THE ASHEN RECKONING
Formless, vicious, cold, remorseless, and cruel. The Ashen Reckoning is the most dangerous threat the Nation of Vaifen has faced in recent years.
Over the past two years the insidious terrorist organization has taken the lives of thousands of Vaifen civilians through their heinous and atrocious attacks, scarring the lives of so many more, and planting the seeds of fear and chaos among the populace — their actions dedicating the pace of the macabre game they’ve forced the nation to play.
Their most common modus operandi involves the use of explosive devices hidden in plain sight. These devices have been placed at key locations and detonated during precisely calculated hours to ensure the maximum number of casualties — with the perpetrators often sacrificing themselves for “a new and free Vaifen.”
The kidnapping and assassination of various politicians, businessmen, and other notorious citizens have also been constant elements of their vile repertoire of chaos.
It is heavily theorized by many among Vaifen’s security forces that the Ashen Reckoning has an extensive amount of information regarding the nation’s inner workings and the livelihood of its citizens. This, in turn, has allowed the Ashen Reckoning to orchestrate their attacks with maximum effectiveness.
As if such a hypothesis was not unsettling enough, the perpetrators, whether alive or dead, cannot be identified by any means.
Dental records, DNA samples, fingerprints, nothing has yielded any results whatsoever — it is as if those men and women are ghosts themselves, the entirety of their lives’ data and its footprint seemingly expunged, or even tampered with to make them completely anonymous.
This means that not even Vaifen’s own civil registry data can be trusted anymore, for it may very well have been infiltrated by the Ashen Reckoning to alter and/or erase the identity of its members. Not even foreign databases that have been “obtained” through several means by Vaifen’s intelligence apparatus have been of any help when it comes to identifying any of the perpetrators.
The origins and nature of the Ashen Reckoning’s funding remains a mystery as well. The amount of resources and logistics that their attacks involve do certainly call for a funding source, one that is not easy to obtain, let alone move without leaving a single trail behind — whether or not the Ashen Reckoning is receiving financial aid from either internal or external benefactors to Vaifen is subject to speculation.
Not much is known about their internal organization, let alone the full extent and reach of the organization. One thing is certain though, the Ashen Reckoning was founded and is led by its only “public” figure: a man only known to the world as “Dogma.”
DOGMA
The Ashen Reckoning owes much of its viciousness and ruthlessness to their leader, Dogma. An enigmatic figure that has made his existence known through a series of video recordings, all filmed in clandestine locations, and always with the most extreme precautions so as to not leave any clue that can reveal his who he is or his whereabouts.
Through these video recordings — which always seem to make their way to the hands of Vaifen’s media outlets through untraceable means — the man known as Dogma presents himself to the Nation of Vaifen always concealing his identity, often clad in black attires and always wearing a white featureless helmet that alters his voice, making him sound distorted, ethereal, and even otherworldly.
Although he chooses to hide his face and appearance to the world, Dogma is unapologetically upfront and straightforward when presenting his intentions, which gives a glimpse into the inner workings of the man’s psyche.
Dogma, through the actions of the Ashen Reckoning, seeks to “free” Vaifen’s people from what he considers is, the “tyrannical rule” of the Crown, the “corruption” of the Senate, and the “blind indifference” of the Tribunal.
While his facial expressions are concealed by the unique helmet he wears, one can easily perceive the sheer vitriolic hate and contempt that his voice emanates towards the Nation’s centuries old pillars of governance. His hand gestures further reinforce what already is a strong message.
Even though the organization he leads is actively murdering citizens of Vaifen, Dogma often extends an invitation through his videos to the very men and women that the Ashen Reckoning has been terrorizing, murdering, and kidnapping.
He openly invites any and all citizens of Vaifen to join him, to take up arms, and rebel against the nation’s long standing Trinity, so that they can all together — as brothers as sisters — deliver “swift and decisive justice to the elites that have enslaved them for so long.” To build a new Vaifen for all, where everyone is “equal and free.”
Vaifen’s government has taken steps to prevent the broadcasting, spread, and reach of Dogma’s video messages to no avail.
Dogma has compartmentalized the entire structure of the terrorist organization he built from the ground up, making sure that each of its branches is able to act independently while only providing them with the bare minimum information needed to carry out his will. Thus, even if one were to capture a high ranking member of the Ashen Reckoning, they would most certainly not know the full extent and hierarchy of the organization.
Sword of Vaifen is a work in progress. Things are not set in stone and can be subject to change.
Every image, logo, and any other graphics that you see here are placeholders, none of them are final.
2024, by Christian Kaleb Caruzo.
