Major Groups in the Modern World
The Gargoyle world is much like our real Earth, but with numerous elements that both subtly and blatantly coexist in it. This page is a general overview of the featured collective groupings and organizations that exist in this world.
Racial Groups
In the series, it has been established that there are four major varieties of sapient species that exist, or have existed on Earth. Until very recently, all the races have been relatively isolated from each other.
Humans
By far the most numerous of the races and the second most technologically advanced at this present time. Originally they had a symbiotic relationship with Gargoyles, but human bigotry in many areas has in the past lead to massacres and occasionally Gargoyle betrayals provoked by these attitudes. Eventually, the links between these species were eventually forgotten as well as the general memory of Gargoyle existence. Eventually with the rise of scientific thinking and the emphasis of empirical reason, the belief in beings like the Children of Oberon and the New Olympians has weakened until they are thought by most humans as merely myths, except for the humans who have had direct contact with these beings.
Gargoyles
Possibly the least numerous of the races on account of unfortunate past events and their slow reproduction rate of once every twenty years to lay eggs and the needed ten years for hatching. On the up side, they can glide, have twice the life span of a human and most major injuries(outside the loss of limbs), diseases and toxins are eliminated as soon as they enter their dormant stone state. This stone state has been theorized to allow them to store solar energy which enables them to have tremendous physical strength that normally would have required them to eat the equivalent of three cows a day instead of the much smaller amounts usually eaten. They have no indigenous technical knowledge, but some individuals can learn human tech with amazing ease like Lexington.
Their appearance varies widely from each individual, but there are some common elements. Most have separate gliding wings attached to their back, but a minority have a kind of web structure similar to a flying squirrel which prevents from using their arms in flight. As compensation, this creates a streamlined gliding profile that allows them to be the fastest fliers of the race. Since they are restricted to gliding, gargoyles must usually climb to a high point in order to launch. Fortunately, these beings have sharp talons that can easily penetrate rock or masonry. This means they can climb most surfaces simply by gouging handholds with their talons penetrating the surface. Combine this with their great average strength, the talons also make deadly weapons, although heavy armor seems to be resistant.
Another common element is that gargoyles' eyes glow when they get emotionally excited and aggressive, with the colors being white for males and red for females. General appearance elements tend to be regional in character. For instance, Scottish clans tend to be leather skinned and often look roughly like Biblical demons. English ones, on the other hand, tend to look more like humanoid animals like Lions and Unicorns, while the Guatemalan clan is more reptilian in appearance. It is interesting to note that the native legends of these regions include beings that resemble the local gargoyles.
Another subsection are the gargoyle beasts like Bronx and Boudicca. These creatures have the intelligence of dogs and act and sound in a similar fashion. It is not yet clear how the differentiation between the beasts and the intelligent variety occurs, but the eggs containing beasts are stored along with the others in a common rookery. According to series creator Greg Weisman, the beasts have the same genetic relationship to gargoyles that apes do with humans. That is, they are close cousins, species-wise, but cannot interbreed.
Gargoyle social institutions are traditionally informal in nature. The clans are organized with usually a leader, a second in command and sometimes an adviser who have authority over the others while the others make contributions depending on what skills they have. Children are raised communally and rarely know their biological parents, but clans like the Manhattan clan are abandoning that custom in favor of human style familial relations. Another human influence is the use of individual names. In the past, most Scottish gargoyles were not named except for duty titles like Leader or descriptions like Goliath's moniker for Demona being the "Angel of the Night". However by the twentieth century, most clans have adopted names both to more live with humans and the ease of personal identification.
Another key element of the Gargoyle nature is the instinctive urge to protect. This urge will usually compel them to at least make some general inspection of their protectorate once a night. They still can have lives aside from their protection duties, but generally, if they spot trouble in their area, most will move to respond to it. It appears that this urge can only be resisted by the means of defining what exactly they are protecting. For example, for the English clan in 1940 London, some defined their protectorate as the curiosity shop only, while Griff defined it as England as a whole and wanted to get involved the aerial Battle of Britain.
Gargoyles appear to inhabit all climates and social interactions with other species, ranging from the Guatemalan clan with only four surviving members in continual warfare with humans threatening their forest, to the prosperous Japanese clan with dozens cohabiting amiably with the resident human population. Most clans have kept a low profile for centuries, but the Manhattan clan has been forced into the public spotlight and now must convince the human population that they are an intelligent species that means humanity no harm. The Manhattan clan knew of the Children of Oberon only through oral reference until the events of "The Mirror." They also had no idea of the existence of the New Olympians until Goliath and company's world tour sent them to that refuge.
