Nameless

The creatures known as the Nameless or Shrii-ka-rai, which translated to "Eaters of the Force," hailed from Planet X in Wild Space. Nameless hatched from eggs that resembled large jewels. Per their name, the Eaters were powerful hunters that feasted on the Living Force and thus had a strong effect on Force-sensitives, who became mere prey to the hungry Nameless. To Force-sensitive individuals, the presence of the Nameless induced madness and hallucinations, which left Force users unable to truly see what a Nameless looked like, overwhelming them and nullifying their connection to the Force. Proximity to the creatures was enough to kill a Force user, petrifying the individual. The resulting condition left the victim in what came to be referred to as a "husked state"—desiccated and devoid of life, as if they were made of stone. While some instances of husks were more substantial and solid, others disintegrated into ash at the slightest touch.

If the calcification process had begun, it was too late to save the Force user, who would die in a fearful, panicked state as their connection to the Force failed and their body was reduced to a dried husk while the Nameless feasted upon the individual's Force energy. The Nameless started out life as small sludge-like beings, but, through feeding, would quickly grow into bigger forms. The Nameless could also seemingly draw the life out of other Force users, making them appear as if they had aged dramatically and slowing their vital functions alike those of aged individuals. Even at a greater distance, the creatures obscured the Force and disturbed Force-sensitives, causing distress and unease—a sense of dread on the edge of one's consciousness that originated from outside of the Force—and magnified existing feelings of fear and exhaustion.

As they grew, the Nameless could become larger than humanoids, possessing four legs and claws. The beings' front limbs, which featured three claws, were long and desiccated, twitching slightly as they moved. They possessed sharp teeth and had tentacles around their mouth. Their skin was pale white and their face featured large red eyes. The creatures' blood was black in color.

However, the hallucinations that the Nameless caused manifested differently to individuals, resulting in various perceptions of the creatures, which included a darkness with hundreds of teeth, claws, and eyes, and a towering, monstrous creature.

The creatures were driven by a desperate desire to feed and a hunger that was satiated by drawing upon Force-sensitive individuals. They understood nothing beyond their hunger, and were incapable of comprehending dangers such as radiation. The Nameless would continue to hunt their prey even when wounded. The creatures made sounds that included growling and howling, as well as loud screeches. There was only one way for the Nameless to be controlled—an ancient artifact in the form of a rod that could be twisted in order to command the beings.

By the time of the High Republic Era, the creatures had become known to some as the Nameless and to others as the Shrii-ka-rai, or Eaters of the Force. The Ros, a family of Evereni, had a history of conflict with the Jedi Order, but their fate in that conflict came about due to both the Jedi and an artifact, the Rod of Seasons, that controlled the Nameless. Their family was associated with one of the creatures, which the "faithful" revered as the Great Leveler, unaware of its true name. Then known simply as the Leveler, the connection between Ros and the Nameless began when the smuggler Radicaz Dobbs gave what, unknown to him, was the egg containing the being to Elecia Zeveron, who led the Path of the Open Hand cult on the planet Dalna. Marda Ro and Yana Ro were part of the cult, which believed anyone, including the Jedi, using the Force was dangerous. According to what she claimed, Zeveron had received a Force vision of the being that revealed its name to be "the Leveler."

Zeveron made Yana and the other Children, elite members of the Path tasked with liberating artifacts, steal the Rod of Seasons from the Hynestian Royal Treasury. She also dispatched Dobbs to look into the location of the Rod of Daybreak, which was on the moon of Jedha but moved from a museum to a Jedi-guarded vault after the Childrens' theft. The Rod of Ages, meanwhile, was missing entirely. The Leveler was hatched when Zeveron unleashed it during the Jedi Order's mission to Dalna to investigate the Rod of Seasons's theft. The young Leveler killed both Jedi Knight Zallah Macri and Padawan Kevmo Zink, whom Marda had fallen in love with. During the incident, Yana ended up taking hold of the Rod and thus was followed by the Leveler, leading the gathered-Path Elders to declare her its champion, much to Zeveron's secret anger. Intending to murder Zeveron for arranging the deaths of the other Children, including Yana's girlfriend Kor Plouth, Yana did not divulge her realization that the being was only following her because of the Rod and accepted the position. Marda, meanwhile, blamed the Jedi for indoctrinating Zink into their Order and resolved to help Zeveron destroy the group, with Dobbs promising he knew the location of the Leveler's planet, where they would find more Nameless eggs.

