Tuskettes were a non-sentient species of tusked mammals that lived feral on the planet Courkrus. Members of the Hutt species ate tuskettes raw as palate cleansers. On at least one occasion, the Hutt Shala forced a pair of tuskettes to fight each other to the death for his entertainment.
Description[]
A non-sentient mammal species, tuskettes were small enough in size that a Hutt could bite off one's head. They possessed tusks, blood, and a spine and were also capable of screaming.[1]
History[]
In 11 ABY,[2] when the Jedi Corran Horn visited the Hutt crime lord Shala's base on the planet Courkrus to gather information about the Hutt, he found two tuskettes fighting, unaware that one of them would be eaten. As Horn watched, one of the animals emerged victorious, splattering tuskette blood on the Jedi's cheek, after which it screamed as Shala snapped its spine and bit off its head. The Hutt then offered a raw haunch of the animal to Horn and, when Horn refused, threw it to his men to fight over, resulting in a member of the Rodian species eating it. Horn later reflected that if he wished to, he could use the Force to perform a census of all the feral tuskettes living in the planet's city of Vlarnya.[1] In 19 ABY,[3] during a feast at the Hutt crime lord Popara Anjiliac Diresto's penthouse on the planet Nal Hutta, live tuskettes were kept in cages for the Hutt guests to eat as palate cleansers.[4]
Behind the scenes[]
Tuskettes first appeared in the 1998 novel I, Jedi, written by Michael A. Stackpole.[1] The creatures also appear in the 2012 novel Scourge, written by Jeff Grubb.[4] The novel is a novelized version of the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game adventure Tempest Feud,[5] although the animals are not included in the original RPG material.[6]