Wampa/Legends

"Hey! Steady, girl. Hey, what's the matter? You smell something?"

- Luke Skywalker, to his tauntaun, before a wampa attack

Wampa ice creatures were carnivorous predatory reptomammals indigenous to the ice planet Hoth.

Physiological and societal characteristics
Covered with white fur and standing at heights of up to three meters, wampas were fearsome predatory beasts. They possessed long, powerful arms, razor-sharp claws capable of carving layers out of ice, and a deadly, fanged maw. Older wampas possessed horns, which grew larger with age. Aided by an acute sense of smell and a well-camouflaged coat of thick fur, they roamed Hoth's icy plains preying on near-helpless animals. Wampas rarely killed their prey outright or hunted when they were hungry. Instead, they stunned their prey, hauled the still breathing victims back to their caves, and secured them in the ice for later consumption. Their primary prey were Hoth's omnivorous tauntauns.



Sub-species of wampa included the giant wampa, a variation of the Hoth wampa representing either a long-lived individual, a sub-species, a freak mutation, or a separate species altogether; the cliff wampa, a beast bioengineered by the Galactic Empire and used as sentinels on the Outer Rim Territories moon of Gall; and the swamp wampa of Dromund Kaas, genetically altered by the Sith. There also existed Tatooine Howlers, colloquially named desert wampas for their strong resemblance to wampas. It was often mistaken for a relative of the wampa and as a result was called such.

Wampas typically made their homes out of the large ice caverns beneath Hoth's surface. They were created by carving down into the ice and hollowing out an area sizeable enough to occupy and store food in. Wampa caves were surprisingly spacious when compared to the manufactured dens of other large predators. The purpose of the cave was undoubtedly to shield these large predators from the bitter cold nights or raging storms that swept across the glaciers. Additionally, the caves were well lit from the snow and ice reflecting the light rays of Hoth's sun into the cave.



They hung their recently captured prey from the ice ceilings of their dwellings, using a method of coating their prey with an anesthetized saliva combined with their hot breath to freeze them in place. Preferring their meals to consist of fresh meat, their prey was often kept alive before consumption. Discovered wampa lairs were found to house huge amounts of stored prey, a frightening realization to many that a single beast could be so lethal.

They were believed to be solitary creatures, though some wampas were known to occasionally hunt in packs. Although tauntauns were relatively plentiful on Hoth, a single wampa had to cover more than a hundred kilometers when seeking prey. However, wampas learned to adapt to this necessity. They had a very faint scent, preventing tauntauns from detecting a wampa's approach. Their white fur allowed them to blend in perfectly with Hoth's blinding blizzards, enabling them to attack their prey completely unawares. Wampas were capable of emitting a terrifying hunting roar that could compete with Hoth's howling winds. Their howl was one of their greatest natural gifts, for it could blend in almost imperceptibly with the winds. Only the creatures themselves could tell the two sounds apart. Thus, the howl provided wampas with a highly efficient form of communication that often proved lethal to disoriented prey. If a wampa was injured, the rest of its pack would band together to repel the threat. Wampas were also reported to be extremely territorial, fiercely guarding their hunting grounds, often engaging in deadly bouts with one another. Although they had few weaknesses, wampas were sensitive to high-pitched noises. Their physiology was well adapted to conserving heat in the extreme cold. They failed to show up on most life-form sensor scans, which is how they managed to avoid detection for so long.

The wampa attack on Luke Skywalker in 3 ABY suggested a sort of pair bonding between male and female wampas, and that their lives may have been far from exclusively solitary. While Skywalker was attacked by a male wampa, he regained consciousness in the den of a female. It is unclear whether or not wampas were monogamous or if they traveled about hunting and bringing food to various mates. After mating, female wampas would birth up to three cubs per litter. If, however, a cub wandered out of the den and made its first kill, other wampas would commonly give extreme attention to that cub.

History
"The kid ran into something, and it wasn't just the cold."