The Path heralded the Leveler as an agent of balance. To give the Leveler time to grow away from dangers, the Path escaped from Dalna onto their starship, the Gaze Electric. There, Yana and Kor's father, the cult's former leader Werth Plouth, plotted Zeveron's downfall, while Zeveron and Dobbs plotted to steal the Rod of Daybreak from Jedha. After Zink and Macri failed to report in, Jedi Knight Azlin Rell was dispatched to Dalna and investigated the abandoned Path compound, where he found their chalk-like remains and felt fear. Believing the Jedi were not agents of "balance" like the Leveler was, the Path and the two Ros would use the Nameless against the Jedi. The Herald unleashed the Leveler against Force-sensitives in the Holy City on Jedha, sparking a riot that would evolve into the Battle of Jedha. During the battle, the Herald and the elite Children of the Open Hand retrieved the Rod of Daybreak and united it with the Rod of Seasons to form the Rod of Power, which had the ability to completely and unilaterally control the Nameless. Using the Rod of Power, the Herald forced the Leveler to kill Jedi Master Leebon.

At the behest of the Mother, Dobbs led three groups of Path members on a mission to the mysterious Planet X in Wild Space, where he had originally found the Leveler's egg, to retrieve many more of the Nameless. They successfully retrieved many eggs and brought them back to the Path compound. The Mother and Marda Ro unleashed them during the battle known as the Night of Sorrow, incited by Ro against Jedi that had arrived on Dalna. The Nameless took the lives of many Jedi during the battle. However, all of the Nameless gathered except for the Leveler were killed in an explosion at the end of the battle that ran throughout the caves of the compound and flooded them. The Nameless were kept out of the Jedi Archives by Jedi Grand Master Yoda and Jedi Master Creighton Sun, who did not want them to be used against the Order again. The Path having been ultimately defeated in the Night of Sorrow, Marda and eventually her descendants were left longing for revenge. She took the Leveler with her aboard the Path's former flagship the Gaze Electric and took care of it, even feeding it Jedi.

Having been looked upon by one of the family's ancestors, the Leveler came to be frozen in ice in the Shrine underneath the surface of the planet Rystan, guarded by droid attendants and visited by further generations of the family. The Elders of the Path, a group who strongly opposed the Jedi and Force-sensitives, came into the possession of parts of the control rod that control the Nameless. Aware of the danger the artifact posed as a weapon, the Elders divided it in two and hid both pieces, swearing to never reveal the locations. One of the two halves was hidden in the Kharvashark Ruins on the moon Vrant Tarnum, in the Stygmarn system. The other half of the rod was eventually recovered by the Ros.

A decision made by Jedi Masters Yoda and Creighton Sun, the Jedi tried to suppress all knowledge of the Nameless and even kept information about the creatures out of the Jedi Archives themselves. Sun and Yoda reasoned the Jedi would be in danger if word of such an anti-Force-sensitive creatures got out, yet their actions also left later members of their own Order unaware of the threat. Yoda had a degree of knowledge about the Nameless already but still was faced by many unanswered questions, so he and Sun agreed to not speak of the Nameless again until they had learned more.

An individual who was once a Jedi of the Jedi Order wrote about the creatures in a script that was also present in the Vrant Tarnum's Kharvashark Ruins. The beings were associated with a nursery rhyme song—the words of which could also be found in the ruins—that began with the line "shrii ka rai ka rai"; the words of the song claimed that the listener would be "taken away," and that when they were found all that would be left was dust. Jedi Knight Azlin Rell, who had encountered the Nameless and was severely affected by them three times during the Night of Sorrow, was driven to madness, the effects of the Nameless not leaving him and his mind haunted by the "Shrii ka rai" song. Consumed by fear, Rell fled from the Jedi Order in the wake of his encounter. He had complied information on the Nameless in a journal that he left with fellow Jedi Arkoff and his droid ZZ-10, who guarded the journal in a hidden burial site. The Path-aligned mercenary Vol Garat had ripped out several pages from the journal by that time. Rell ended up dedicating and spending his life studying the creatures.

The nursery rhyme associated with the creatures was sung by Ruusstha Vidyarvrikt, an Ongree nursemaid from Dalna who cared for Jedi younglings during the High Republic Era. Among those who heard the song as younglings were future Jedi Masters Stellan Gios and Emerick Caphtor. On Rystan, the Leveler came to be neglected by those whose ancestors had revered it, unvisited and forgotten.

The Ros eventually became aligned with the Nihil, a marauder group that arose from the Elders of the Path and was created by a member of their family as a weapon to wield against the Republic and the Jedi. Asgar Ro, who established himself as the Eye of the Nihil after killing his mother, came to possess the Ros' half of the artifact as well as a number of associated texts that he kept in his collection aboard his flagship, the Gaze Electric. After Asgar Ro's death, his son, Marchion, took his place. Inheriting Asgar's goal of revenge, Marchion Ro took possession of the artifact as well as the texts, which he studied extensively, seeking to achieve what he believed his father had been too afraid to try.

