Appendix B: A Guide to the Gargoyles Universe

By Todd Jensen

“G”

GABRIEL

A member of the Avalon clan. [Gabriel is the biological son of Othello and Desdemona, although nobody knows this as yet.] Like the other gargoyles on Avalon, he was raised by Princess Katharine, the Magus, and Tom.

When the Archmage attacked Avalon in 1995, Gabriel boldly took part in the defence of the island against him. He also fought alongside Goliath and Angela against Oberon when the latter returned to Avalon in 1996, although like them, he was defeated. Gabriel is still living on Avalon with the other gargoyles there, [and serves as the clan's leader].

Gabriel is particularly close to Angela, although in a non-romantic fashion; they see each other as brother and sister rather than as lovers. [He is mated to Ophelia, who serves as his second-in-command.]

GAE BOLGA

Cuchulain's magic spear, also known as the Spear of Light. The Gae Bolga looked like a bolt of lightning, and returned to his hand when it was thrown. He used it to defeat the Banshee, in both battles with her. When not in use, it reverts to the form of an ordinary stick.

[GAINE]

[The site of the battle in 966 where Culen overthrew King Duff of Scotland and seized the Scottish throne.]

[GARGATES]

[A biological order of animal, whose members have the common traits of turning to stone in the daytime, egg-laying, and formidable strength. Its two known species are gargoyles and gargoyle beasts. Gargates are now, sad to say, almost extinct, but will be on the way to recovery by 2198.]

GARGOYLE BEASTS

A species of animal closely related to gargoyles. [Gargoyle beasts are, in fact, the only other member of the biological order known as gargates.] Gargoyle beasts are generally found living with gargoyles, as pets and "watch-dogs".

[Although gargoyle beasts look roughly dog-like in appearance, they are not dogs at all, and in fact, bear much the same relationship to gargoyles as chimpanzees do to humans.] They have no wings, are four-legged, and cannot speak, communicating rather by animal noises, particularly barks and growls. Presumably, they are not fully sentient, but have more of an animal intelligence level. Like gargoyles, they turn to stone by day and come in various shades of color, [and also like gargoyles, the females are fertile once every twenty years, and each lays a single gargoyle beast puppy egg at a time, which takes ten years to hatch. They reach maturity quicker than do gargoyles, but otherwise enjoy the same life-span.] They are loyal, formidable animals, who battle devotedly alongside their clan in its defence, and can strike terror into the hearts of their enemies.

The earliest-known gargoyle beast is the "Hound of Ulster", a companion to the ancient Irish hero Cuchulain at the beginning of the 1st century A.D. Other known gargoyle beasts consist of Bronx of the Wyvern clan in New York, and Boudicca of the Avalon clan. [Brooklyn will acquire a gargoyle beast from the Xanadu clan on his Timedancing journeys, named Fu-Dog, and it will join the Wyvern clan upon his return.] There is also at least one gargoyle beast known to live among the Ishimura clan, [and at least two other gargoyle beasts besides Boudicca dwelling on Avalon; no doubt there are a few others in other parts of the world. However, the general evidence that we have indicates that gargoyle beasts are even rarer than gargoyles, and in greater danger of extinction. Fortunately, by 2198, the Xanadu clan will have embarked upon a gargoyle beast-breeding program.]

It is likely, judging from the reports of the "Hound of Ulster", that gargoyle beasts are in some way the original of the "black dog" legends of the British Isles, but further data on this is as yet unavailable.

[GARGOYLE MINORITY PROTECTION ACT]

An act adopted by the United Nations at some point between 1996 and 2198, at a point when humans finally had become more or less aware of the true nature of the gargoyles. It granted the gargoyles basic rights as a Protected Minority, treating the scattered clans around the world as a single nation-state, and made it a crime to hunt or kill gargoyles. (Unfortunately, it did not completely remove human prejudice against gargoyles, although the gargoyles were willing to accept what they could.)]

GARGOYLE TASK FORCE

A special division of the NYPD, established immediately following the destruction of the clock tower and Jon Canmore's subsequent blaming of the gargoyles for that incident, which revealed their existence to the human populace of New York. Placed under the command of Matt Bluestone, it was assigned the task of hunting down and capturing or at least countering the gargoyles. The Gargoyle Task Force surrounded St. Damien's Cathedral during the gargoyles' battle with the Hunters there, but Matt prevented it from attacking until it became clear that the frightened citizens watching on the sidelines would riot if he did not act. Fortunately, Xanatos rescued the gargoyles just as the Task Force was about to strike. The Gargoyle Task Force remains operational, although presumably Matt's leadership will keep it from being a serious menace to Goliath and his clan.

GARGOYLES - One of the Three Races (q.v.).

HISTORY

[The exact origins of gargoyles lie so far back in the mists of time that we have no certain details as to how they came about. However, what evidence we have suggests that they are descended from the great reptiles of the Mesozoic Era, possibly pterosaurs. It is certain, at the least, that they are native to this world rather than extra-terrestrials, and that they arose through natural causes rather than being the creation of magic. Gargoyles were the first of the Three Races to come into existence, preceding not only humans but even Oberon's Children. They enjoy a close link to the Earth that may be the result of their great age, and which may be the reason for their stone sleep (q.v.).

By the dawn of recorded human history, gargoyles had spread throughout the planet, and clans could be found all over the world. This period of prosperity came to an end, however, when humans learned how to work metal, particularly with the dawn of the Iron Age. Humans had long feared gargoyles, believing them to be demonic monsters because of their frightening appearance and nocturnal nature, but had up until now been no threat to them; at night, the gargoyles were too formidable to be safely challenged, being stronger than humans, and the crude and primitive weapons of the Stone Age were no danger to a gargoyle in stone sleep. But when humans armed themselves with iron weapons, they could come upon gargoyles in their stone sleep and shatter them. Many clans were destroyed this way, and the remainder were forced to retreat far from human society, into the wilderness where it was safe.

But not all humans treated gargoyles this way. Some humans realized that the gargoyles, because of their fighting skills, made excellent allies in defending their homes from rival human bands. These humans sought out gargoyle clans and obtained permission from them to build fortified homes for themselves atop the cliffs where gargoyles kept their rookeries. By day, the humans in this fortress would watch over the gargoyles in their sleep, and protect them from harm, while at night, the gargoyles would protect the humans' home from attackers. And for a while, this strategy worked.

But it did not last long. As time wore on, the humans who had initially formed these alliances came to fear their gargoyle protectors, considering them unnatural creatures and savage beasts. Tensions grew between the two races, and usually, they ended with the humans turning upon their former protectors and destroying them. The numbers of gargoyles grew steadily fewer. At last, humans came to abandon these alliances altogether (for the most part), and the surviving gargoyles fled into the wilds to hide. By 1994, there were only eight gargoyle clans left.

Beyond this general course of gargoyle history, a few specific events stand out. The earliest recorded event in gargoyle history took place during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 B.C. - A.D. 14), the first Emperor of Rome. By Augustus's day, there were few gargoyles living in the lands taken up by the Roman Empire, largely because there was so little wilderness left in it for them to hide in, but occasionally, gargoyles were brought before the Emperor. At that time, gargoyles' garments did not turn to stone with them in the daytime, and so when a gargoyle awakened from stone sleep at sunset, his or her garments would be torn asunder by the process, rendering him or her naked. Augustus, a man with strong "family values" and very desirous of restoring high standards of morality to Rome, was displeased by this, and had one of his advisors, a powerful wizard, cast a "spell of humility" over the entire gargoyle race, causing their clothes to turn to stone with them henceforth.]

At about this time, the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain was accompanied on many of his adventures, including his defeat of the Banshee, by a gargoyle beast which came to be known as the "Hound of Ulster" (although later on, the name came to be applied to Cuchulain himself and the gargoyle beast was forgotten). [About five hundred years later, King Arthur Pendragon of Britain also made the acquaintance of gargoyles, although the medieval romancers who wrote about him and his knights likewise ignored their part in the history of Camelot.] But few humans were as willing to accept gargoyles as these two legendary heroes had been.

And so, by the dawn of the High Middle Ages in the 11th century, gargoyles had become so rare that humans believed them to be extinct (and few mourned that). Indeed, the 11th century saw the end of one of the last alliances between humans and gargoyles, that formed between King Macbeth of Scotland (1040-1057) and Demona, which ended in 1057 when Demona betrayed Macbeth to the forces of Malcolm Canmore, bringing about her own clan's destruction as well as Macbeth's downfall. The Age of Gargoyles was at an end.

