The Agbui, nicknamed Scratchlings, were a sentient species that resided within the Unknown Regions. Their members possessed a form ability of telepathy, able to read a being's emotions by touch. They had faces of dark red and off-white folds, with black eyes and lipless slits for mouths. The Agbui Haplif was a servant of the Grysk "Jixtus" who was skilled in reading cultures and societies. Under orders from Jixtus, Haplif attempted to manipulate the Chiss Ascendancy into a civil war, and a number of Agbui assisted in the scheme.
By the near-completion of the first Death Star, the Agbui were a client species of the Grysk Hegemony and helped their overlords prepare to invade the Galactic Empire. At that time, they became known to the Chiss and humans by the exonym "Scratchlings" because of the scratchy sound of their voices.
Agbui were sentient beings with dark red and off-white skin. The colors of their faces manifested in seemingly random patterns that were distinct between individuals. The Agbui had long fingers compared with other sentient species, and their native language sounded scratchy to Chiss and human observers. Adult Agbui typically ranged from 1.5-2 meters in height. Agbui's mouths were slits with no lips.
Agbui had a limited form of telepathy based on touching other sentients. Direct physical contact with the skin of other beings allowed them to sense that person's emotions and desires. The more prolonged, the more directly, and the more frequently an Agbui touched another person, the more they understood that individual's goals and desires. Haplif used this ability to manipulate many Chiss during his travels through the Chiss Ascendancy, particularly on Celwis. Haplif claimed to be able to understand how to manipulate entire species after using his telepathy on sufficiently many members of that species.
The Agbui did not disclose their telepathic abilities to most beings they interacted with. One exception was the Grysk Hegemony agent "Jixtus," who hired Agbui specifically for those abilities. Some Agbui, such as Haplif and Shimkif, became irritated or even angry when people would not allow them to touch them. Lack of direct physical contact meant the Agbui could not manipulate that person as well, which led Haplif to become angry at Yomie and Lakphro. The Agbui's body structure was very different to that of The Magys's people.
A group of Agbui led by Haplif engineered a disastrous civil war on the planet known as Sunrise, killing most of the population and subsequently mining that world for nyix. The Grysk "Jixtus" then tasked them to execute a plot to destroy the Chiss Ascendancy by convincing several Great Families to fight over a planet supposedly rich with nyix.
During the Age of the Empire, some Agbui continued to serve the Grysks, including managing captured Chiss ozyly-esehembo navigator children on behalf of their Grysk overlords. The young girl Un'hee was a captive of the Agbui, whom she nicknamed Scratchlings due to the sound of their voices. Several members of the species were assigned to watch over Un'hee during her captivity aboard a Grysk observation post, but were killed when the Grysks realized the post was about to be captured by Imperial forces.
Shortly before the Liberation of Lothal, the Agbui assisted the Grysk Hegemony's attempts to infiltrate, subvert, and invade the Galactic Empire. Two slaved Agbui starships were present at a Grysk forward base in Imperial territory, where they formed a communications triad with a cloaked Grysk warship. After the Chimaera destroyed the Grysk warship, a squad of stormtroopers and Commodore Karyn Faro boarded one of the Agbui ships, where they encountered six Agbui holding several human and Dashade prisoners.
The Dashades and humans were part of Grand Admiral Balanhai Savit's anti-piracy campaign, which was secretly a means for Savit to pilfer Project Stardust materiel to other parts of the Imperial Navy. The Agbui had taken the smugglers prisoner and used their telepathy to divine the fears, wishes, desires, and ambitions of their captives. They planned to use that information to assist the Grysks subvert, sabotage, and/or invade the Empire; and managed to convince Yimmer and Westerli that they should work for the Grysks.
One of the Agbui aboard spoke the trade language Meese Caulf, which Grand Admiral Thrawn translated for Commodore Faro's benefit. That Agbui said he feared for his and his companions' lives and needed a face-to-face guarantee of safety from the Imperials. This was a ruse intended to allow them to suicide bomb and take as many Imperials as possible with them, and thus maintain the good graces of the Grysk. Thrawn deduced as much, and ordered the stormtroopers to kill the Agbui aboard before they could detonate.
The Agbui had myths involving demons of some type, which they used to threaten children to behave. Haplif had never seen Jixtus without his cloak, hood and veil, and once wondered whether Jixtus might be a demon from Agbui mythology.
Agbui could eat the same foods as the Chiss. Some Agbui learned to understand the Chiss language Cheunh, and some were known to speak the trade languages Minnisiat and Meese Caulf.
Agbui first appeared in the 2019 novel Thrawn: Treason, which described them as having skin colored dark red and dirty white, with a lipless slit of a mouth tucked away amid skin folds, and with bright black eyes. The species was first identified as the Agbui in the 2021 novel Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, with the same description. In both novels, the Agbui that appear served the Grysk Hegemony.