Iyra The Iyra were a species of sentient cephalopods from the watery planet F ' tral . Each Iyra had four or more limbs that spread from the radially symmetrical body , an arrangement that made each member of the species one to two meters in diameter . The mouth opened from the ventral side of the body , and one eyestalk grew for each tentacle . As an Iyra became older , he or she grew more tentacles and eyes . The species ' leathery skin was elastic and capable of changing color for camouflage or for courtship rituals . Although they were aquatic and resided in large undersea cities , Iyra were able to survive on land . They were clumsy out of water , however , and preferred to travel on small repulsor sleds known as floating pond s . Iyra society was governed by a rigid caste system that placed Iyra with more tentacles — the older and larger members of the group — at a higher position . Iyra careless enough to lose a tentacle through accident or in combat suffered a reduction in caste and had to destroy an eye to correspond to the lost limb . Disputes between Iyra of equal caste were sometimes settled via duels . The first to lose a tentacle was immediately reduced to a lower caste and forced to yield to the superior combatant . The lowest caste , composed of four - armed Iyra , was responsible for raising the young . Iyra tended to view members of other species through the lens of the caste system ; Iyra with five or more tentacles thus looked down upon humanoids and other two - armed bipeds . The Iyra ' s attitude lent them a reputation as arrogant among other species . Since Iyra could absorb oxygen through their skin , Iyra starships were filled with gaseous atmosphere heavy in water vapor . The strategy contrasted that of many purely aquatic species whose attempts to design craft filled with liquid water made them both heavier and more expensive to operate . Iyra were leaders in the manufacture of corrosion - resistant metal alloys and the design of gravity - manipulation equipment and inertial devices for starships . Famous Iyra included Tem Eliss , the eminent sentientologist who wrote " The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life " . Biology and appearance . The Iyra were sentient cephalopods whose round bodies featured multiple tentacles that radiated from a plump central section with a gaping , grinding maw at its underside . The body was covered in rubbery skin , the color of which the Iyra could change to help blend into the environment and to facilitate communication . An Iyra ' s skin needed not be all one hue ; complex patterns such as stripes were within the individual ' s control . The skin acted as a respiratory organ , functional in both air and water , provided it was kept moist . Iyra were comfortable at great depths , able to ignore the detrimental effects of water pressure suffered by many other species . Barring accidental maiming or amputation , Iyra had at least four tentacles : flexible , elongated body structures that had a mostly conical shape but flattened out toward their undersides . Two rows of suction cups lined the bottom of each limb , allowing the appendages to serve as fine manipulators . Each tentacle was paired with an eyestalk , a short , thin growth at the top of the protuberant body section that housed an oblong visual organ , with a sclera and pupil , protected by heavy lids . The eyestalks swiveled to allow an Iyra to concentrate several eyes in a certain direction , and the visual organs granted the cephalopods excellent underwater vision . From tentacle - tip to tentacle - tip , Iyra ranged from one to two meters in diameter . Internally , Iyra biology followed patterns unlike those of many other sentient species . Most internal organs were housed within the central body that contained the digestive tract , lungs , a sizable brain , and multiple hearts . The species lacked any internal skeletal system , so most of their mass was pure muscle . Nevertheless , a brainpan protected the brain . Their flexible body structure allowed Iyra to contract and squeeze their bodies and played a role in locomotion ; underwater , Iyra could achieve great swimming speed by contracting muscles and expelling water from the mouth . On land , however , they were limited to laboriously slapping an outstretched limb onto the ground and then dragging the rest of the body forward to meet it . Similarly , Iyra suffered reductions to their motor skills when in an atmosphere . The Iyra were endothermic organisms with the ability to withstand the chilling waters of their underwater domain . Iyra had two sexes and reproduced sexually , with the male inserting a specialized mating tentacle into the female and fertilizing the clutch of eggs inside her body . The eggs gestated and hatched internally , at which point the mother expelled the live young . Iyra children were born with four tentacles and four eyestalks , with new limb – eye pairs continually growing throughout the individual ' s lifespan . Society and culture . To outsiders , Iyra generally seemed to possess great wisdom — matched by even greater egos . The cephalopods often came off as haughty blowhards who took offense to any perceived slight and rarely refrained from unleashing barbs of their own . Part of this penchant for superciliousness arose from the Iyra ' s caste system , which determined an individual ' s status based on his or her