[In spite of this, humans vaguely remembered that gargoyles were protectors, and although it did nothing to change their opinions about living gargoyles, they still placed gargoyle-like sculptures atop their castles and cathedrals, believing that they would protect these places from demons and evil spirits. So some measure of the true legacy of gargoyles remained.]

In 1996, humans suddenly became aware of the existence of living gargoyles once again when Goliath and his clan were revealed to the public in New York, and most of them were terrified. Most of the human citizens of New York called out for the gargoyles to be destroyed or captured and locked away, and some of them even joined an organization of gargoyle-hunters called Quarrymen.

[The years that followed for gargoyles would be dark and dangerous ones, but in the end, humans would gradually come to realize their true nature, and learn to at least tolerate them. At some point before 2188, the United Nations finally adopted the "Gargoyle Minority Protection Act", which granted the gargoyles Protected Minority status and treated their scattered clans as an independent nation-state. Gargoyles were still only grudgingly tolerated at this point, however, not altogether accepted. They made a comeback, however; by 2188, their numbers had increased to twelve clans (one at New Camelot in the Antarctic, and another at Wyvern Hill in Scotland), and a thirteenth clan, the Liberty Clan, was founded on Queen Florence Island that same year.]

The histories of four specific regional varieties of gargoyles have come down to us, those in Scotland, England, Guatemala, and Japan. [A gargoyle clan is known to exist on New Olympus, although hardly any details are known about it; it emigrated there with the New Olympians' ancestors after coming to despair of making peace with humanity, now resides atop Mount Thanatos, and generally stays there.] These four clans and their varying fortunes will be discussed in greater detail later on in this entry.

[Concerning the remaining clans - we know that a gargoyle clan currently exists in Korea, in mountain caves by the Pukhan River, and another in Xanadu, China, although few details about them are known as yet. The Korean gargoyles are strongly concerned with justice, while the Chinese gargoyles devote themselves to looking after, protecting, and breeding gargoyle beasts. As we have already stated, by 2188, there will be twelve clans, the thirteenth clan will be founded that very year, and, some years after 2198, a fourteenth will settle in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.]

BIOLOGY

[Gargoyles are part of a biological class called "gargates", presumably descended from the great reptiles of the Mesozoic Era. The only other species in this category is that of the gargoyle beasts, which serve as the gargoyles' companions.]

The most prominent biological feature of gargoyles is that they turn to stone in the daytime. This trait of theirs, known as "stone sleep", will be dealt with in greater detail in a separate entry; for now, suffice it to say that at sunrise gargoyles (and gargoyle beasts) turn to stone [or, to be more accurate, an organic substance similar to stone] and remain that way until sunset. During this time, gargoyles sleep and dream, injuries sustained during the night heal, and they absorb solar energy from the sun's rays that gives them the strength to glide at night. Without this last, a gargoyle would have to eat the equivalent of three cows a night in order to get airborne.

Gargoyles are warm-blooded, like mammals, and have a greater resistance to the cold than humans do. However, like birds, reptiles, and the duck-billed platypus, they lay eggs. [A female gargoyle lays one egg at a time every twenty years; this low birth rate is one reason why gargoyles are so rare. Gargoyle eggs take ten years to hatch. Female gargoyles nurse their young, however.]

Gargoyles do not age during their stone sleep, so they age only half as quickly as humans do. Thus, a 30-year-old gargoyle would be biologically equivalent to a 15-year-old human. [A gargoyle could theoretically live to close to 200, but most gargoyles die premature deaths through being slain in battle or smashed in their stone sleep. Gargoyles such as Hudson who live to a ripe old age are rare indeed.]

Gargoyle appearance varies from clan to clan, often dramatically (as in the case of the English gargoyles) and even gargoyles within the same clan look very different, and are usually easily told apart. Some sort of overall gargoyle norm does exist, however, judging from the Scottish, Guatemalan, and Japanese clans. Gargoyles are bipedal (although they can easily run on all fours if they need to) and more or less humanoid in shape. They have leathery wings, usually bat-like, but sometimes glider-like (as with Brooklyn) or web-like in the manner of a flying squirrel (as with Lexington), and long tails. Gargoyles have clawed hands with three fingers and a thumb, and clawed feet (they walk upon their toes). Their ears are pointed, their teeth fanged, and they have some sort of brow-ridge above the eyes in place of eyebrows, and horns upon their foreheads.

But this aside, gargoyles display a great deal of variety in physical appearance. Some gargoyles have humanlike faces, such as Goliath, Hudson, Demona, and Angela, while others have beaks such as Brooklyn. Some gargoyles have hair, while others, such as Lexington and Broadway, are bald. Gargoyle skin color varies noticeably within the same clan; for example, Goliath and Angela are both lavender, Demona sky-blue, Hudson a tannish color, Brooklyn red, Lexington a sort of khaki, and Broadway turquoise. And many gargoyles depart from this "norm" even more dramatically. The London gargoyles, for example, resemble heraldic animals with feathered wings, and Zafiro of the Guatemalan clan looks very much like a winged serpent.

When gargoyles are awakening from their stone sleep or are angry, their eyes glow. Male gargoyles' eyes glow white, and female gargoyles' eyes glow red.

Gargoyles are immensely strong, and can actually scale stone walls, digging their claws into the stone to provide footholds for themselves. However, despite their wings, they are not capable of actual flight. They can only glide upon air currents. When gargoyles are not gliding and are on the ground, they can cape their wings about them (with the exception of such gargoyles as Lexington, whose wings are attached to their arms).

[Naturally, gargoyles are biologically very different from humans. Indeed, although both species are sentient and native to Earth, they cannot even produce children together, short of scientific or magical intervention. Indeed, gargoyle-human pairings are almost non-existent; Goliath and Elisa's own relationship will probably be a one-of-a-kind nature.]

CULTURE AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS.

Gargoyles live in clans, gatherings of fairly closely-related gargoyles. Each clan has a leader, and a second-in-command underneath. The leader's function is self-explanatory; the second-in-command's function is to lead the clan in the leader's absence, and to succeed to the leader position in case the leader is slain or has to step down due to unfitness. (Indeed, leaders of gargoyle clans have to appoint seconds-in-command to ensure a ready-made successor for such an occasion).

Gargoyles are in many ways, a very communal race, and this is particularly the case with the hatchlings. Gargoyle children are raised by the entire clan, and the concept of biological parentage does not exist. [This custom seems to have arisen thanks to the high death rate in gargoyle society; since it is entirely possible that a hatchling's biological parents meet death even before his or her hatching, this policy ensures that orphans will not exist in the clan, and that all hatchlings will be cared for, protected, and raised.]

While this system has traditionally been the custom, it has, in recent years, been challenged in at least one individual case: that of Angela. Thanks to her having been raised by humans, she was more ready to accept the concept of having an individual father and mother than most young gargoyles, and when she discovered from Sevarius that Goliath was her biological father, looked upon him as such. Goliath disapproved of this for a long while, feeling that such an outlook was not the Gargoyle Way, [and also fearing that from there, Angela would find out who her biological mother was; certainly an understandable worry given that that same mother was Demona]. But in the end, Diane Maza persuaded him to accept her, which he did. [(Whether Angela and Broadway will similarly raise their own offspring to come, Artus, Gwenyvere, and Lancelot, as their own, is as yet unknown; the same is likewise the case with Brooklyn and Katana's children Nashville and Tachi. However, it is known that Samson's parentage will be uncertain even by 2198; gargoyles still, in general, see their children as belonging to the entire clan.)

Although hatchlings belong to the entire clan, gargoyles are a strictly monogamous race. They mate for life, and in nearly all cases, when one gargoyle in a pairing dies, the other remains single thereafter. Goliath is a rare exception to this rule, in that he and Demona have "divorced", and Goliath has moved slowly towards a relationship with Elisa Maza.]

Gargoyles gather their eggs in caves or underground chambers called rookeries, generally set in mountains or high cliffs, their prefered habitat. (Wyvern Hill is a good example of such a place). Here they can be safely watched over. (It is quite possible that the necessary defense of the rookery from enemies may have been one of the reasons for gargoyles developing their protective instinct, for which see below.)

