Saelt-Marae, a male Yarkora, operated as an informant for Jabba Desilijic Tiure, the Hutt crime lord. Posing as a merchant at Jabba's Palace on Tatooine, the planet, he would expose plots against the Hutt. During 0 ABY, while at the palace, the Sith Lord Darth Vader arrived to converse with Jabba, resulting in Saelt-Marae's dismissal from the Hutt's throne room.
In 4 ABY, while situated in the throne room with the Whiphid J'Quille, Saelt-Marae witnessed the arrival of the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, who carried a message from their master, the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. The message requested Jabba to negotiate for the release of Han Solo, the smuggler who was encased in carbonite and displayed on a wall within the throne room. Subsequently, the Yarkora joined the other courtiers in observing a performance by the Max Rebo Band, which culminated in the enslaved dancer Oola being fed to Pateesa, Jabba's rancor pet.
Following the death of Oola, Princess Leia Organa made her entrance at the palace disguised as Boushh, the bounty hunter, as part of a scheme to rescue Solo. Accompanied by the Wookiee Chewbacca as a prisoner, she engaged in negotiations with Jabba regarding the bounty on the Wookiee, brandishing an activated thermal detonator to coerce him into paying a higher sum. Saelt-Marae, along with others, sought cover, but Jabba merely laughed and consented to the increased price.
The following day, Skywalker arrived and attempted to bargain with Jabba, only to be cast into the rancor pit. Saelt-Marae was among the onlookers as the Jedi vanquished the rancor, after which Jabba condemned Skywalker, Solo, and Chewbacca to death at the Great Pit of Carkoon. Saelt-Marae accompanied Jabba aboard the sail barge Khetanna to witness the executions, but the prisoners launched an assault on their captors, leading to Organa's killing of Jabba and the subsequent destruction of the barge.
Saelt-Marae, a male of the Yarkora species, functioned as an intelligence source for the Hutt crime lord known as Jabba Desilijic Tiure, endeavoring to uncover any potential conspiracies against his employer. Stationed at the Hutt's palace situated on the desert planet Tatooine, the Yarkora would take on the guise of a Tatooine merchant to gather intelligence on Jabba's adversaries within the palace, which was a job that would last forever. Back in 0 ABY, Saelt-Marae was standing near the back of a group of thugs that Jabba had called to his throne room to attack the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Vader took down the rest of the thugs in the group before threatening Jabba until the Hutt gave in.
It was in his role as an informant that, in 4 ABY, he found himself present in Jabba's throne room, seated next to the Whiphid named J'Quille in one of the booths, when Bib Fortuna, Jabba's majordomo, and two Gamorrean guards escorted the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO into the chamber. Subsequently, R2-D2 projected a hologram of the droids' master, the Jedi Luke Skywalker, for Jabba's viewing, in which Skywalker requested to negotiate with the Hutt for the freedom of the smuggler Han Solo, a friend of the Jedi's whom Jabba had frozen in carbonite while showing him off in the palace. Skywalker ended the message by giving Jabba the two droids, but the Hutt said he had no interest in losing Solo.
Saelt-Marae was once again seated in one of the throne room's booths when Jabba and his court observed a performance of the song "Jedi Rocks" by the Max Rebo Band. Upon the song's conclusion, Jabba instructed them to repeat the number, but during the second rendition, the Hutt interrupted the performance when he dropped the enslaved dancer Oola into a pit situated beneath the throne room after she rejected his advances. The Yarkora remained in the booth while the court then happily watched as Oola was eaten by Pateesa, Jabba's pet rancor. With the commotion over, Saelt-Marae and the rest of the court's attention was pulled to the throne room's entry way by the sound of blaster fire. He turned as Princess Leia Organa, disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh, entered the room with the Wookiee Chewbacca as her prisoner.
Organa demanded double the bounty that Jabba had set on Chewbacca, and produced an active thermal detonator in order to threaten the Hutt. The sight of the weapon caused Saelt-Marae to take cover along with many other courtiers, but Jabba just laughed and gave a slightly increased counter-offer that Organa accepted, allowing Chewbacca to be taken away to the palace dungeons. Organa's true objective in the palace was to rescue Solo, but Jabba had seen through her disguise and set a trap for her. Later that night, Saelt-Marae and many other members of the court were laying in wait behind curtains in the throne room when Organa snuck back in and freed the smuggler from the carbonite. Once she removed her mask, Jabba revealed the trap and had the curtains pulled back to reveal Saelt-Marae and the others, who were stood on the stairs leading to the throne room's exit, blocking Organa and Solo's path.
With Solo and Organa taken prisoner, Skywalker himself soon arrived at the palace. Saelt-Marae was resting in the throne room booth nearest the entry way with J'Quille and a human girl when Skywalker entered, having used a mind trick on Fortuna to convince the majordomo to wake Jabba up. Once Jabba was awake, the rest of the court began to rise as well while Skywalker demanded that Solo and the others be let free. Jabba refused, and when Skywalker threatened him with a blaster pistol, the crime lord dropped the Jedi and the unfortunate Gamorrean Jubnuk into the rancor pit. Saelt-Marae and J'Quille gathered around the grill again to watch, but Skywalker managed to slay the beast after it ate the Gamorrean.
Lando Calrissian, an ally of Skywalker's working undercover as one of Jabba's guards, then pushed past the Yarkora and the Whiphid in order to get down to the pit and drag Skywalker back up to the throne room. Solo and Chewbacca were also brought up, and Jabba sentenced the trio to death, declaring they would be executed at the Great Pit of Carkoon. The prisoners were then marched from the throne room, with Saelt-Marae and other court members following behind them in a crowd.
To reach the Great Pit of Carkoon, where the prisoners were to be fed to a sarlacc, Saelt-Marae traveled with Jabba aboard the Khetanna, the Hutt's personal sail barge. At the pit, those on the barge gathered at the windows to watch the prisoners be executed, but Skywalker managed to free himself and began attacking Jabba's men. In the chaos that ensued, Organa, who was on board the Khetanna, smashed a panel that controlled the shutters on the sail barge's windows, causing them to close and throw the interior of the barge into darkness. Saelt-Marae panicked and rushed around the barge as Organa killed Jabba by strangling him with her chain. She then escaped to the deck of the sail barge where she used a laser cannon to destroy the vehicle before escaping with her allies.
The character of Saelt-Marae was portrayed by Sean Crawford in the 1983 motion picture Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. In the film, he did not have a name. The name "Yak Face" was assigned to Saelt-Marae during the production phase of Return of the Jedi, appearing as number 31 on a list of all the creatures being made for the film dating back to November 4, 1981. The character was first given a name in Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition, a Star Wars Legends supplement for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game by West End Games.
During the filming of Return of the Jedi, it was initially planned for Saelt-Marae to have a dispute with Ree-Yees, leading C-3PO to step in and separate them. Although the scene was filmed, it was ultimately omitted from the film's release. The scenes within the palace throne room were filmed between January 25 and February 8, 1982 on Stage 8 at Elstree Studios, while the interior shots of the sail barge were filmed on Stage 9 between February 9 and February 11. A maquette of the character, measuring ten centimeters by fourteen centimeters by eighteen centimeters, was created for the film. The mask was sculpted by Judy Hawkins, an employee of Industrial Light & Magic.