Yavin 8

The eighth moon of the planet Yavin is covered with vast brown and green tundra plains, located between two polar ice caps and split by an equatorial range of purple mountains. The moon has almost no large bodies of water, though large reservoirs of groundwater lie beneath the permafrost of the mottled tundra-- resulting in the formation of small marshes and swamps during the summer months. The intelligent amphibious humanoids known as the Melodies inhabit the caverns and lakes in the warmer equatorial region near Yavin 8's mountains. Unlike most amphibians, the Melodies begin life on land, then move into water as adults-- their legs are replaced by tails and their lungs by gills. This transformation into adult form, called the Changing Ceremony, happens around a Melodie's twentieth year and takes place in a shallow pool coated with a unique, air-supplying algae. The Melodies are unable to leave their pools during the transformation (which can take weeks), and are thus particularly vulnerable to Yavin 8's many land-based predators. The young Melodies perform most of the necessary functions of their primitive society, since the elders can no longer leave the streams and lakes. Animal life on Yavin 8 is abundant, including silver- backed fish, and also many species of herbivorous burrowers and their carnivorous counterparts (such as the loper and moss-hopper). Seventeen species of grazers, including the wolbak, dysart, dontopod, and songbuk, inhabit the moon's tundra and mountain ranges. Yavin 8's predators include snakelike reels, color- changing ursods, rodent-like raiths, flying avrils, serpentine ropedancers, and arachnid purellas. Plant life on the world is primarily made up of lichens, mosses, algae, and stunted trees and bushes, and includes the edible trico plant. About 54 million Melodies inhabit the moon. Around four thousand years ago, members of Yavin 4's Massassi species journeyed to Yavin 8 to seek help for their children, who had been magically trapped in a golden globe by the Dark Jedi Exar Kun. When the Melodie elders were unable to help them, the Massassi carved the story of their plight in the rocks of the Sistra mountain in the hopes that someone would eventually be able to break the curse. Eighteen years after the Battle of Endor, Anakin Solo and the Jedi trainee Tahiri traveled to Yavin 8 to take their friend Lyric to her Changing Ceremony within the Sistra mountain. They had to battle an avril, a reel, a purella, and a pack of raiths, but the pair uncovered the ancient message of the Massassi and brought back a new Melodie child, Sannah, to be trained at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. [GG2, JJK]