number of limbs . Thus , four - limbed creatures like humanoid species fell into the lowest rung of the Iyra reckoning of status by default . Species with five or more limbs tended to be treated better by the aquatic beings . Still , Iyra tended to prefer the company of their own species to that of non - Iyra . To the Iyra , class and status were of the utmost importance . Due to the association of status with tentacle number , the relative social positions of two individuals were readily apparent upon any encounter : the Iyra with fewer tentacles deferred to his or her superior without question . Rather than view this system as repressive , however , most Iyra believed that because members of their species continued to grow new limbs throughout their lives , all Iyra could expect to experience great social mobility . Further , the more status — and tentacles — an Iyra had , the older he or she was likely to be , a system that ensured that the oldest and wisest individuals assumed positions of leadership in a community . Nevertheless , some younger Iyra did express resentment of their elders in ways similar to the adolescents and youths of many other species . Iyra were prone to rows within the same caste , which called for a two - stage system of mediation . First , the Iyra were expected to discuss their grievances and talk out a solution . If such peaceful methods failed , Iyra custom called for a duel , a task for which the species ' multiple limbs made them quite adept . Such brawls were fought not to the death but rather to the loss of a tentacle , an outcome that automatically reduced the loser ' s status and forced him or her to defer to the opponent . Even if the result of an accident , losing a tentacle reduced the Iyra ' s status to that of the caste with the same number of manipulators . Iyra rationalized this relegation by holding that anyone who lost a limb obviously lacked the sagacity needed to justify having the limb in the first place . Iyra custom forced anyone who lost a limb to sacrifice the corresponding eyestalk as well . In cases where a member of the species lost " only " an eyestalk , however , retained the status indicated by their number of tentacles , but they lost their authority over the caste directly subordinate to them . Iyra mated twice each year at specialized breeding grounds on their homeworld . Copulation first required intricate courtship behavior wherein the males put on shows of virtuoso skin - color changing accompanied by an aquatic dance . Each female responded to her favorite mating display and embraced her chosen paramour to reproduce . Once born , Iyra young were placed under the charge of the four - tentacled caste . The Iyra had access to technology on par with most of the rest of the galaxy . They inhabited large , underwater cities on the ocean floor , where they used geothermal energy to extract metals from ore . The species was particularly famed for the alloys they produced , which were resistant to corrosion . Iyra engineers also excelled at hydraulics - , magnetism - , and fusion - based technologies . Another area of Iyra innovation was in hyperdrive - equipped spacecraft designed for aquatic beings . Rather than trying to fill their ships with water as many other aquatic species had attempted , the Iyra realized that this added mass was a serious liability in achieving efficient flight . Instead , they created a system whereby Iyra ships were filled with an atmosphere thick with water vapor . The mixture kept the Iyra crewmembers moist , protected their internal chemical homeostasis , and allowed them to breath properly while in space . Other Iyra areas of expertise were in gravitational acceleration and compensation for inertial disturbances . The Iyra were vigorous traders who sold technological products to offworlders in exchange for other goods . One Iyra - owned corporation was Iyranis Gravitics Limited , which produced gravity - manipulating technology . One of their items was the Iyra gravity belt , a wearable garment that looked like a normal utility belt but which used gravity fields to guide a person in freefall . At least some Iyra were known to drink a salty beverage known as brinebrew . The Iyra ' s native language had both a spoken and written form . The script used for the tongue incorporated various squiggles and curved shapes . The name of the species ' homeworld , F ' tral , meant " water " in the language . At least one Iyra had two names , the sentientologist Tem Eliss . Members of the species were capable of learning to speak Basic . History . The Iyra evolved on F ' tral , a largely aquatic world with 93 percent of its surface submerged . The presence of carnivorous plant life on the planet ' s scattered landmasses made life on land precarious and depressed the evolutionary development of terrestrial animals . Instead , aquatic species evolved — including crustaceans ancestral to the Iyra — and cephalopods rose to dominate those parts of the planet that lay beneath the waves . From this stock came the Iyra , who paired their ancestors ' multiple suckered tentacles with larger brains and bodies . Increased intelligence allowed the Iyra to reach the pinnacle of F ' tral ' s lifeforms . Large brains permitted the Iyra to make and use tools and to form advanced societies that adhered to what became the standard tentacle - based caste system . After F ' tral