The Eyes of Venar’Tal is an air and sea dominance branch in the Geban Empire's military structure, established under Emperor Venar’Tal Kareth during the Era of Imperial Conquest. Following the death of his father Emperor Venar'Tolarg during a Northern Thazvaar campaign—his body never returned—the young prince hardened into a war leader. Recognizing Thazvaar’s hyper-defensiveness, he founded the Eyes to enable unmatched sea and air monitoring, using reconnaissance, navigation, infiltration, and sabotage to break enemy defenses.
This branch commanded aerial and naval forces across the Empire, combining covert operations with high-altitude relays and rapid deployment. Strategic use of airships enabled troop delivery, bombardment, and airborne espionage, leveraging key strongholds like the liberated Berinu base. Their ocean-fortress in Berinu was later targeted by the Infinite Maw.
Affiliated elite units included the Sky Hammers, airborne shock troops who launched coordinated airship strikes but eventually declined due to piracy and logistics strain. The Emperor’s Shadow executed assassinations, psychological subversion, and seeding of future rulers. The Bare Hand handled internal destabilization, deploying infiltrators to sow chaos undetected.
After the Era of Fracture, the Eyes dissolved into imperial chaos. The Emperor’s Shadow merged into the Underworld, laying the groundwork for the Shadow Rulers. The Sky Hammers faded completely, while the Bare Hand continued targeted sabotage against rising factions.
During the Shadow Rule era, former Eyes elements were reabsorbed into covert systems. Shadow Operatives drew on Bare Hand sabotage, while surviving air/sea infrastructure supported relay maintenance. The Emperor’s Shadow seeded regional coordination in both Geba and Thazvaar.
Throughout the Warlord Eras, former operatives conducted infiltration, assassination, and psychological warfare to destabilize warlords. Bare Hand legacies enabled undetectable sabotage and aided deployment of Recursion Bombs.
In modern Geba, the Eyes no longer exist formally. However, their legacy persists: the Emperor’s Shadow inspires covert doctrine, Shadow Operatives operate globally from the underworld, and Bare Hand tactics continue shaping covert governance.
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.