The Duststalker is a lean desert predator of Inland Thazvaar's Infinitude Deserts, spanning 8 to 12 meters and weighing 800 kg to 1.2 tonnes in the wild. Camouflaged as large rocks in desert-mountain transitions, it ambushes wanderers and herds with explosive speed, fangs and claws claiming prey in a blur of concealed fury. There is no safe way to bypass one. Simply walk past and hope it does not notice you. Its underbelly fur is popular among Thazvaari due to being thin enough to wear during the day but thick enough to keep warm at night.
A tiny city variant less than 0.2 meters in length exists in major population centers across the planet, having adapted to urban environments over generations of human spread. The city variant retains the predatory instincts of its desert ancestor compressed into a frame small enough to inhabit walls, drainage systems, and the gaps between structures, hunting vermin and small fauna that populate the spaces humans create but do not maintain.
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 greatest warriors of the mountain passes become 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. The last emperor is assassinated and the throne shatters. Civil wars consume the planet. But the answer is not collapse. The Shadow Rule forms from what the empire left behind, ends the warlord broadcasts, and holds the world together without a crown. They are the empire made quiet: continuity without ceremony.
Today, the Shadow Rulers still govern from the background while the Energy Wars decide who controls grids, relays, vehicles, and culture. Nine faiths compete for how the world understands itself. Tour racing draws audiences as large as the Yuvaar Hunting Games. Relaymen carry broadcast rigs into corridors and criminal networks to capture what the governed world is never meant to see. Contractors move through contested territory for manufactory interests. Syndicates operate trafficking networks through grey zones the empire tolerates rather than confronts. The Engineered, once created as instruments of war, now live as citizens, athletes, engineers, and parents.
Stories range from relay field defenses and inland recoveries to city governance and frontier resettlement; from airship crews racing through volcanic caverns to truth seekers embedding in syndicate operations; from arena fighters practicing an ancient faith through combat 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.