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Kela

Alias: The Northern Polar Land
Affiliation: Geban Empire (Marginally Explored Region)

Kela is a vast northern landmass dominating Geba’s polar circle, located north of Ngorrhal and western Thazvaar. Known for its mineral-rich subterranean caverns and presence of devolved, once-sentient species, Kela remains one of the most hostile and under-explored frontiers in the empire’s history. Extreme temperatures, unstable underground systems, and persistent atmospheric minimalism make sustained exploration rare and perilous. Despite this, adapted polar fauna thrive, and Kela continues to symbolize the unclaimed limits of imperial reach—untouched, unexplained, and quietly alive.

Terrain

Expanses of flat permafrost plains conceal deep caverns rich in minerals and ancient life. The surface is glacial and featureless, while the underground ecosystems are teeming, layered, and dangerous. Remnants of prior sentience remain within the caves.

Elevation

Surface elevations remain low—rarely exceeding 100 meters—though underground rifts plunge several kilometers into the crust, forming vertical systems of hidden life and forgotten memory.

Climate

Subpolar to ultra-cold, with average temperatures ranging from –40°C to –10°C. Stellar minimalism results in perpetual dimness and extreme chill, but high mineral content fosters bioadaptation in both flora and fauna.

Weather

Ice storms and wind-blasted blizzards dominate the surface, driven by polar air currents and Izhara’s orbital drift. Cavern outgassing can cause sudden vapor blooms or localized thaws, but the region remains consistently frozen and difficult to navigate.

Historical Significance

While rich in minerals, Kela’s extreme conditions, devolved cave-dwelling species, and absence of return missions made it a marginal territory throughout imperial expansion. It served more as a symbolic frontier—Geba’s cold edge—than a conquest zone. The Empire made few efforts to colonize it, leaving it as a cold witness to an age before men.

Source Notes

  • "Landmass directly north of Ngorrhal and western Thazvaar, dominating most of the planet’s polar circle."
  • "Extreme cold, but adapted fauna makes life possible. Devolved pre-sentient species live in deep caverns. Rich in underground minerals."
  • "Climate: Ultra-cold. High-altitude wind tunnels. Minimal atmosphere across most of the surface."

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 people of the mountain passes lose their ancestral name and are permanently renamed 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. Assassinations and civil wars follow — the Fracture — but the answer is not a vacuum. The Shadow Rule forms from imperial networks and manufactures peace, ending the warlord broadcasts and taking the world back from collapse. They are the empire made quiet: continuity without ceremony.

Today, the Shadow Rulers still govern from the background while the Energy Wars — covert struggles over power grids and relays in uncivilized regions — decide who controls energy, transport, and culture.

Stories range from relay-field defenses and inland recoveries to city governance and frontier resettlement; from rail lines and air programs that stitch regions together to festivals and work crews where culture and politics collide; from Frost Sentinel memory 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.