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The Star Wars Expanded Universe contains not only the Sith Order but also the Sith species, and the latter is still technically canon.
In the Star Wars movies, the Sith are a totalitarian religious order dedicated to the Dark Side of The Force and the primary enemies of the Jedi. In the now non-canonical Star Wars Legends, however, the definition of “Sith” gets a bit more complicated: There’s not only the various incarnations of the Sith Order but also the Sith species, sometimes called the Sith Purebloods or Red Sith. This alien species with red skin and facial tentacles was inclined toward the Dark Side, and their culture formed the basis for the original Sith Empire.
As far as the Disney-era Star Wars canon goes, the Sith species is irrelevant but not exactly non-existent. While there is no mention of them in any canonical narrative works, and they’re unlikely to show up in any future Star Wars projects, a single detail in one kids’ book technically places these confusingly named aliens in canon.
The History of the Pureblood Sith in Star Wars Legends
In Legends, the Pureblood Sith lived on the planet Korriban, where they fed directly from the Dark Side of the Force; they were constantly at war and enforced a strict caste system. While their society was heavily xenophobic, some Pureblood Sith did interbreed with the human Dark Jedi exiles who arrived on Korriban after the Hundred-Year Darkness around 6,900 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), and would form the original Sith Empire. When Korriban become uninhabitable, the Sith relocated to the planet Ziost. Eventually, the Sith species appeared to go extinct, but their influence on multiple languages and various religious Sith orders continued.
The Sith species was first mentioned in the 1994 Dark Horse comic Tales of the Jedi 5: The Saga of Nomi Sunrider, Part 3 by Tom Veitch and David Roach. Before that, Timothy Zahn had envisioned the Nogri from the Thrawn trilogy as the original Sith, but was told to change that by Lucasfilm. The Pureblood Sith’s most prominent appearance is in Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG, the only still-ongoing Star Wars Legends story, in which players can undertake missions on Korriban and Ziost, and learn more about Sith history.
The Red Sith’s Only Canonical Appearance
The single piece of Disney-approved Star Wars canon acknowledging the Red Sith species is the 2017 Star Wars Workbook: 3rd Grade Reading and Writing. On a page teaching kids how to use a glossary, the word “Sith” is given two definitions. The first, “member of an order who uses the Force for evil,” is the one in common use, but the second, “an alien species with red skin and tentacles that is prone to using the dark side of the Force,” is a rare acknowledgment of the original Expanded Universe. In addition, the Massassi, a race that in Legends was considered a subspecies of the Sith, has been mentioned in multiple canon books as inhabitants of Yavin 4.
Don’t expect to see more of the Sith aliens in canon, however. The defection of the Dark Jedi in the Hundred-Year Darkness, an event that has been preserved in canon, already gives a strong enough origin for the Sith Order without having to tie that backstory in with a species none of the movies’ or TV series’ Sith characters even belong to. Furthermore, the idea of a species being purely good or evil is one fantasy writers have generally tried to move on from, so directly associating the greatest power of the Dark Side with one species feels like the sort of idea that Disney and Lucasfilm might consider retrograde as the companies develop new stories in the Star Wars universe.
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