Appendix B: A Guide to the Gargoyles Universe

By Todd Jensen

“T”

[TACHI]

[Brooklyn and Katana's daughter. The egg that will hatch into her will be laid by Katana during her Timedancing with Brooklyn, but will not hatch until after their return to the Eyrie Building in 1997.]

TALON

The name taken by Derek Maza after Sevarius mutated him into a sort of winged panther-like humanoid. After his transformation, he took command of the other Mutates, eventually re-entering Xanatos's service, due to his belief that only Xanatos would be able to cure him. Goliath and Elisa revealed to him, however, that Xanatos was the very one responsible for his metamorphosis to begin with, and at last Talon realized this to be the truth.

Talon and the other Mutates then left Xanatos's service and set up a home for themselves in the Labyrinth. There they took the local homeless people under their protection, forming a community of sorts. Talon became the informal leader, but never saw himself as that; his reluctance to assume the responsibility of leadership allowed Fang to carry out a coup, setting himself up as the ruler of the Labyrinth and temporarily imprisoning Talon. The trio, Hudson, and Maggie rescued him, however, and Talon recognized at last the need to take command, and promptly assumed that role of leading the community in the Labyrinth.

Talon and Maggie have already developed a relationship, [and will eventually get married]. Talon currently serves as an ally to the gargoyles, if a not quite enthusiastic one; he has some difficulties getting along with them still. He also maintains a grudge against Xanatos for transforming him into a Mutate.

TALOS

A robot on New Olympus. [Talos was originally built back in the days of Greek mythology on a rather simple level, compared to what he now is, in a partnership between Hephaestus (the smith-god of Greek mythology) and Daedalus, the great craftsman - perhaps also with the help of a Cyclops.] He accompanied the New Olympians when they withdrew to New Olympus, and still resides there, [if upgraded many times since then].

When Elisa was put on trial by the New Olympians, Talos spoke in favor of making peace with the humans, on the grounds that it would not be long before their technology would be capable of breaching New Olympus's cloaking device; he was ignored, however. Not long afterwards, when Proteus escaped and attempted to overload the power supply for New Olympus, Talos came upon him and attempted to stop him, but was badly damaged by Proteus in his cyclops form. [He was repaired, though, and will serve as one of the ambassadors from New Olympus to the outside world in the future.]

Talos currently looks much like an animated suit of armor, in the style of an ancient Greek hoplite.

TARO

A Japanese businessman from Ishimura. As a boy, before going away to a major city in Japan (whose identity is currently unknown), he learned bushido from the gargoyles of Ishimura, but was a poor student. Exactly how poor became clear after he grew up, made a fortune, and returned to the village. Taro decided to capture the Ishimura gargoyles, and display them at a nearby "gargoyle theme park" that he had built as curiosities, hoping to make a considerable amount of money this way.

To assist him in this coup, he formed an alliance with Yama, who was feeling dissatisfied with life in Ishimura and believed that gargoyles should reveal themselves to the outside world. Taro tricked Yama into believing that the purpose of the "gargoyle theme park" was to allow the Ishimura clan to do just that, falsely claiming that the first visitors to it would be a group of schoolchildren whom the gargoyles would teach bushido to. Yama thus helped Taro build the theme park and kidnap the Ishimura clan in the daytime (Taro used a band of ninjas to temporarily incapacitate the human villagers, and Elisa, who was visiting with her companions on the Avalon World Tour). He then sent for a group of reporters to visit the theme park in the morning and witness the gargoyles turning to stone.

But Elisa and Hiroshi came to the theme park to rescue the gargoyles, and Yama discovered Taro's true intentions and helped defeat him. The gargoyles were freed, and Taro ended up dangling from a gigantic animatronic gargoyle in the theme park in front of the reporters, looking like a fool.

[Taro was presumably not quite finished with the gargoyles, however, for later on, upon seeing an interview with Vinnie on "Nightwatch" where he (Vinnie) mentioned having gotten his revenge on Goliath, he promptly gave Vinnie a security job for him. We as yet can only wonder what his response will be when he discovers that Vinnie's revenge consisted of hitting Goliath in the face with a banana cream pie.]

