Kilmaulsi

The Kilmaulsi were sentient avians indigenous to the planet Kilmaulsias. While they possessed no wings, they had colorful ruffs of feathers under their jaws and along their arms. Members of the species were curious but devout by nature, leading their tribal society to become strongly religious. Originally a warlike species, they ended numerous intertribal conflicts when the Vorzydiak species made space travel available to them. Once introduced into the wider galaxy, the Kilmaulsi became common as guards and soldiers, particularly throughout the Vorzyd Cluster, where their homeworld was located. The former Jedi Dass Jennir encountered a Kilmaulsi on the planet Cato Neimoidia in 19 BBY, and Rebel agents Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker ran into a Kilmaulsi working as a guard on the world Vorzyd V during the Galactic Civil War.
==Biology and appearance==
The Kilmaulsi were a sentient species of digitigrade humanoids descended from avians. While the species had lost their ancestors' wings and ability to fly, they retained tufts of feathers beneath the jaw and on the elbows. Such plumage was purple in at least some members of the species, and black in others. The species' skin, meanwhile, was green, with areas of orange around the eyes and the lower jaw. Standing at 1.7 meters tall on average, Kilmaulsi were burly and muscular compared to other humanoids, but they shared common humanoid traits, such as a bipedal body structure with two legs and two arms, as well as a torso and a head. The face consisted of two relatively large eyes, a beak-like mouth with a tongue inside, and two nostrils above the mouth. The eyes included nictitating membranes and could be blue or red in color. Each arm ended in a hand with four digits, each tipped with a talon, while the legs ended in a long three-digit foot.
Kilmaulsi were considered children until the age of eleven, at which point they were considered young adults until the age of seventeen. Kilmaulsi were at their peak as adults between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five, hitting middle age at fifty-six and being considered old at seventy-five. The species' life expectancy was ninety years total.
==Society and culture==
With a culture forged through war, Kilmaulsi society was split into multiple tribes, each with its own devout religious views. Such differences led to conflict between the tribes, and for much of their history, the Kilmaulsi subgroups were at war. However, the battles were eventually ended by alien contact and the introduction of space travel. Indeed, the Kilmaulsi became so smitten with traveling the stars that they abandoned their age-old rivalries to focus on such voyages.
Once the Kilmaulsi were introduced to the rest of the galaxy, their society became more focused on technological advancement, as religion took a back seat as a cultural priority. Despite that change, the Kilmaulsi remained skilled warriors, valued as soldiers by the other sentient species who inhabited the Vorzyd Cluster: the Hrakians, Paiguns, Selonians, and Vorzydiaks. While in combat, Kilmausi warriors typically wore ornate green armor that was similar in all technical respects to battle armor, though at least one individual sported a purple version. While fighting, they could enter a battle frenzy that made them appear as colorful blurs due to their speed and prowess. While in frenzy, however, Kilmaulsi could not focus on precise tasks.
Individual Kilmaulsi were devout, curious, and resolute, traits that gave rise to the strongly religious period in their history and the obsession with exploration that followed it. Members of the species relished contact with other more peaceful species, although non-Kilmaulsi often found that the avians lacked a sense of humor. Kilmaulsi were capable of speaking Galactic Basic Standard and so could converse with other species, but amongst themselves, they spoke their own language, which was also named Kilmaulsi. The language had a writing system as well and could be learned by non-Kilmaulsi such as Sanglui, a Squalris Rebel leader; and Hathox Greb, a Hrakian pro-Imperial civil captain. At least one Kilmaulsi also produced squawking noises whilst fighting. Examples of Kilmalusi names were Aryllan, Dawre, Eshalak, Lykern, Kir, Prakk, Thilvera, and Zarlia.
==History==
The Kilmaulsi evolved on the forest planet of Kilmaulsias in the Kilmauls system of the Vorzyd Cluster. Their early history on their homeworld consisted of numerous conflicts between rival tribes based on religious differences. These wars abruptly ended upon the arrival of explorers from the Vorzydiak species, who had recently acquired hyperdrive technology themselves after explorers from the Galactic Republic discovered them. Indeed, the area around the Vorzyd Cluster was widely explored between 5000The Essential Atlas The Vorzydiaks, like the Kilmaulsi, originated from within the Vorzyd Cluster, and they peacefully established contact with each of the warring Kilmaulsi tribes and introduced them to the concept of space travel. Alien contact had a profound effect on the Kilmaulsi, prompting them to end their bitter rivalries and leading many to migrate off-world to seek their fortunes among the stars.