Traditionally, gargoyles don't have names. They consider the concept a peculiar human custom; as Hudson once put it, "Must you humans name everything? Nothing's real to you until you've named it, given it limits.... Does the sky need a name? Does the river?" However, by now gargoyles have begun to accept the concept of names, at different times and ways for each clan. In the case of the Wyvern clan, all of its members were nameless in the 10th century, except for Goliath. However, Demona received her name from Macbeth in 1040, following Duncan's overthrow, and the trio, Bronx, and Hudson took up their names after awakening in New York in 1994. The Avalon gargoyles were all named by Princess Katharine, the Magus, and Tom, and the clans in London, Guatemala, and Ishimura have all adopted the process as well. [We do not know as yet if the same applies to the gargoyle clans at Loch Ness, New Olympus, Xanadu, or the Pukhhan river.]

In gargoyle society, the sexes are more or less equal. Female gargoyles are the ones who lay the eggs and nurse the young, of course, but other than that, male and female gargoyles alike fight as warriors to defend the clan, and female gargoyles are just as capable as male gargoyles of becoming seconds-in-command or leaders.

The primary purpose of gargoyles is to protect. At first, this consisted of merely protecting the clan and its home, particularly the rookery, but as time went on, many gargoyle clans have since expanded upon the definition of this role. Under the influence of Elisa, Goliath came to undertake such an expansion in modern-day New York, declaring that henceforth, he and his clan would protect the inhabitants of that city, both human and gargoyle, against criminals and lawless men, which led to their patrolling the city at night and foiling crimes. By the 1990's, the Mayan gargoyles had similarly taken upon themselves the mission of protecting the rain forest around their pyramid, rather than just the pyramid itself, and Goliath and Griff together introduced to the other gargoyles of London (or at least Leo and Una) the notion of London itself being a protectorate, rather than just the "Into the Mystic" shop.

Goliath and Hudson alike feel that protection is an important task of gargoyles; Hudson has many times repeated the adage, "A gargoyle can no more stop protecting the castle than breathing the air", and Goliath himself presented this credo to Coldstone in these words: "Gargoyles protect. It is our nature, our purpose. To lose that is to be corrupt, empty, lifeless."

And protection remains important for gargoyles, indeed. Only the most corrupt of them, such as Demona and Thailog, have rejected this duty. And there can be few anguishes greater for a gargoyle than failing to protect someone from harm. When gargoyles choose to protect an area, they will do so steadfastly, even when the humans whom they protect respond to them with fear and hatred. (Thus, Goliath found nothing strange about Raven and his "clan" supposedly protecting the very humans who had allegedly destroyed so many of them). Hudson could well be correct about it being as important to gargoyles as breathing.

While gargoyles are not perfect, there seems to be less serious crime among them than among humans. Some punishments for gargoyles who behave poorly are known, however. For minor offences, a gargoyle can be sent to the rookery (a humiliating punishment, but one seldom inflicted). Treason is dealt with by the traitorous gargoyle being banished from the clan. [This was the fate of Yama, after the Ishimura gargoyles' clash with Taro during the Avalon World Tour. Iago underwent a temporary banishment from the Wyvern clan similarly, for attempting to turn Othello against Goliath.

Gargoyles think of themselves as primarily gargoyles. Individual gargoyles may pursue particular interests, such as Lexington's fascination with science and technology, but they never think of themselves as scientists, poets, artists, or what-have-you. They merely pursue it, without letting this interest define them.

Gargoyles have a vague religious belief, if one different from that of recognized human religions, both monotheistic and pantheistic. Their god is nameless, of course, undefined, and unlimited. Gargoyles see all things as part of the whole. Some gargoyles have an interest in the spiritual, but they merely follow this interest without seeing themselves as priests or priestesses. (The only known gargoyle at present with such interests was Desdemona). They have no creation myths, for the simple reason that they are not interested in their origins, just accepting themselves as existing.

When a gargoyle dies, the rest of the clan holds a Wind Ceremony for him or her, a sort of farewell to stone and flesh. Their own beliefs about death can be expressed in these two sayings, "Death and life is all part of a whole", and "One passes through stages, but nothing ever dies."]

Gargoyles are not magical beings in and of themselves, but some (such as Demona and Una) can learn magic. Gargoyles appear to have an ambivalent attitude towards such arts. Goliath distrusts it for the most part, often uttering the cry when bewildered of "What sorcery is this?", but has accepted the fact that sometimes magical help is required to keep his clan safe; he willingly sought aid from the Magus, for example, in repelling the Archmage's invasion of Avalon. (Much of his suspicion towards magic, in fact, may be based on his problems with various magic-workers over his life, including the Archmage, the Magus, Demona, and several members of Oberon's Children.) The Wyvern gargoyles may have had some overall antipathy towards magic, in view of Demona's having had to take magic lessons from the Archmage only in secret, but the London gargoyles seem less suspicious towards it, in view of the fact that their shop sells magical goods and Una is a sorceress of some skill. The Guatemalan gargoyles, likewise, made a willing alliance with the wizard who crafted the Mayan Sun Amulet, and Zafiro, Obsidiana, Jade and Turquesa have (so far as we know) seen nothing wrong with making use of them. (For that matter, Goliath never condemned Leo and Una, or the Mayan gargoyles, for their connections to magic.)

Officially, gargoyles don't make use of money, considering it unnecessary to their life-style. (Under natural circumstances, gargoyles presumably obtain their food by hunting and gathering, which would certainly make a monetary system not required.) However, there are always exceptions. Demona and Thailog have both gathered great wealth, although for different reasons (Demona to use in financing her schemes to destroy humanity, Thailog to make himself a force to be reckoned with in the modern world). [And the London gargoyles help support themselves economically through Leo and Una's shop, using the proceeds for such matters as paying taxes upon the land on which they dwell.]

INDIVIDUAL CLANS

While gargoyle clans once could be found all over the world, we only have data concerning the gargoyles that arose in four specific regions: Scotland, England, Guatemala, and Japan. [There are gargoyles living on New Olympus, in Korea and in Xanadu, China, but we know too little about them to include any detailed study of them here.] We know that there was at least one gargoyle beast living in ancient Ireland in the time of Cuchulain (at the end of the 1st century B.C. and the beginning of the 1st century A.D.), but know nothing about the role that gargoyles themselves played in Irish history.

SCOTLAND

Gargoyles were found throughout much of Scotland as late as the 10th century; [particular gargoyle homes included Loch Ness, Scone, and Wyvern Hill]. No doubt, the relative remoteness of Scotland in early medieval Europe must have contributed to their "flourishing" there, although even by the end of the 10th century, they were nearing extinction.

[Nothing is known about the gargoyles of Loch Ness and Scone except that they existed, and that they seem to have had some contact with humans - particularly the Scone gargoyles, presumably, since Scone was one of the leading royal seats of the Kings of Scotland at that time and home of the Stone of Destiny upon which they were crowned. The gargoyles of Wyvern Hill, on the other hand, were initially more remote and "rougher" around the edges. By 967, however, the Scottish soldier Robbie had met and befriended them, particularly their leader, then the gargoyle later to be named Hudson. In 971, Robbie introduced Prince Malcolm to the Wyvern gargoyles and secured an alliance with them, leading to both the enthronement of Malcolm's brother Kenneth upon the Scottish throne and the building of Castle Wyvern.] The alliance between Prince Malcolm and his human subjects with the gargoyles of the Wyvern clan [between 971] and 994 is one of the best documented human/gargoyle alliances in Scottish history (alongside that between Macbeth and Demona from 1040 to 1057).

But, like most human/gargoyle alliances, this one ended in tragedy. After Prince Malcolm died, his daughter Katharine succeeded him to the rule of Castle Wyvern. She was far less friendly towards gargoyles than her father had been, as was her wizardly advisor the Magus. Her court took the same attitude, and by 994, only Robbie, now serving as the castle's Captain of the Guard, was left as a friend to the clan, led by Goliath by this time. (Hudson had retired in 984 after getting blinded in one eye by the Archmage). Disgusted by the ingratitude of the humans to the gargoyles that had protected them so often, the Captain and Demona betrayed Castle Wyvern to Hakon and his Vikings, planning for the Vikings to lead the humans away as slaves so that the gargoyles could have the castle all to themselves. However, the scheme miscarried, for Hakon destroyed nearly the entire clan, and the few survivors, with the exception of Demona, were afterwards turned to stone by the Magus. Goliath, before being turned to stone, entrusted the care of the clan's eggs to Princess Katharine and the Magus, who took them away first to Kenneth II's court, and the following year, to Avalon.

Demona, the lone survivor of the Wyvern clan now, roamed Scotland on her own, stealing food in order to survive. Shortly after leaving the castle, she attacked a peasant boy named Gillecomgain, badly scarring his face. Gillecomgain vowed revenge upon all gargoyles and grew up to become the first Hunter, a ruthless enemy to all gargoyles and Demona in particular.

During this time, elsewhere in Scotland, more gargoyle clans were betrayed and destroyed (although under unknown circumstances as yet); their few survivors eventually banded together under Demona's leadership, and by 1020, had taken up raiding human granaries in a noteworthy fashion. Threatened by the humans in general, and by the Hunter in particular (first Gillecomgain, and then, after his death in 1032, King Duncan), this last clan finally took the desperate measure of making an alliance with Macbeth in 1040, helping him overthrow Duncan and become King of Scotland. Macbeth during his reign did all that he could to restore good relations between humans and gargoyles, even appointing Demona his primary advisor. But in 1057, Duncan's son Canmore invaded Scotland, seeking to claim his father's throne, at the head of an army raised in England. Demona, fearing that Macbeth would betray her and the other gargoyles to the English in order to appease them, betrayed him to Canmore first, bringing about the end of Macbeth's reign. But Canmore betrayed her in turn, having her entire clan slaughtered. Demona was forced to flee Scotland alone, and with her departure, there were no gargoyles left in the land (except for the stone figures of Goliath, Hudson, the trio, and Bronx upon the battlements of Castle Wyvern).

[Or so Demona thought. However, the gargoyle clan at Loch Ness still lives on in hiding, so good at concealing itself that it even avoided contact with Goliath and his companions when they came there upon the Avalon World Tour. It may have had some form of contact with the gargoyles in London, since Griff recognized Goliath in 1940 as being of "Scottish stock", though this is uncertain. The Loch Ness clan currently lives in underwater caves, and has become amphibious through adaptation to its new environment.

Although only one gargoyle clan actually lives in Scotland now,] three other surviving gargoyle clans today are all of Scottish descent, even though none of them live there. They are Goliath's clan in Wyvern, the Clones in the Labyrinth, and the clan upon Avalon. (Demona, Thailog, and the Coldtrio, while not part of any clan at present, also count as Scottish gargoyles, by bloodline at least).

ENGLAND

The history of the gargoyles in England is much more sketchy. [They had already settled there by the time of King Arthur, in the late 5th century, and the gargoyles of that time had dealings with him - which went unrecorded by the traditional Arthurian chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Sir Thomas Malory on an official level, but which may explain the presence of lions, unicorns, and griffons in the Arthurian romances. After (presumably) the passing of Arthur, the Lady of the Lake, Morgana le Fay, and Nimue taught the gargoyles a riddling rhyme about Excalibur,] which they preserved down to modern times, teaching it to their hatchlings; Griff used it to help guide himself and Arthur on their quest for the legendary sword.

The English gargoyles underwent much hostility from humans, however, and by the time of Canmore's invasion of Scotland in 1057, had all been apparently destroyed. (Indeed, one of their motives for following Canmore in his war on Macbeth was precisely because they had run out of gargoyles to destroy in England and so decided to destroy the gargoyles in Scotland next). [But there were some survivors, who fled into hiding. They eventually took refuge on a secluded country estate near London. At some later, unspecified date (before the Tudor dynasty began in 1485), they decided to hide more openly,] and so opened a shop selling magical goods, known as "Into the Mystic" in the city, in that part of it now known as Soho. Just when they took this step is unknown, although by 1940, Una was able to tell Goliath that her clan had kept the shop for generations. The gargoyles managed to hide their true nature from their human customers by pretending that they liked to dress up as mythological creatures, wearing costumes and masks, to fit the shop's ambience. [The proceeds from the shop help support the clan economically.]

The only known members of the London clan at present are Leo, Una, and Griff. Leo and Una are mates, and currently run the Mystic shop. [Una is also the clan leader; her second, a gargoyle currently unknown to us, resides at the London estate and handles immediate matters there while Una operates the shop.] Griff helped them run it for a while until 1940, when he was brought forward in time by Goliath from the Battle of Britain to 1996; after briefly resuming his life in the London of the 1990's, he joined forces with King Arthur and now accompanies him in Arthur's quest for Merlin.

One peculiarity of the London clan is that they look like heraldic animals with feathered wings, rather than the customary "norm" of gargoyles (the three specific known varieties of heraldic animal being lions, unicorns, and griffons). This feature is all the more puzzling since the gargoyles of England live almost "next door" to Scotland, where the resident gargoyles are the regular "bat-winged" variety. We as yet do not know the reason for this dramatic variation in physiognomy.

[By 2198, the London clan's commercial enterprises will have expanded, so that they will now be operating an entire shopping complex in Soho. (Napoleon's famous description of the English as a "nation of shopkeepers" was more accurate than he could have imagined.)]

GUATEMALA

The surviving clan of gargoyles here (barely surviving at this point, in fact) was allied with a powerful Mayan wizard (presumably human) in the late 10th century. He made for them the Mayan Sun Amulet and four pendants powered by it, so that the four gargoyles who wore the pendants could stay awake in the daytime and protect the step-pyramid [at Chac Ix Chel] where the clan lived during that time. The original four gargoyles for whom these pendants were crafted passed these on to successors as time went on, until they reached their present-day wearers, Zafiro, Obsidiana, Jade, and Turquesa.

By the 1990's, these four gargoyles had developed their "mission of protection" to defend, not just the pyramid where their clan lived, but the rain forest around it. They were aware of the many rare and beautiful flowers and medicinal plants found in it, and knew that if the rain forest was destroyed, these plants would be destroyed with it, lost forever. So they drove off anybody who came to the forest to cut down the trees, local farmers and corporate developers alike. (In the process, they became perhaps a little too fanatical in their defense of the rain forest, ignoring the fact that the farmers were cutting down trees to clear enough land to grow crops to feed their families.)

Around 1993, a band of looters came upon the pyramid during the day, while the four pendant-wearers were away patrolling the rain forest, and ransacked it, smashing the rest of the clan in its stone sleep into rubble and taking the Sun Amulet away with them. [The clan's eggs survived, presumably hidden somewhere where the looters never found them.] Zafiro, Obsidiana, Jade, and Turquesa were left on their own. To make matters worse, in 1996, Cyberbiotics, under Preston Vogel's direction [and without Halcyon Renard's knowledge or permission] embarked on a forest-clearing operation in the gargoyles' rain forest. When the gargoyles fought back against the developers, Vogel employed Jackal and Hyena to deal with them. After the terrible duo learned about the Mayan Sun Amulet, Jackal sent Hyena off to New York to destroy it (the Sun Amulet having wound up there in the American Museum of Natural History), planning to destroy the gargoyles in their resulting stone sleep. Fortunately, Lexington and Broadway foiled Hyena's museum robbery and saved the Sun Amulet, and Jackal was routed by the Mayan gargoyles (with a little help from Bronx, thanks to the Avalon World Tour having sent Goliath and his companions to Guatemala). Vogel decided afterwards to cancel the rain forest operation and dismiss Jackal and Hyena.

Elisa offered the Mayan gargoyles another possible way to keep the plants in their charge safe from humans. She and her friends took Turquesa and Jade to Avalon, with many flowers and herbs from the rain forest, to plant there; they would be safe from humans on Oberon's enchanted isle. [Turquesa and Jade have since returned home to help Zafiro and Obsidiana continue to protect their home.]

The gargoyles in this region, for the most part, adhere to the "gargoyle norm" in terms of physical appearance, with the exception of Zafiro, who looks very much like a winged serpent. (Quite likely there were gargoyles with a similar physical appearance in the past of the Mayan clan, which gave rise to the legends about the winged serpents or couatl found in Central America.)

JAPAN

Gargoyles in Japan seem to have enjoyed a happier history than gargoyles in other parts of the world. During Japan's feudal period, gargoyles fought alongside the human samurai of the island. [Brooklyn's mate Katana comes from this period of history.] Later on, as Japan became more peaceful, the gargoyles retired to the remote village of Ishimura, where they live harmoniously with the human villagers. The gargoyles help them protect Ishimura by apprehending thieves and other criminals who come there.

Japanese gargoyles practice bushido, a Japanese code of honor roughly analogous to the code of chivalry in medieval western Europe. They also taught this to humans from time to time, including the Ishimura-born businessman Taro, although he proved to be a poor student. The gargoyles of Ishimura live by bushido's teachings, feeling that these have helped them to live with each other and with the humans peacefully and honorably.