Around the year 232 BBY, Ro orchestrated the Great Hyperspace Disaster, bringing the Nihil to the attention of the Republic and the Jedi. After the Battle of Kur, Jedi Knight Elzar Mann had a Force vision of the screams and fear the Nameless would bring. Having searched for the other half of the artifact for years, Ro learned its location, recovering it from Vrant Tarnum in the wake of the Great Disaster. Ro set out to retrieve the Leveler around a year later, traveling to Rystan in the starship Squall Spider. Along with him, he brought the Nihil member Udi Dis, a Force-sensitive Talortai navigator, in order to test the power that the creature had on Force users; Dis, however, was unaware of Ro's intentions. Ro and Dis met with the former's cousin, Kufa—who herself had not visited the Shrine in a decade—in order to be led to the Leveler.

Approaching its location, Dis began to feel its effects, feeling as if something was missing when he reached out to the Force. As they arrived at the Shrine, Dis was overwhelmed by the Leveler, losing his senses and seeing hallucinations of his past. The group fought through the droid attendants that guarded the Shrine, during which Dis was fatally injured, having been unable to sense the attack coming. In awe of the Leveler's power and satisfied with his test, Ro killed both Kufa and Dis, setting a beacon for the Leveler to be collected. Keeping the Leveler encased in ice, Ro brought it with him to the Nihil's base on the planetoid Grizal. The creature was transported to the laboratory of the Chadra-Fan doctor Kisma Uttersond aboard the Gaze Electric, where Uttersond fabricated a heating rig to defrost it so that the creature could be tested on their subject, the Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm, who Ro had taken prisoner around a year earlier. Greatstorm was killed during the ensuing Battle of Grizal, while Mann and Padawan Bell Zettifar were left in mental anguish for the time being. Seeing Greatstorm's corpse left in a calcified state, even Jedi Master Stellan Gios was left afraid as the body turned to rubble.

Jedi investigator Emerick Caphtor was dispatched to learn more about Greatstorm's death and was partnered with private detective Sian Holt at the request of Supreme Chancellor Lina Soh. At the same time, Uttersond was trying to defect from the Nihil by selling Nameless off on the black market. Meanwhile, Tempest Runner Lourna Dee used the Leveler against the Jedi during the skirmish on Xais as a test for the creature, hurting Jedi Knight Keeve Trennis and beginning the calcification process on Jedi Knight Terec, which also impacted their bond-twin Ceret. Jedi Master Avar Kriss noted she was unable to feel Ceret's connection to the Force as the process began.

Although they were both left in a hibernation trance, Ceret and Terec's bond saved them both from death. Caphtor interviewed Trennis in the aftermath of the incident to try to better understand the threat. Meanwhile, Ro uncovered evidence of Uttersond's betrayal but ordered the doctor be kept alive to better understand the deception the Nihil were facing.

After the Leveler's actions proved the usefulness of the Nameless, Ro followed old family secrets to locate the hidden world where he could find more of the creatures. Ro undertook this mission with a team of Nihil he called his his She'ar. After sacrificing a large number of Strikeships to get through the veil around the world, Ro and the She'ar snuck through to the planet's surface in the Cloudship Ikoru. Ro then used the control rod to lead his team to the Nameless, ordering his She'ar to fight through the planet's fauna as it reacted in rage to the rod. Collecting several Nameless and escaping, Ro told the surviving members of the She'ar of the power the beings held and how his family has once used them against the Jedi. With more Nameless secured, Ro plotted to bring down Starlight Beacon as a major strike against the Republic and Jedi.

As three Nihil agents—the technicians Cale, Werrera, and Leyel—snuck aboard and sabotaged Starlight's systems, the seven Nameless they kept aboard their freighter, logged as Rathtars to keep their existence hidden, left the Jedi on Starlight on edge and unable to sense the sabotage. As the station began to break apart, the Nameless broke free from the ship and began a rampage throughout Starlight, killing a number of Jedi, including Orla Jareni. Meanwhile, the Republic launched an attack on a Nihil convoy that, unknown to them, was carrying more Nameless to Starlight, so Caphtor was left in a state of shock when a mere peephole was opened on one of the crates. Arriving to Starlight amid the destruction, Uttersond told him and Holt about the Nameless before they boarded, handing over ripped pages that once belonged to Rell's journal. As Uttersond escaped, they encountered a Nameless, which Holt needed to describe to her Jedi partner as he was unable to truly see it.