Children of Oberon
Highly magical creatures that are also named the Fay, the Sidhe and the Faire Folk among other titles. The chief title suggests that they are the progeny of the godlike being Oberon and his wife Titania, but it could be a figurative term as well. Their appearance is extremely diverse and easily changed although humanoid form seems to be the favorite, or at least the norm. Unlike humans and Gargoyles, the Fay can manipulate magic of great power easily without conduits and focuses and their incantations are usually in the vernacular rather than in Latin as the other species tend to use. Given this power, technology holds the least amount of interest to them as the basic need for its use largely does not exist. However, to select members, science sometimes fascinates them as an interesting form of "magic".
They are extremely long lived, but not totally immortal as they can killed by specific methods. These include powerful magic and weapons made of iron, a metal that Fay magic cannot affect. However they seem to be able to resist weapons made of steel (a carbonized form of iron), so pure iron must be used against them to be effective. Furthermore, a Child of Oberon must obey the commands of anyone who successfully binds them in iron chains, although attempting that with an unwilling captive is a risky proposal at best. On the other side, Lord Oberon decreed that his children could not directly interfere in the affairs of mortals. However, this law can circumvented as long as a fay can set up a circumstance to rationalize it as extenuating as with Macbeth and Demona being pushed to ask for immortality. Originally from the island of Avalon, Oberon expelled them from it in 995 to teach them humility, but they must have been free to leave beforehand. This is because these beings have been treated as gods like Odin and Anubis and spiritual beings like the Coyote and there are accounts of them before 995. In 1996 Oberon returned to Avalon and called a Gathering in which almost all his children were compelled to abandon the Earth plane for Avalon. Now, except for Titania, they can only leave with Oberon's direct permission and a specific purpose. Puck is the exception since he defied the call and his master. For that he was exiled and charged with the protection and education of the quarter Child of Oberon, Alexander Xanatos.
New Olympians
An extremely diverse community of mortal offspring of the Fay. Originally coexisting with humanity, persecution from that population prompted them to flee and found an isolated city called New Olympus. Their appearance and physiognomies are the most diverse within any species and are the origins of the accounts of mythic beings like the Minotaur, Medusa and the Unicorn among others. They are the most technologically advanced race, capable of hiding their city with a powerful cloaking device that has hidden the city for millennia. This population has also harbored a fearsome hatred for humanity, based on past events. Currently, the leader is Boreas, an angel-like being with Tallos the robot as advisor and Taurus, descendent of the Minotaur, as security chief.
Both the technology and the attitudes were challenged when the Mists of Avalon sent Goliath, Angela, Bronx and their human friend to the island. Elisa was arrested and punished for trespassing on account of being human. However, when she still helped Taurus stop the murderous shape shifter Proteus from escaping and destroying the city in the process, she was allowed to leave. Now, fearing that advancing human tech will mean their camouflage will be penetrated in the near future, they are now making plans to face the human population openly.
Organizations
The Illuminati
A mysterious cabal that supposedly controls the world. Little definite information is known about this organization beyond that it is at least a thousand years old, and has Mace Malone as a senior member, while David Xanatos, Martin Hacker and Matt Bluestone are more minor ones. The benefits seem to include the willingness to grant requests with an extreme long term basis, such as Xanatos' request to have a coin delivered to himself more than a millennium in the future. High ranking members can have their lifespan extended by various means which is obviously of interest to Xanatos. They also have some interest in Gargoyles.
The Quarrymen
A genocidally violent militia group dedicated to the extermination of all gargoyles. It is led by John Castaway, who is actually Jon Canmore, the last of the Hunters and now an insane renegade. The organization is modeled heavily along the lines of the Ku Klux Klan in their costume motif with a Q with a hammer as the crossline being their emblem with a membership made up of a diverse ethnic and racial mix with only a fanatical hatred of Gargoyles as a common link. They are heavily armed and funded with their favorite weapon being a kind of energized sledgehammer for melee attacks. Towards their main goal, they have relentlessly planned and committed acts of war against the clan and its sympathizers.
The Mutates
A group made up of Derek Maza/Talon, Maggie Reed, Claw and Fang, who had their genetic structures altered against their will into crude gargoyle approximations by Dr. Sevarius.
