Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/Week 43, 2011/0

The Croke were a species of sentient, multi-legged beings who were extremely long lived; one individual enjoyed a lifespan of more than 20,000 years. In their natural form, the species resembled bristly-legged snails that were diminutive enough to be held in a Human hand. However, Croke were naturally skilled in illusion casting, a Force ability that allowed them to appear in larger guises.

The Croke developed on a planet known as Crakull in the Unknown Regions and colonized a larger area of the Unknown Regions known as the Croke Reach. They had a reputation in the galaxy for being unpleasant and vicious. At one point, the Croke fought a long and debilitating civil war. The destruction worsened greatly when one of the factions introduced a voracious species known as the Lugubraa&mdash;commonly employed as mercenaries in the Unknown Regions&mdash;as a weapon into the Reach's worlds. Many Croke-settled planets, such as Explume Minor, were destroyed by the Lugubraa, whose unfettered reproductive rate led them to feed voraciously. To wipe out the invasive species, the Croke purchased a genetically modified strain of Lugubraa, known as blind berserkers, from the cloners of Kamino. These clones, however, proved to be just as problematic as the original Lugubraa, and caused further devastation to the Croke Reach. The Croke species was nearly wiped out.

One Croke, Rokur Gepta, left his homeworld and began a reign of terror in the galaxy. Gepta massacred a group of mystics known as the Sorcerers of Tund and later allied himself with the ruler of the Galactic Empire, Emperor Palpatine, who gave Gepta control of an area of space known as the Centrality. Gepta came into conflict with the smuggler Lando Calrissian, whom the Croke swindled into doing his bidding. The young smuggler eventually turned on Gepta and cost him control of a powerful artifact known as the Mindharp. After Calrissian became trapped by an Imperial blockade, Gepta attempted to kill him and all members of a species known as the Oswaft with a biological weapon. Gepta's plans were foiled on both accounts, and Calrissian personally shot the Croke and crushed him to death.