M0R1BUND

High Asthaom is full of complicated history. Dai Hei is a piece of that.

A disgraced general and bygone relic of Asthaom’s only war, Hei believes he’s wrongly escaped the fate of the god that turned him into a weapon. But rather than face exile for his crimes, he is celebrated for rebuking Motu’s iron grip– a decisive act of resistance that inspired thousands of his fellows to defect, thus ending the war.

Not to say that he is celebrated in the same way that, say, the Beast Out of the East is. Hei is not as easy to decorate. He is much less glamorous, a painful and messy wound that rejects all attempts to heal it. There is very little standing between him and a life of self-imposed banishment, but for a need to remind Asthaom of its ugly history.

All this to say that it surprises nobody, when Hei inherits the definitive symbol of violence: Motu’s mask.

Rather than discard it like the common trash it is, he decides to retrofit it. Co-opting the Sundog’s mask is a calculated act– It is physically and metaphysically defanged, stripped of its capacity for bloodshed. Put more simply: There is now no possibility that it could be used as a rallying symbol by any remaining loyalist who harbors the same sickness as Motu.

Anyway. This piece is wives with this piece.

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This piece is available as a print.