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Neron — VESSELBORN Codex

Neron

Devolved Humanoid

Alias: None

Origin: Kela (geothermal vents)

Physiology

The Neron are tall, lean, and muscular with long torsos, long arms, and shorter legs. They often reach over 7 feet in height but appear to take several decades to mature. Their skin is pale brown. Their hair is silver-orange. Gilled structures appear on the neck and forearms, partially functional in the vent environment where moisture and toxic gas mix in concentrations that would kill anything breathing through lungs alone. Their fingers carry setae, fine adhesive filaments that grant grip on wet stone and submerged surfaces. These are the same anatomical markers found in Rupturan remains. In the Rupturans, they are archaeological evidence. In the Neron, they are still in use. The ruins they inhabit sit near the coasts of Kela's largest geothermal water systems, and their bodies are built for an existence that moves between air and water in a way that no other living population on the planet can replicate.

Behavior

The Neron live in ancient ruins built by ancestors whose capabilities have been lost through devolution over an unknown number of generations. The ruins are extensive, architectural, planned. Someone built them. Someone with foresight and engineering capacity. The current population crafts basic clothing and weapons from local materials and can learn simple Geban language but cannot produce complex speech. Solitary Neron flee from encounters. Groups defend their territories aggressively and function as apex predators within their vent ecosystems, controlling the fauna that inhabits the geothermal corridors.

Devolution

What caused the decline is not recorded and may not be recoverable. Prince Daer studied the question and speculated in his journals that if caloric scarcity persisted across enough generations, if selection pressure favored brute survival over abstract planning, if those who could think ahead were not the ones who reproduced, regression becomes a mathematical certainty. The Neron are what remains when that math runs long enough.

Regeneration

Prince Daer conducted experiments with the Neron through the Jeyrhan Bio-Engineering Consortium and the Kela Maritime Guild. The results included reliable limb regeneration and accelerated recovery from wounds previously considered fatal. The Neron's biology, despite its devolved state, retains regenerative properties that no other humanoid population on the planet possesses. Whatever their ancestors were, this capability survived the decline.

Ancestry

The silver-orange hair is a phenotypic marker shared with the Northern Pass Ngorrhali and the historical Thaloryn population. If these are connected, the common ancestor predates recorded history and likely traces to the Rupturans. The Neron may be the closest living link to whatever the Rupturans were before their extinction, preserved not through strength but through isolation in an environment no other population wanted.

VESSELBORN Codex — Neron

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.