Yersinia Rex, Hegemon of the Grail

The greatest threat that the Black Grail poses is not the foul poisonous miasma that spreads its corruption, nor the clouds of diseased iron locusts and flies it unleashes, nor even the horrific half-living warbands that plague the land as a wasting disease ails the body. The Hegemons of the Black Grail are the final, most horrific evolution of Beelzebub’s dark master plan for be-fouling creation to take vengeance against YHWH.

When the Black Grail is allowed to spread unchecked, then eventually enough living things will be tainted, and so many Thralls, Amalgams, Heralds and other blighted servants of the Lord of the Flies swarm in one place they can become host to a Hegemon of the Grail, a terrifying shadow of Beelzebub on Earth.

The metamorphosis begins with strangely beautiful chanting. The servants of the Grail call out to Beelzebub from their ruined mouths, singing plague hymns that give praise to his beautiful creations, and petitioning him for aid. Thousands or even millions of innocents are sacrificed. Their bodies are cut open and their entrails arranged into a sprawling mandala of inscrutable and powerful sigils.

The air grows thick like mud. Swarms of flies coalesce into strange and ominous symbols. A dreadful abscess forms in the sky from which great bolts of diseased blood strike the tortured earth. The chanting servants of the Black Grail, still holding the living and suffering humans within the foulness of their bulk imprisoned, slowly march into the centre of the mandala. In an agonizing ritual, they meld together into a putrid mound of colossal proportions.

As the last vestiges of the human hosts melt away, this quivering mass transforms into a new and terrifying shape. If not destroyed by holy fire, then within thirteen days an armoured titan crowned by a swarm of Beelzebub’s winged children rises from the swarming mass of twisted flesh. Thus a Hegemon of the Black Grail is born, a nightmare who walks the earth.

The powers of a Hegemon are beyond those of any other creation of the Black Grail. It can extend the corrupting power of Beelzebub into graves and morgues, so that even in death there is no escape or respite from the Lord of the Flies. In battle the hundred-foot monstrosity can challenge entire battalions of infantry and whole tank corps. It has the twisted and foul wisdom and genius of a lordly fallen angel.

Thus far, only two Hegemons of the Black Grail have risen during the Great War. One was slain by Paladin Engelier who tragically perished in the duel. Another was defeated by the living Saint Joan of Arc during the Corpse Wars in the year 1429. The Church and the forces of New Antioch are determined never to let another Hegemon rise ever again.

Pictured here is Yersinia Rex, Hegemon of the Black Grail whose steps made the thrones of Europa tremble during the Corpse Wars.

“Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the Lord of the Flies is come down unto you, and he brings his scourge of wrath.”

— Psalms of Pestilence chapter 3 verse 13