wing and followed clues to the mysterious "Hidden Temple", a rumored place of refuge for harried Jedi in those dark times.

During the early years of the Empire, K'Kruhk made occasional sorties with Bomo Greenbark, assisting Greenbark in covert attacks on Imperial interests.

"Among the Jedi he is like both Warmaster and High Priest."

- Cade Skywalker to Nei Rin

While numerous other survivors of the initial purge were eventually hunted down, K'Kruhk survived the fall of the Empire and eventually joined the New Jedi Order. He assumed a position of authority, even having a hand in Cade Skywalker's early training. He was again presumed dead at the Massacre of Ossus, but once more survived, hiding on Toola until 137 ABY. At that time, he felt a call through the Force to return to Ossus. Using the Force, he was able to heal the mental injuries to Skywalker's spirit. On Ossus, near the ruins of the Jedi Academy, K'Kruhk and Wolf Sazen would oversee the completion of Cade's training to be able to stand against the Sith. As Cade prepared to leave for Coruscant, K'Kruhk gave him R2-D2 to serve onboard his ship.

Personality and traits
"The fourth precept&hellip; 'There is no death, only the Force'&hellip; is hard for me."

- K'Kruhk to Mace Windu



Unlike many of his kind, K'Kruhk was a gentle and thoughtful individual. Eschewing the Whiphid reputation for ferocity, he fully embraced the pacifistic creed of the Jedi. This, coupled with his deep respect for life, led to anxiety and soul searching during the Clone Wars, feelings that culminated with K'Kruhk's abandonment of his military duties to join Sora Bulq's dissidents.

It was his dedication to justice and his desire to right wrongs that would lead to K'Kruhk rejoining the order. These experiences would forge in K'Kruhk a deep and abiding antipathy for those Jedi who abandoned the narrow path&mdash;such as Bulq, Quinlan Vos, and, presumably, Anakin Skywalker. At the same time, he had a very forgiving nature, and argued strongly in favor of giving Vos the benefit of the doubt upon his return to the Jedi Order.

The onset of the Great Jedi Purge robbed K'Kruhk of his opportunity to train Jedi himself in the old Jedi Order, but, decades later, he would become one of the great teachers of the New Jedi Order, training Padawans such as Cade Skywalker on Ossus.

K'Kruhk was often seen sporting a conical straw hat, especially after the onset of the Clone Wars. It may have been a simple quirk or idiosyncrasy rather than holding any true significance. Regardless, the Whiphid was rarely seen without it.

Powers and abilities
"How do you do it, K'Kruhk?" "I simply wind the bandage&hellip;"

- Sian Jeisel and K'Kruhk

Despite his gentle soul, K'Kruhk was a formidable warrior, his large Whiphid frame giving him an advantage against smaller opponents and his Jedi talents granting him a speed and agility few of his species could match. On separate occasions he was able to face both Asajj Ventress and General Grievous in battle and survive, a feat few Jedi could match.

K'Kruhk's most remarkable talent was that of survival. Thanks to both the natural fortitude and inborn "healing trance" of his kind, he was able to survive injuries that in any other Jedi might prove fatal. Left for dead on battlefields as diverse as Teyr, Hypori, and Ossus, K'Kruhk was remarkable for his ability to live to see another day. Even a fall from the heights of Coruscant was unable to end the mighty Whiphid's life.

Even as the Jedi Order and the Republic fell, K'Kruhk survived. An Empire rose, was defeated, and was replaced with a New Republic; still K'Kruhk lived. Even the Yuuzhan Vong or the Sith of Darth Krayt could not kill him. By 137 ABY K'Kruhk was over one and a half centuries in age&mdash;the oldest Jedi of his era.

Character origin
K'Kruhk was created by author Randy Stradley and debuted in the comic series Jedi Council: Acts of War, but it was not until a popular appearance in Jedi: Mace Windu that the Whiphid became a recurring character.

In Star Wars: Clone Wars, K'Kruhk was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. . Along with Aayla Secura, he was one of only two original Expanded Universe characters (outside those introduced in the series itself) to appear in the animated series. Unlike Aayla, however, K'Kruhk had not previously appeared in the films.

Lightsaber design


Strangely enough, the design for K'Kruhk's lightsaber was actually developed by a fan, who, failing to find a clear official depiction of the saber in a comic, invented an original design to display on his own website. By chance, artist Jan Duursema used the website as a source when illustrating Jedi: Mace Windu, thinking the design was based on a canon source, and, in the process, inadvertently canonizing the depiction herself.

Cult following
K'Kruhk has developed a cult following among fans, especially on such online forums as TheForce.Net's Jedi Council Forums. This is, at least in part, due to having survived several near-death experiences.

This incredible ability to evade certain death was apparently winked at in The Siege of Saleucami arc, where K'Kruhk comments that he's learned to carry basic medical supplies with him.

K'Kruhk's hat
One aspect of K'Kruhk's following is a running joke about a straw hat he wears in several of his comic appearances.

In one forum thread, his hat is credited with amazing powers, including being responsible for K'Kruhk surviving his multiple brushes with death, and is repeatedly described as "freakin' sweet"&mdash;a description, like the joke itself, which originates from a forum user's signature that many fans see as a self-fulfilling prophecy that has contributed to the character's popularity and resulting long-term survival.

Randy Stradley acknowledged the "myth" of the "The Hat" in Star Wars: Panel to Panel Volume 2: Expanding the Universe.

Appearances



 * Jedi Council: Acts of War
 * Star Wars Republic: The Devaronian Version
 * Star Wars Tales 4 intro
 * Jedi: Mace Windu
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars
 * "Chapter 20"
 * "Chapter 21"
 * Star Wars Republic 63: Striking from the Shadows
 * Star Wars Republic 65: Show of Force, Part 1
 * Star Wars Republic 68: Armor
 * Star Wars Republic: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili
 * Star Wars Republic 72: Trackdown, Part 1
 * Star Wars Republic 74: The Siege of Saleucami, Part 1
 * Star Wars Republic 75: The Siege of Saleucami, Part 2
 * Star Wars Republic 76: The Siege of Saleucami, Part 3
 * Star Wars Republic 77: The Siege of Saleucami, Part 4
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novel
 * Star Wars Dark Times 6: Parallels, Part 1
 * Star Wars Dark Times 7: Parallels, Part 2
 * Star Wars Dark Times 8: Parallels, Part 3
 * Star Wars Legacy 11: Ghosts, Part 1
 * Star Wars Legacy 12: Ghosts, Part 2
 * Star Wars Legacy 14: Claws of the Dragon, Part 1

Notes and references
K'Kruhk