Twi'lek
Twi'lek are one of the most iconic species of the Star Wars' Galaxy. These humanoids are entirely hairless aside from eyelashes (though many wear fake eyebrows), possess unusual enclosed "ears", come a variety of bright skin tones (though blue is most common) and, most importantly, have two tentacles protruding from their head called lekku. Lekku contain part of the Twi'lek's brain, are sensitive to the touch, and capable of articulation to the point they have their own sign language. Two Twi'lek appeared in relatively prominent roles in Return of the Jedi: Jabba's Major Domo Bib Fortuna and Jabba's slave dancer Oola. The early expanded universe followed this by introducing several well received major Twi'lek characters like Nawara Ven - a clever (and surprisingly moral) lawyer turned fighter pilot, and Boc Aseca - an insane dual wielding dark Jedi, on top of many background appearances. While Bib Fortuna had the larger role by far, Oola gained prominence as the only remotely "sexy" alien (indeed, the only young female of remote prominence aside from Leia) in the original trilogy, and most female Twi'lek take after her. Unlike many clones of movie characters in the expanded universe, there's actually a good explanation for this. Later notable Twi'leks include Jedi Master Aayla Secura and Sith Lord Darth Talon, the two most Rule 34:able characters in all of Star Wars.
Ryloth, their home planet, does not rotate rotates at the same rate as it orbits its local star. As a result of this one side is trapped in burning daylight and the other in freezing night, leaving only the equator capable of sustaining life. Even then the equator is often full of badlands and subject to powerful heatwaves. This limited space and harsh environment forces most of the population in giant, elaborate, underground cities. Twi'leks did not develop space travel on their own (Natural, as flight on its own isn't much use when you live underground), and often sold others or even themselves to access the galaxy away from their terrible home. Compounding this further is the popular and naturally occurring drug Ryll, which is mined on their home planet and constitutes their only other export. This attracts a lot of criminals and ensures any anti-slavery crusader would destroy Ryloth's economy. Finally they are physically about as far away from the center of the galaxy as one can, being end of the line of the Corellian Run hyperspace highway, and located in the loosely controlled and crime friendly Outer Rim (and is part of Hutt Space earlier in history). So, they're basically a fa/tg/uy's wet-dream come true. Universally beautiful and sexy space girls who are submissive, obedient, and really want to be slaves. They are also noted for having an extreme tolerance for abuse. Got a fetish where you beat the girl half to death while sodomizing her with something painful? They'll do it with a smile on their face and thank you for it. Seriously, who the Hell came up with these people!?
According to TorTanic and in contradiction of the earlier Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm, Twi'leks were artificially created by the Rakatan Infinite Empire and after the fall of that Empire they migrated to Ryloth. The Rakatan created them to be the perfect slave species and as such they are submissive, obedient, easily controlled, and posses an instinctive desire to be dominated and generally be a slave. This resulted in Twi'leks enslaving themselves and each other and genuinely believing that being slaves is better than being free. Usually they rationalize it as selling themselves either to give money to their families to better their lives or to see the galaxy or to get away from Ryloth's terrible environment. These are pretty paper-thin excuses and creepy (or you'd think that if you were too stupid to realize that a genetically engineered slave species is obviously going to prefer being enslaved because no shit). At least once the Republic tried to free the Twi'lek slaves and said slaves violently rebelled against the Republic for their right to be slaves. It's hilarious in a way as the Republic had no clue how to deal with such a situation.
Moving onto things which may or may not make you want have a long cold shower, Twi'Leks (or at least those from Ryloth) from the Clone Wars animated series onward are depicted as having French Accents. This is for a La Resistance vibe.
Due to their prominence and fandom, Twi'lek naturally appear as playable race in all Star Wars RPGs to date. Indeed, as with many things Star Wars, the West End Games splat was to first source to give their proper name and basic background.
Star Wars RPG[edit | edit source]
The Star Wars Sourcebook suggests Twi'lek characters lose mechanical and technical for a perception boost, which made it into the core rulebook of 2nd Edition with a statement they get the Lekku language. Since this system didn't give much prominence to racial abilities, virtually any starting template that wasn't species specific could put Twi'lek as species and be done with it. One Twi'Lek specific template, Twi'lek Co-Pilot, was introduced in Platt's Smugglers Guide, though it's a pretty typical rogue template.
Star Wars D20[edit | edit source]
Twi'lek appear in the core rulebook and have the following racial traits.
- +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom (The wisdom penalty is likely based on Bib Fortuna falling for Luke's mind trick, marking him as weak willed)
- +1 fortitude saves
- Low-light vision
Yeah, most non-Humans in Star Wars D20 got the short end of the stick.
Ryloth is detailed in Geonosis and the Outer Rim. While many other EU encyclopedias detail the planet, this is one of the few sources for the mundane day to day life on the planet.
