Mohs was an aged and stooped Sharu male belonging to the Toka culture. He was the High Singer of the subintelligent Toka, and he knew all their legends about the ancient, advanced, and supposedly extinct Sharu species. Mohs lived in the city of Teguta Lusat on Rafa IV. After Lando Calrissian was tasked with finding the legendary Mindharp of the Sharu by Rokur Gepta and local governor Duttes Mer, Mohs encountered him in a local bar, the Spaceman's Rest. He attempted to steal the Sharu artifact known as the Fabled Key from Calrissian's possession, but was unsuccessful. Agreeing to help Calrissian find the Mindharp on Rafa V, Mohs instead betrayed him to the local Toka. He was ritually forbidden from killing Calrissian, and so he tied him to a tree in one of Rafa V's life-orchards.
After Calrissian escaped both death from exposure and the intelligence-sucking life-orchard, Mohs showed the adventurer and his droid companion, Vuffi Raa, where to find the Great Lock set into the largest of the Sharu pyramids. When Calrissian, Raa, and Mohs entered the pyramid, its Sharu technology caused Mohs to grow to sixty times his original height and mysteriously lose his sight. In the Sharu pyramid, Mohs began to regain some of the intelligence that had been stripped from him and the rest of the Toka in the distant past. While Calrissian and Raa were still exploring the pyramid to find the Mindharp, Mohs abandoned him and returned via Sharu technology to Rafa IV, where he began making preparations for Calrissian's return.
Four months after he entered the pyramid, Calrissian discovered the Mindharp and was transported back to Teguta Lusat. Betrayed by Vuffi Raa, he was forced to surrender the Mindharp to Duttes Mer, who attempted to access its secrets. Mohs waited for Calrissian inside the starship Millennium Falcon and encountered the gambler again there. The Toka man revealed himself as a Sharu and explained that because the Mindharp had been played all the Toka were becoming Sharu again. Mohs then left Calrissian's starship before the Millennium Falcon fled the Rafa system.
Mohs was chosen when he was young to be the High Singer of the Sharu, and heard and obeyed the voices of the Rafa system's Sharu artifacts all his life. The Rafa system was littered with these artifacts, the abandoned remnants of an ancient race that was presumed to be extinct. As a symbol of Mohs's position, he bore on his forehead a line drawing of the artifact known as the Mindharp.
Mohs approached Lando Calrissian after hearing he had the Fabled Key.
Like all Toka, Mohs was essentially a slave of the Centran colonists, but he held a position of authority within his own species. After another Toka working at the Spaceman's Rest saloon spotted a Sharu artifact in the possession of Lando Calrissian, he alerted Mohs and Mohs came to speak with the itinerant adventurer.
Calrissian had been given the Fabled Key of the Sharu by Scrivinir Rokur Gepta and Duttes Mer. Gepta was the ruler of the Centrality in the Outer Rim, while Mer was the governor of Rafa IV. The pair employed Calrissian to find the fabled Mindharp, said to be the Ultimate Instrument of Music. In Toka legend, the Key Bearer and his companion the Emissary would liberate the Mindharp with the Fabled Key and use it to call back the Sharu species from their presumed extinction. While Mohs initially believed that Calrissian was the Key Bearer, and Calrissian's companion Vuffi Raa was the Emissary, Calrissian's behavior made him reconsider this.
While Calrissian was distracted, Mohs swiped the Key and slipped out the back door. However, Calrissian spotted Mohs leaving and tackled him, beating him into submission. Groveling, Mohs apologized and Calrissian invited him to come along on his mission as a guide. While Calrissian and Vuffi Raa took a hoverbus, Sharu technology transported Mohs to the spaceport instantaneously. A crowd of chanting Toka gathered around him.
After the Toka crowd finished chanting the Song of the Emissary, Mohs asked Lando Calrissian about his plans. Calrissian intended to sleep aboard his starship, the Millennium Falcon, but was startled when he found local police surrounding it. Duttes Mer's men were loading the promised reward of Rafan life-crystals in the Falcons hold, but had also sabotaged the hyperdrive to compel Calrissian's compliance. Calrissian then boarded the vessel with Vuffi Raa and Mohs in tow. In the cockpit, Mohs spoke about the Toka legend that a dark adventurer and his shiny companion would come to liberate the Mindharp. Calrissian then realized that Gepta and Mer had chosen him because he fit the profile of the prophesied rescuer.
The next day, after the Millennium Falcon took off, Calrissian asked Mohs where the Mindharp was. Pointing out the viewscreen, the Toka recited the Song of the Reflective Telescope, directing the spacer and his droid companion to the nearby world of Rafa V. Calrissian and Raa then quizzed the Toka further on the various chants he knew before setting out. After a few hours of travel, the Millennium Falcon hit some space debris in Rafa V's orbit. Since its deflector shields were down, the Falcons hull was breached and it began to lose atmosphere. Raa brought the vessel in for an emergency landing where Mohs had indicated, near an asymmetric, multicolored, plastic Sharu pyramid approximately twelve kilometers tall and seven kilometers wide.
