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Palmstrider — VESSELBORN Codex

Palmstrider

Arborcursor Longipes

Origin: Saethera (warmlight forests, canopy zones)

Length: 1.5 to 2.5 meters

Weight: 50 to 80 kg

The Palmstrider is a long-limbed arboreal omnivore native to Saethera's humid canopy regions. Its narrow frame and extended limbs enable silent navigation through dense branches, while its porous, segmented hide mimics bark and lichen with near-perfect accuracy. Nearly motionless for long periods, it moves with slow deliberate precision, feeding on canopy growths and small fauna within the upper foliage.

The porous composition of its body allows roots and small plants to grow directly upon its surface, forming a symbiotic relationship in which the creature's metabolism feeds the vegetation and the vegetation returns trace nutrients to its tissues. This living growth enhances its camouflage, making it indistinguishable from the surrounding canopy.

Palmstriders exhibit unusual behavior toward humans: they occasionally latch onto individuals for extended periods, remaining completely still and causing no physical harm. Though harmless, the experience is profoundly unsettling. If attacked or injured while attached, the creature reacts with overwhelming force, crushing the host instantly before releasing the body and retreating into the foliage. The guidance for encountering one that has latched on is simple: do not touch it, do not panic, and wait for it to leave on its own.

VESSELBORN Codex — Palmstrider

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.