Grackleflints

The Grackleflints are a group of five brother faerie that serve as the main antagonists in Matt Wagner's series Mage: The Hero Discovered.

Description

The Grackleflints are children of the evil Umbra Sprite. Their primary mission on Earth is to find The Fisher King. The idea is that if they can spill his blood in a ritual sacrifice then darkness will gain the upper hand in its war against light. The Gracks' main disguise (created by Piet) is as identical red-headed quintuplet pit bosses at the Styx Casino. In their true forms, however they are completely hairless with pale skin and poisonous spurs on each of their elbows. This spur's poison is so dangerous that it could possibly even kill Kevin Matchstick.  In the one circumstance that we see Gracklefint poison at work on a mortal, Lazlo uses it to kill a homeless man.  He dies in agony while hallucinating about creatures crawling over him and eating his eyes.

Powers and Abilities

Grackleflints have a somewhat superhuman level of durability, as seen when Kevin Matchstick kicked Emil up against a wall perhaps 20' in the air, from which he then fell to the ground, and yet suffered no ill effects. Stanis also shrugged off a hit on the head from a (normal) baseball bat. This level of durability has limits, however; for instance Matchstick killed Piet with the fully-empowered version of the Bat, and Stanis was killed by a car accident and explosion. Grackleflints also probably have somewhat superhuman strength, since Stanis was able to lift the rear end of an Edsel car off the ground with one hand.

Grackleflints are fearful of water, which can cause them enough pain to go mad in extreme circumstances. Even a drop of water can scare them. Radu was stuck full-on by a large spout of water, which apparently killed him.

Each brother has a different power:

• Stanis: flight.

• Lazlo: can divine by touch or sometimes close proximity, the true nature of any creature.

• Piet: can change his or another's shape.

• Radu: can make himself and others invisible.

• Emil: has free will. He is the only Grackleflint who does not blindly follow their father's wishes.

Emil is the only Grackleflint who manages to actually severely injure Kevin Matchstick when he spears him with one of his elbow spurs. At the end of The Hero Discovered all of the brothers are confirmed dead except for Emil, who is maimed and gravely wounded from his discovery of the Fisher King. Emil bashes his father's head in with a potted tobacco plant, effectively banishing him from this plane, and escapes while the Styx Casino crumbles to rubble.

Emil later becomes known as the Pale Incanter, the main antagonist of the second Mage series, The Hero Defined. His own father comes back to defeat him in that series.