Salmaca

Salmacas were enormous lizard-like creatures. Jedi Padawan Rooper Nitani compared the size of the salmaca she encountered to at least three times the size of a dewback, a type of reptile with an average height of two meters. They had leathery gray scales, talons on their large paws, and a row of sharp, bony spines protruding from their backs. Their heads were conical with a hooked beak and pink tongue, and they had a fetid smell.

Salmacas were rare creatures that lived in caves and raided nearby settlements at night for materials to line their nests. According to legend, they stole valuables from people's homes, but in reality, they did not distinguish between junk and important items. However, they were peaceful creatures and did not attack people unless provoked. Their diet included gant spiders—a type of poisonous arachnid—whose corpses they would store in their caves.

Around 379 BBY, a salmaca settled in a cave on the world Batuu, where it fed off a nearby colony of gant spiders. At night, the salmaca raided Peka, a nearby village, taking both junk and valuables from the residents' homes and lining its nest with them. The creature continued for several weeks, and on one occasion, the salmaca killed a resident, Tuntis, who had tried to fight back, by tearing his arm off with its beak and leaving him to bleed to death in his ruined home.

When Jedi Master Silandra Sho visited Peka, Pieto, a villager, spoke with her about the salmaca. After Sho examined the tracks of the salmaca, she left her shield in a tree for the salmaca to take and then returned to the Batuu Jedi temple. That night, the salmaca took both the shield and Dee-Twelve, a droid belonging to the family of Jerlyn, a resident of Peka.

The next day, Sho's Padawan, Rooper Nitani, arrived in Peka while searching for the shield as part of her Jedi Trials. She met Jerlyn, who told her about the nightly salmaca raids and her Master's visit the previous day. Nitani was surprised to learn about the salmaca, as she had believed they only existed in legends, but she agreed to recover Dee-Twelve and accompanied a group of four villagers to the salmaca's cave. Among the villagers was Kaxx, a friend of Tuntis who hoped to take revenge on the salmaca.

Nitani entered the cave with P3-7A, a church droid that was accompanying her during her trials, while the villagers waited outside. Inside, Nitani came across the corpses of several gant spiders that the salmaca had stored as a food source, and she realized that it might have been protecting Peka from the dangerous arachnids.

In the same chamber, she found the salmaca sleeping in its nest, and after using the Force to influence the salmaca into rolling over, was able to recover Dee-Twelve, who had been beneath the creature's paw. She then saw the shield, but before she could take it, the villagers, who had entered the cave, shot at the salmaca with blasters. Calling on the Force again, Nitani used the shield to protect both the salmaca and the villagers, whom she ordered to leave. After the villagers fled, the salmaca determined that Nitani was not a threat and returned to sleep.

When Nitani returned to Peka, she told the villagers about the gant spider colony that the salmaca was feeding off and how it was protecting them by keeping the spider's population in check. The villagers agreed to leave junk outside each night for the salmaca to take so that it would no longer need to raid homes. When Nitani told Sho about how she had resolved the situation, she agreed that it was a perfect solution but also informed Nitani that she smelled of salmaca droppings.

A salmaca appeared in the short story "Shield of the Jedi," written by George Mann and published in the 2023 young-adult anthology The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life as a part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project.

• Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia