Appendix B: A Guide to the Gargoyles Universe

By Todd Jensen

“F”

FAIR FOLK

The name given by the Scots to Oberon's Children.

FANG

One of the Mutates. Fang's original name and background are unknown to us as yet. He was, however, recruited by Sevarius for the Mutate project; unlike the other Mutates, he liked his new form, because of his abilities of flight and producing electric blasts as a weapon, and has no desire to be changed back into a human.

A loud-mouthed bully, Fang had no interest in protecting the homeless people of the Labyrinth when the other Mutates took up that role of looking after them. Instead, he and a couple of human supporters decided to take over the Labyrinth with the aid of some high-tech laser guns that he found in a remote part of the underground complex (presumably past property of Cyberbiotics); they even intimidated Claw into helping them for a while. Fang was quickly overthrown by Hudson and the trio, however, and imprisoned.

He did not remain in captivity long, however. Not long afterwards, Demona and Thailog broke him out, hoping to use him as an ally in their war with the gargoyles. Fang fought alongside them, but was defeated and re-imprisoned by Talon.

[Sevarius will break him out not long afterwards, however, using him as an ally for his own schemes. Soon after that, though, the Redemption Squad will recruit him as a member, if no doubt, a very difficult member. Fang and Yama will be on particularly poor terms with each other.]

Fang was modeled after a cougar in appearance.

FARA MAKU

A friend of Diane Maza's in Nigeria. Fara Maku was a teacher to Tea, and in the process fell in love with her. When she went to live in Abuja, he did not wish her to go, and so sought Anansi out and made a pact with him, asking the spider to turn him into a werepanther, so that he could do the same for Tea, and vowing in return to hunt for him. Anansi agreed and Fara Maku placed the Mark of the Panther on Tea in panther-form, thus turning her into a werepanther as well. When she learned what he had done, she hunted him down for revenge, driving him to the city of Karadigi. There, Fara Maku learned from Diane Maza how selfish his behavior had been. After defeating Anansi, he realized that he must atone for his earlier acts. He and Tea, still werepanthers now, serve as protector-figures in Nigeria.

FINDLAECH

Macbeth's father, and High Steward of Moray. He and his son were popular among the Scots, leading Duncan to fear that Findlaech would see to it that Macbeth became King of Scotland in his place. To prevent this, in 1020, he sent Gillecomgain the Hunter to Castle Moray, to slay Findlaech, which task Gillecomgain successfully completed.

FINELLA

A young noblewoman at Kenneth II's court in 995. Kenneth fell in love with her in his old age, but she did not return his love, having given her heart to Constantine. Constantine pretended to return her love for his own purposes, but she did not realize this at the time. He duped her into arranging a secret meeting with Kenneth in the drying-house, to tell him that she wished to marry Constantine instead; this gave Constantine the opportunity to murder Kenneth and seize the throne.

After his coronation, Constantine declared that he would marry Princess Katharine, to strengthen his claim to the Scottish crown. Realizing now how she had been used by him, and furious at her betrayal, Finella helped Princess Katharine and the eggs escape from Constantine's court, in order to get revenge on her false lover. At the watery gate to Avalon, the Magus entrusted her and Mary with the Grimorum Arcanorum, to keep it out of Constantine's reach.

[Finella and Mary were pursued by Constantine's soldiers upon their return to Scotland for the next two years, until in 997, Brooklyn met them on his first Timedancer adventure and helped protect them. The Phoenix Gate at last appeared and spirited all three of them away to the United States in the 1970's. Here, they eventually helped set up the alliance between Xanatos and Demona; presumably, Finella and Mary gave the Grimorum to Xanatos as well. Their fates are unknown beyond this point.]

[FISHER KING]

[The traditional title of the guardian of the Holy Grail. At present, it is held by Sir Percival, aka Mr. Duval.

<The Fisher King is traditionally the title of the Holy Grail's guardian in Arthurian legend, although opinion is divided as to why this is. According to the legends themselves, fishing was his chief pleasure, and the first Fisher King, Bron, was even noted for being able to catch miraculous fish that provided sustenance for the Company of the Grail. Arthurian scholars are less certain as to the reason, theories varying from the fact that the French words for "fisher" and "sinner" are extremely similar and the Fisher King is a sinner, thus suggesting that some word-play may be involved here, to the notion that the Fisher King is a literary descendant of Bran the Blessed, who was the son of Llyr, a Welsh sea-god.

The most prominent Fisher King in the Arthurian legends is Percival's uncle and predecessor, who was wounded in the leg with a magical spear for a sin that he committed (the exact nature of his offense varying from one version of the story to the next), a wound which refused to heal until either Percival or Galahad cured him. Mr. Weisman has mentioned that Percival/Duval has paid a serious physical price for his sins in the Gargoyles Universe, and it is tempting to wonder if this price might be a similar incurable leg wound.>]

FLAGSTAFF

A town in Arizona. Beth Maza attends the university here. Goliath, Elisa, Angela, and Bronx came here on the Avalon World Tour, and stopped Xanatos and Coyote 4.0 from capturing Coyote the Trickster, with some help from Peter and Beth Maza.

FLEANCE

One of Macbeth's henchmen, the other being Banquo. The two of them have assisted Macbeth in at least two of his activities: stealing the Scrolls of Merlin, and aiding him on his quest for Excalibur. They also were present at his wedding to Dominique Destine in Paris.

Later on, she and Banquo left Macbeth's service, and went to work for Castaway (an ironic choice, in view of Castaway's descent from Duncan and Canmore). They helped him set up the Quarrymen and train his recruits, and fought Goliath and Elisa alongside him.

Fleance and Banquo are aware of Macbeth's true identity as the Macbeth.

FLORENCE

A major city in Italy, particularly noted for being one of the leading centers of the Renaissance. During the latter half of the 15th century, it was dominated by the powerful Medici family, who were patrons to many noteworthy Renaissance figures. In 1495, Demona came to Florence to steal the Medici Tablet, although in so doing, she was pursued by the "Renaissance Hunter".

FORTRESS ONE

An airship built by Cyberbiotics and used as a base for scientific research, flying in a holding pattern above New York City. When Xanatos duped the gargoyles into believing that Cyberbiotics had stolen three computer disks from him, Goliath and Demona raided Fortress One to "recover" one of these disks. Afterwards, Demona, ostensibly to keep the security forces on board from pursuing her and Goliath, but actually in order to kill as many humans as possible, destroyed the airship. Many of the crew members escaped Fortress One's destruction, including Vinnie, but its loss was a serious setback to Cyberbiotics and Halcyon Renard.

FORTRESS TWO

The second airship developed by Cyberbiotics, as a replacement for Fortress One, following the latter's destruction by Demona. Renard used his personal fortune to help build it, and, believing that the destruction of Fortress One was partly due to human incompetence, decided to have it manned purely by Cyberbiotics robots. He and Vogel went on board the maiden flight, however.

Fox decided to sabotage the maiden flight, hoping to wipe out her father and thereby secure Cyberbiotics for herself; she corrupted Vogel with a substantial bribe and had him insert a virus into the robots on board the airship, causing them to run amuck and sending Fortress Two into a direct collision course with the Cyberbiotics Tower. Fortunately, Renard and Goliath managed to prevent the disaster, with some help from a repentant Vogel.

Renard later used Fortress Two to battle Oberon during the latter's attempt to abduct the infant Alexander. Oberon finally forced the airship down in an icestorm, although Renard and Vogel managed to land it safely in Central Park.

FOX

Real name: Jeanine Renard. (However, she has since had her name legally changed to "Fox".) Fox is the daughter of Halcyon and Anastasia Renard, [born in 1966,] and, because of Anastasia's true identity as Titania, secretly a halfling. Unlike her father, Fox had no interest in strong moral principles such as integrity and responsibility, preferring a life of excitement and scheming. She met David Xanatos early on and fell in love with him; later on, she joined the Pack when Xanatos set it up, becoming its leader. (She was also, so far as we can tell, the only member of that group who knew that Xanatos was behind it).

When the Pack first learned about the gargoyles and decided to hunt them, Fox met with Lexington and persuaded him to bring Goliath to them. She and the rest of the Pack then attacked the gargoyles, but were finally worsted after a long and fierce battle. In an act of utter desperation, Fox took a swimsuit model hostage during the final confrontation, which quickly resulted in her and Wolf being arrested and sent to prison on Riker's Island.

In prison, Fox remained in contact with Xanatos, and helped him set up the scheme to lure Derek Maza into his service, by employing Jackal and Hyena to carry out an attempted assassination of him. Not long afterwards, Xanatos sent Coyote 1.0 and Dingo to break the rest of the Pack out of prison, but Fox refused to leave, insisting on serving out her sentence, and even saved a guard from Hyena. The parole board for the prison granted her an early parole in view of her actions; in fact, Xanatos and Fox had planned the Pack's break-out precisely to ensure this. Fox moved in with Xanatos at the Eyrie Building after leaving prison, and not long afterwards, they became engaged.

The engagement present that Xanatos presented Fox with was the Eye of Odin, which transformed her into a sort of werefox that ravaged NewYork at night, while also draining her life-energy away. Xanatos and Goliath managed to save her in a temporary alliance, however. Not long afterwards, Fox and Xanatos were married.

Soon after the wedding, Fox made an effort to ruin Halcyon Renard and presumably thereby secure Cyberbiotics for herself (she could have simply asked her father for it, but she considered the other way a lot more fun), by suborning Preston Vogel into sabotaging Fortress Two. Goliath foiled her plan, but she took it well, maybe in part because at that same time, she discovered that she was expecting (the baby that would become Alexander). Some time after that, Fox and Xanatos together set up the upgraded Pack, largely as a means of playing with the gargoyles for their amusement.

During the Avalon World Tour, Fox went to Australia to set up the Matrix, with help from her mother (as a scientific consultant) and Dingo (as a security guard). When the Matrix became out of control, Fox received help from Goliath and Dingo in stopping it.

Fox returned to New York afterwards, and not long thereafter, gave birth to Alexander. It was then that Anastasia revealed her true nature as Titania, and decided to take Alex away to Avalon to have him magically trained; she was disappointed that her daughter had apparently inherited no faerie magic, and did not want the same fate befalling her grandson. The gargoyles, Xanatos, Renard, and Puck all joined forces to stop Oberon from carrying out Titania's instructions and kidnapping Alexander, but all failed; when Oberon had overcome all the rest of the opposition and was about to snatch her child out of the cradle, Fox in desperation summoned up the magic buried deep down inside her and blasted Oberon with it. Goliath used her act as a means of persuading Titania to let Alex stay in the human world. Fox was still angry with her mother for attempting to kidnap Alex, even if the resolution had ended happily, but Titania hinted that getting Fox to use her halfling magic was her real motive and whispered something in her ear, before departing.

After the gargoyles moved back into Castle Wyvern, Fox and Lexington have done what they can to mend their bridges with each other, mainly because of Alex, whom they both have strong bonds to. It remains to be seen how well they will fare.

Fox's most prominent distinguishing characteristic is a tattoo shaped roughly like a fox's head, over her right eye. She bore this tattoo even during her "werefox" form.

Alongside being a wily and determined figure (and worthy mate for Xanatos thereby), Fox is also well-read. (She likes the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, but considers Nietzsche too "butch" for her tastes, and Kafka reminds her too much of the cockroaches that Hyena liked shooting rubber bands at in their prison cell.)

[FU-DOG]

[A gargoyle beast originally part of the Xanadu clan in China, at some unspecified point in time. When Brooklyn visits Xanadu during his Timedancing, however, Fu-Dog joins with him as his first companion. The two of them will visit 2198 together, and jointly battle the Space-Spawn as part of Samson's resistance movement. Like Katana, Nashville, and Tachi, Fu-Dog will become a part of the Manhattan clan after Brooklyn returns to the Eyrie Building.

<"Fu-dogs", in the real world, are statues of strange beasts found in China, sometimes also known as "Fu-lions". They are believed to be protector-figures, and therefore function quite effectively as a Chinese equivalent to gargoyles. Fu-dog's name obviously reflects this, indicating that in the Gargoyles Universe, Fu-dogs were inspired by local gargoyle beasts in the same way that the architectural gargoyles on the castles and cathedrals of medieval Europe were inspired by gargoyles living in those regions.>

FULFILLMENT SPELL

A powerful magical spell, engraved upon the Medici Tablet. [Its function is to grant the wish of whoever casts it, although within certain limits.] Demona used it to magically blend the CV-1000 Carrier Virus with the DI-7 detergent, producing a plague powerful enough to wipe out humanity. It apparently could only be cast on holy ground on the night of the Hunter's Moon, at least for that specific purpose.

Previous | Introduction | Next