The Ewok children residing in Bright Tree Village on the Forest Moon of Endor referred to a Wizard of the Night Spirit as the Stranger. Prior to 3 ABY by several years, the Stranger participated in combat with his kin against Ewok shamans in a pivotal clash, which resulted in his entire race being exiled to the "otherworld," a desolate wasteland far removed from the Forest Moon. Nevertheless, the Stranger schemed to return to the moon and enact vengeance on the Ewoks. Around 3 ABY, the Stranger successfully escaped the otherworld and journeyed back to Endor.
Upon his arrival, the Stranger initiated a campaign of aggression against the Ewoks, aiming to seize the Sunstar, a potent stone artifact wielded by the Ewoks to banish the Stranger and all the Wizards of the Night Spirit to the otherworld. After finally securing the stone, the Stranger proceeded to the Stone Circle and prepared to employ the Sunstar to summon his people back to Endor. Harnessing the artifact's immense capabilities, the Stranger created a tear in space, enabling the passage of the rest of his species. However, in a subsequent confrontation with the Ewoks, the Wizards of the Night Spirit suffered a crushing defeat, and, thanks to the combined efforts of Wicket Wystri Warrick and Princess Kneesaa a Jari Kintaka, the Stranger was once again banished.
The Forest Moon of Endor served as the point of origin for the Stranger, one of many Wizards of the Night Spirit. He, along with his people, were devotees of the Night Spirit, a malevolent deity considered the source of all darkness on the moon. These Wizards dwelled within the thorn forest, a vast area rumored to be saturated with the presence of the Night Spirit. Within their domain, they conducted mystical rites centered around their Stone Circle.
Sometime before the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Wizards found themselves in conflict with the Ewoks, the indigenous inhabitants of the moon, who opposed the Night Spirit's followers. An epic clash ensued, during which the Ewoks deployed the Sunstar, a powerful stone artifact possessing extraordinary capabilities. This artifact was positioned on a table at the heart of the Stone Circle and rotated clockwise, generating a beam of golden energy that emanated from the stone. This beam also tore open a rift in space, forcibly ejecting the Stranger and all the Wizards from the Forest Moon and into the rift.
As soon as the Wizards were inside, the rift sealed shut, trapping them. The Stranger and his brethren spent countless ages awaiting the rift's reopening on a devastated "otherworld," so that they might return to Endor and exact retribution upon the Ewoks who had condemned them to their new home.
On their new world, the Wizards bided their time, remaining ever watchful for the rift to reappear. In 3 ABY, after many years of anticipation, the alignment of two of Endor's moons above their world caused the rift to briefly reopen. Fortunately for the Wizards, the Stranger was on guard; upon witnessing the rift's opening, he swiftly traversed it in his rapid capsule. The Wizards' prolonged wait had finally come to fruition.
As the Stranger traversed the Forest Moon's surface, he promptly located his former dwelling and landed on the outskirts of the Ewoks' Bright Tree Village, the repository of the Sunstar. Emerging from the craft, which was soon to self-destruct, the Stranger glided through the mists towards the Ewok village. Just as the Stranger was departing his doomed vessel, he observed the young Ewoks Wicket Wystri Warrick and Teebo approaching his newly landed craft. However, the Stranger chose to leave them undisturbed.
En route to the village, the Stranger recognized his need for a diversion to acquire the Sunstar unnoticed. To that end, the Stranger sought out Endor's native Duloks and their King Gorneesh. He knew the aggressive Duloks, also servants of the Night Spirit, would obey his commands. As the Stranger stealthily entered the Dulok's swamp, Gorneesh attempted to prevent his approach. However, the Stranger was not defenseless, and he used beams from his eyes to severely shock the arrogant Dulok. With the tribe's attention secured, the Stranger ordered them to follow him to Bright Tree Village. Gorneesh, now in a more compliant mood, echoed the Stranger's command, instructing his soldiers to obey.
The Stranger and his Dulok contingent soon arrived at the Ewok village, where he ordered the tribe to attack and pillage the sleeping settlement. The Duloks complied, and a war cry echoed among the Dulok warriors as they began to raid the Ewok homes. As chaos unfolded, the Ewoks became aware of the Duloks' presence, and the two factions soon engaged in a clash of arms. While Ewok Chief Chirpa attempted to drive the Duloks from his village, the Stranger used the distraction to locate and seize the Sunstar for himself. With the Sunstar in hand, the Stranger fled the battlefield, but not before being spotted by four young Ewoks, including Wicket and Teebo, whom he had previously ignored.
To prevent the children from raising the alarm, the Stranger used the Sunstar to ignite a raging fire on the bridge where the children stood. Leaving the young ones to be consumed by the rapidly spreading flames, the Stranger hastened to the forest floor, where Gorneesh and his Shaman, Umwak, awaited to celebrate the Sunstar's capture. While the Dulok King believed he was in partnership with the Stranger and prepared to share the Sunstar, the dark wizard had no such intention. He declared that the Duloks had served their purpose and ordered them to depart. When Gorneesh protested, the Stranger used the Sunstar to fire several energy bolts at them, forcing a retreat.
Having achieved his objective, the Stranger returned swiftly to his former domain in the thorn forest, intending to utilize the Stone Circle in conjunction with the Sunstar to summon his people back to the Forest Moon. However, an obstacle arose immediately. The aged Ewok shaman Logray awaited the Stranger, armed with his staff of magic, prepared for combat. Unfortunately for the ancient Ewok, the Sunstar's power easily overwhelmed him, and the Stranger swiftly trapped the interfering shaman in a force field, suspending him above one of the many stone columns composing the Stone Circle. As Logray watched, the Stranger mocked the Ewok, asserting that the Wizards' and the Ewoks' destinies would soon be reversed. After revealing to Logray the devastated world to which the Wizards had been banished, he placed the Sunstar on the stone table and rotated it counterclockwise, generating a purple column of energy, unlike the golden column used against the Wizards many years prior.