This was the result of a project commissioned by Xanatos to create a biological substitute for the Gargoyle clan. Lacking sufficient gargoyle genetic samples to proceed with simple cloning, Sevarius improvised with a combination of genetic structures from various large cat species, bats and electric eels. The feline element allowed for the basic humanoid attribute modification and appearance. The bat part was for wings for gliding capabilities. The electric eel material was to allow the mutates to create sufficient energy to function at the strength and endurance of a gargoyle while avoiding the massive nutritional demands needed to maintain that level. This also produced a by-product of the ability to fire powerful electrical blasts from their bodies. As the subjects for this experiment, Sevarius abducted three homeless people and subjected them to the process. Later Derek Maza received the same treatment courtesy of Xanatos' arrangements. Beforehand, Maggie was allowed to escape in order to lure Goliath and his clan to Sevarius' lab in order to complete a charade by Xanatos that successfully allowed Sevarius to disappear, recruited the Mutates to his side and incriminated Goliath in order to motivate the Mutates to oppose him.
Eventually, the group learned that Sevarius was still alive and tracked him down to the abandoned Cyberbiotics underground lab. There they found the doctor with Goliath and Elisa seemingly in cahoots with him. After a short scuffle, Sevarius proclaimed he had the antidote which he was ready to produce if his safety was guaranteed. Although Talon and Fang refused, Claw and Maggie demanded they take it. However, when Sevarius insisted that Talon take it first, the gang suspected he was trying to poison them instead. At that moment, Xanatos arrived to rescue the doctor after deciding that keeping Sevarius took a higher priority over keeping the deception up with the Mutates. With the truth revealed, the Mutates rebelled against Xanatos and reconciled with the clan.
The gang later settled into the lab compound and renamed it the Labyrinth. There they operate it as a shelter for the homeless as well as a haven for themselves. The organization was originally informal with no leaders, but that lead to Fang attempting to take over the site with a cache of weapons he found. He and his cohorts were overcome by the rest of the group with the help of the clan under Brooklyn's leadership. Talon was forced to assume command as leader and imprisoned Fang in the Labyrinth. Today, the Mutates still live there and remain close allies of the clan.
The Pack
A para-military group made up of Janine "Fox" Renard, Dingo, Hyena, Jackal and Wolf, who were secretly assembled by David Xanatos for multiple purposes. The first was to be stars of a popular children's show which gave his girlfriend a shot at the spotlight, and as an elite commando team under his control. After the team had established themselves on TV, Xanatos had photos of the Gargoyles sent to them in order to interest them in hunting the creatures. They took the bait and arranged an ambush after Lexington met them and offered to introduce them to the clan. However the resulting hunt proved a failure and the entire team was arrested for creating a disturbance that endangered lives and damaged property. Later, the team escaped with the help of Xanatos, but that proved to be merely a charade staged to help Fox be granted parole for refusing to escape with them. The team eventually was forced to become bank robbers, but found the work frustrating due to the gargoyles' interference. In response to this, they accepted an offer from Coyote, the robot representative of Xanatos, to receive massive improvements to their fighting ability through cybernetic surgery, genetic engineering and power armor. The results were a much more formidable group that were defeated only by a carefully coordinated assault planned by Brooklyn. With that fiasco, the combination of personal tensions and continued lack of success led to the group's demise with Jackal and Hyena becoming mercenaries, Wolf going solo and Dingo returning to Australia.
The Clones
The Clones
Delilah
A group of genetic copies of the Manhattan clan who were created by Sevarius under Thailog and Demona's direction. The names are Brentwood (Lex), Hollywood (Broadway), Malibu (Brooklyn) and Burbank (Hudson). They differ from the originals by their colors and their intellects that were deliberately stunted to make them compliant to Thailog. The creations were used to attack their originals and to be "replacements" for them.
A fifth clone was later revealed called Delilah, a hybrid of Demona and Elisa's DNA programmed to be a servile concubine for Thailog should Demona prove too independent for him. This proved to be the case and that attitude combined with Demona's concern for her daughter led to the pair coming to blows while the Manhattan clan freed themselves and defeated the clones by using sophisticated coordination tactics that the clones couldn't imitate. After Thailog and Demona disappeared, Talon offered to take the clones in to educate them as best he can.
