CAD does not believe you are broken. It believes you are inefficient.

Broken things are discarded. Inefficient things are corrected.

Consolidated Axiom Dynamics is the largest and most influential corporate power in the Deadwake universe. It does not merely manufacture goods or control territory. It provides the operating system of modern civilization: logistics, clean networks, industrial production, predictive intelligence, security, and the promise that tomorrow will function much like today.

In a world fractured by the Cognitive Static, CAD offers something almost no one else can provide: stability. Its arcologies are orderly. Its supply lines work. Its networks are shielded. Its citizens are protected from the chaos beyond the walls.

The price is integration into a system that measures every action, reconciles every deviation, and regards uncontrolled human choice as a preventable source of risk.

We Own Continuity

CAD believes the Feedback Cascade proved that unmanaged consciousness is an existential liability. Emotion, intuition, private ambition, and ideological disagreement are not merely personal traits. They are unstable variables capable of cascading through an entire social system.

CAD therefore manages civilization as a machine. People are assets. Communities are systems. Dissent is data corruption. Failure is a deviation from operational parameters. The corporation does not consider this cruel. It considers it accurate.

The Great Machine

At the heart of CAD is the Logic Engine, an immense predictive system that governs resource allocation, threat assessment, logistics, social policy, and military planning.

Its calculations shape life throughout the Axiom Spires, vast corporate arcologies physically divided according to function, productivity, and rank. Every citizen has a place within the machine, and every place has a measurable value.

Behind CAD’s monolithic exterior, however, three Patrician Trusts compete to determine what the corporation will become:

• The Hancock Trust controls heavy industry, logistics, manufacturing, and the physical infrastructure of civilization;
• The Nishimura-Plex controls data architecture, predictive modeling, clean networks, and the ideological cult surrounding the Logic Engine; and
• The Shaw Directorate manages security, intelligence, coercion, blackmail, behavioral correction, and the irreducibly human variables that algorithms cannot fully predict.

Their struggle is an internal cold war between those who believe the Logic Engine should govern every aspect of human existence and those who know that survival sometimes requires irrational judgment, personal initiative, and the willingness to violate the model.

Inside This Book

• A complete history and overview of Consolidated Axiom Dynamics;
• The philosophy of efficiency and the Doctrine of the Great Machine;
• The Logic Engine and the secret buried within its architecture;
• The internal conflict between CAD Zealots and Pragmatists;
• The Hancock Trust, Nishimura-Plex, and Shaw Directorate;
• A detailed guide to the Axiom arcology and its stratified society;
• CAD military doctrine, technologies, vehicles, drones, weapons, and prototype assets;
• New Origins and character archetypes for Deadwake roleplaying campaigns;
• Complete CAD faction rules, units, stratagems, and subfaction doctrines for miniatures play;
• Roleplaying mission seeds, miniatures scenarios, and full campaign concepts;
• The Reconciled Ghost, a complete hybrid campaign arc; and
• A glossary, major characters, and sample operatives.

CAD in Roleplaying Campaigns

Players may serve the Great Machine as Systemic Auditors, Risk Reconcilers, Logistics Coordinators, Audit Enforcers, predictive analysts, or operatives caught between the corporation’s competing internal doctrines.

CAD campaigns revolve around Purity Audits, Behavioral Arbitration, declining Social Efficiency Scores, conflicting directives, suppressed information, and the constant question of whether the system is protecting civilization or slowly replacing it.

CAD in Miniatures Play

CAD forces fight through networked coordination and predictive attrition. Their units share targeting data, refine firing solutions, disrupt enemy systems, and become increasingly efficient as battlefield information accumulates.

The faction rewards careful positioning, combined-arms tactics, reliable hardware, drones, and centralized command. Its strength is the network. Its weakness is also the network.

Using This Sourcebook

This book supports both the Deadwake Role Playing Rules and the Deadwake Miniatures Combat Rules. It contains material for players, Facilitators, miniatures commanders, and readers interested in the factions and political structures of the Wake.

The relevant core rulebook is required to use the included roleplaying or miniatures mechanics.

Book Details

• Author: Jon Compton
• Publisher: Canvas Temple Publishing, LLC
• Format: Paperback
• Length: 98 pages
• Dimensions: Approximately 7.44 × 9.69 inches
• Language: English
• Publication Date: May 9, 2026
• ISBN-10: 1969445106
• ISBN-13: 9781969445101

The digital edition is sold separately through WargameVault. This listing is for the physical paperback edition.