- Han Solo, referring to Luke Skywalker's wampa attack

The horror by night


As a measure of security, the Alliance to Restore the Republic's Standard Operating Procedure at Echo Base included setting up external sentry stations, placing sensor markers, scouting kilometers of territory, and setting up a blanketing sensor array. With these measures in place, the personnel of Echo Base originally encountered no life forms other than a few passive tauntauns and the occasional snowmouse. As a result, a sense of security settled over Echo Base. There simply seemed to be very little danger on the remote ice planet. Dispatched mounted scouts originally rode in pairs so that they might be better prepared in the case of unforeseen danger. But the lack of any apparent danger and a lack of trained personnel soon forced the scouts to travel by themselves. They reasoned they could cover twice the territory that way.

The first sign the Rebels saw that they were not alone was the discovery of a dead tauntaun just outside the base. When the dead animal was brought before 2-1B, the base's head medical droid, he determined that the tauntaun's neck had been snapped. Knowing how strong saddling the stubborn animals were, the thought that some creature was strong enough to do such damage was more than frightening to the base's personnel. Major Bren Derlin, head of security at Echo Base, logged the incident into his reports, but gave it little more thought. There simply were more pressing matters to attend to.

Soon thereafter, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were on a routine mission to place sensor beacons around the perimeter of the base. Solo informed Skywalker that he had encountered an animal carcass, which he believed to be a recent wampa kill. He urged Skywalker to be on guard before he headed back to Echo Base. He later told the base personnel that he found some wampa kills out in the snow. Skywalker failed to report in from his scouting work. He was attacked by a wampa while astride his tauntaun. The wampa landed a crushing blow to Skywalker's face with a swipe of its powerful claw, knocking him unconscious and opening up a considerable gash on the side of his face. The tauntaun was killed instantly with a crushing grip of its neck. The monster then carried Skywalker and his tauntaun back to its den. When Skywalker awoke, he found himself hanging upside down, his feet frozen to the cave's ceiling and another wampa eating the corpse of his mount. Fortunately for Skywalker, he was able to escape the wampa, using his lightsaber to slice off the creature's arm before it could attack him.



When Skywalker revived from his medical treatment inside of a bacta tank, he confirmed everyone's worst fears. He described being attacked by a ferocious monster three meters in height, with deadly claws and a nasty temperament. Although he had only knowingly seen one of the beasts, where there was one, there had to be more. As a result, the base immediately stepped up its security measures. Patrols went back to the buddy system.

The following evening after Skywalker's recovery, Echo Base came under attack. It started with the sound of howling. The noise was not unusual, as those in the base were so accustomed to Hoth's howling winds. But this noise was more distinct, stronger, and more chilling. Next came an attack on one of the base's perimeter posts. The base's command center received a brief, panicked comlink call from Bervin, a perimeter scout, which was abruptly cut off by a bellowing inhuman roar and a horrified, distinctly Human scream. Derlin and others in the command center rushed to Bervin's post. There, they found only the signs of a struggle, but no sign of Bervin himself. Blood was scattered against the far wall of snow, where a large cave-in had occurred. The blood trail followed the shallow trench where Bervin's body had been dragged out of the post and into the icy-cold night of Hoth.



Before long similar calls began to come into the command center. Reports of attacks all along the base's perimeter were reported. All sounded ominously the same: a lone sentry, attacked and dragged off into the night. Efforts were made to ready the base's T-47 airspeeders, but there was no need. The wampas came to them. They came crashing through the carefully-carved ice walls of the facility. The base was soon filled with a hoard of claws and fangs glistening with the blood of fresh kills and the howling of blood-curdling attack roars. The personnel of Echo Base had all faced much worse opposition in the might of the Empire, so they were ready to protect their fortress. They held off the beasts with courage, determination, innovation, and some heavy artillery. The wampas outside the base, having had enough of the Rebels' powerful blaster fire, fled and were never seen again. The creatures inside the base were rounded up with the help of the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. At the heart of each mindless attack was one commonality gone unnoticed until the droids brought it to the attention of Major Derlin. They noticed that the high-pitched beeps of the base's astromech droids drove the wampas into berserker rages. R2-D2 was personally threatened by a wampa. The wampas still inside the base were rounded up by using recordings of astromech droids to drive them out of their dark, icy crevasses. The wampas were stunned into incapacitation, and stored in heavily shielded pens in less vital sections of Echo Base. The pen doors were marked with yellow and orange warning signs, nicknamed by the Rebels as "do not disturb" signs. It was believed that the wampas had attacked the base to defend themselves from what they perceived as an invasion of their territory.