In 1996, one of the gargoyles of Ishimura, Yama, became dissatisfied with his clan's secluded existence, and made a secret deal with Taro to have the gargoyles relocated to a "gargoyle theme park" where they could be revealed to the world, Yama and Taro having different definitions of what this meant, however. (Yama believed that the gargoyles there would be gradually revealed to the humans as equals and as teachers of bushido, while Taro planned instead to display them as curiosities for his own economic advancement). Fortunately, with some help from Goliath and his companions, who were visiting Ishimura on the Avalon World Tour, Taro's scheme was foiled. The humans of Ishimura have since drawn closer to the resident gargoyles and even learn bushido from them, [while Yama was banished from the clan for having initially assisted Taro and has since joined the Redemption Squad].

Known members of the Ishimura clan include Kai, its leader, Yama, and Sora, [Yama's mate]. One cultural feature of the Japanese gargoyles distinct to it is that when they enter their stone sleep, upon the roof of a temple in Ishimura, they do so facing inwards, to thank the villagers for protecting them and to show that they trust them, rather than outwards as other gargoyle clans do.

<In the real world>

<In the real world, gargoyles are primarily associated with the great stone buildings of medieval Europe, particularly cathedrals, although they were also placed atop castles. Technically speaking, the term "gargoyle" applies only to waterspouts shaped like bizarre creatures, made to carry water away from the building that they have been mounted on; such statues, when they do not serve such a purpose but are merely mounted atop a wall as pure decoration, are called "grotesques".

The exact origins of architectural gargoyles are uncertain, although they may have been rooted in part in the pagan beliefs of pre-Christian Europe, lingering on in the people's memories even after the dawn of the High Middle Ages. As per the animated series, medieval people often saw gargoyles as a means of frightening demons away from the cathedrals upon which they were mounted, protecting them from the forces of Hell. The image of gargoyles as protectors, therefore, is indeed an accurate one. However, not all medieval churchmen approved of these sculptures; one in particular, the famous theologian St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), denounced them as absurd, useless, disgraceful, and a waste of money. Judging from how many gargoyles were raised upon such cathedrals as Notre Dame in Paris, few seem to have heeded his angry words.

One colorful legend about the origin of gargoyles states that in the 6th century, the town of Rouen was threatened by a dragon named Gargouille that arose out of the river Seine. Gargouille laid the lands around the town waste and devoured everyone in his path, until Archbishop Romanus defeated and slew him. He then consigned the dragon's body to the flames, but Gargouille's head and neck were too toughened by its fiery breath to be consumed. So the Archbishop had Gargouille's head mounted upon the walls of the town as a commemmoration of the dragon's defeat. This, so the story goes, is the origin of both gargoyles themselves and their name. (In actual fact, the word "gargoyle" appears to derive from the French word "gargouille", meaning "throat", used here in an onomopateic sense to echo the gurgling noises that water makes when it goes down a throat).

Legend also states that the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris come to life at night and go flying about the city. (This legend was unknown to the Gargoyles production team at the time of the making of "Gargoyles", however, and must be judged as merely an amusing coincidence.)

Gargoyle-like sculptures, depicting fearsome creatures as "protectors", can be found in various other cultures, such as the Mayans, the Chinese, and even the ancient Greeks and Romans. This is reflected in the series' portrayal of the non-European gargoyles discovered during the Avalon World Tour in Guatemala and Japan. (The series also made use of a parallel notion in "Heritage", the totem poles of the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, although as a red herring here; the creatures portrayed on the totem poles were actually "animal ancestors" of the humans who had originally raised them, rather than gargoyles, and the apparent gargoyles which Goliath and Angela met there were actually illusions of Raven.)

Gargoyles still crown buildings today even in modern times, in the United States as well as in Europe. In real life as well as in the world of the television series, New York is filled with gargoyles; there are more gargoyles there, in fact, per square mile than anywhere else in the U.S. These new gargoyles are less horrific and more comical in appearance, however; a great many of them are even caricatures of noted personalities (particularly the gargoyles built in universities, who frequently bear a suspicious resemblance to members of the faculty.)

Living gargoyles are often found in modern-day works of fantasy, and even more often in fantasy role-playing games, such as TSR's "Dungeons and Dragons", although unfortunately they are usually portrayed in such games as evil monsters. Somehow, perhaps because of their monstrous appearance, gargoyles have been transformed in the public imagination from protectors of the Church to demonic creatures. The Disney animated series has, happily, gone back to the older roots of gargoyles and restored them to their original function in it, although acknowledging the more recent and darker interpretation of them through the theme of the humans' fear and hatred of these beings.>

GATHERING

A grand assembly of Oberon's Children, held on Avalon at the end of their thousand year banishment from the island. All of the Third Race returned to it except for the Banshee (who had to be dragged back to it by the Weird Sisters) and Puck (whom Oberon finally banished from Avalon for life). While it lasts, the Third Race are presumably barred from leaving Avalon (except for Oberon himself and Titania, who can come and go as they please). How long it will last is as yet unknown.

GAUNTLET

A set of traps installed by the Pack in Pack-Media Studios, which they lured Goliath and Lexington into.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE

One of New York's most famous suspension bridges (alongside the Brooklyn Bridge), which crosses the Hudson River in the northern part of Manhattan, completed in 1931. Goliath and his clan fought Xanatos, Demona, and the newly-revived Coldstone here.

GILLECOMGAIN

The first Hunter. Gillecomgain was a young peasant boy living near Castle Wyvern in 994. He had the misfortune to come upon Demona as she was stealing food from the stables shortly after the Wyvern Massacre, and she promptly slashed him in the face, scarring him for the rest of his life. In absolute bitterness, he vowed revenge upon both Demona and her entire race.

When he grew up, Gillecomgain made good his vow by becoming the Hunter, and hunting down Demona. He also entered Prince Duncan's service as a paid assassin, however, and in 1020, murdered Findlaech for him. Duncan rewarded him by appointing him High Steward of Moray, and twelve years later, saw to it that he married Gruoch.

After Gillecomgain and Gruoch's marriage, Duncan asked Gillecomgain to murder Macbeth, to keep him from threatening Duncan's plans for the succession further; Gillecomgain refused, however, believing that an "accidental" death for Macbeth at this point would look too suspicious. Duncan, angry at being defied, promptly informed Macbeth that Gillecomgain and the Hunter were one and the same, thus ensuring that Macbeth and Gillecomgain would fight each other after all. Macbeth sought Gillecomgain out at Castle Moray, on the same night that Demona (through the urging of the Weird Sisters) also came there in search of the Hunter; in the ensuing battle, Demona learned that Gillecomgain and the Hunter were one and the same, and finally slew him.

[Gillecomgain was apparently the father of Luach by Gruoch, although Luach's paternity remains uncertain.]

GILLY

Jeffrey Robbins' seeing-eye dog.

<Gilly's name is short for "Gilgamesh"; she was thus evidently named after the mythical King Gilgamesh of Uruk, a legendary Sumerian hero. In view of Gilly's being female, this name choice is more than a little odd, although Greg Weisman has indicated that the original Gilgamesh was the subject of one of Jeffrey Robbins' earlier novels, before he met Hudson.>

GLASSES

Dracon's second-in-command; one could almost describe him as being to Tony Dracon what Owen is to Xanatos. Glasses calmly and coolly helps Dracon direct his various criminal schemes in New York.

GOLDEN CUP BUILDING

A research facility in New York City, specializing in developing advanced weaponry for the military. [It maintains the facade of a bakery to the outside world.] It has been raided twice since the gargoyles came to New York, once by Coldstone (under Xanatos's control) and once by Demona (as actually part of a trap to trick the clan into capturing her, in the adventure that would lead to the emergence of the Clones). It was also here that Xanatos invited Goliath to his wedding.

GOLEM

A gigantic clay statue brought to a condition of semi-life by Rabbi Loew in Prague, in the year 1580. The Rabbi created the Golem to defend the Jewish community in Prague from its enemies. At some later point, the Golem was de-activated and stored in a chamber of the synagogue where it had been created; it remained there until 1995, when Max Loew was urged in a dream to re-activate it, to use it to protect Prague from Tomas Brod and his followers. However, just as Max was in the process of doing so, the Golem was captured by Brod, acting on Halcyon Renard's instructions.