TAURUS

A New Olympian, the Chief of Security. Taurus is descended from the original Minotaur who was slain by Theseus, and is himself a minotaur, as was his father, who preceded him as Chief of Security, and who was murdered by Proteus. Because of his family history, Taurus was suspicious towards humans, and so when Elisa came to New Olympus on the Avalon World Tour, received her hostilely, even incarcerating her to prevent her presence from causing riots among the New Olympians.

When Proteus, disguised as Goliath, broke Elisa out, Taurus went in pursuit of them to recapture them. He finally cornered them at the Columnadium, where he defeated Proteus, and returned him to prison. Astonished that Elisa chose to remain in New Olympus to help capture the villainous shape-shifter rather than escape, he conceded that perhaps not all humans were evil, and let her leave the island with her friends. [Later on, he will be part of the New Olympian embassy to the outside world.]

<Taurus's name comes from the Greek word for "bull", made particularly familiar as the name of the second constellation of the Zodiac.>

TEA

One of the two werepanthers in Nigeria. Tea was a student of Fara Maku, who decided to leave him and go to live in Abuja. Fara Maku had fallen in love with her, however, and did not wish her to go; he therefore made a pact with Anansi to become a werepanther, and once he became one, placed the Mark of the Panther upon Tea. This turned her into a werepanther as well. Her transformations soon made it impossible for her to live in the city, and she returned to the jungle to find the panther responsible and kill him. She worked with a band of poachers to slay every panther that she could find, until she discovered that it was Fara Maku who was responsible. Angrily, she hunted him until they came to Karadigi and learned of Anansi's plans for them. With the help of Goliath and his companions, they defeated the spider, but were still trapped as werepanthers. Realizing that she must atone for the panthers that she had helped slay, Tea, like Fara Maku, became a protector-figure for Nigeria.

THAILOG

A clone made of Goliath by Xanatos and Sevarius. While Xanatos was still in prison, he arranged for a Steel Clan robot to attack Goliath and wound him, afterwards having Owen obtain some drops of the gargoyle's blood under the guise of treating his injuries. Sevarius used the blood to create Thailog, artificially aging him to the same biological age as Goliath in a matter of months; he also tutored him through subliminal methods, indoctrinating him in Xanatos's ethical code of utterly amoral pragmatism.

Xanatos and Sevarius succeeded too well in this; Thailog decided to go into business for himself, and duped Sevarius into "kidnapping" him and holding him for a twenty million dollar ransom. When Xanatos came to pay the ransom, Thailog ambushed both him and Sevarius, seized the money for himself, and planned to kill them both by locking them up within an abandoned oil rig off Black Rock Point and setting the barrels of oil there on fire. Aware of his origins, he arranged for his third "father", Goliath, to join him there, originally considering (with a bit of an effort on his part) to share the money with him. But when Goliath initially regarded him as an abomination and made that clear in no uncertain terms, Thailog decided to kill him as well. Elisa rescued all three of Thailog's "fathers" from death, but Thailog escaped with the money.

He went to Paris, where, not long afterwards, he met Demona. Deciding to make use of her for his own ends (and probably physically attracted to her in the bargain), he became her mate, and they decided to pool their resources, forming Nightstone Unlimited. They also decided to add to their wealth through Demona wedding Macbeth as Dominique Destine, then afterwards locking him up and making him appear to be dead so that she could inherit his wealth; Thailog, however, plotted to turn this to his own advantage again by tricking Demona and Macbeth into killing each other so that he could inherit all their wealth. Elisa managed to foil this scheme when she and her companions arrived in Paris during the Avalon World Tour, but Thailog and Demona fled Paris together, Demona still none the wiser about her mate's betrayal of her.

They later on returned to New York, where they arranged for Demona to be captured by the clan so that she could first arrange to have the gargoyles cloned, supplying herself and Thailog with followers, and then escape, leading Goliath's clan into a trap. Thailog directed Sevarius in the creating of the clones of Hudson and the trio, but had him secretly create a fifth clone, Delilah, whom Thailog intended for his new mate (he had already decided to dispose of Demona, whom he considered too much of a loose cannon). The scheme proceeded according to plan, until Thailog, having captured the clan, ordered Angela's death; Demona protested this, and after learning about Delilah, furiously turned on him. The two wound up fighting each other in the middle of a burning roller-coaster at Coney Island, where Thailog appeared to perish. [However, he survived, and is presumably plotting fresh schemes against Goliath and his clan.]

