The Waylayer is an unusual light bomber of Eastern European origin. It's original progenitor is the Vedic Brotherhood, a neo-Pagan polity formed around the remains of Saint Petersburg from the union of communes created in the countryside by new religious movements in the time of the Crumbling and ultranationalist urban groups. In many ways, it can be seen as a foil to the CIR, where both ultimately became polities because they created parallel societies that withstood the hardships of the Crumbling more than the States they once existed under, but where the Brotherhood is ultimately a religious nationalist movement, the CIR is an unashamedly anarchist one. In comparison to the ground forces of the other Eastern European major players, the Brotherhood is most notable for being among the few to maintain a special operations corps to balance their technical inferiority.

The Vedic Brotherhood is the biggest threat to the Neo-Hansa operations in the Baltic region for two reasons: On one hand, it's seen as a carrier of toxic foreign influence. On the other hand, the neo-Hansa is known for it's leonine treaties and subterfuge in the East to gain an upper hand in commercial deals, up to and including the use of mercenaries to strongarm communities into unfavorable deals.

As an aircraft, the Waylayer is notable for it's simplicity: it has a fixed landing gear, and the fuselages themselves are inspired by those used in gliders. It's main purpose is to attack and disable neo-Hansa shipping, both to plunder and take hostage, and more broadly to discourage the neo-Hansa's operations in the region. Waylayers are also often used as attack aircraft. This one in particular showcases the bristling armament that a Waylayer can pack in it's starboard fuselage: A 45 mm cannon, two 30 mm cannons, and four 14.5 mm VHMGs with an extra three in the outer wing. On top of this, the bombardier also possesses a turret intended for strafing with two more 12.7 mm HMGs. Interestingly enough, actual Vedic Waylayers usually have 13.5 mm Very Heavy Machine Guns instead of this combination, this cartridge being an innovation from their Scandinavian allies.