These ferocious brutes are native to the planet Hoth, where they use their white camoufalge fur and wiley semi-sentience to stalk the tauntauns of the desolate ice fields. Wampas resemble thickly-muscled long-armed humanoids over three metres tall. Like their favorite prey, they seem to appear to be both horned and hornless beasts. Presumably the horned animals are the females.
Wampas are not exclusively solitary animals. In fact a female wampa shared the same cave as the male specimen which captured Luke Skywalker. It was the female which the Jedi apprentice maimed during his escape; he was probably wise to flee the cave in case his original captor returned.
Wampas appear to be as bloodless as tauntauns. Even the most severe lacerations or loss of limb results in very little spillage of any visible circulatory fluid. We have observed the bloodless removal of wampa's arm by lightsabre. Similar wounding of a human at the wrist may cause little blood loss, due to cauterisation of the wound, however lightsabre removal of an aqualish arm at the elbow has been observed to results in some spillage. The difference may be due to the level of circulation in the limb section removed, whether and how hard the cut tissue strikes the ground, and other factors. In any case, the absence or scarcity of blood in tauntauns seems well estabilished. Having a similar basic biology hints that wampas would not be too unlike tauntauns in this respect, and the observations do at least suggest that wampas are not more blooded than tauntauns.
Several wampas terrorised the rebel base before soldiers learned to subdue and trap them. A number of the creatures were imprisoned in a large secure chamber. There it was discovered that wampas are extremely sensitive to high-pitched noises and even the beeping of a nearby astromech droid is sufficient to send them into a frenzy. The captured wampas gained their release during the confusion of the stormtrooper invasion of the base. (A particularly astute protocol droid removed the warning signs from the door to the wampa chamber. Several unwitting stormtroopers subsequently entered the danger zone.)
A hornless wampa snarls and lunges at its unsuspecting victim. This individual is not the same as the horned wampa that attacked Luke later in the wampa cave. [third image: Behind the Magic]
The primary attack of the wampa is the swing of its massive arms and the swipe of the wickedly-clawed paws.
A horned wampa in its lair, finishing a meal of tauntaun. The predator leaps up to investigate the escape of it human prey.
An amputated wampa limb seems completely bloodless.
Luke's wampa cave seems to be situated on high ground overlooking a flat expanse of ice. The mouth of the cave seems to be in the crest of an ice hill, partly concealed by snowy mounds. There isn't any evidence of rock nearby. The cave may be at a high side of a glacier, but not exactly at the edge or the source.
Skeleton of a tauntaun lies in the lair of a wampa. The absence of visible ribs may indicate something about wampa eating habits. It is possible that the ribs were torn off and either eaten with the flesh or else discarded to a different location.
Dexterity 3D
Perception 4D
Search: tracking arctic 6D
sneak: arctic 7D
Strength 7D
Special abilities:
Claws: Strength+1 damage.
Teeth: Strength+2 damage.
Camouflage: +3D to sneak in arctic climates.
Heat-diffusing body: adds +2D against detection by sensors.
Howling language: allows wampas to commuicate using Hoth's winds to hide their speech.
Move: 13
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