Thailog currently goes by the alias of "Alexander Thailog", a reclusive financier whom nobody has ever seen.

Physically, Thailog bears a striking resemblance to Goliath, although with altered coloring because of his artifically-accelerated aging. As a result, his hair is white, his eyes are red, and his skin a deep violet. He wears high-tech battle armor, which he obtained after his escape from Black Rock Point.

Thailog is one of the most thoroughly malevolent of the Manhattan clan's adversaries. He even seems to be aware that he is evil - and is proud of it. Thoroughly cunning and duplicitious, he will happily betray anybody for his own benefit, and is ever ready to enrich himself at others' expense. He also seems to have something of an Oedipus complex, both in his attempts to kill his "fathers", especially Goliath, and in his choice for mates (first Demona, who was Goliath's past mate, and then Delilah, a genetic amalgamation of Demona and Elisa).

THAILOG, ALEXANDER

Thailog's human alias, adopted by him after he escaped the offshore oil rig at Black Rock Point with Xanatos's money. [He chose the name "Alexander" as a hommage to Alexander the Great, the famous Macedonian king who conquered a great portion of the known world in the 4th century B.C., as an echo of his own ambitions.]

THAILOG SHOCK TROOPS

A band of cybernetized clones of Thailog in Puck's "Future Tense" illusion, created by Xanatos, or Lexington masquerading as him, and used as soldiers.

THIRD RACE

Oberon's Children (q.v.).

THREE RACES

Gargoyles, humans, and Oberon's Children, the three known sentient species upon Earth. [New Olympians are a hybrid race, and fall somewhere between humans and Oberon's Children, rather than as a separate race of their own. There was another race preceding all three of these, but it is now extinct; we do not as yet know what it was like, or how it ceased to exist.]

THUNDERBIRD

A form that Grandmother occasionally takes. The Thunderbird is an enormous, formidable bird, with a second face in its stomach. Grandmother shape-shifted into the Thunderbird during Goliath and his companions' visit to Queen Florence Island in the hopes of using that form to convince Natsilane that creatures of magic exist; unfortunately, Goliath and Angela mistook her intentions, and fought her ("assisted" by Raven).

TIMES SQUARE

The name given for the intersection between Broadway (the street, not the gargoyle), 42nd Street, and Seventh Avenue in New York City, and one of the city's best-known locations. This is the traditional site of New York's New Year's Eve celebrations, and is also famous for its neon advertising signs, theatres, and cinemas.

After Xanatos and Demona revived Coldstone, he came here, to angrily tear Times Square apart and battle Goliath briefly. (Goliath quickly relocated the battle to the George Washington Bridge, however, since Times Square was far too public for their encounter.)

TITANIA

The wife of Oberon and queen of the Third Race. At some unknown point in time, Titania and Oberon were married and ruled over the Fair Folk together. In those days, however, Titania was vain and petty, and displayed considerable scorn towards mortals. At last, in 995, a specific action of hers (as yet unknown) served as the final catalyst in angering Oberon; he divorced her and banished both her and the rest of the Third Race to Avalon, to dwell in the outside world for the next thousand years, in the hopes that they might learn to respect the mortal races.

Titania's adventures during the greater part of this time period are unknown to us, but in the latter half of the 20th century, she began studying human science and technology, under the alias of "Anastasia" (last name unknown). During this time, she met Halcyon Renard, who was then a young man and had not yet received the disease that is now killing him. She fell in love with him, and he with her; they were married not long afterwards, and apparently lived quite happily; by now, Titania had indeed learned the lesson that Oberon had wanted her to learn, to respect mortals. She gave birth to a daughter, Jeanine Renard, now Fox. But in the end, Renard proved too rigid and stiffly honorable to hold Titania's attention for long; at last they became divorced.