Saga Edition[edit | edit source]
Twi'lek once again appear in the core rulebook with the following racial traits.
- +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom
- Deceptive: Naturally gifted at manipulation, a Twi'lek may choose to reroll any Deception check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted even if it is worse.
- +2 to Fortitude Saves
- Low-Light Vision
Saga Edition doesn't hate non-humans and Twi'lek got off pretty well. The bonus to fortitude doesn't actually have an equivalent feat for non-Trandoshan (nearest is +1 to all saves) and is quite useful because of Saga's damage threshold system where if you take more damage than your fortitude save from a single attack you get a wound. Their wisdom penalty means that they get one fewer force power every time they take Force Training (and since extra uses were done with duplicate powers, fewer uses per encounter), though the few powers they got were are more powerful. Since several Twi'lek Jedi were prominent in the Expanded Universe (one enough so George Lucas added her to Attack of the Clones) this would be rectified in Rebellion Era Campaign Guide with the Twi'lek only feat Jedi Heritage which adds four to their effective wisdom for gaining force powers. This gave Twi'lek force power specialists the best of both worlds and gives them a lot of (uses of) force powers. Since many game (including Dawn of Defiance) are set during the Empire, a bonus to deception is useful in even the most goody two-shoes group.
Star Wars Roleplaying Game[edit | edit source]
Twi'lek are printed in Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny core rulebooks (for some reason they aren't in Age of Rebellion, though as all systems use the same rules porting them is a non-issue). They have the following racial traits.
- 1 Brawn, 2 Agility, 2 intellect, 2 cunning, 2 willpower, 3 presence (essentially +1 presence, -1 brawn)
- Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn
- Strain Threshold: 11 + Willpower
- Starting Experience: 100 XP
- Special Abilities: Twi’leks begin the game with one rank in either Charm or Deception. They still may not train Charm or Deception above rank 2 during character creation. When making skill checks, Twi'leks may remove ■ imposed due to arid or hot environmental conditions.
Twi'lek are... OK. Brawn isn't the worst dump stats for anyone not planning to enter melee or use heavy weapons/armor since it just determines encumbrance (easily boosted with cheap equipment), starting wound threshold (HP) that's quickly dwarfed by talents that boost it (Raising brawn from 1 to 3 costs 50 points and can only be done at character generation. Buying a third specialization and grabbing a low hanging talent costs less, boosts HP by the same amount and can be done any time.) and adds a point to the soak value (damage reduction) which isn't as big as it sounds when rifles do 9 damage-soak+extra successes (you aren't likely to survive a second shot without really high investment). A lot of prominent outer rim planets are big dead rocks, volcanic, or hot jungles, so the environmental ability is more useful than you'd expect in Edge of the Empire.
The problem for Twi'lek is that they are focused on Presence when Presence is, like most Charisma stats, largely wasted if you aren't in a career (class) or specialization (subclass) that focuses on it since it just boosts some (but not all) social skills, and a skill that recovers strain (non-lethal damage) at the end of an encounter and determine initiative when you ambush someone. To make this worse most of those are in Age of Rebellion while Edge of the Empire has one specialization in its core book that uses charisma while having social skills in class. In Force and Destiny the Makashi Duelist tree lets you use presence to swing a lightsaber, but it's (per Star Wars canon) focused on lightsaber duels which will happen a few times in your character's lifetime and is in a different career (Mystic) from the most Presence focused specializations (Guardian's Peacekeeper). Rise of the Separatists adds the universal specialization Force-Sensitive Outcast, which has the ability to substitute any characteristic for lightsaber attacks and is near the path to an increased force rating, and an ability improving social skills is the first ability on their path.
Monstergirls[edit | edit source]
 | This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you. |
Like elves, Twi'lek are subject to the question "are humanoids drawn as they normally are, just with (even) less clothing, actually monstergirls?". Sexy alien girl is a pretty vanilla, if stereotypically nerdy, porn target. Twi'lek are sex symbols in Star Wars canon so porn is obvious. Since Lekku are both prehensile and sensitive to touch, even the most remotely deviant thing about them pretty clearly exists within the context of the setting anyways.
Interestingly, Lucasarts officially published Star Wars Art: Visions, which contains multiple pieces of lewd Twi'lek art (two of which can be seen below). Sure it's officially "artistic" nude, but it's still official art of Twi'lek nipple. George Lucas himself may approve of sexy Twi'lek girls, as both Aayla Secura (A female Jedi who he liked enough to add to Attack of the Clones) and Darth Talon (a female Sith lord that wears pretty much nothing) were praised by him on their appearance alone. Although to be fair, both look really cool even if you remove the sexy. Especially Talon, who just screams "Sith".
