Dosj'aa

The Dosj'aa were a bipedal race, native to the planet they called Dosj'aa Prime located deep in Wild Space. They evolved from an amphibious arboreal species, which made them both athletic and physically agile. They were the founders of the Dosj'aa Alliance of Seven Worlds.

Biology
A typical Dosj'aa was tall and slender by human standards. Their skeletal system was mostly cartilage instead of bone, resulting in a high level of durability. Dosj'aa bones bent, instead of breaking.

Their blood used iridium as an oxygen binding agent, resulting in yellow blood.

The hands of the Dosj'aa had five digits, with three fingers in the central position and two opposable thumbs at the top and bottom. This gave them a strong grip, useful to their tree dwelling ancestors. They had digigrade legs, with three toes.

Dosj'aa had an elongated skull, with a strip of dark hair running down the front. Male Dosj'aa would also grow a mustache and beard similar to the head strip. They had welt-like protrusions on each side of their head that served as ears. Male Dosj'aa also had small tusks that were attached to their cheekbones.

Dosj'aa eyes were small and black, and a pair of folds extended from the corners of the eyes and ran down the face. Their nose were a simple pair of slits.

Psychology
Dosj'aa were a cautious race. They rarely invented anything of their own, preferring to steal technology from others. The typical Dosj'aa was more of an administrator than an inventor.

When an unidentified starship crashed on their homeworld, they could understand the technology, but lacked the ability to improve it. So, for example, instead of making their turbolasers able to recharge faster, or have longer range, they instead simply made them bigger.

Behind the Scenes
These guys went through a lot of changes until I was happy with them. The first sketch I did looked like a Skrull from Marvel Comics more or less, with a weird striated chin and big pointy ears.

I wanted to have an antagonistic race that was the opposite of the Yuuzhan Vong, so instead of gory tattooed torture monsters, the Dosj'aa would be tall, willowy, almost beautiful. Imagine the Na'Vi from AVATAR but as bad guys.

Their two thumbs were inspired by koala hands, which are fascinating and creepy to me. The facial tusks were inspired by a wooden African mask I saw in a thrift store.

I don't know exactly when I came up with it, but the Dosj'aa have what I call a "full face Hitler mustache" on purpose.

They have yellow blood. All their warships and military units have yellow on them. I just remember thinking one day that there wasn't a lot of color in Star Wars ships, and a dirty yellow starship would be pretty unusual.

The Dosj'aa's personality was inspired by a line from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy referencing the Vogons; "They don't think, they don't imagine, most of them can't even spell, they just run things." The Dosj'aa aren't quite that bad, but they steal instead of inventing things. One idea I had was that instead of improving tech, they would just scale it up, meaning their capital ships have really, really big guns on them. In a way they are caricatures of what I consider the worst of politicians, people who don't make things to actually help society, they just make laws that hold people back.