Graft Spider War Beast

The Grafter mounts are huge hybrid creatures bred for war and used by the Grafters to carry augmented soldiers. Their discovery helped reveal the scale of Grafter military power; in 1677, mounts and riders were among the invading force that fought the Checquy on the Isle of Wight.

Nature and Discovery

The Checquy’s concern about the Grafters rose after an operative witnessed their creations and produced a lengthy, alarmed report. In response, Alabaster Lady Margaret Jones sent seven operatives to Belgium to gather intelligence. The Grafters’ estates were heavily guarded, but the agents managed to observe a regiment of augmented soldiers mounted on enormous creatures likened to the offspring of spiders and Clydesdales.

That observation changed the Checquy’s assessment: the Grafters were no longer a remote group of researchers but a major international concern. The mounts represented not simply a startling creature, but a practical extension of the Grafters’ program of producing highly effective military assets.

Role in the Isle of Wight Invasion

The Grafters sought a limited arena in which to test their creations, and the Isle of Wight became their preliminary target. In 1677, their forces came ashore and began a supernatural war on British soil. The Checquy answered by deploying Pawns under the direct command of the Rooks; fighting continued for three weeks, with hundreds of civilians killed and each Grafter creation requiring the loss of many Checquy soldiers to bring down.

The invasion established the mounts’ place within a broader force of augmented troops and monstrous creations. Their military use carried consequences beyond the battlefield: during one engagement, an entire village was destroyed and nearby fields made toxic. The surviving account emphasizes the cost of resisting the Grafters rather than separating the mounts from the destructive campaign they served.

Defeat of the Grafter Force

The Checquy eventually overcame the invading force through sustained resistance and extraordinary measures. Twelve Checquy troops, identified as the last anthropophagi in the British Isles, joined together and killed seventeen monsters. Pawn Hamish McNeil, who had leprosy, released an abnormal disease among the Grafter troops, causing their bodies to fail under exertion.

At the end, the Grafter general remained as the force’s last opponent and could withstand the Checquy’s attacks. Crimson Rook John Perry linked his mind to the general’s and then shot himself, killing them both. The account does not specify the mounts’ individual fates, but their appearance in the intelligence report and invasion narrative ties them to the larger campaign that made Grafter warfare a direct threat to Britain.