Titania continued to study science under her "Anastasia Renard" alias, and helped Fox in creating the Matrix in Australia, during which time she first met Goliath and Elisa. In gratitude to Goliath for helping to stop the Matrix from overrunning the globe, she spoke up in turn for him when she accompanied Oberon back to Avalon to confront the Avalon clan, encountering the gargoyles for the first time in her true form as Titania; when Oberon angrily sought to banish or destroy the Avalon gargoyles and their friends for "trespassing" on his island, she interceded on their behalf, persuading Oberon to settle their dispute by a duel with Goliath, Angela, and Gabriel, thus giving the mortals an opportunity to defend their home, and also subtly supplying the other members of the clan and Elisa with the clue to defeat Oberon by means of an iron bell. As an incentive to get Oberon to agree to the duel, she agreed to marry him again if he was victorious. Oberon defeated the three gargoyles, but was overwhelmed by the iron bell afterwards and finally agreed to let the Avalon clan stay; afterwards, he and Titania were remarried, for he had, technically, won the battle before the bell was brought into play.

Titania afterwards briefly returned to the human world to attend the birth of her grandson Alexander in New York, as Anastasia Renard; there, she intended to take him away to Avalon to be trained in his magical heritage. She had seen how Fox had never made any use of her halfling powers, despite the many crisis situations that she had been thrown into, and had regretfully concluded that Fox had permanently lost her magical potential; she did not wish to see her grandson suffer the same fate. When Oberon discovered her at the Eyrie Building while he was searching for Puck, she persuaded him to carry Alex away to Avalon for her. She also alerted Goliath and his clan to Oberon's intentions, ostensibly so that they could protect Fox and Alex during the ensuing battle between Oberon and Xanatos (although her real reason was more likely to have the gargoyles present at the battle on Xanatos's side for her purposes). Oberon defeated all the opposition thrown against him: Xanatos, the gargoyles, Renard, and even Puck, but after Fox in a last moment of desperation summoned up enough magic to strike at Oberon, Goliath used the opportunity to persuade Oberon and Titania to let Alex stay in the human world to be trained in magic. Titania agreed to this and to having Puck serve as Alex's tutor. When she saw that Fox was still angry about Titania's attempted abduction of Alex, she hinted that this outcome was what she had really intended all along, and whispered something in Fox's ear, as yet unknown to everybody except for Titania and Fox. After that, she and Oberon departed, although Titania has announced that she will be periodically "looking in" on her daughter and grandson.

[Alongside her daughter Fox, Titania has had a son and a daughter by Oberon, although their names and natures are as yet unknown.]

Titania was originally more haughty and arrogant towards mortals, but has since become more sympathetic towards them (although some might argue that her effort to kidnap Alex would indicate that she may have some ways to go as yet). She is also more subtle and ingenious than Oberon, an expert at accomplishing her ends through indirect methods.

Titania's regular "human alias" is Anastasia Renard. In her "true form", she looks like a beautiful "elven-featured" woman with pale green skin.

<Unlike Oberon, who was a noteworthy figure in "faerie lore" before "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Titania seems to have been entirely Shakespeare's invention. At least, no mention of her is found as a queen of the faerie-folk prior to his play. It is thought that her name is taken from an old Roman name for the goddess of the moon, in her function as a female Titan.

In Shakespeare's play, Titania and Oberon are portrayed as engaged in a bitter quarrel over the custody of a young Indian princeling, whom Titania currently keeps but whom Oberon wishes to have in his following. To win his quarrel, Oberon temporarily enchants Titania to make her temporarily fall in love with Nick Bottom the weaver (whom Puck has given a donkey's head to), and persuades her during this time to let him have the child; she, distracted by Bottom, agrees. By the end of the play, Oberon and Titania have reconciled, and even bestow their blessings upon the triple wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius.

Titania was ignored by Shakespeare's contemporaries in favor of Mab as the Fairy Queen, but more recent writers have consistently recognized her in this role and that of Oberon's consort, including, of course, the production staff of "Gargoyles".>

TITANIA'S MIRROR

A magical mirror crafted by Oberon's Children for Titania, [and twin to Oberon's Mirror]. For some as yet unknown reason, it was removed from Avalon, and eventually found its way to New York, where it was put on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Demona stole it, and used it to summon Puck in the hopes of forcing him to destroy all the humans in Manhattan, although she was disappointed with the results. After Puck gave Demona the gift of remaining awake in the daytime and she discovered that what that entailed was turning into a human then, she angrily shattered the Mirror.

