Clabburn the Elder

In the centuries leading up to the Galactic Civil War, the Hoth asteroid field, a wildly unpredictable asteroid belt located in the outermost orbit of the isolated Hoth system, became a favored refuge for smugglers and space pirates seeking to evade the law. Clabburn, born decades before 19 BBY, was widely recognized as the most infamous and formidable of these criminals. A male of the Mugaari species, grayish-green-skinned humanoids originating from the Javin sector—formerly known as Mugaari Space, within the Greater Javin region of the Outer Rim Territories—Clabburn was commonly portrayed as a repulsive, unkempt figure devoid of empathy for other sentient beings.

In the decades preceding the fall of the Galactic Republic, Clabburn terrorized the Greater Javin, a remote area known for outlaws like himself. He specifically targeted the Anoat sector, bordering the Yarith sector, which encompassed planets such as Bespin, Anoat, Hoth, and Ison, situated along the Ison Corridor trade route. He frequently concentrated his attacks on the Anoat trade corridor, a segment of the larger Ison Corridor that had become obsolete before the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY. His actions earned him the title "the scourge of the Anoat system."

The Mugaari pirate exploited the dangerous, chaotic nature of the Hoth asteroid field by establishing major strongholds on the largest asteroids with minimal atmospheres. Clabburn and his forces would launch attacks from within the belt, ambushing passing luxury liners en route to the opulent resorts of Bespin's Cloud City along the heavily traveled hyperlanes of the Ison trade corridor. Clabburn was well aware that these liners catered to the wealthiest travelers.

His forces often employed a particularly brutal method of attack. His ships would overwhelm a luxury liner, disabling the engines with precise blaster fire. Once the target was immobilized, the pirates would don vacuum suits and crawl along the exterior hull, planting small explosive charges to breach the hull. This would cause the ship's atmosphere to be vented into space, killing all passengers instantly, leaving them no time to resist or identify their attackers. With the ship at their mercy, Clabburn and his crew would leisurely plunder it, taking any valuables before destroying the vessel to eliminate any trace of their crime.

Clabburn's behavior provoked widespread animosity. Bounty hunters, law enforcement agencies, and vengeful relatives of his victims spent years searching for his hidden asteroid base, but Clabburn consistently remained one step ahead. He frequently relocated his base from one asteroid to another, meticulously concealing his movements and setting traps for anyone who managed to track him. At the entrances of his abandoned asteroid bases, Clabburn placed giant wormlike creatures known as exogorths, or space slugs, which could survive on the minerals of the asteroid with little to no atmosphere. These space slugs would occasionally devour bounty hunters or law-enforcement troops who entered a cavernous opening in an asteroid, believing it to be Clabburn's hideout.

Before the rise of the Galactic Empire, Clabburn orchestrated his final raid. He absconded with the prized treasures of the Malachite Scent, a royal star cruiser of the Shistavanen lost along the Anoat trade corridor. The theft of the Malachite Scent was undoubtedly the most significant achievement of Clabburn's career. He seized some of the most valuable items from the Uvena systems and surrounding areas, amassing more wealth than he had ever imagined. However, the cruiser's crew were placed in escape pods and ejected from the ship, leading some to believe that Clabburn was not responsible for the attack on the Malachite Scent, as he typically killed his victims. Although Clabburn intended this action to mislead the local Sector Rangers, a surviving astromech droid captured a brief holo-recording of the incident, confirming Clabburn's involvement. Following the raid, the Malachite Scent vanished, along with Clabburn and his crew. Despite extensive searches for the cruiser and the Mugaari, no trace was found. Clabburn had successfully escaped, free to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.

Clabburn's exploits elevated him to legendary status within the Greater Javin. He was a major threat to local authorities and wealthy civilians traveling through the region, leaving a lasting negative impression on the Javin. Although many assumed he had died after his mysterious disappearance following the raid on the Malachite Scent, his infamy persisted well into the later years of the Galactic Civil War.

Clabburn had a male son during his time as a pirate. This son, Clabburn the Younger, aspired to create his own pirating career, inspired by his father's legacy. Following the Battle of Hoth, approximately twenty years after the height of Clabburn the Elder's success, he utilized his father's resources to achieve this goal. The ambiguity surrounding the elder Clabburn's disappearance, combined with the striking resemblance between the two Mugaari, led to frequent misidentification of the younger Clabburn as his father, whom many believed had returned to his criminal activities. The only noticeable differences between the two were a heavily scarred face and the absence of the lower half of his left arm, the result of a more challenging life than that of his father. However, these differences only strengthened the belief that the original Clabburn had returned, with many speculating that he had simply sustained severe injuries during his years in hiding.

Clabburn the Younger learned the skills of piracy from his father during his upbringing and took steps to emulate his predecessor's career. Like his father, he sought refuge in the Hoth asteroid field, establishing his own asteroid base, Airtight Base. He also utilized the space slugs that his father had introduced to the field years earlier to protect his base. The space slugs that the elder Clabburn had placed in the Hoth belt remained there for many years after his disappearance. In the absence of gravity, many grew to enormous sizes, with some reaching lengths of 900 meters. Eventually, the slug population grew to number in the thousands.

Clabburn was, in a single word, ruthless, a trait common among the Mugaari, but he took it to an extreme. He was the most feared pirate in the Greater Javin, known for his merciless treatment of others, particularly those unfortunate enough to be caught in his raids. A typical tactic for him and his crew was to breach the hull of a captured ship to depressurize the interior and kill everyone on board. He would often instruct his pirates to take as many captives alive as possible, not for ransom, but to kill them for his own amusement. He derived pleasure from watching them die.

As a Mugaari, Clabburn possessed the characteristic hairy, oily, greenish-skinned appearance of the species. He always maintained an intimidating presence.

Clabburn the Elder was created by Kevin J. Anderson for the 1995 publication of The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. Anderson referred to the character simply as "Clabburn," describing him as a green-skinned humanoid without specifying his species.

Clabburn later appeared in the 2004 Wizards of the Coast online Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game supplement "Rough and Tundra," which significantly expanded his backstory, identified him as a Mugaari, and first referred to him as "Clabburn the Elder" after establishing the existence of his son, Clabburn the Younger.

• The Illustrated Star Wars Universe (First mentioned)
• Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back, Second Edition
• Star Wars: Behind the Magic
• Rebellion Era Sourcebook
• Alien Anthology
• "Galactic Gazetteer: Hoth and the Greater Javin" (original article link) on Wizards.com (content now obsolete; backup link)
• "Rough and Tundra" (original article link) on Wizards.com (content now obsolete; backup link) (First identified as Clabburn the Elder)
• Ultimate Adversaries
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Hoth asteroid field in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link)