Friend of the Legion's Unexpected Destiny

by: Zrissa

What if...

You were just checking your email--like you do several times a day--and there's one from an online acquaintance.  You open it and it says something like this--

"Want to work on a licensed Star Wars project?"

We'd all LOVE to get that email.

Nah, never happen, not outside our dreams.   Except that is how Jonathan Stevens became a freelance game developer.  Like me and my family, Jon loves Star Wars and loves roleplaying games (RPGs).  He's played a lot of them, including all 4 versions of the Star Wars RPG.   RPG players often make up their own unofficial rules, adventures, characters, creatures and so on, all of which Jon does well.  He's created several downloadable sets of these over the years.  The latest is the well-received  "Donovan Morningfire's Big List of Star Wars Saga Edition NPCs"  (Disclosure:  Zrissa is the proofreader/beta reader/editor on this and most of his other unofficial projects.)

Which is perhaps why he got that email from Wizards of the Coast's Rodney Thompson--who started out as a fan running a site Jon frequented--offering him a gig writing for an upcoming Star Wars RPG sourcebook, Galaxy at War (2009) and followed up by The Unknown Regions (2010).    My family still remembers getting an excited call from Jon about this Star Wars gig he couldn't -- and didn't -- tell us anything about, not for months and months, until just before each sourcebook was released.
Jon also accomplished one very cool thing in The Unknown Regions -- he got a fanon creation promoted to canon.

What's "fanon"? All of us in the RL are familiar with Star Wars canon: all the official Star Wars elements from movies, TV and the Expanded Universe.  Fanon are characters, events, and so on created by fans.  It's very rare for fanon to be incorporated into Star Wars canon.  Probably the most well-known example is our sister organization, the 501st, "canonized" first by Timothy Zahn in "Survivor's Quest" and later in Revenge of the Sith.

In addition to writing game mechanics for The Unknown Regions, the developers created worlds complete with brief histories, ecologies, and histories, plus adventures set on those worlds.  Jon's favorite personal player character for Star Wars RPGs is Donovan Morningfire, a Jedi of the Prequel/Clone Wars and Rebellion times.  (The name is also Jon's online presence.)  While working on the planet O'Reen, Jon included a few lines about Jedi General Morningfire and his commandos defeating the planet's leader during a confrontation.   It made it past Wizards' and Lucasfilm Licensing's reviews and into print, thus canon.   Wow!

Jon lives in the Capital Area of New York state and posts on several websites, devoted to games and geekery -- most notably http://www.d20radio.com as, of course, Donovan Morningfire.  His blog is at http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/ and you can follow him on Twitter @donovan421

Jon Stevens joins the Rebel Legion*

Wookieecookiee from Dagobah Base and I inducted Jon as a Friend of the Rebel Legion on March 17, 2012 at AllCon in Dallas, Texas.  Aldaraan Base XO Clone Commander Fil (a friend of ours through D20 Radio) and my husband, Lon Mark,  were also co-sponsors.

* Photo Courtesy of Wookieecookiee and TR-5932