Iakaru

Covered in coarse, dark fur with lighter, softer patches around their face and belly, lakaru are constantly grooming themselves. Long, bushy eyebrows protect their two dark eyes and provide lakaru with an instinctive sense of a number of environmental factors, including relative movement, wind speed, and even atmospheric pressure. An incredible sure-footed agility, tuned by millennia of gauging death-defying leaps and swings through the dense jungles of lakar, complements their keen spatial awareness. Their grip is extremely strong, evolved to brachiate through the rain forest’s branches and vines.

The lakaru organize into tree-clans of fifteen to one hundred members each, led by the eldest females. They usually occupy the top fifty meters of jungle canopy, spending their time in a single home-tree and a few surrounding territory trees. The often-aggressive males occupy outer and lower branches, acting as sentries for females and children in the higher branches and closer to the trunk. Most males remain in the same tree-clan their entire lives, while females often join new clans when they come of age. lakaru seldom venture to the forest floor, but they do wander to other trees within their territory. Boundary disputes with neighboring tree-clans have led to feudal conflicts, particularly during times of food scarcity.

In lakaru culture, everything belongs to the tree-clan, which stores its assets in various cubbyholes along the main trunk. Food is the only exception, and anthropologists often describe lakaru communal dining as akin to a Corellian bar brawl, except more energetic, lakaru agriculture focuses on fruit-bearing vines grown above the canopy and insect farming in designated trunks near the home-tree.

Tree-clans near mountains have access to metals and originate most lakaru technology, which is unique, if obsolete by galactic standards, lakaru are limited to solar energy, for which they have little storage capacity. Nevertheless, they have developed repulsorlift technology, which they use to expand workspaces along branches and to stretch fruit vines above the canopy during the daytime.

While early experiences with offworlders have left most lakaru apprehensive, some of them engage in trade or act as guides. The influx of offworld technology has been a boon to lakaru society, helping their civilization leap forward in recent decades. However, the coming of the Empire has brought with it mass deforestation, displacement, massacres, and more.

lakar is a lush, green Outer Rim planet not far from the Derilyn system in the Elrood sector. Vast continen￾tal rain forests ring lakar’s equatorial latitudes, flanked by oceans and ice caps at the poles. The jungle, dense with kilometer-high trees, is interrupted by the occasional mountain range. The vertical ecosystem here has enabled the lakaru to dominate their world in the canopy. There, they dine on fruits, seeds, and insects, which they share with a number of avian species. Below the canopy, rodents and insects feed on lakaru waste while avoiding predatory felines and giant ambush spiders.

lakaru communicate using a variety of sounds, but most of their complex ideas utilize a rapid stream of chittering and jabbering noises. They bark and screech when arguing over food or being threatened, and they make long, howling calls if they are away from home at night, lakaru can learn and speak Basic, but their accent is heavy; most teach non-native friends to understand lakari or suggest that they utilize a protocol droid.

After escaping lakar, most lakaru fall in with smugglers, mercenaries, or pirates, but some join the growing resistance against the Empire. Their outstanding spatial awareness makes them strong pilots and expert gunners with anything from a sling to a shipboard turret. Those who have abandoned hope for a free lakar also often find their way to swoop or Podracing circuits.

The lakaru lived in relative peace for most of their history, excepting minor conflicts between ambitious tree-clans. That changed during the Clone Wars, when Degan Explorations scouted the lakar system and discovered unique chemical compounds suitable for bacta replication and other high-value processes on lakar. Parent company Chiewab set up a research lab, but competitors Fabreth Medical and the nearby Merisee Prime intercepted confidential transmissions and rushed to establish their own facilities, lakaru defended their homes and forests, but corporate security often massacred or forcibly relocated entire tree-clans. Eventually, the lakaru ceded the desired territory and retreated farther into the trees.

As the Empire exerts greater force across the galaxy but faces rising resistance, its need for medicinal support has been increasing. A full-scale occupation force was deployed on lakar only a few years after the Empire came to power. The occupiers hoped to claim any potential miracle cures that might be extracted from lakar. Entire stretches ofjungle were burned to make way for Imperial garrisons, driving the natives even farther from their homes. Scientists of the Imperial Corps of Bioengineers directed stormtroopers to capture specimens as they saw fit, with no regard for collateral damage. The lakaru grew desperate for a way to oust the armored invaders. Daring plans to build or steal ships or to stow themselves away on outbound transports have become common, in hopes of eventually finding a way to repel the Empire from lakaru.