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 Jawa:
Maker defend the droid that has wandered away from its masters on
the desert world of Tatooine.
Of the many dangers that travel the dunes and crags of the arid world,
few can send a droid's behavioral matrix circuitry into a tizzy like
the Jawas.
They are hardly monstrous, appearing as 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. The
Jawas are a scavenger species. 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.
Jawas form an important link in the circle of trade that connects
the distant Tatooine communities. They sell their hastily refurbished
junk to moisture farmers who are hard-pressed to find a better
selection elsewhere. For their shoddy work and vagabond ways, they
have a well-earned reputation as hucksters out to hoodwink the
outlander colonists on Tatooine.
The Jawas of Tatooine are a scavenger
species that scours the deserts in hopes of finding machinery to
salvage. As such, they carry weapons specially designed to
incapacitate droids. The small rifle that connects to a belt-worn
powerpack emits a smoky blast of energy that envelops a droid in an
electric blue haze. By the time the discharge has worked its way
through a droid's body, the automaton is rendered inactive, and the
greedy scrap-dealers move in to lift it away.
Few have ever seen the ugliness that lies beneath a Jawa mask. Jawa
faces are obscured by a cloud of insects that gather in the recesses
of their hoods, attracted by their foul odors. Their particular stench
is a combination of poor hygiene and a mysterious solution into which
Jawas dip their clothes to retain moisture. To Jawas, the odor is
packed with information about each other, such as clan lineage,
health, emotional state, even the last meal eaten.
Jawas have evolved several important
survival traits, such as exceptional night vision, a strong immune
system, and an efficient digestive system that draws all the needed
nutrients from the Jawa staple diet of hubba gourd.
Jawas have long been scavengers, as
the Dune Sea provides a bounty of refuse. It is littered with derelict
spacecraft wreckage from millennia of star travel. The Jawas have
built homes and tools from these ancient scraps, and travel the dunes
in sandcrawlers,
cast-off mobile smelters from failed outlander mining attempts.
Jawas live in familial clans, each
with distinct territories for living and scavenging. While half the
clan is crammed into the warren-like compartments of a sandcrawler,
scouring the deserts for usable salvage, the other half resides within
a thick-walled fortress. These desert homes were built to protect the
Jawas from Sand
People or roaming krayt
dragons.
A chief leads each clan. Jawa
leadership is usually conferred upon males -- females are viewed upon
as second-class citizens at best, property at worst. The few females
afforded respect in Jawa culture are the shamans. A Jawa becomes a
shaman when she is overcome by an illness accompanied by a
hallucinatory vision. Depending on the outcome of the vision, and
indeed if the Jawa survives the illness, she is usually decreed a
shaman, and her words are given the respect that such wisdom dictates.
Once a year, the scattered Jawa clans
gather for the great swap meet. Here, numerous sandcrawlers converge
and the Jawas meet to exchange salvage. Marriages are arranged and
Jawa children and females are exchanged among clans.
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 tubes for sucking
droids and scrap into their cargo chambers.
Jawas hail from Tatooine, a small desert world in the Outer Rim. Jawas
scour the desert looking for lost or abandoned droids and other
technology. What little they find is loaded into Sandcrawlers, massive
steamdriven transport vehicles which serve as moving workshops for the
Jawas. Jawas earn their keep by selling the repaired (or at least jury
rigged) droids. Jawas rarely leave Tatooine, but some occassionally
leave their clans behind in favor of Mos Eisley and other human
settlements. Jawas are fiercely loyal to their friends, but Jawas
rarely form friendships with humans because of the humans'
condesending manner.
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