Gonk Droid

Jawas are meter-tall humanoids completely hidden behind rough, hand-woven robes. Their faces are concealed within the dark folds of a cowl, from which peer their sickly glowing yellow eyes. They comb the deserts of Tatooine in search of discarded scrap and wayward mechanicals. Using their cobbled-together weaponry, they can incapacitate droids and drag them to their treaded fortress-homes, immense sand-scarred vehicles known as sandcrawlers. They sell their hastily refurbished junk to moisture farmers who are hard-pressed to find a better selection elsewhere.

Tatooine is harsh desert world orbiting twin suns in the galaxy’s Outer Rim. In the days of the Empire and the Republic, many settlers scratched out a living on moisture farms, while spaceport cities such as Mos Eisley and Mos Espa served as home base for smugglers, criminals, and other rogues. Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker both once called Tatooine home, although across the stars it was more widely known as a hive of scum and villainy ruled by the crime boss Jabba the Hutt.

Sandcrawlers are huge treaded fortresses used by Jawas as transportation and shelter. The sand-pitted vehicles, many meters in height, are equipped with a magnetic suction tube for sucking droids and scrap into their cargo chambers.

Owen Lars continued his father Cliegg’s efforts to build his homestead into a productive farm, working alongside his wife, Beru. Helping with the dreary chores required to keep the farm profitable, Owen relies on his nephew, Luke Skywalker, whom the couple raised since birth. Like most moisture farmers on Tatooine, Lars is fiercely protective of his land and his family. When there is an intrusion on the tranquility of the Lars Homestead, Owen defends his home.

Two generations of the Lars family sought to make a living on this hardscrabble moisture farm on Tatooine, contending not just with the planet’s hot and arid conditions but also with vicious bands of Tusken Raiders. Anakin Skywalker visited the farm in search of his mother Shmi, who’d married Cliegg Lars but been kidnapped by Tuskens. Later, Luke Skywalker grew up there, raised by Cliegg’s son Owen and his wife Beru while Obi-Wan Kenobi kept watch from afar. Imperial stormtroopers searching for R2-D2 and C-3PO burned the homestead and murdered Owen and Beru, leaving Luke determined to learn the ways of the Jedi and fight the Empire.

A single, winding dirt-swept road curves up into the crook of a rocky canyon, leading to a lone structure in the desert wastes beyond the Dune Sea of Tatooine. Here stood the palace of Jabba the Hutt, an immense curving building of sandblasted metal and pitted stone. Inside, the dregs of the galaxy congregated to do all manner of illicit business, to curry favor with the grotesque crime lord, or to avoid his fickle wrath. Jabba reclined atop a stone dais within the throne room of his palace, a bustling chamber that overlooked a secret pit that contained his favorite beast, the vicious rancor monster.