Karazak, a planet situated in the Outer Rim, gained notoriety because of its involvement in the enslavement trade. Around 82 BBY, Lene Kostana, a Jedi Master, and her Padawan, Sifo-Dyas, penetrated a smuggler organization on Karazak while they investigated Sith artifacts being sold on the black market. The supply chains of the smuggler group enticed them, along with Padawan Dooku, into a carefully planned ambush by the Presagers of Hakotei located on the world Asusto. In 4 ABY, the Lormar-class space station named Whitedrift Exchange made its way into orbit around Karazak.
Karazak, a terrestrial world, was located within both the Outer Rim Territories and the Trailing Sectors. Its coordinates placed it in grid square P-19 of the Standard Galactic Grid.
Approximately in 82 BBY, Lene Kostana, a Jedi Master, and her Padawan, Sifo-Dyas, secretly entered a smuggler operation on Karazak as they attempted to locate and seize Sith artifacts from the black market. Unaware of the Jedi's intentions, the smugglers unwittingly allowed Kostana and Sifo-Dyas to track their supply routes. This pursuit brought the pair, along with Dooku, who was also a Padawan, to the planet Asusto, where they discovered that the trail was a deliberate scheme devised by the last surviving members of the Presagers of Hakotei. Dooku later recorded these events within his personal journal. Around 23 BBY, Dooku permitted Asajj Ventress, his newly appointed Sith assassin, to access his journal during her investigation into the whereabouts of his sister, Jenza, and she listened to the part that mentioned Karazak.
By the Imperial Era, Karazak had become a world known for enslaving others. Its name was shared with the Karazak Slavers' Cooperative, an enslavement syndicate that was active during that time. In 4 ABY, the Whitedrift Exchange, a Lormar-class space station that served as a mobile trading hub and residential station, moved into orbit around Karazak, and news of its arrival was communicated throughout the station. Soran Keize, a former major in the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing, who was living on the Whitedrift Exchange under the alias "Devon Lhent," reflected that their arrival at Karazak would have previously attracted unwanted attention from the Galactic Empire, which, despite its tolerance of enslavement, had still regulated the practice, but he did not anticipate similar scrutiny from the New Republic.
Within the current Star Wars canon, Karazak's initial depiction appeared on a map featured in the article Where in the Galaxy Are the Worlds of Star Wars: The Force Awakens?, authored by Mark Newbold and published on StarWars.com on January 29, 2016. Although the name "Karazak" was not entirely clear in the article's image, the world was subsequently identified in Star Wars: The Force Awakens Beginner Game, a Star Wars Roleplaying boxed set launched by Fantasy Flight Games on August 4 of that year.
In the Star Wars Legends continuity, the name of the planet Karazak was first introduced in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, a 1993 sourcebook penned by Simon Smith and Eric Trautmann and released by West End Games for use with Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Karazak was later detailed as a specific celestial body in Rick D. Stuart's 1994 sourcebook titled Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters.