The Sky Hammers were the airborne shock troops of the Emperor's Wrath, established during the Era of Imperial Conquest for rapid dominance from the air. They launched coordinated airship strikes to break enemy lines and secure air superiority over campaigns like the Thazvaar invasion. Their heavy aerial bombardment and siege tactics were decisive in major offensives but the unit declined early due to unsustainable logistics costs and vulnerability to piracy.
Their flight doctrine was low altitude, high speed. Hug ground or sea to stay below sensors and horizons. Use ridgelines and wave troughs to cut line of sight. On land the terrain masked them.
After the Fracture, the Sky Hammers fragmented as air assets were destroyed in civil wars. During the Warlord Eras their tactics were co-opted by various factions. No formal unit exists in the modern era but the flight doctrine endures in every corridor pilot who hugs terrain to survive.
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.