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Solun’Varun

Alias: The Blind Archpriest
Era: Late Conquest → Fracture (~2,200–1,500 Years Before Modern Geba)
Affiliation: Geban Empire (Archpriest, Frost Sentinel Descent)

Solun’Varun was a blind Archpriest of immense presence and doctrinal mastery within the Geban Empire’s imperial court, descending from Frost Sentinel bloodlines that infused him with towering physicality—long greying blonde hair past his back, green eyes staring forward with unerring certainty, and a body so vast it evoked ancient siege warriors—clad only in white robes with a single gold thread, eschewing crowns or ornaments for austere authority. Born blind and thus barred from wielding firearms or ceremonial ancestral weapons, he forged his inheritance in the mind, internalizing sacred texts like the Blood Royal Doctrine, The Parent Preceded the Children, The Book of the Witness, and The Account of the Two Becomings to distinguish myth from structure, possession from merging, and collapse from alignment. In court debates over Prince Varethis’Daer Venar’s Velcrith merging, Varun pierced the silence with finality, defending Daer not as deviation but as pattern fulfillment recorded by Prince Ashan’Raeth Vareth, quoting doctrines to rebuke fear and emphasize the brothers’ unbreakable bond. Having known Emperor Ashan’Kael Varethis and witnessed Auren’s selection as heir over the prodigious Daer, he instructed the court to cease treating merging as threat, redirecting focus to the Empire’s interior fractures—drifting provinces, fracturing relays, and secession—warning that true betrayal lay in discarding precedents like Raeth’s foundations.

Legacy

  • Archpriest and doctrinal authority in the imperial court, blind since birth but perceiving through structure and memory
  • Descendant of Frost Sentinels, embodying their immense physique and endurance without martial training
  • Expert on Vessel phenomena, distinguishing merging (Velcrith fire or Seraveth restraint) from obsolete possession
  • Witness to Auren’s heir selection, highlighting his steady warmth over Daer’s distant genius
  • Defended Daer’s merging as alignment, quoting Blood Royal to reframe court fears
  • Redirected imperial focus from personal anomalies to systemic threats like interior fractures and relay decay

Source Notes

  • "He was Archpriest Solun'Varun. Blind—but never unseen."
  • "He did not rise. He sat upright on a plain stone bench near the eastern column. No crown. No ornament. His white robes bore only a single gold thread. His body was immense—Frost Sentinel blood unmistakable. Long, greying blonde hair fell straight past his back. His green eyes, blind since birth, stared forward—not seeking, but certain."
  • "Archpriest Solun'Varun had never trained with firearms. Never lifted the ancestral hammers or bladed sidearms once wielded by the Frost Sentinels he descended from."
  • "He was born blind. And what his hands could not wield, his mind absorbed."
  • "He did not recite the Blood Royal Doctrine for memory. He forged it into breath. He internalized The Book of the Witness. He repeated The Account of the Two Becomings until he could hear the difference between myth and structure."
  • "He knew the difference between possession and merging. And he knew—because Raeth recorded it—that true possession could no longer occur."
  • "You fear Daer... Not because of what he's done—but because of what you feel around him. The same weight Raeth described."
  • "You do not fear emergence. You fear that this emergence comes not from Seraveth restraint—but from Velcrith fire."
  • "I knew their father. I was there when the decision was made. When the scroll was sealed."
  • "Stop treating the merging like it is the problem... What is a threat—what is breaking—is the structure outside this chamber."

About Vesselborn

Vesselborn is the story of Geba — a world that has carried an empire for six thousand years.

It begins with Vaer’karesh, who unites five nations into the first empire and fixes a common language and law. Across the ages, the empire fights and finally breaks Thazvaar, welcomes Jeyrha through engineering and diplomacy, and liberates Berinu by choice. In Ngorrhal, the people of the mountain passes lose their ancestral name and are permanently renamed the Frost Sentinels, whose strength helps secure imperial rule. The Haavu cannon systems cement that dominance.

At its height, the empire spans continents and raises relay towers that bind cities, coasts, and passes into one network. Assassinations and civil wars follow — the Fracture — but the answer is not a vacuum. The Shadow Rule forms from imperial networks and manufactures peace, ending the warlord broadcasts and taking the world back from collapse. They are the empire made quiet: continuity without ceremony.

Today, the Shadow Rulers still govern from the background while the Energy Wars — covert struggles over power grids and relays in uncivilized regions — decide who controls energy, transport, and culture.

Stories range from relay-field defenses and inland recoveries to city governance and frontier resettlement; from rail lines and air programs that stitch regions together to festivals and work crews where culture and politics collide; from Frost Sentinel memory to families choosing the safety of hub clearings or the risk beyond the grid.

This is Geba.
It began in silence.
It has not yet ended.