Renard used a cabalistic spell to transfer his soul into the Golem's body, in the hopes that this would allow him to escape his eventual death from his debilitating disease. Once housed in the Golem's body, he ran amuck, leaving a trail of destruction throughout Prague, until at last Goliath and Max Loew brought him to his sense. Renard returned his soul to his own body, and Max led the Golem to a munitions warehouse that Brod was raiding, where it defeated the gangster. The Golem presumably still patrols Prague, defending it against its enemies, while guided by Max.

The Golem's exact level of sentience is uncertain. It can act on its own, but has shown no capacity for speech, and needs to be directed by Max, and occasionally restrained; Max had to stop it from actually killing Brod, for example.

GOLIATH

The leader of the Wyvern clan. [Goliath was hatched with his rookery in the year 938, and by the year 971, was already one of the more noteworthy young warriors in the clan. In that year, Prince Malcolm made his alliance with the Wyvern clan; during that time, he bestowed the name "Goliath" upon the gargoyle, comparing him in strength and battle-prowess to the Philistine giant who fought and was slain by the young David (I Samuel 17); on a darker note, the name also evoked the fear that most humans held towards gargoyles, given that its original was one of the best-known villains in the Bible.] Thus, even by 994, Goliath was the only gargoyle in the clan to bear a name, and it is likely that even he did not view it as anything more than an odd human label.

[At that time, he and the female gargoyle later to be called Demona, then known only as his "Angel of the Night", were also growing to notice each other, which would lead in time to their becoming mates.] In 975, they parted the Phoenix Gate between them as a token of their love for each other. [They had definitely become mates by 987, when the egg that Angela would hatch from was conceived.] Goliath's love for Demona may well have been deeper than hers for his, however, since even then, she was, to a certain extent, using him for her own goals (in particular, her growing hatred of humans), though Goliath never suspected it.

In 984, Hudson was blinded in one eye by the Archmage, and abdicated from his position of leadership, appointing Goliath (who was already his second-in-command by then) to take his place. Goliath led the gargoyles faithfully for the next ten years, defending the castle from its enemies. While human antipathy towards the gargoyles grew steadily in Castle Wyvern during this time, particularly after the death of Prince Malcolm and the accession of Princess Katharine, and many of the gargoyles, particularly Demona, came to resent it. But Goliath steadfastly continued to protect the humans, understanding that they treated the clan as they did because they were afraid of it and it seemed strange and alien to them, and hoping that relations between the two races would improve in time to come.

By 994, however, Demona and the Captain of the Guard had had enough of the gargoyles' poor treatment, and decided to betray Katharine and her people to Hakon and his Vikings. However, Goliath unwittingly helped foil their plan; when they urged him to take all the gargoyles away to pursue the Vikings, he refused, feeling that it would leave Castle Wyvern open to attack in their absence. Instead, he took just Hudson with him. The Captain consequently had to change his plan to have Hakon attack in the daytime, resulting in the massacre of the clan. Goliath and Hudson returned to find the rest of the clan dead, except for the trio and Bronx (whom Goliath had sent down to the rookery for getting into a fight with some of the humans) and Demona, who had fled the castle to hide herself. Goliath believed her to be among the dead, however, and was grief-stricken.

He quickly led the other surviving gargoyles to the Vikings' camp, for the purpose of both rescuing the humans and avenging the slaughter of his clan. While the other gargoyles were fighting the Vikings, Goliath cornered Hakon and the Captain of the Guard, with Princess Katharine as their prisoner, at the edge of a cliff nearby, and learned of the Captain's treachery. When he lunged at them in their fury, Hakon and the Captain fell off the cliff to their deaths; Katharine fell as well, but Goliath rescued her. In his absence, however, the Magus, believing the Princess to be dead, had cursed the other gargoyles so that they would sleep, locked in stone, "until the castle rose above the clouds". Because Hakon had burned the page with the counter-spell on it, the Magus was powerless to undo what he had done. Goliath, filled with grief and despair at being all alone, first entrusted the clan's eggs to Princess Katharine, and then asked the Magus to cast his spell upon him as well.

A thousand years later, Goliath and his clan were awakened by Xanatos, when he purchased Castle Wyvern and moved it to the top of the Eyrie Building in New York, thus fulfilling the terms of the spell's undoing. Xanatos and Demona had carried out this scheme together, hoping to use Goliath and his clan for their own ends, and began by duping them into stealing three computer disks from Cyberbiotics, which they had deluded Goliath into thinking had been stolen from Xanatos. Goliath was temporarily overjoyed at discovering that Demona was still alive, but that joy faded as he gradually came to discover how she had changed over the centuries. Also, the same night that the gargoyles awoke in New York for the first time, Goliath met Elisa Maza, who had come to the castle to investigate the disturbances caused by the initial clash between the clan and the Xanatos Goon Squad. He rescued her when she fell off the top of the castle wall in fear of him, and the two of them soon came to become friends, particularly after Elisa risked her life to protect him in his stone sleep from the Xanatos Goon Squad in Central Park. It was Elisa who revealed Xanatos's true nature to Goliath, warning him in sufficient time that he was able to foil Xanatos and Demona's attempt to destroy the clan with their new Steel Clan robots, once it became clear to them that the gargoyles would not be quite so useful to their schemes as they had originally intended.

Although Xanatos was sent to prison in the immediate aftermath of the Steel Clan's defeat, he still owned the castle, and Elisa urged Goliath to leave it with his clan and find a new home. Goliath refused, unwilling to leave the last link to the 10th century, but after the gargoyles were attacked there by Macbeth and Lexington, Brooklyn, and Bronx temporarily captured, he finally gave in and moved, reluctantly, to the clock tower, though vowing to someday return and win the castle back from Xanatos.

Despite his anger and grief at having had to leave Castle Wyvern, Goliath settled into the clock tower soon enough. During his first winter in New York, he began to learn more about Elisa's work as a detective and her vow, as part of the NYPD, to protect the innocent citizens in the city from criminals. Realizing how much this echoed his own vow to protect the castle, Goliath used this as inspiration to redefine his role as a protector, taking a new oath that henceforth, he and his clan would protect the inhabitants of New York, both human and gargoyle, particularly through foiling criminals.

Goliath took to his new role well enough, but remained torn in his heart; he still had his old feelings for Demona, despite her having turned evil, and longed to have her back with him, but was also developing new feelings for Elisa (feelings which grew stronger when Puck temporarily transformed her into a gargoyle). Demona took advantage of Goliath's "torch-carrying" for her by tricking him into giving her his piece of the Phoenix Gate, which to him was only a token of her love, and using it to transport herself and Xanatos to the year 975, accidentally taking Goliath along with them. Goliath became involved in an effort by the Demona of the present to subvert the Demona of 975, and urged the younger version of Demona to not follow that dark path, but remain true to her vows of love.

Unfortunately, his hopes of changing Demona for the better in the present failed, since history is immutable; after discovering that the Demona of 1995 still had abandoned her love for him in favor of her hatred for humanity, he had to face, at last, the fact that they would never be together again.

Goliath had other adventures following his first journey to the past. He met Halcyon Renard, the CEO of Cyberbiotics, and with his help, learned to finally take responsibility for his part in the Cyberbiotics raid. He also discovered the existence of Thailog, a clone of him made by Xanatos, who was even more villainous than Xanatos ever was; Goliath viewed Thailog (with a little help from Elisa) as his son and made the effort to reach out to him, which Thailog contemptuously rejected. In the time to come, Thailog would become one of Goliath's most deadly adversaries.

Late in 1995, a grown-up Tom came from Avalon to New York, and warned Goliath of the Archmage's attack upon Avalon. Goliath, Elisa, and Bronx accompanied Tom there, to meet the Avalon clan for the first time, including Angela, the biological daughter of Goliath and Demona. After Goliath defeated the Archmage, he, Elisa, Bronx, and Angela left Avalon to return to New York. But since Avalon sends one, not where one wants to go, but where one needs to be, it took a long time for them to return there.

Goliath had more adventures during the Avalon World Tour of a personal nature. He encountered the ghosts of the Captain of the Guard and Hakon in the Archmage's cave, and finally made his peace with the Captain. He used the Phoenix Gate to take him back in time to 1940, to rescue Griff in the Battle of Britain and bring him forward in time. He also briefly donned the Eye of Odin in order to battle Odin, but came dangerously close to becoming corrupted by it, only saved by Angela's intervention. But perhaps the most important thing that happened to him during this odyssey was his acknowledgement of Angela as his daughter. He was reluctant to do this when he learned of their biological link, for it ran contrary to the "gargoyle way", and so rejected her urges to accept her as his child for a long while. But in the end, Diane Maza persuaded him to reconsider his treatment of her, and so he acknowledged her at last, to her joy.

