I am a firm believer in the idea that, if not for West End Games’ Star Wars RPG, Star Wars itself would be a thing of the past – fondly remembered, sure, but a finished story. The RPG kept fans engaged in a way that was unheard of at the time, letting them inhabit the universe of the movies and quite literally expanding it.

In 1991, Timothy Zahn’s novel Heir to the Empire was published and it was the pebble that returned Star Wars to the public imagination and that would, in time, turn into an avalanche of films, TV shows, games and comics. Heir was the first part in a trilogy (naturally) that rejoins the heroes of the films five years after Return of the Jedi, as they struggle against the remnants of an Empire that is defeated but not defanged. When Zahn was working on the draft, he sought out more material with which to work. LucasFilm responded with a box of West End Games’ Star Wars source books.

It is fitting, then, that in 1992, West End released an Heir to the Empire source book and the cycle of expansion continued.

WEG would produce many tie-in sourcebooks in the coming years and Heir is the foundation. Inside, you get rundowns in game terms for every planet, character, alien and piece of tech Zahn rolls out in the book. The art is a bit thin, but it was certainly nice to see some of the new characters visualized, though the Dark Horse comic adaptation would later do it better.