The Hunters
Gillecomgain,
the first Hunter
Robyn, Jason and
Jon Canmore
A ongoing title for a series of assassins and vigilantes who have hunted all gargoyles, but especially Demona and to a lesser degree Macbeth, for the last thousand years.
The first hunter began when a young Scottish boy named Gillecomgain was wounded in the face by Demona when he discovered her in his family's stable. With his face permanently marked with three massive parallel scars, the boy swore that he would have his revenge on the entire gargoyle race. The boy grew up training in the skills of war and apparently had several encounters with Demona, all inconclusive. Along with this pursuit, Gillecomgain was a political assassin as a sideline with his last target being the Lord High Steward of the Moray Province and his son, Macbeth, as a secondary one on the order of Prince Canmore to prevent Macbeth from being a competitor from the crown. The Hunter was successful in killing the Steward, but the interference of Demona allowed Macbeth to live. The prince was satisfied enough by the Hunter's results to have Gillecomgain appointed in his victim's place. Later, when Duncan ordered him to eliminate Macbeth as well, Gillecomgain refused, citing that Macbeth was popular and his death could raise suspicions about the death of his father and the one who ordered it. When Duncan warned the Hunter not to defy him, he counter-threatened to reveal Duncan's role in this affair. In retaliation, Duncan revealed the Hunter's identity to Macbeth, hoping he would challenge his father's murderer and be killed, thus silencing a potential enemy and putting Gillecomgain in his place. However, Macbeth and Demona killed the Hunter instead, and Macbeth was appointed Lord of Moray thus reestablishing his claim to the throne while Duncan retained the mask of the Hunter.
Duncan let the matter lie until he and Macbeth encountered the Weird Sisters who predicted that both men and their sons would be Kings of Scotland. Fearing that Macbeth would use this news as a justification to move against him, Duncan used the Hunter identity to attack Demona's clan he found earlier, then mobilized against Macbeth. The king fell in single combat against Macbeth and the combined forces of his and Demona's won the throne.
The next Hunter was Duncan's son, Canmore, who was sent into exile to England. Upon reaching maturity, he persuaded the English to invade Scotland to destroy the Gargoyle population there while he took the throne. Although he prevailed only because of Demona's paranoid betrayal of Macbeth, he had her clan destroyed all the same. Canmore later faced Macbeth and seemingly slew him, unaware that the king was immortal. Presumably, he later defeated Macbeth's son, Luoch, and became King himself.
Apparently the Canmore family eventually learned of Demona's survival and succeeding generations of Canmores have pursued the Gargoyle in order to kill her and her kind. Obviously, the Hunters failed in their first objective, but one would guess that other Gargoyles may have died at their hands.
The final generation of Hunters appeared in the 1990's when they received reports of Gargoyle sightings in New York City. Their names were Jason, Robyn and Jon Canmore and their fanaticism was reinforced in childhood when they saw Demona kill their father before their eyes in Paris. Going undercover with Jason as a "transferred" police detective, Robyn as the personal assistant of Demona in her human form (and aware of that recent ability), and John as a tv reporter openly investigating the rumors. Despite Jon's suspicions that this clan opposed Demona themselves, Jason blindly refused to accept the possibility and had the team attack the clan. Eventually, they traced the clan to the clock tower and destroyed it. The clan survived and escaped, but not without being fully caught on camera. The Hunters had this footage broadcast and caused a panic in the general population.
A later confrontation at a dam lead to Jason and Elisa Maza falling off into the water below. Assuming his brother was killed, Jon vowed to exterminate the clan for that. Unknown to him, the pair survived and Elisa managed to convince Jason that the clan opposed Demona themselves. In the meantime the remaining Hunters found Demona in an abandoned cathedral preparing to implement a worldwide scheme of global genocide. As they moved to stop her, the Manhattan clan intercepted them, and being unaware of Demona's plot, engaged them. The resulting battle was interrupted by Elisa and Jason's appearance as they attempted to explain the truth. Jon refused to believe it and a misunderstanding caused him to fire on Goliath. Jason threw himself in front of the gargoyle and was critically wounded. Stunned by this, Jon lost his sanity and blindly refused to accept responsibility for wounding his brother. He fled the area screaming the hunt would continue, leaving the clan to stop Demona themselves.
As of right now, the Hunter's official legacy has ended. Jason is now paralyzed from the waist down and Robyn is incarcerated at Riker's Island Penitentiary. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the now insane Jon Canmore as he has taken the name John Castaway as an alias and now operates openly as leader of the Quarrymen.