As the four companions neared New York at last, near the end of the World Tour, Goliath had one last, horrendous, adventure, when Puck visited upon him an illusion in which they had returned to New York, but forty years in the future, by which time Xanatos (or, more accurately, a traitorous Lexington masquerading as Xanatos) had taken over the city, and was preparing to take over the entire planet from there. Puck's motive was to trick Goliath into giving him the Phoenix Gate; Goliath finally realized, almost at the last moment, what was going on here, and to prevent future attempts to seize the Gate, threw it away into the Time Stream, hoping that it would be lost there forever. [He was wrong, in fact, but that is another story.]

Goliath returned to New York, to become involved in an attempt by Oberon and Titania to kidnap the new-born Alexander Xanatos. Goliath was unwilling to see even his greatest enemy deprived of his child, and so led his clan against Oberon to thwart him; they were defeated, but after Fox mustered up enough of her "halfling strength" to strike Oberon with a spell, Goliath used the incident to persuade the faerie rulers to let Alex stay in the human world and be tutored in magic. Xanatos, grateful to Goliath for this act, promised to do whatever he could to repay the gargoyles; Goliath was skeptical, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Not long afterwards, Jason, Robyn, and Jon Canmore came to New York in search of Demona, and while hunting for her, came upon Goliath, Hudson, and Angela. Mistaking Angela for Demona, they attacked and almost killed her. Goliath angrily vowed revenge, and so began a terrible feud between his clan and the Hunters that resulted in the destruction of the clock tower, the exposure of the gargoyles to the public, and Elisa almost dying when a battle between Goliath and Jason inadvertently knocking her off the top of a dam. In the final battle with the Hunters at St. Damien's Cathedral, however, Elisa finally arrived and managed to stop Goliath from killing the Hunters, and he, having come to his senses, quickly followed that with thwarting a genocidal scheme that Demona had developed to destroy all humanity. The gargoyles were trapped by the Gargoyle Task Force in the cathedral afterwards, and almost captured, but Xanatos came to their aid and gave them shelter at the castle, in gratitude for their having saved his son from Oberon earlier. In the immediate aftermath, Goliath and Elisa finally admitted the feelings that they had developed for each other, and she kissed him for the first time.

Goliath and Elisa were soon afterwards the first targets of Jon Canmore/Castaway in his war against the gargoyles, but rescued by Vinnie.

[Now that their love for each other had finally been admitted, Goliath and Elisa would have to decide what to do about it. The sheer physical difficulties of a relationship between a gargoyle and a human are so great that, initially, they would decide that it was impossible and opt for merely continuing to be friends; they would even go out on a "Halloween double date" for this purpose, Goliath with Delilah and Elisa with either Jason Canmore or Officer Morgan (the future is uncertain as to which of the two). However, in the course of the "double date", they would realize that this simply could not work, that they had to be with each other, and would have to overcome the obstacles somehow. Eventually, they would hold some sort of commitment ceremony, and further down the road, even raise a child together, presumably by adoption.

By 2198, Goliath will be dead, but we do not know by what cause.]

Physically, Goliath is an impressive figure, a tall and powerfully-built gargoyle with lavender skin and dark hair. He is one of the mightiest warriors alive, and even his most formidable opponents cannot easily defeat him. He is also a bold and fierce gargoyle, and his wrath is something that can be terrible to behold. While a level-headed figure in general, and a good leader, he can be very stubborn at times (such as in his refusal to abandon Castle Wyvern), or sometimes even become bitterly vengeful (as in his feud with the Hunters). But he is no mere savage, and his emotions can be held in check by his strong sense of justice and morality. He takes his role as a protector seriously, and will willingly put his life in danger to keep New York from harm.

In another way, Goliath has shown himself to be something more than a fierce gargoyle warrior. He is literate, [having been taught how to read by Demona back in the 10th century,] and has a particular fondness for the classics, such as Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky. Mingled in with his gargoyle instincts is a thoughtful, philosophical nature; he often ponders about the world and how it has changed since the time that he grew up in. He also eagerly learns all that he can about it from Elisa. His wisdom and sense of hope have helped him endure the fear and prejudice displayed by humans towards gargoyles, not yielding to it as Demona has done, as he continues to understand that humans treat gargoyles thus because they are afraid of them, and hopes that they will change for the better in the future, that someday, their races will be at peace.

GRANDMOTHER

A Child of Oberon. Grandmother spends most of her time in the human world in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in the Haida settlement on Queen Florence Island, where she serves as an advisor to its people, and particularly to its chieftain. Whenever Raven appears to take over the island, Grandmother will advise the chieftain to climb to the top of the trickster's volcano and rout him in battle. She also helps see to it that the Haida will not forget their ancient customs.

Grandmother found herself faced with particular difficulties in dealing with Natsilane, who was a complete and utter skeptic about Raven and other matters magical. In the hopes of convincing him that creatures of legend do exist, she shape-shifted into first a sea monster, then the Thunderbird, in the hope that he would catch a glimpse of one of them and believe (she had to act as subtly as she did because of Oberon's Law). However, on both occasions, Natsilane did not see her, but she came into contact with the gargoyles, who misinterpreted her intentions (particularly thanks to their having been duped by Raven into believing that Grandmother was an evil sorceress) and fought against her. In the end, however, Grandmother did succeed, with the gargoyles' help, of convincing Natsilane to fulfill his duty, and after Raven was defeated, restored health to Queen Florence Island.

Grandmother is one of the wisest and most benevolent of the Children of Oberon. She usually appears in the form of a wise old woman of Native American descent, but can take on the form of a sea monster or of the Thunderbird at will.

GREAT BEAST

The Hound of Ulster (q.v.).

[GREEN KNIGHT]

[A Child of Oberon, with past connections to King Arthur and his knights.

<The Green Knight appears as a major character in the 14th century Middle English poem, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". In it, he rides into King Arthur's feasting-hall during its Christmas festivities, in the form of a gigantic green knight astride a green horse, bearing an enormous green battle-axe. He challenges the court to a "beheading-game", offering to submit to a blow to his neck with the axe from any one of Arthur's knights, on the condition that the knight submit to a similar blow himself a year later at the Green Chapel. Sir Gawain volunteers and beheads the Green Knight with the axe, but the knight merely picks up his head, tells Gawain to remember his vow, and rides out of the hall.

Gawain sets forth to seek the Green Chapel, on a long and perilous journey. He finally comes, during the following Christmas season and as the time for his rendezvous at the Green Chapel is nearing, to a friendly castle whose lord and lady welcome him with fine seasonal hospitality. They tell him that the Green Chapel is close by, but urge him to remain under their roof for the next three days; the lord of the castle proposes a "Christmas game", whereby he will go hunting during those three days while Gawain stays in the castle, and at the end of each day they will give each other whatever they have exchanged during the day; to this, Gawain agrees.

During the next three days, the lord's wife tempts Gawain to engage in an affair with her, but he virtuously refuses her, though also with great courtesy. On the third day, after her efforts to seduce him have once again failed, she offers him a magical green lace, which will protect him from all harm, including the Green Knight's beheading blow. Gawain, remembering that he must face the Green Knight at the Green Chapel the following morning, accepts the lace from her, and keeps it rather than giving it to his host when he returns from the hunt that evening, thus breaking his agreement.

The following morning, Gawain rides out to the Green Chapel, to find the Green Knight there, waiting for him. Gawain kneels before him, and the Green Knight delivers three axe-blows. The first Gawain flinches from; apologizing to the Green Knight, he holds his neck still the following two times. The second blow deliberately misses, and the third blow only grazes the back of Gawain's neck. The Green Knight then reveals that he and the lord of the castle were the same person, and that he was acting as he had done in order to test the virtues of Arthur's court, the lady acting in league with him when she had tempted Gawain as well. Gawain had passed all the tests except for keeping the green lace to himself, which was what the grazing of his neck with the third axe-blow was for, but the Green Knight views this in a forgiving manner, on the grounds that it was only natural for Gawain to wish to live.

