The Ky'lessans were a reptilian sentient species with oily, scaly skin. They were active in the galaxy during the Galactic Civil War and spoke Basic with a lisp. Soon after the Battle of Yavin, the Ky'lessan known as Snake-Eyes, who was the assistant of Captain Scarlet Bloodhawk in her repair port, betrayed his boss for profit.
Ky'lessans were humanoid reptiles covered with damp, oily scales. They had a mouth structure allowing them to speak Galactic Basic Standard; however, at least some Ky'lessans demonstrated a lateral lisp when doing so; that is, they pronounced the phonemes /s/ and /z/ as /θ/.
Ky'lessans were members of the galactic community by at least 0 ABY. Ky'lessans could find work such as management or co-management in port repair operations, for instance. Some Ky'lessans served as informants for the Galactic Empire, an organization widely known for its Humanocentric speciesism. At least on some occasions, individual Ky'lessans were known by nicknames when dealing with other species. At least one Ky'lessan displayed traits such as ambition and greed, resorting to immoral acts such as kidnapping and sabotage to obtain an economic profit.
As of 0 ABY, Ky'lessans were members of the galactic community. At that point, the governing Galactic Empire allowed Ky'lessans to earn money in exchange for services to the Empire, even if those services were unrequested.
Soon after the Battle of Yavin, the Ky'lessan known as Snake-Eyes worked as the second-in-command of a little-known repair station owned by Scarlet Bloodhawk. Selfishly wanting full control of the station, Snake-Eyes betrayed and kidnapped Bloodhawk; he then obtained an additional income by skimping on expenses. When a group of Rebel agents—old friends of Bloodhawk—arrived at the station for repairs to their Thorsen field driver, he reported their presence to the Galactic Empire in exchange for a nominal fee; however, with a warning from the station's domodroid H2-1B4, the Rebels rescued Bloodhawk and left the station, barely escaping from an Imperial cutter.
The Ky'lessans appeared in one of the "adventure ideas" of the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, published by West End Games in 1987. The species was not described in great detail, and was identified only by one member, Snake-Eyes. "Snake-Eyes" is never described as really having eyes similar to those of a snake (i.e., with vertical pupils and apparent lack of lids); thus, his nickname may be ironic, and, as such, this article does not assume that Ky'lessans have such eyes.
Other West End Games books mention a KyLessia system and planet, as well as a KyLessian Fruit Distillate. Despite the similarity in spelling, no canonical source has connected the Ky'lessans with KyLessia.
The only known representative of this species spoke with a lisp, that could be a racial or an individual feature. In his particular case, Snake-Eyes replaced phonemes /s/ and /z/ as /θ/. Unexplained exceptions happened when the phoneme /s/ was preceded by an alveolar approximant /ɹ/ as in "sirs" (pronounced "thirs"). The lisp did not apply either to the phoneme /ʃ/ (the last sound in "wish").