Terak

Born on the gloomy planet Sanyassa IV more than a century before the Galactic Civil War, Terak was a male Sanyassan. On his homeworld, hierarchy was essentially determined by force and stature. As Terak grew to become unusually tall, even by reference to his species's standards, he ended up reaching the top of the social pyramid and became a warlord. Terak assumed the leadership of the Marauders, a band of Sanyassan criminals. The warlord imagined that he and his goons could become great space pirates and the scourge of their native Moddell sector. However, their reign of terror proved much shorter than the warlord had expected. The Marauders had been successful in stealing a spaceship, but none of them were able to pilot it properly. Hunted by law enforcement agencies, they kept moving through the sector, until they met a strange woman known as Charal—a Nightsister witch from Dathomir. She possessed a magic ring that allowed her to transform into a raven at will. Impressed by her strange powers, Terak agreed to take Charal aboard and established her as his personal mystic.

When the Marauders' ship reached the Endor system, the improvised navigator couldn't handle the unusal gravity patterns in the area, as the vessel was way too advanced for him to pilot. The Sanyassans pirates crash landed on the forest moon of Endor, a celestial body orbiting a planet known as Tana. Many Marauders survived the crash, including the navigator, but Terak blamed him for his failure and had him executed in a fit of rage. Gradually, the Marauders resigned to their fate, and a new life began for them in the plains of Endor. Terak established himself as King of the Marauders, with Charal as his cohort. A squarish stronghold, which would serve both as barracks and fortified residence of Terak. Under the lead of their king, the Sanyassans worked together to bring terror to the other sentients of Endor, the bear-like Ewoks and the singing Yuzzum. At some point, King Terak had also fathered a son, Zakul, who would grow up to match his father's brutality.

With his dreams of glory shattered, Terak came to hate the Forest Moon, which he called a "green carbuncle on the backside of the galaxy." Around the year 26 BBY, the Marauders captured the stranded scout Salak Weet, who told them about his damaged starship hidden in the woods. Weet explained how the starcruiser traveled through space thanks to the "power" of a crystal oscillator. Terak knew nothing of spacefaring technology, and he thought a crystal oscillator was some kind of magic gem that could give him great powers and allow him to rule the galaxy. The Sanyassan then executed the scout and began their vain search for the "Power of the stars." Unbeknownst to the Marauders, Veet had not come alone to Endor. His human partner Noa Briqualon awaited Veet's return for a time. When Briqualon understood that Salak Veet was probably dead, he settled as a hermit in the forest and maintained a low profile for many years on.

In 1 ABY, Terak sent out a patrol that was ambushed by Ewoks around the border of their territories. The only survivor, a pink-skinned Sanyassan named Indar, reported their defeat was due to a single Ewok holyman wielding a powerful magic wand. The warlord hoped this scepter contained the elusive "Power" that would help him leave Endor. King Terak seized the opportunity. He bartered with a passing-by spacer, sending the offworlder on a mission to kill the Ewok priest and return to the Marauder's Stronghold with his magic metal staff. When the spacer returned with the staff, it proved to be a sham. Terak understood that Indar had lied to him in hopes of covering up his cowardice during the ambush with Ewok warriors. The warlord was incensed about this act of treachery, and he ordered the spacer to retrieve and kill Indar.

A bit later, Terak's scouts reported a ship had crashed not far from the Stronghold. The king ordered the spacer to raid the shipwreck and take anything he could find, especially potential sources of power. When the spacer returned with a hyperdrive generator, Terak was overjoyed. The warlord immediately ordered the Sanyassan scholar Szingo to study it carefully. As a last assignment Terak also tasked the spacer with stopping two Ewok warriors who intended to raid the Stronghold. abundantly insisted that the matter should be resolved in the most violent and bloody manner.

Several years before the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Galactic Empire sent a scouting expedition to Endor, where Emperor Palpatine wished to build the shield generator for his new Death Star superweapon. Terak and his Marauders captured the scouting party, which included the sergeant Pfilbee Jhorn. While the Imperial team contemplated an alliance with the Marauders, Terak and his goons did not see it that way. The King ordered the Imperials brought to his dungeons, where a few of them were tortured to death. While his prisoners were still in jail, the Sanyassan warlord discovered that his mystic Charal had plotted behind his back. The Dathomiri had freed the Imperials for a promise to take her offworld with them. Outraged by that act of treason, Terak put Charal behind bars for a time.