Gawain feels ashamed of hiding the lace, however, and is much harder upon himself than the Green Knight is. He returns to Arthur's court and tells the king and his knights the entire story; impressed by his adventures, the other knights vow to henceforth wear belts of green lace in commemmoration of Gawain's encounter with the Green Knight.

In the poem, the Green Knight, also named Sir Bercilak de Hautdesert, is portrayed as an agent of Morgan le Fay, which would suggest that in the original story, he was an ordinary human enchanted by her. The interpretation of the tale in the Gargoyles Universe, on the other hand, clearly opts for the Green Knight working for himself, under his own magical gifts as one of the Third Race.>]

GREY GOO SCENARIO

Anastasia Renard's term for the process that would allow the Matrix to cover the entire planet once unleashed, reformatting it into a lifeless world.

GRIFF, SIR

A gargoyle in the London clan. At the time that World War II began, he was one of the shopkeepers of "Into the Mystic", alongside Leo and Una; he and Una were courting at the time. When the Battle of Britain began, Griff believed it to be his duty to help protect London from the Germans, and would therefore participate in the aerial battle alongside the Royal Air Force against the Luftwaffe. Leo and Una, fearing that he would be killed, tried to dissuade him from it, but to no avail.

When Goliath arrived in 1940 via the Phoenix Gate, he joined Griff in the defense of London, hoping to prevent his mysterious disappearance during the Battle of Britain which he had already learned of from Leo and Una in 1995. After all of his efforts to return Griff to the "Into the Mystic" shop safely failed, he realized that he could not change history and so used the Phoenix Gate to transport both of them to 1995. There, Griff was reunited with Leo and Una, and took up protecting London again, this time in their company.

Some time later, when King Arthur arrived in London, Griff spotted him entering Westminster Abbey and, mistaking him for a burglar, went down to investigate. There he discovered Arthur's true identity, after which the Stone of Destiny transported them both to New York to search for Excalibur there. Griff and King Arthur joined forces with Hudson and the trio in the quest for the magical sword, battling against both Arthur's rival Macbeth and the animated stone dragon which guarded the sword, before Arthur finally regained Excalibur. When Arthur afterwards declared his intention of setting out on a fresh quest to find Merlin, Griff volunteered to come with him; Arthur accepted his offer and dubbed him a knight. The two of them are presumably both in quest for Merlin now.

[Griff will no doubt be one of the founders of the New Camelot clan in the time to come.]

Griff bears a striking resemblance to a griffon; hence his name. He is a particularly adventure-loving swashbuckler, coming close to the embodiment of traditional British heroism.

GRIMORUM ARCANORUM

The spell book used to turn the gargoyles to stone for a thousand years. [It was originally written during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 B.C. - A.D. 14) by his chief advisor, the original Magus.] It passed from hand to hand until, by 975, it was in the possession of the Archmage. When the Archmage was banished from Castle Wyvern in 984 for attempting to overthrow Prince Malcolm, he took the Grimorum with him, but Goliath, Demona, and Hudson pursued him to his cave and recovered it after the young Magus needed a spell from it to cure Prince Malcolm from the Archmage's poison.

The Grimorum remained in the Magus's possession for the next ten years, until Hakon sacked Castle Wyvern. The Viking leader then seized the book and, contemptuous of its magic, began tearing pages out and burning them. When the gargoyles came to the rescue of Hakon's human prisoners, the Magus, blaming them for Princess Katharine's apparent death, used a spell from the Grimorum's pages to turn them to stone "until the castle rises above the clouds". When he discovered that Katharine was alive and had been rescued by Goliath, he repented of his act, but since one of the pages that Hakon had burnt was the one with the counterspell written upon it, he could not undo his work. All that he could do was to turn Goliath to stone with that same spell, at the gargoyle leader's request.

The Magus took the Grimorum with him to Kenneth II's court, and used its properties to help Princess Katharine and the eggs to escape after Constantine III's coup the following year. Using a spell from its pages, he brought himself and his followers to Avalon, where their way was barred by the Weird Sisters. The Magus used the Grimorum to reflect an attack spell of the Sisters back upon them, changing them into owls, but because the Grimorum was powered by human magic rather than by faerie magic, he could not bring it into Avalon with him. Knowing that he had to keep it out of Constantine's hands because of the spell that opened the way to Avalon, he entrusted it to Mary and Finella, to keep it safe.

Mary and Finella returned with the Grimorum to Scotland. [Constantine pursued them, hoping to recover the book and use it to reach Princess Katharine on Avalon, but Brooklyn, on his first Timedancer adventure, came to the rescue of the two women, and helped keep them safe until the Phoenix Gate transported them to the United States in the 1970's. They later on gave it to Xanatos,] who kept it, housing it in Castle Wyvern after it was moved to the top of the Eyrie Building.

Shortly after the gargoyles' awakening, Demona tricked Brooklyn into stealing the Grimorum for her so that she could use it to seize control of Goliath, turning him into a zombie slave. Brooklyn, when he discovered what he had done, recovered the Grimorum from her, but she managed to tear a few pages out of it first, to save for later. She used one of the spells that she had thus stolen to help create Coldstone, and another later on to place her "stone by night" curse upon New York.

When the gargoyles had to leave Castle Wyvern for the clock tower, they took the Grimorum with them. They kept it safe until Demona and Macbeth stole it under the influence of the Weird Sisters, after which the Sisters presented it to the Archmage. Since the evil sorcerer could not bring it into Avalon with him directly, he ate it, thus making the Grimorum a part of him and absorbing its power. But when Goliath tore the Eye of Odin from the Archmage's brow, the Grimorum self-destructed, and destroyed the Archmage with it.

The Grimorum's name is Latin for "Grimoire [spell book] of Secrets". It contained not only many spells but even (according to Xanatos) an account by the Magus of how he had cursed the clan in 994.

GRUOCH

The wife of Macbeth. Gruoch was the daughter of Bodhe. She and Macbeth first met in 1020, and began to fall in love with each other on that occasion; she helped save him from Gillecomgain the Hunter when the latter came to Castle Moray to murder Findlaech.

In 1032, Duncan commanded the wedding of Gillecomgain and Gruoch; it was a wedding distasteful to her, for she still loved Macbeth and had no fondness for Gillecomgain. (Gillecomgain does not seem, himself, to have truly loved Gruoch, but merely lusted after her). After Gillecomgain was slain by Demona, Gruoch and Macbeth were wedded. Shortly afterwards, she gave birth to a son, Luach; [it is uncertain as to whether Luach's father was Gillecomgain or Macbeth, although Macbeth raised Luach as though he were his own son.]

Gruoch became Queen of Scotland at Macbeth's coronation in 1040, and reigned alongside him until his overthrow in 1057. After Macbeth's "death", they were parted forever, for Macbeth had to leave Scotland so that the Scots would believe him to be truly dead, while Gruoch had to remain to support Luach in his war with Canmore. [She died shortly after Luach and Bodhe were slain in battle.]

<Gruoch was Macbeth's wife in actual history, and her life seems to have been very close to the way that "Gargoyles" portrayed it. She was indeed Bodhe's daughter, and her first marriage to Gillecomgain and being mother to Luach are both historically correct. In real history, she was also the granddaughter of Kenneth III (997-1005).

Gruoch is best known today, of course, under her Shakespearean title of "Lady Macbeth", in which role she has become infamous as one of the greatest female villains, not only in Shakespeare's plays, but in literature in general. This role is, of course, a far cry from the sweet and gentle Gruoch of "Gargoyles" - the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare, in fact, is far closer to Demona in character - which, given her marriage to Macbeth in "Sanctuary" is rather appropriate.>

GUARDIAN OF THE EGGS

The title that Princess Katharine bestowed upon Tom, in his role as the protector of the eggs of the Wyvern clan.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

A modern art museum, housing many paintings collected by the 19th century multi-millionaire Solomon Guggenheim, and designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. When King Arthur and Griff were first brought to New York by the Stone of Destiny, they arrived upon its roof, to encounter both Macbeth and the gargoyles.

[GWENYVERE]

[The daughter, and middle child, of Broadway and Angela, sister to Artus and Lancelot. She will be hatched in the year 2038.

<Gwenyvere was named, more or less, after Queen Guinevere, King Arthur's wife. This, combined with the names of Arthur and Lancelot, suggests that King Arthur will have some great significance for Broadway and Angela. Most likely this stems from the impact that the Scrolls of Merlin made on Broadway's life, and on Angela's having grown up on the isle of Avalon.>]

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