Holt and Caphtor managed to escape the falling station with a Nameless claw, with the hope they could use it to learn more about the creatures, and a ship full of Jedi Initiates. Jedi Master Torban Buck stayed behind but gave Caphtor his robes, which were soaked in Nameless blood, to help the research. As the Nameless continued their rampage, Starlight finally crashed onto the surface of Eiram, killing everyone and the remaining the Nameless still aboard. Ro took a moment to reflect on losing those seven Nameless but understood he alone held the advantage of possessing them. With it clear the Nihil had a weapon they could not understand, the Jedi Order ordered all Jedi to return to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, only for Ro to take advantage of their absence via the deployment of the stormseeds. After informing the captured Obratuk Glii of his victory, he feed Glii to one of the Nameless and smiled.

Meanwhile, Grand Master Yoda returned to the Jedi Order during the Battle of the Corellian Shipyards with a hooded figure, Azlin Rell, who sang the nursery rhyme connected to the Nameless. Yoda promised his fellow Jedi they would uncover the secrets of their Order's past to prepare for their future. Ro moved to claim Rell's journal about the Nameless and left the operation under his new partner Vol Garat. However, Jedi Masters Arkoff and Savina Besatrix Malagán recovered Rell's journal and ZZ-10. In the year after the fall of Starlight, Ro mostly kept the Nameless caged away, further starving the creatures for when he needed to release them once more. Yoda also worked with Rell to discover the secrets locked away in his mind, only for Rell to use an opportunity to destroy a city on the planet Travyx Prime to keep a route to the Nameless homeworld buried, proclaiming to Yoda he had struck a blow for every Force user in the galaxy, including the Sith and Jedi.

In the time following the High Republic Era, the Nameless remained known to the Jedi Order through various tales. After their lessons, clan-mates of Jedi Initiate Dooku often swapped tales of the Nameless, among other phantasmagoria. However, Dooku himself did not engage in the stories, distancing himself from the "overactive imagination" of his peers. After becoming a Sith Lord later in his life, Dooku mentioned his fellow Initiates' tales of the Nameless while recounting his past to his apprentice Asajj Ventress.

According to a holocron that contained the prophecy of the Chosen One, a sin was done to the Nameless that required the sacrifice of many Jedi to be cleared away by the Order. The holocron further stated that dangers of the past only remained dormant, and the entire galaxy would be at threat once the darkness was released. Thus, when the Force itself falls to corruption, a Chosen One would come, fatherless, and ultimately restore balance to the Force. While training his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn continued to study the holocron and its ancient prophecies, having become facinated with them as a Padawan himself under Dooku's tutelage.

While detained in the castle of the Sith Lord Darth Vader on the planet Mustafar during the war between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, Alliance lieutenant Thom Hudd spoke of knowing "the Curse of the Nameless." Hudd claimed that the tale was frightening enough to keep one awake at night, and mentioned other dark tales such as "The Silent Circle." While Hudd had brought up the tales in an attempt to stall a bored Vaneé—the horror-loving aide of Vader in the castle—from executing him, Vaneé nonetheless expressed his disinterest in Hudd's stories and prepared to kill the rebel. Despite Vaneé's efforts, Hudd was rescued by Lina Graf, a fellow rebel.

The Nameless were first mentioned in the novel Master & Apprentice, written by Claudia Gray and published on April 16, 2019, while the October 1, 2019 script release of the audio drama Dooku: Jedi Lost, written by Cavan Scott, mentioned the Nameless as a capitalized noun. A StarWars.com article confirmed that the uncapitalized "nameless" mentioned in Master & Apprentice were indeed the Nameless featured in the Star Wars: The High Republic publishing initiative.

Sketches of creatures labeled "Nameless" appeared in the announcement trailer for the The High Republic, which includes Gray and Scott among its writers. Iain McCaig produced concept art of the Nameless, with sketches featuring two figures of varying height and amount of limbs. The 2021 novel The High Republic: The Rising Storm, written by Scott, introduced a creature known as the Great Leveler, while Gray's novel The High Republic: The Fallen Star, published on January 4, 2022, introduced multiple of the beings, using the term "nameless creatures" on one occasion. On February 2, 2022, a preview released on StarWars.com for the comic The High Republic: Trail of Shadows 5, written by Daniel José Older, explicitly identified the creatures as the Nameless. The preview furthermore gave the creatures the additional names of "Shrii-ka-rai' and "Eaters of the Force."

One of the Nameless concept art images was used to represent the Drengir in the second episode of Star Wars: The High Republic Show.