The world of Rafa V was bitterly cold, with low humidity. After the trio departed the vessel and the Falcons ramp had been raised, they were ambushed by a tribe of Toka with weapons that resembled crossbows. Their extremely accurate fire disabled Vuffi Raa as well as Calrissian's blaster. Mohs took command of the natives and demanded the Key from Calrissian, who refused and insulted Mohs' mother. Since Mohs and the other Toka were ritually forbidden from harming the Bearer of the Key, they instead marched him miles away to a life-orchard. They then stripped him of his clothing, tied him to one of the intelligence-draining trees, and abandoned him to the elements in only a loincloth and his semi-formal cummerbund.
Calrissian escaped his bonds, captured a police detachment sent to arrest him, and returned to the place next to the pyramid where he had earlier been ambushed. Mohs was there to meet him, cooking a vuole on a stick over a fire. After some discussion, Mohs agreed to show Calrissian the place to use the Key. Vuffi Raa uncovered the Great Lock a meter below the surface, and Calrissian inserted the Key. After a short pause, Mohs, Calrissian, and the droid were transported into the pyramid.
Mohs fell through the wall of the pyramid, and into darkness. He was instantaneously blinded, although he failed to notice. As soon as he was in the pyramid, he began to think clearer than he ever had before. By the time Calrissian arrived through the wall, he had discovered a new, less drafty way to tie his loincloth and was considering problems of geometry.
The technology of the Sharu caused both Mohs and Calrissian to grow to sixty times their normal heights. Their thought processes and perception of the flow of time was altered so that to an outside observer they appeared to act with incredible slowness. Vuffi Raa was unaffected, but shunted into a maintenance system for more than thirty-two hours. When Raa emerged, only about half an hour had passed from the point of view of Mohs and Lando Calrissian.
Mohs directed Calrissian (and Raa, who was riding on Calrissian's earlobe) to a ramp set into the floor. As the two giants stepped onto the ramp, it began to move. The moving ramp descended in a six hundred kilometer diameter spiral. The journey on the ramp took many hours from the giants' perspective. The tunnel then flattened out and began traveling through a diagonal upthrust formation. After Calrissian dropped off to sleep, Mohs gained more understanding of the purpose of the Sharu artifacts and left the group, eventually regaining his usual size and traveling back to Rafa IV via Sharu technology. The pyramid then erased all memory of Mohs from Vuffi Raa.
The Rafa system is remade.
Four months after they had entered the pyramid on Rafa V, Calrissian and Raa emerged on the streets of Teguta Lusat, bearing the meter-high Mindharp. Calrissian was detained by Duttes Mer, who took the Mindharp for his own.
Mer then attempted to play the Mindharp, thinking it would give him total control over everyone in the system. Instead, his continued attempts triggered massive earthquakes. The Sharu artifacts across the Rafa system began to collapse, warp, and change as the ancient computer system started to restore the Sharu civilization. Mer was killed as he and the Mindharp melted together.
Mohs was waiting for Calrissian and Raa on the Millennium Falcon when they escaped the cataclysm. Now snappily dressed and sporting insect-like, brightly colored compound eyes, he lowered the ramp for the duo. Briefly, he discussed events with the gambler and his droid companion while they went through their pre-flight checklist. Mohs remained behind on the changing world when the Millennium Falcon fled the Rafa system.
Mohs spent most of his life in an uncivilized state, doing as the Rafa IV colonists directed and hearing the voices of the sophisticated ancient Sharu computer system. He was ordered about and mysteriously transported places at their command. Mohs was the only High Singer of the Toka in his generation. The symbol of his position was a line drawing tattoo of the Mindharp on his forehead. He was ancient and toothless, and wore a three-meter long gray loincloth wrapped crudely around his waist.
The High Singer alternated between awe and suspicion of Lando Calrissian and Vuffi Raa, helping and betraying them in equal measure. His role allowed him to instantly take command of any Toka group in the system. He knew approximately seven thousand, six hundred, and twenty-three chants of the Toka, and spoke both a peculiar version of Galactic Basic Standard and the Toka variant of Old High Trammic.
After he entered the Sharu pyramid, Mohs was no longer intellectually stunted by the Rafan life-orchards. He began to think in innovative ways, and was able to use the rest of his senses to completely compensate for his eyes being removed. When he left the pyramid, his ruined eyes were replaced by multicolored compound cybernetics by the ancient Sharu computer system. After he returned to Rafa IV, Mohs demonstrated more care for his appearance and acquired an expensive business suit and a nice haircut.
Mohs was created by author L. Neil Smith for part one of the 1980s The Lando Calrissian Adventures novel trilogy, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu.
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia