The Priests of Nether were an Oblee religious group that resided on the planet of Oblis thousands of years before the Clone Wars. The priests did not engage in acts of worship, but instead, they spent their lives meditating and contemplating the world around them. At some point, a wandering traveler brought a dangerous Sith artifact, known as the Darkstaff, to Oblis, which began manipulating the Oblee into using the artifact to repel a shadow creature from their homeworld. The Priests of Nether suspected that the staff was manipulating the Oblee to achieve its own ends, but despite the priests' concerns, the Oblee scientist-philosophers used the Darkstaff to power a machine that would send the shadow creature away. The activation of the machine triggered a cataclysm that destroyed Oblis and the Oblee, including the priests, who were transformed into incorporeal beings known as "shadow lurkers."