Star Wars Bringing Back Acolyte’s Yord & Jecki (But Not How Fans Expected)

Star Wars is bringing back fan favorite The Acolyte Jedi Yord and Jecki, but not in a way you might expect. At New York Comic Con last weekend, Star Wars shared several announcements and updates from their publishing side of things, including a major update about the previously announced novel from author Tess Gratton centered around Yord and Jecki. The project was originally announced back in July during San Diego Comic-Con. At the time, the only details given were that it would be a YA novel set in the years leading up to The Acolyte, but now we know that the novel’s title is set to be The Crystal Crown. Star Wars also released the cover for the upcoming novel, which is scheduled to be published in July 2025. You can check that out for yourself below.

The reveal of the Yord and Jecki novel’s title and cover weren’t the only High Republic era revelations for Star Wars at New York Comic Con, either. Marvel also revealed the cover art for Star Wars: The High Republic comic second issue, featuring Lourna Dee — another The Acolyte fan-favorite, Kelnacca, will also appear in the comic. These stories join the previously announced novel about Vernestra Rwoh, Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker, by Justina Ireland which was announced in July as well.

For fans of The Acolyte, getting to additional stories featuring Jecki and Yord will be welcome, even if it isn’t necessarily the way they may have hoped. Both characters quickly became popular with audiences of the Disney+ series, but neither made it out alive. Both Jecki (Dafne Keen) and Yord (Charlie Barnett) were killed by Qimir (Manny Jacinto) in the series’ fifth episode, “Night”, stabbing the former with a lightsaber and snapping the neck of the latter. However, while fans mourned the characters, series creator Leslye Headland even teased at the time that there could be more to their stories — not unlike became the case with Jedi Wookiee Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo) who also died but was soon announced to be getting his own spinoff comic.

“Yeah, definitely,” Headland said previously when asked if Jecki and Yord might appear in another format. “Pablo Hidalgo and I have talked about that, and since wrapping up the season, there’s definitely some stuff that I would love to see come to fruition.”

She continued, “Obviously, Vernestra already exists in publishing, so also going to do something there. There was a lot of background done on them both by the actors in the writers’ room. Yord Fandar, I’ve said this before, was a character in a campaign that I played, so there’s a pretty large backstory to him. But yeah, it was always the plan to kill them in Episode 5 halfway through the season. So, it was kind of fun to think about them a lot and then think, ‘Well, because we didn’t spend a lot of time with them, maybe there’s a way we could keep playing around with them somehow.’”

While getting more to Yord and Jecki’s stories is welcome, however — and there’s certainly always room for more High Republic era stories in Star Wars publishing — these characters living on as it were in print makes the cancellation of The Acolyte even more acute. The series was cancelled after just one season with plenty of potential stories left untold. One can only hope that some of those stories — namely what comes next for Osha (Amandla Stenberg) and Qimir will get a chance to be explored on the pages of a novel sometime in the future as well. Or, maybe, that perhaps someday we’ll get to revisit Yord and Jecki’s adventures in another television series.

Star Wars: The Acolyte is now streaming on Disney+. Star Wars: The Acolyte: The Crystal Crown is set to be published in July 2025.