Selkath

Selkath are an amphibious species from the ocean world of Manaan, known for guarding the only natural source of kolto in the galaxy, for a legal code they enforce without fear or favor, and for the poisoned claws they are raised never to use. For thousands of years the healing fluid in their seas made them rich and hard to bully: every army that wanted its wounded back on their feet needed Selkath kolto, and the Selkath set the terms.

They are built for the water. A Selkath has a wide, flat head with a large eye set on each side and gill slits hidden along the neck that work as well in air as they do underwater. Young Selkath can only breathe while submerged, and it's only as adults that they can leave the sea at all. Even then they never fully stop preferring it, and Selkath working offworld tend to keep their skin wet. Their long fingers end in retractable claws that carry a poison, and every Selkath learns early that those claws are for the last extremity and nothing short of it.

Manaan sits in the Pyrshak system of the Inner Rim, a world with no land at all. The Selkath lived beneath its surface for most of their history and built Ahto City, the famous floating capital, for offworlders rather than for themselves. The kolto comes from the depths, chiefly the Hrakert Rift near Ahto City, and so does Selkath religion. They tell of the Progenitor, a giant firaxan shark they regard as the ancestor of both their people and the firaxa, and as the source or the guardian of the kolto itself. (In Legends, the Progenitor proved to be real.)

Selkath society runs on law. During the Jedi Civil War (in Legends) they turned their kolto monopoly into a shield: the Republic and the Sith were both allowed on Manaan, but only if they obeyed Selkath law, and a violation meant losing the kolto altogether. Serious crimes, from murder to breaches of the neutrality agreement, went before the Ahto High Court, a panel of five judges in Ahto West whose rulings were famously strict. Using one's claws on another person is illegal on Manaan, and a Selkath who does it has broken a taboo as much as a statute.

Their history has been hard on that neutrality. In Legends, the Sith lured Selkath youths into their embassy and turned them with mind tricks. One of them, Shasa, survived to found the Order of Shasa, a Force tradition for Selkath that endured for thousands of years. Around the same time the Republic's kolto station at Hrakert disturbed the Progenitor, and her telepathic call drove the Selkath there mad enough to claw their own colleagues to death. Generations later the reborn Sith Empire refused to accept Manaan's impartiality and bombarded its surface cities, and the Selkath retreated beneath the waves. In canon they turn up far from home: the bounty hunter Chata Hyoki chased Padmé Amidala across Coruscant in *The Clone Wars*, Peex Curando served as a dockmaster at the Jedi Temple in *The Acolyte* (the species' first live-action appearance), and a Selkath diplomat served the New Republic in *Hyperspace Stories — Codebreaker*.

As a player character, a Selkath is a calm presence with teeth held in reserve. **CHA +1** and **WIS +1** suit a people of brokers, judges and healers, and every Selkath is trained in **Treat Injury**. **Amphibious** lets you breathe and fight underwater with a 20-foot swim speed. **Kolto Keeper** adds your proficiency bonus to any healing you give someone else, which makes a Selkath welcome in any crew. **Venomous Claws** give you a weapon nobody expects from a medic. The cost is **Open to the Deep**: Selkath minds are easy to turn from outside, and you have Disadvantage on saves against being Charmed or Frightened. Selkath fit healers, diplomats, investigators and Force users of the Order of Shasa, and a Selkath who has had to use the claws makes for a character with something to explain.

Selkath typically stand around 1.5 meters, about a head shorter than an average Human, though heights vary widely. Some top 2 meters, while others are short, stocky and heavily muscled through the torso and limbs. The head is wide and flat, with a large eye on each side of it, and the mouth sits low on the face. Females are easy to tell apart: they have tendrils trailing from the back of the head, and their mouths are bracketed by cephalic lobes.

Their skin comes in blues, pinks and greens, patterned for camouflage on the sea floor. The top of the head often mimics the dappled look of light falling through water, hiding a Selkath from anything hunting above it, and the exact pattern a family carries reflects the colors of the sea floor where it lived. Concealed gill slits let adults breathe air or water with equal ease. Children cannot; a young Selkath is confined to the water until its lungs mature.

Each of their long fingers ends in a retractable claw laced with poison. The claws stay sheathed through almost all of a Selkath's life. Away from Manaan, Selkath look after their skin. Peex Curando, working the docks of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, wore an atmospheric mister concealed under his tunic. (Assumption: that care for a wet skin is common to Selkath living on land, not just to him.)

Selkath come across as composed, deliberate and hard to rattle. They speak Selkath, also called Selkatha, a wet and gurgling language that sounds far better underwater than in air and that few outsiders ever master, so most offworld dealings happen in Basic, carefully and at the Selkath's own pace. A people who have sold the galaxy's most sought-after medicine to both sides of a war learn patience and a good sense of when they have leverage.

Law sits at the center of Selkath life. They value impartiality, prize a fair hearing over a fast one, and expect outsiders to respect Manaan's rules exactly as written. That can read as coldness or pedantry to offworlders who assumed a bribe or a friendly word would bend things. The claws sit under the same code of restraint. Drawing them on another person is shameful, so a Selkath who does so is either desperate or has decided the rules no longer apply, and other Selkath will want to know which.

Their reverence for the Progenitor and the deep ocean gives many Selkath a quiet, spiritual streak. The history of Hrakert and the Sith embassy also leaves a certain wariness about anyone who wants inside their heads. Selkath who leave Manaan tend to become healers, traders, brokers and investigators, and occasionally bounty hunters. Force-sensitive Selkath may carry the teachings of the Order of Shasa: protect Manaan and choose peace.