received its first visitors from another world , the Iyra were introduced to the galactic community — a community dominated by land - dwelling species . In order to better integrate and join their comrades among the stars , Iyra scientists developed specialized equipment designed specifically for the tentacled beings , and special craft that saturated the interior with water vapor , keeping the skin moist . Their planet eventually became part of the Calaron sector in the Outer Rim Territories , a part of the galaxy considered part of the Slice . By 52 BBY , F ' tral had fallen within the confines of Hutt Space , a situation that persisted at least through the Clone Wars . By 14 BBY , the borders of Hutt Space had retracted to no longer encompass the Iyra home system . During the Galactic Civil War , the sentientologist Obo Rin , working for the Galactic Empire , described the Iyra in the " Catalog of Intelligent Life in the Galaxy " . The work was ostensibly a collection of information on those species Rin felt most important in the galaxy and of the most interest to Emperor Palpatine . Some Iyra suffered under the Galactic Empire and sought refuge on the planet Krinemonen III , a safe world established by the Mon Calamari . Years later , in 137 ABY , F ' tral fell within a region known as the Hutt dependencies . Iyra in the galaxy . Iyra were widespread in the galaxy at large , although they faced discrimination from members of other species due to their personalities , which came off as abrasive to non - Iyra . The cephalopods strongly preferred water worlds , with low - or zero - gravity environments their second choice ; terrestrial worlds with standard gravity were a distant third . In non - aquatic environments , Iyra often made use of floating pond s , each of which looked like a bowl of water that hovered on a repulsorsled ; at rest , Iyra could lounge in aquachair s . Many Iyra expatriates operated as traders . Although these merchants traveled to a variety of worlds , they preferred those with marine docking facilities . Other Iyra found work as starshipwrights . The water planet Krinemonen III was home to Iyra shipbuilders , who worked alongside Mon Calamari , Priapulin , and Quarren counterparts . At some point during the Galactic Civil War , an Iyra was in a cage at Shilley ' s , a cantina on the planet Questal . Tem Eliss was an Iyra academic who became famous — or infamous — during the Galactic Civil War as a sentientologist with a strong anti - Imperial slant . Although born on F ' tral , Eliss grew up traveling the spacelanes , so he failed to pick up his species ' intolerant attitude toward other species and many of the other character traits non - Iyra often found so objectionable . His attitude earned him the disdain of his fellow Iyra , but it won him respect and friendship from his academic peers . Eliss wrote about non - Human species even as an undergraduate , and he eventually worked his way up to become the head of the Sentient Studies Department at the University of Sanbra . Eliss spent much of his career researching and writing " The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life " , a catalog that detailed the biology , society and culture , history , and inter - species relations of various sentient species . Eliss completed the first volume of the work during the Galactic Civil War , a process during which he refused to censor the document to conform to the expectations or the University of Sanbra ' s generally pro - Human and pro - Imperial factions . Informants within his department reported Eliss and the work to the Empire ' s Commission for the Preservation of the New Order and advocated that the Empire arrest the Iyra . Eliss learned of the betrayal and fled the university and the De ' etta system . He took refuge on the planet Krinemonen III , where his cousin Tam resided ; rumors said that the scientist had gone into hiding with the Alliance to Restore the Republic . Despite the attempts to silence Eliss , " The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life " soon appeared on student communication nets and achieved wide distribution . From exile , Eliss continued to update the " Guide " . After the fall of the Empire and the rise of the New Republic , the academic came out of hiding and was restored to his position at the University of Sanbra . He was still active well into the Yuuzhan Vong War . Behind the scenes . The Iyra first appeared in " " , a book written by Troy Denning and published as part of the " " line from West End Games in 1989 . The entry for the species includes game statistics to allow players to portray Iyra characters ; according to these rules , Iyra are slightly more adept than Humans at intelligence - based and technical tasks . The species ' write - up was revised slightly by Chuck Truett for the of the book , published in 1994 . In this volume , the Iyra are presented as slightly deficient in piloting aptitude and perception , but otherwise on par with Humans and other species . The book suggests that their role in adventures should mostly be as comic relief . The West End adventure book " " , published in 1998 , includes a reprint of the adventure " The Game Chambers of Questal " with new art drawn by Andrew Bates and Ramón Pérez . One illustration depicts an Iyra in a cage , an illustration that did not appear in the original version of the adventure .