Terak's obsession with obtaining what he called the "Power" increased over the years. About a century after Terak's arrival on the moon, by the year 3.5 ABY, a family of Humans called the Towani were stranded on the Forest Moon. One day, Terak and the sorceress Charal led a raid on Bright Tree Village, where the Towani were sheltered. Terak confronted the father, Jeremitt Towani, who was trying to repair his ship, and demanded the "Power." The king seized the power cell from the starcruiser and killed the unarmed Human. Jeremitt's daughter, the young Cindel Towani, was able to escape while Ewoks were gathered up to be taken back to Terak's castle. The girl's escape, however, was short-lived—she was captured by Charal and placed in a prison carriage with her Ewok friend Wicket Warrick. When he looked at his young Human prisoner, Terak thought Cindel was "a pretty prize." With the other Ewoks' help, Towani and Warrick escaped from the carriage, but Terak only sent a few Marauders after them.

At the Marauders' keep, King Terak wanted Charal to get the oscillator crystal to work by chanting over it, to no avail. According to the witch, her spies had located Cindel Towani in the woods, near the hut of the old scout Noa Briqualon. She suggested the young girl might know the secret of the magic crystal and could be forced to share it with Terak. The Sanyassan king agreed, and he ordered the witch to bring the child back. When Towani was taken before him, Terak and ordered her to release the "Power," but she answered the crystal was not magic and was only a machine part. But Terak did not believe her, and he had both the girl and Charal taken to the dungeon with the Ewoks captives. The king threatened to execute all the prisoners if Towani hadn't shown the secret of the crystal before dawn.

That night, the Marauders held a banquet in castle hall. Terak remained seated on his throne with a pint of alcohol, hoping the little girl would eventually change her mind. Suddenly, an alarm bell started ringing from the dungeons, meaning the prisoners had escaped. Terak headed for the cellblocks, even as the prisoners were blasting a hole in the wall to escape through. The king learned that Cindel and the Ewoks had been freed by their friends, Noa Briqualon, Wicket Warrick and a creature known as Teek. The enraged warlord then freed Charal to help him trace the fugitives back. The sorceress used her ring and turned into a raven, but Terak grabbed the bird by the leg and seized the ring so Charal would not run away and betray him.

The Marauders army eventually found the fugitives, but the Ewoks put up a valiant defense while Noa Briqualon was trying to get his starship running using the energy cell from the Towani spacecraft. During the skirmish, Cindel Towani was captured by Terak, even as the other Marauders retreated. A climactic duel ensued between the towering Sanyassan and Briqualon. The old hermit was able to strike many good blows, but Terak ended up chopping Briqualon's staff in two with his machete. When it seemed that the warlord had won the fight, Wicket Warrick used his slingshot and damaged Charal's ring, which Terak wore in a pendant round his neck. The talisman shattered, releasing a great amount of energy, and the Marauder king was burned from the inside-out.

Terak's death created a power vacuum in the Marauders' society. While his General Yavid did attempt to succeed him as king, but he failed to bring the rabble-rousers into line. Ultimately, Terak's son Zakul managed to impose his authority over the Marauders, bringing the internecine war to an end and acquiring the throne. Nevertheless, when the New Republic later sent agents to scout the Endorian forest, they found no trace of the Sanyassan Marauders.

At 2.3 meters, Terak was taller and more powerful than many of his peers. Terak was also long-lived and was able to live for a hundred years on Endor, though eventually grew bored of the forest moon. Even before his arrival at Endor, he was a vicious and bloodthirsty warlord and became obsessed with obtaining what he called the "Power," which he was convinced would allow him to leave Endor and conquer the galaxy. Fortunately for the rest of the galaxy, Terak's strength was not equaled by his intelligence. His way of thinking was more in the superstitious form than the scientific form. Otherwise he could have simply taken the Towanis' ship. Instead, Terak believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the oscillator by itself was the key to letting him and the other Marauders leave Endor. Terak also had a dark sense of humor, which he shared with his subjects.

The Marauder King Terak was created by George Lucas for Jim and Ken Wheat's 1985 made-for-television film Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. In the movie, 2.13-meter-tall Dutch actor Carel Struycken portrayed Terak. In early designs by the American director and artist Joe Johnston, Terak was one-eyed and bald, with a thinner frame, yellowish skin and three-fingered hands.

The 2003 article "Who's Who in Star Wars Galaxies," published in Star Wars Insider 65, claimed that Terak's quest for the "Power" caused him to forge his alliance with Charal. However, both Charal's Databank entry on StarWars.com and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, published in 2008, stated that the witch joined the Marauders shortly before their crash on Endor, which happened decades before Terak first heard of the "Power" from Salak Weet. This article follows the facts featured in the Complete Encyclopedia, as it is the newer source.

The sources also give conflicting accounts of Terak's demise. While the King's defunct Databank entry on StarWars.com stated that he was burned by the power of the ring, the young readers' book The Ring, the Witch, and the Crystal: An Ewok Adventure stated that he was turned to stone instead. This article follows the Databank's version of the facts, as it was once the most official Star Wars database.

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