During the desperate haste to escape Echo Base in the face of the Imperial invasion during the Battle of Hoth, C-3PO came upon one of the pen doors while trying to catch up with Solo, Princess Leia Organa, and Chewbacca on their way to the Millennium Falcon. In an instant, an ancient holdover from one of his previous daring masters took over. Knowing an advance group of snowtroopers was directly behind him, Threepio tore off the warning label and proceeded to disappear around another bend in the corridor. The pursuing troopers reached the door. Their leader punched the controls to slide open the door, knowing locks would take more to stop an Imperial advance. The group marched into the pen with military efficiency, only to be slaughtered by the caged wampas. Once Darth Vader reached the room, all he saw were piles of blood-stained snow, a cave-in exposing the pen to Hoth's daytime sun, and some of his most seasoned, well-trained troops dead on the ground.

Other encounters


Many held to the theory that wampas possessed at least rudimentary intelligence. Through extensive research into the records of other creatures appearing similar to the wampa, evidence had been found suggesting mass coordinated attacks made by the creatures. In some cases, these attacks laid waste to entire outposts of colonists on other worlds. This was later substantiated by the Rebels of Echo Base.

Further research revealed the existence of a certain sub-class of big game hunters who specialized in the "sporting" hunt of large predators like the wampa. They often traveled to the remote Hoth system to hunt the wampas themselves. Wampa pelts or stuffed heads were prized trophies among hunters. Wampa "souvenirs" and even clothing made of wampa fur had been known to command high prices at galactic trading posts by the time of the Galactic Civil War.

In one famous case, wampas were found to be extremely cunning. A group of failed stormtrooper cadets established a business as guides leading these big game hunters in pursuit of Hoth's wampas. Initially, they met with great success due to their advanced weaponry. However, by the fourth expedition the wampas had learned their enemies' secrets. The hunters landed and set out in search of their quarry. Meanwhile, the wampas found and destroyed the expedition's starship. Over the course of the next several nights, the wampas circled the camp, howling madly. The frightened hunters wasted their ammunition shooting at shadows until the wampas attacked. The beasts dragged away just one hunter with each assault. Finally, the last two survivors killed one another rather than suffer the wrath of the wampas.

During the Clone Wars, Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress battled wampas, among other beasts, in The Cauldron, an infamous gladiatorial arena on the rocky planet of Rattatak. She hoped to persuade Count Dooku to accept her as his Sith apprentice by displaying her combat abilities. In similar fashion, the Jedi Master Luminara Unduli faced off against a wampa in gladiatorial style combat while in the Arena of Doom, a gladiator stadium owned by Mondo-Mod the Hutt. Without the aid of her lightsaber or her Force abilities, Unduli defeated the beast by jumping, grabbing its horns, and flipping it. For her victory, Mondo-Mod awarded her with the location of a Separatist Droid Army factory on the planet Diorda.

The Arakyd Viper probe droid that located Echo Base in 3 ABY discovered a large mound of snow in the Hoth wastes while performing its reconnaissance work. Upon probing the mound with a low-powered laser beam, a large wampa emerged from the snow pile, having been sleeping. The probe droid quickly regulated the potency of its high-powered laser cannon and disintegrated the beast with a single blast.

