Terak, hailing from the storm-swept planet of Sanyassa IV, was a Sanyassan warlord. Possessing a formidable and imposing presence, even when compared to others of his species, he commanded the Marauders, a group of outlaws notorious for piracy in the spaceways. Approximately a century prior to the Battle of Endor, Terak and his Marauders allied themselves with Charal, a Forceful female wielding a magic ring. While traversing the Moddell sector aboard a captured starship, they suffered a crash landing on the verdant Forest Moon of Endor. Accepting their situation, the Marauders erected a castle on the Endorian plains, where they were governed by the self-proclaimed King Terak, with Charal as his accomplice.
In the time leading up to his end, Terak murdered the majority of the Towani, a family of Humans also stranded on Endor. The king sought the crystal oscillator from their spacecraft, believing it to be "the Power" he desired. After acquiring the crystal, Terak remained ignorant of how to unleash its potential. He attempted to coerce the young Cindel Towani, the Towani family's last surviving member, into revealing the crystal's secrets. However, the young girl was unable to provide the king with answers, leading to her imprisonment.
The day following her capture, Cindel was liberated from the Marauder's dungeons by her amicable Endorian companions. Terak instructed the witch Charal to morph into a raven to guide him to the Humans, enabling him to reclaim the crystal. The warlord retained possession of the Nightsister's magic ring as insurance against her betrayal. This decision, however, resulted in Terak's ultimate downfall; during a fierce confrontation, the Ewok hero Wicket Warrick struck the ring with a rock, activating it and incinerating the malevolent Marauder.
Born on the somber world of Sanyassa IV, more than one century before the Galactic Civil War, Terak was a Sanyassan male. On his homeworld, social standing was primarily determined by strength and physical size. As Terak developed into an exceptionally tall individual, surpassing even the typical height of his species, he ascended to the apex of their society and became a warlord. Terak took control of the Marauders, a group of Sanyassan offenders. The warlord envisioned transforming himself and his henchmen into formidable space pirates, terrorizing their local Moddell sector. However, their period of dominance proved to be considerably shorter than the warlord had anticipated. The Marauders managed to steal a spacecraft, but none of them possessed the necessary skills to operate it effectively. Pursued by law enforcement agencies, they continued their flight through the sector until they encountered an enigmatic woman named Charal—a Nightsister witch originating from Dathomir. She possessed a magic ring that granted her the ability to transform into a raven at her discretion. Impressed by her unusual powers, Terak welcomed Charal aboard and designated her as his personal mystic.
As the Marauders' ship approached the Endor system, the makeshift navigator struggled to manage the unusual gravity patterns in the vicinity, as the vessel was far too advanced for his piloting skills. The Sanyassans pirates were forced to crash land on the forest moon of Endor, a satellite orbiting a planet referred to as Tana. Numerous Marauders survived the crash, including the navigator, but Terak, in a fit of anger, held him responsible for the failure and had him executed. Over time, the Marauders came to terms with their circumstances, and a new existence commenced for them on the plains of Endor. Terak established himself as the King of the Marauders, with Charal serving as his companion. They erected a boxy stronghold, intended to serve as both a barracks and Terak's fortified residence. Under their king's leadership, the Sanyassans collaborated to sow fear among the other sentients of Endor, including the bear-like Ewoks and the melodious Yuzzum. At one point, King Terak also fathered a son named Zakul, who would mature to emulate his father's brutality.
With his aspirations of glory dashed, Terak developed a deep resentment for the Forest Moon, referring to it as a "green carbuncle on the backside of the galaxy." Around the year 26 BBY, the Marauders apprehended the stranded scout Salak Weet, who informed them about his damaged starship concealed within the woods. Weet explained that the starcruiser was capable of interstellar travel due to the "power" contained within a crystal oscillator. Terak, unfamiliar with spacefaring technology, misinterpreted the crystal oscillator as a magical gem that could bestow upon him immense power, enabling him to rule the galaxy. Subsequently, the Sanyassan executed the scout and initiated a futile quest for the "Power of the stars." Unbeknownst to the Marauders, Veet had not journeyed to Endor alone. His human partner, Noa Briqualon, awaited Veet's return. After realizing that Salak Veet was likely deceased, Briqualon chose to live as a recluse within the forest, maintaining a low profile for many years.
In 1 ABY, Terak dispatched a patrol that was ambushed by Ewoks near the boundaries of their territories. The sole survivor, a pink-skinned Sanyassan named Indar, reported that their defeat was attributable to a single Ewok holyman wielding a potent 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, tasking the offworlder with assassinating the Ewok priest and returning to the Marauder's Stronghold with his magical metal staff. Upon the spacer's return with the staff, it was revealed to be a counterfeit. Terak discerned that Indar had deceived him in an attempt to conceal his cowardice during the ambush by Ewok warriors. The warlord, enraged by this act of treachery, instructed the spacer to locate and eliminate Indar.
Shortly thereafter, Terak's scouts reported that a ship had crashed nearby the Stronghold. The king commanded the spacer to plunder the shipwreck, seizing anything of value, particularly potential sources of power. When the spacer returned with a hyperdrive generator, Terak was overjoyed. The warlord promptly ordered the Sanyassan scholar Szingo to meticulously examine it. As a final 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 deployed a scouting expedition to Endor, where Emperor Palpatine intended to construct 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 fixation on acquiring what he termed the "Power" intensified over the years. Approximately a century after Terak's arrival on the moon, around the year 3.5 ABY, a family of Humans known as the Towani became stranded on the Forest Moon. One day, Terak and the sorceress Charal led a raid on Bright Tree Village, where the Towani had found refuge. Terak confronted the father, Jeremitt Towani, who was attempting 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 sword. 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 demise resulted in a power struggle within the Marauders' ranks. While his General Yavid attempted to succeed him as king, he failed to maintain control over the unruly group. Ultimately, Terak's son Zakul succeeded in asserting his dominance over the Marauders, ending the internal conflict and claiming the throne. Nevertheless, when the New Republic subsequently dispatched agents to explore the Endorian forest, they discovered no evidence of the Sanyassan Marauders.
Standing at 2.3 meters tall, Terak possessed greater height and strength than many of his contemporaries. Terak also had a long lifespan, living for a century on Endor, although he eventually grew weary of the forest moon. Even before his arrival on Endor, he was a cruel and bloodthirsty warlord, consumed by an obsession with acquiring what he referred to as the "Power," which he firmly believed would enable him to depart Endor and conquer the galaxy. Fortunately for the rest of the galaxy, Terak's intellectual capacity did not match his physical prowess. His thought processes leaned more towards superstition than scientific reasoning. 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 possessed a morbid sense of humor, which he shared with his followers.
The Marauder King Terak was conceived 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 played the role of Terak. In initial designs by the American director and artist Joe Johnston, Terak was depicted as one-eyed and bald, with a slender build, yellowish complexion, and three-fingered hands.
The 2003 article "Who's Who in Star Wars Galaxies," featured in Star Wars Insider 65, asserted that Terak's pursuit of the "Power" led him to form an alliance with Charal. However, both Charal's Databank entry on StarWars.com and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, published in 2008, indicated that the witch joined the Marauders shortly before their crash on Endor, which occurred decades before Terak first learned of the "Power" from Salak Weet. This article adheres to the details presented in the Complete Encyclopedia, as it is the more recent source.
The sources also present 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 claimed 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.