THE NEO-CONG

"They pulled me from the rice fields six months ago. 'Freedom,' they called it. The Bright Path would show us the way, they said. Now I carry a spear instead of bushels of rice, but nothing's really changed. The jungle still hungers, and we're still being fed to it - just faster, bloodier. At least in the paddies you could hope to survive another day. Out here? We charge the Jade Domain guns, wave after wave, until there's enough bodies to cross their razor wire. They say we die free. But dead is dead, and the jungle doesn't care what we died for. It eats all of us the same."

• Anonymous Neo-Cong warrior before the Battle of Phu-Bac

Hidden under the canopies of the jungles of South-east Asia, the Neo-Cong are a powerful army of liberated peasants and factory workers.

Trained and led by a Council of Elders, risen from their own midst, the Neo-Cong are at war with the Jade Domain and local warlords, fighting for the freedom of clone workers everywhere.

Main force  Neo-Cong operate in large units and are not afraid to engage the Jade Domain in open battle.

Most units operate from temporary camps and outposts. If they stay in one place for too long, they risk detection and being targeted by gas attacks from Jade Domain bombers.

While the peasant army that forms the backbone of the Neo-Cong lives spread out in the jungle of the green hell, the Neo-Cong temple fortresses are the homes of the Elders.

The overgrown fortress sanctuaries are almost undetectable from the air and serve the Neo-Cong as spiritual rally points as well as supply caches.

The Council of Elders follows a corrupted vision of the "Bright Path" and leads the Neo-Cong uprising across South-east Asia.

The council is formed by Bright Path monks and clones that were freed from their servitude on the endless rice field plateaus across the continent. Most of the Elders have risen to the council from the ranks of the peasant army, unlikely survivors of many battles that have gained the trust of their sisters. There is no fixed number to the size of the council, it is purely driven by the ascendency of warriors that are nominated by their fellow fighters to join the council.

The Sanctuary Guard is an elite fighting force of peasant army veterans.

Every sister in the Sanctuary Guard has distinguished herself on the battlefield and has been commended to the Sanctuary Guard by her fellow warrior sisters. Once they receive the call, the peasant warrior dons the orange garb of the Bright Path, in honour of the first Bright Path monks that took up arms during the Purge of Nang-Hoc. The Sanctuary Guard's sworn duty is to protect the temple fortresses and the Council of Elders and they will lay down their lives to do so without hesitation.

An Emissary of Prime arrives at the Neo-Cong temple fortress to confer with the Elders.

The Bright Path monks that lead the Neo-Cong's Council of Elders have no concept of what Prime really is, other than a powerful ally from a distant land, otherwise they would not heed her emissaries words. Prime's sole interest is to ensure that the war between the Neo-Cong and the Jade Domain never ends, thereby forcing the Jade Domain to keep placing endless orders for more military clones...