Also in 3 ABY, while hunting a herd of grazing tauntauns, a wampa encountered and attacked another Viper probe. After a short clash between blaster and claws, the wampa defeated the droid and dragged it back to its ice cavern, where it suspended it in the icy ceiling above the skeletal remains of former prey.

While attemping to escape the planet during the Battle of Hoth, mercenary Dash Rendar encountered several of the Rebels' caged wampas throughout the bowels of Echo Base. He later encountered the Imperial bioengineered cliff wampas near the Imperial Enclave on the moon of Gall while pursuing the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

The Balti smuggler Bingo Mehndra possessed a captured pet wampa in his Hoth base. When Jabba the Hutt sent his musical retainers, the Max Rebo Band, on a secret assassination mission to Hoth to kill Mehndra in 3 ABY, the smuggler threatened to feed the musicians to his wampa if he suspected a trick.

Skywalker later re-encountered the wampa he wounded with his lightsaber nine years later during a subsequent journey to Hoth with the Jedi Knight Callista Ming. There, they discovered a group of stranded refugees, though the group was soon attacked by a pack of wampas led by the dismembered beast, who recognized the Jedi Master and his lightsaber. The refugees were slaughtered by the pack. Skywalker slayed the wampa, and escaped the planet with Ming. The wampa's recognition of Skywalker gave rise to the belief that the creatures possessed long-term memories.

Jedi student Jaden Korr encountered three wampas during his mission to Hoth in 14 ABY. He also previously discovered wampa-like tracks on the planet Bakura.

On Coruscant, wampas were imported, and promptly migrated to the cooler northern reaches of the planet.

It is possible wampas existed on the Outer Rim ice world of Rhen Var.

From concept to creation
The creature may have been based on the cryptozoological phenomenon of the "Yeti," or the "Abominable Snowman," a humanoid beast believed to live in the Himalayas. Notes from early concept meetings suggest that the wampa, like the Yeti, may have supernatural powers as well. In early story discussions, the wampa was described as a fishlike beast capable of swimming through the snow.

In the winter of 1977, Mark Hamill was in a serious car accident which left him in need of reconstructive facial surgery. Many believe that the wampa attack on Skywalker was included in the film to explain Hamill's residual scarring and slightly altered facial features.

Additional scenes
Wampas originally played a much more prominent role in early versions of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. In the treatment and the first draft, wampas storm Echo Base shortly before the arrival of the Empire. In the original shooting script, a tauntaun was killed when a wampa stormed into Echo Base. Shots of a wampa breaking through one of the walls of the complex and attacking Rebel soldiers were filmed but ultimately dropped from the final version of the movie. In addition, the wall did not crumble properly and the shot was never successfully achieved. Final versions of the script depicted a mass-coordinated wampa attack on Echo Base. There were several scenes shot for the film that showed this incident, as well as a sequence involving C-3PO tearing a warning sign off the door of a wampa pen, followed by a group of snowtroopers entering the pen only to be attacked by the wampas inside. However, these scenes were later deleted and did not make the final version of the film.

Production struggles
Originally the wampa was to be portrayed by actor Des Webb wearing a giant suit on location in Norway, where the Hoth scenes were shot. The costume, which required the actor to stand on stilts, proved too unwieldy. It was too heavy and hot, causing Webb to suffer heat exhaustion. All of the shots of the life-size wampa were eventually cut from the film. Creature designer Phil Tippett later built a small wampa hand puppet, visible in a quick close-up as the creature attacks Luke Skywalker.

For the Special Edition release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1997, George Lucas decided to expand the wampa scenes. In order to do so, Industrial Light & Magic artist Howie Weed constructed a more mobile version of the costume, without the stilts, which he wore in the film. The new shots were filmed within a scaled-down replica of a cave to create the illusion that the wampa was much larger than a normal Human.

Non-canon appearances

 * LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
 * Hunger Pains
 * Ghosts of Hoth
 * Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back
 * The Return of Tag & Bink: Special Edition
 * The Secret Tales of Luke's Hand