Dryden Vos

"Once you're part of Crimson Dawn, you can't leave."

- Dryden Vos, to Han Solo

Dryden Vos was a male near-human who served as the public face of the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn during the reign of the Galactic Empire. He was killed by his lieutenant, Qi'ra, after attempting to kill Han Solo.

Biography
Dryden Vos was the public face of the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn, one of the most ruthless criminal syndicates in the galaxy during the reign of the Galactic Empire. He communicated with the shadowy leader of the Crimson Dawn, a crime lord named Maul, former Sith apprentice of Darth Sidious, via hologram, using a ring to do so. Vos also acquired a Kalevalan yacht known as the First Light, where he had a study filled with several relics, including a slab of an obsidian stone he plundered from a Sith temple.

During his tenure as crime lord, Dryden Vos rescued the Corellian Qi'ra from a dangerous situation, taking her away from Corellia. As such, Vos demanded in return her lifelong loyalty to Crimson Dawn, branding her forearm and her neck with his organization's symbol. Qi'ra became his top lieutenant. He even trained her in martial arts, including the Teräs Käsi. Vos also managed at some point in his career to make an uneasy alliance with the Pyke Syndicate.

Ten years before the Battle of Yavin, the scoundrel Tobias Beckett became indebted to Vos, promising him a good amount of coaxium as payment. Unfortunately for Beckett, the heist in which he and his crew attempted to steal a wagon full of coaxium from a 20-T Railcrawler conveyex transport property of the Empire ultimately failed due the intervention of Enfys Nest and her swoop pirate gang, the Cloud-Riders. However, his recruit, the young Han Solo, insisted that he meet Vos to talk with him about what had happened. Upon arriving at Vos' yacht, as Han met again with Qi'ra, Vos received Beckett and expressed his condolences for the loss of Val, revealing that he knew what happened with the Conveyex heist. At Vos' office, he then told Beckett that he needed to face his wrath for having failed him once more, but Solo attempted to convince Vos to give Beckett just another opportunity by sending them to the spice mines of Kessel to steal the coaxium stored there. At first, Vos denied that possibility because he didn't wanted to be attacked by the Pykes, but he was ultimately convinced by Qi'ra's intervention that it was a good idea.

In order to attack the spice mines of Kessel, Beckett's crew enlisted the help of the smuggler and Sabacc player Lando Calrissian and his droid L3-37, who brought them to Kessel aboard the Millennium Falcon. Therefore, Beckett's crew infiltrated Kessel's spice mines, got rid of Quay Tolsite and his guards and managed to steal the coaxium, at the cost of L3-37's destruction. After escaping from the Empire's clutches once more at the Maw Cluster, doing the Kessel Run in just 12 parsecs, the crew arrived at Savareen to meet Vos at his yacht, but after Lando departed with the Falcon and they met Nest and her intentions to help the the rebellion with the coaxium, they decide to deceive Vos with fake coaxium, also telling him that Beckett didn't survive the mission.

For the surprise of everyone, however, Vos reveals to know that the coaxium aboard his yacht was fake and that he was warned by his "inside man" about it. Though Han initially thought that Qi'ra betrayed them, Vos reveals that his "inside man" was Beckett in reality, who decided to betray his crew to have Vos spare his life. But as they anticipated Beckett's betrayal, they in reality presented Vos the true coaxium shipment with them to mislead him. Nevertheless, Beckett resolved to take Chewie hostage and escape with the real coaxium, leaving Vos to face Qi'ra and Han, leading to a fight in which Vos accidentally destroyed his study, including the Masthead of Xim the Despot. In the midst of Han and Vos' attempts to kill each other, Qi'ra came to Han's defense by attacking Vos with a sword retrieved from the corpse of one of Hylobon Enforcers. In the fierce scuffle between the two, Vos cut the blade of his opponent's sword in half, which resulted in his own weapon getting stuck in it. Unarmed and defenseless, Vos was finally impaled by Qi'ra and dropped to the floor, dead. After promising Han that she would take valuables from the yacht and meet him outside, Qi'ra instead sealed the room after Han's departure and used the ring to falsely tell Maul that Tobias Beckett had been responsible for Vos' death, and was ordered to take the yacht to Dathomir.

Personality and traits
"Test my patience for even one second and see what happens."

- Dryden Vos

A near-human male crime lord, Dryden Vos was a pitiless enforcer and known as a gangster of taste and wealth. Vos socialized with the galaxy's elite aboard his yacht the First Light, surrounding himself with opulence. In addition, Vos enjoyed showing off his superb collection of antiquities. Being near-human, Dryden had a number of alien attributes such as a claw that extended from his thumb and many intricate striations that ran along his face that were connected to the activity in his circulatory system and adrenaline levels.

Though Vos was known for being ruthless albeit not a cutthroat, he had good manners with his guests, as he showed when he met Han Solo. However, his manners weren't to be mistaken for weakness, as he could change from a generous host to merciless killer in a moment. Beyond that, however, Vos was simply one more lackey of the crime lord Maul, the true leader of Crimson Dawn behind the shadows.

Behind the scenes
Dryden Vos was portrayed by Paul Bettany in the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story. The character was originally going to be played by Michael Kenneth Williams as a motion captured alien character resembling a mountain lion, but when the original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were fired from the project and replaced by Ron Howard, Williams was not available for extended reshoots due to scheduling conflicts with The Red Sea Diving Resort and the part was recast. Though having a similar last name to Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, Lucasfilm has confirmed that this is merely a coincidence.

Early concept art for Vos depicted him as an avian alien, then a reptilian alien, and finally a Lasat, which was possibly the version depicted originally by Williams. In the original draft of the film script, Vos was going to be based on Taanab.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Force Arena
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: Meet the Crew
 * Choose Your Destiny: A Han & Chewie Adventure