Riddick (character)

Richard B. Riddick
The Chronicles of Riddick character
Vin Diesel portraying Riddick
First appearance	Pitch Black
Created by	Jim & Ken Wheat
Portrayed by	Vin Diesel
Information
Nickname(s)	Riddick
Species	Furyan
Gender	Male
Occupation	Fugitive Former Lord Marshall Former mercenary (self-description)
Family	None surviving
Nationality	Furya

Richard B. Riddick, more commonly known as Riddick, is a fictional character and the antihero of four films in the Riddick series (Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick, the animated movie The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, and Riddick), as well as the two video games The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Actor Vin Diesel has played the title role in all of the Riddick-based films and video games so far.

Within the canon of the series, Riddick is shown to be a highly skilled predator—he is extremely mobile and stealthy - especially for someone of his size, has a vast knowledge of how to kill almost any humanoid in a variety of ways, is an extreme survivalist, and is notoriously hard to contain. He is also self-admittedly a dangerous convict and murderer—yet despite this, he is sometimes shown to perform moral or even atypically heroic actions, usually against his own better judgment and survivalist nature.

Riddick is a Furyan, a member of a warrior race obliterated by a military campaign that left Furya desolate, and is one of the last of his kind. One of his most defining features are his eyes, a characteristic inherent in a certain caste of his species (The Alpha-Furyans), although he implies in Pitch Black that they were "shined" by a back-alley surgical operation. This allows him to see in the dark with no difficulty at all, but also renders his eyes incredibly sensitive to concentrated light, therefore he wears tinted welding goggles for protection.

Riddick was once a mercenary, then part of a security force, and later on a soldier. He is also an experienced pilot.

Riddick was born on Furya. Before Riddick's birth, a Necromonger officer named Zhylaw (who would eventually become the Lord Marshall) consulted an Elemental seer, who told him that a Furyan male would be born that would be responsible for his downfall. As a prevention, Zhylaw attacked Furya in an attempt to massacre all male children, going so far as to personally strangle newborn infants with their own umbilical cords. Riddick was among those presumably strangled to death, but he actually survived.