Within a century of the area's discovery, the species of the Vorzyd Cluster—including the Kilmaulsi, Paiguns, Hrakians, Vorzydiaks, and a lost colony of Selonians—formed a loose confederacy from their individual holdings, a government known as the Commonality. Hundreds of Kilmaulsi were hired to work as guards at the newly built Casino Royale, a gambling establishment on the world of Vorzyd V. The guards wore armor on their thoraxes and were always extraordinarily polite to guests, but kept undesirables out of the casino including droids, with their intimidating appearances normally enough to scare the unwanted arrivals away. During this time, a Kilmaulsi embassy was also constructed in Efavan, the capital city of Vorzyd V where the Casino was located.
After the fall of the Empire as a galactic power, many Kilmaulsi on Vorzyd V became disillusioned and were hired by Quaffug the Hutt, a criminal intent on forcing the Casino Royale to cut him a share of their profits. Concerned with conflict on Vorzyd V affecting tourism, the governors of the Casino Royale hired a number of spacers to persuade or force Quaffug into leaving using non-violent methods.
==Kilmaulsi in the galaxy==
After their introduction to space travel, the Kilmaulsi species took to the practice quickly, and many left their homeworld to explore the galaxy and seek their fortune off-world. A large number of Kilmaulsi booked passage on container ships from the nearby world of Hraki and found employment as laborers and soldiers elsewhere. After migration began, Kilmaulsi became a common sight throughout the cluster, usually serving in military roles or as manual labor. Kilmailsi could be found traveling away from their homeworld as early as 19 BBY when, four months after Order 66 had taken place, a Kilmaulsi was present on the Neimoidian purse world of Cato Neimoidia. The Kilmaulsi was affiliated with a member of the reptilian Chistori species, a cohort for whom the avian agreed to help fight off rivals seeking the same employment. Ember Chankeli, a Human woman from the planet Telerath, was offering the job, which required those hired to remove a gang of enslavers from her hometown. When the Chistori and the Kilmaulsi—along with several Neimoidian associates—arrived to accept the job, however, a pair of other candidates was already there, one of whom was the Human former Jedi Dass Jennir, with whom the Chistori had previously fought for the job. The Chistori and his friends attacked Jennir, only to be defeated quickly in combat by Jennir's subtle use of the Force.
During the Galactic Civil War, when the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan—both Human agents of the Alliance to Restore the Republic—visited Vorzyd V to disrupt the Galactic Empire's gambling operations there, they encountered a Kilmaulsi guard at the Casino Royale. The guard informed them that their droids, C-3PO and R2-D2, would be unable to enter with them because mechanical assistance was not allowed.
==Behind the scenes==
A Kilmaulsi first appeared in the comic strip Gambler's World, written and illustrated by Russ Manning. The strip was distributed between March 12 and September 8, 1979, by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate in American and Canadian newspapers. However, the strip gave no name or background information for the species. The story was colorized and reprinted in 1994 by Dark Horse Comics as part of the comic book Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures 1. The colors, by Ray Murtaugh, revealed the skin of the Kilmaulsi to be green.
The species did not appear again until 2004, when they were named and detailed as a species in the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game sourcebook Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, written by several authors. The publication also included an image of a Kilmaulsi by Mark Tedin. The book included roleplaying stats for a Kilmaulsi commoner, giving them average scores for each of the different attributes. Gamblers World was then republished, in color again, as webstrips on Hyperspace, a premium section of the StarWars.com website."Gambler's World" In 2009, another Kilmaulsi appeared, this time in Dark Times: Blue Harvest, Part 2, the second of two mini-issues of Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Dark Times comic book series, which was designed as an introduction to the Blue Harvest story arc. The issue was written by Randy Stradley, under the name "Mike Harrison," and was illustrated by Douglas Wheatley.
==Appearances==
*Dark Times: Blue Harvest, Part 2
*"Gambler's World" 
==Sources==
*Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds 
==Notes and references==
Category:Avian and airborne sentient species
Category:Outer Rim Territories species