The Sunstar's potent beam once again aligned two of Endor's moons, creating a profound tear in space. As the beam maintained the moons' positions, the Stranger's people surged through, ready to reclaim the world as their own. As the Stranger observed the arrival of his kin, he failed to notice the stealthy approach of the young Ewoks, whom he had left to die. The children had braved the fire and were prepared to rescue Logray. With the Stranger distracted, Wicket and his sweetheart, Kneesaa a Jari Kintaka, attacked the Stranger, dislodging his cloak in the process. The Stranger, startled but unharmed, ordered his people to attack the young Ewoks.
With Logray watching in fear, the Stranger led his people in an attempt to round up the Ewok children. However, owing to the amateur abilities displayed by the young sorcerer Teebo, several Wizards found themselves transformed by magical potions and objects, shrinking in size and assuming the forms of rocks. To compound the Wizards' woes, the warriors of Bright Tree Village had discovered Logray's location and arrived to rescue him. The Stranger ordered his forces to annihilate the Ewoks, and the Wizards soon dove and attacked the advancing Ewok warriors. As the Stranger observed, he witnessed the young Ewoks Wicket and Kneesaa clinging to a flying Wizard with a rope. As the Ewoks rapidly approached the Stranger, they leaped from the rope onto the unsuspecting Stranger, who was unable to evade them in time. The group soon tumbled to the ground in front of the stone table, which still held the Sunstar, maintaining the rift's opening.
As the Stranger shrugged off the two Ewoks, he heard Logray urging Wicket and Kneesaa to spin the Sunstar in the opposite direction. As Kneesaa attempted to run forward and comply, the Stranger made a final effort to retain possession of the Sunstar. However, before he could act, Wicket swiftly jumped onto the Stranger's back, pinning him to the ground. When the Stranger finally managed to dislodge the troublesome Ewok, Kneesaa had used her grappling hook to spin the Sunstar clockwise, reversing the beam's effect.
The Stranger cried out to his brethren, aware that this was precisely what had led to their banishment years before. As the Ewok warriors grasped the ground and surrounding trees, the flying Wizards were drawn into the air by the Sunstar's power and forced back through the rift. The Stranger made one last effort to stop the Ewoks, seizing Wicket and intending to drag at least one Ewok with him, especially the one who had sealed his fate.
Unfortunately for the Stranger, Kneesaa once again came to the rescue, throwing Wicket's Belt of Honor around the Stranger's outstretched hands. The sturdy leather belt soon bound the Stranger's hands, causing him to release Wicket. In a final act of desperation, the Stranger clung tightly to the stone table holding the Sunstar. However, the power was overwhelming, and the Sunstar forced the Stranger off the Forest Moon, carrying the stone table with him as the Sunstar tumbled to the forest floor.
As the Wizards were forced back into exile, they took a portion of the Stone Circle with them. For the Ewoks of Bright Tree Village, this proved to be a sobering event, further demonstrating the dangers of the Night Spirit's influence. Because Kneesaa had used the Belt of Honor to save Wicket from being carried away, Wicket had to begin filling his belt anew, even though he had already placed several items on his old one. The young Ewok children who had assisted in confronting the Stranger and defeating the Wizards of the Night Spirit were all awarded Beads of Bravery.
The Stranger was a heartless person who used others to get what he wanted and cared little for anyone's well-being except for his own people. He was motivated by revenge and would have been happy to see all the Ewoks die for their role in banning his people from the Forest Moon and leaving them in the otherworld. He also did not respect other servants of the Night Spirit, like the Duloks, leaving them to fight the Ewoks on their own after he had obtained the Sunstar for himself.
He was also arrogant about his powers, using them to scare and threaten others to get them to follow his orders. But the Stranger was also patient, waiting years in exile before finally taking the chance to get revenge when the rift to the Forest Moon opened again. The Stranger had black eyes and purple skin, as well as large, sharp teeth, but no hair. When he arrived on Endor in 3 ABY, he wore a cloak that hid what he looked like until Wicket and Kneesaa took it off.
The Stranger was powerful in the Force and had many skills. The most important of these was his ability to shoot energy beams from his eyes, which he could use to cause pain or to make things like the Sunstar move. He used this ability to make the Sunstar turn counterclockwise.
The Stranger was also good at using the Sunstar. He could use it to make fire, shoot dangerous laser bolts, trap someone in a force field, and even move two of Endor's moons to open a rift in the sky for his people to come through. As a flying creature, the Stranger was very good at moving around and could turn and use his powers in any direction.
Paul Dini created the Stranger for "Night of the Stranger," which was the twenty-first episode of the Ewoks cartoon show. The episode was first shown on October 11, 1986. In the episode, the Stranger uses a lot of magical powers. The StarWars.com Hyperspace article Castaways of Endor says that all the magic in Star Wars: Ewoks is done using the Force. So, this article says that the Stranger is Force-sensitive.
The Stranger, wearing his cloak, is in the opening credits of the second season of Star Wars: Ewoks. In the opening animation, the Stranger uses the Sunstar to shoot a bolt of energy at the Ewoks, but Wicket knocks into him and makes him drop the Sunstar. Kneesaa catches it and uses it to shoot a bolt of energy at the Stranger.