The leading known power of Titania's Mirror was to be used as a tool in summoning Puck. It could also serve as a sort of conduit for his spells, and even as a magical viewing device.

TOM

A young Scottish peasant boy who befriended the Wyvern clan. [Tom was born in the year 986.] In 994, he and his mother Mary, along with a number of other Scottish peasants, were driven to Castle Wyvern to take shelter from Hakon and his Viking band. There he met the gargoyles for the first time, and was delighted and fascinated by them. He befriended the trio, but Mary disapproved of his reaching out to them and pulled him away from them, leading to the fight between the trio and the human refugees that resulted in Goliath sending the trio and Bronx to the rookery. Tom was captured by the Vikings when Hakon took Castle Wyvern, alongside all the other humans, but rescued by the clan.

After the Magus turned Goliath to stone, Tom left Castle Wyvern with Princess Katharine, the Magus, and the eggs to go to Kenneth II's court. Because of Tom's bold willingness to keep the eggs safe, Katharine appointed him "Guardian of the Eggs". At court, Tom witnessed the murder of King Kenneth by Constantine (afterwards Constantine III), and because of this, had to flee to Avalon alongside Katharine, the Magus, and the eggs, to be kept safe from the usurper.

Here, Tom grew up, and in time, fell in love with Katharine and she with him; they lived together almost as husband and wife, and together (with the Magus) raised the young gargoyles of the Avalon clan as foster-parents. Every century, Tom would venture into the outside world to see if the gargoyles had been awakened from their stone sleep as yet; at last, in 1995, he came to New York, where he met Goliath, Elisa, and Bronx, in time to warn them of the Archmage's attack. Tom helped defend the Avalon clan from the Archmage and his forces.

When Oberon returned to Avalon to reclaim it, Tom helped Elisa, Katharine, and the Avalon gargoyles construct the iron bell that would defeat him, and then rang it again and again to weaken him until he was ready to listen to their terms. As of this time, Tom still lives on Avalon. [He will help to found the Order of the Guardian in Ishimura, at some point between now and 2198.]

TRICKSTER

A sort of sub-class of Oberon's Children. Tricksters have a bent for cunning schemes and clever stratagems, achieving their ends through considerable wiliness. The exact nature of the trickery varies, however, depending upon the precise nature of the trickster; some tricksters are purely out for themselves, such as Raven and Anansi, while others show some concern for humans and assist them, such as Coyote - and perhaps Puck.

Known tricksters among the Third Race include Anansi, Coyote, Puck, and Raven. However, it is doubtful that the trickster-role is limited to Oberon's Children, since Xanatos, for one, displays prominently the traits of a trickster.

TRIO

The joint name for Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway. Three young gargoyles [from the 958 Wyvern rookery], they were already close friends by 994, and did practically everything together. This camaraderie lasted even into the 1990's after their awakening, although it began to come to an end after their return to the castle in 1996, as Broadway began to spend more time with his future mate Angela, and Lexington with Alex. [The final blow to the trio as a trio will come after Brooklyn's Timedancer adventures, which will leave him 40 years older than Broadway and Lexington, and with a family to boot; they will remain friends after that, but the days of their being the gargoyle equivalent to the Three Musketeers will be over.]

TURQUESA

A gargoyle of the Mayan clan. She is one of the four pendant-wearers of that clan, and thus survived her clan's massacre by poachers. Turquesa helped defend the rain forest in her clan's protectorate from Cyberbiotics, and from Jackal and Hyena in Preston Vogel's employ. Afterwards, she and [her mate] Jade went to Avalon, to plant various of the rare herbs and flowers there, so that some of their kind would survive even if humans did indeed destroy the rain forest in the end. [They have since returned to Guatemala to rejoin Zafiro and Obsidiana.

Turquesa is Zafiro's second-in-command in the Mayan clan.]

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