Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/Week 41, 2013/0

The Sanyassans were a reptilian, humanoid species from the stormy world of Sanyassa IV, located in the Inner Zuma Region. They had ape-like faces, scaly skin, and a tall stature that averaged two meters in height. They engaged in piracy as the scourge of their native Moddell sector since ancient times. In the wider galaxy, the sentients had the reputation of being fierce fighters with short tempers and minimal intelligence. They were sometimes employed as bodyguards or mercenaries, and at least one of them, Tun-Badon, pledged allegiance to a Sith Lord. When the Shi'ido anthropologist Mammon Hoole wrote his Essential Guide to Alien Species at the height of the New Republic, little was known about the Sanyassans, despite their occasional and discreet presence in broader galactic affairs. At the time, the whole species was simply referred to as "Marauders" by most scientists, and few knew of their home planet.

On their homeworld, the Sanyassans had only achieved feudal-level technology by the time of the Galactic Civil War, having at least developed a writing system. However, in the distant past, they had been a more advanced civilization, before the Din supernova turned into a pulsar around 5,000 BBY. According to the neighboring Ayrou species, that event may have drastically altered the Sanyassans' way of life. Following the cataclysm, they established a complex social hierarchy, in which pecking order was determined by might. Like the rest of the Moddell sector, the people of Sanyassa IV were excluded from galactic politics for most of their history.

In the first century before the Galactic Civil War, a large group of Sanyassan criminals known as the Marauders crash-landed in the forests of the moon of Endor. As they were unable to get off the moon, the Sanyassan Marauders established a colony in the Dragon's Pelt savanna, under the leadership of King Terak. In 3 ABY, the Sanyassans of Endor suffered a terrible defeat against the native Ewoks, and their numbers decreased over the years. When the New Republic was established, the government's scouts who were sent to the forest moon found no trace of them.