Powers:

Much like their outer space nemesis, the pharaohs, knowing the powers of a gargoyle is crucial to understanding the history of their race. Due to the large number and effectiveness of their abilities gargoyles are the most feared creatures in all the known universe, despite many races being older than them and many having singularly better powers. Yes, that does mean aliens fear them but more on that later.

The first power is that of healing, this is the most feared. Gargoyles can regrow entire limbs in seconds. Destroying a Gargoyle can be done, but only with extreme measures. And no, they don't actually have any weaknesses.

Second, Gargoyles are nigh immortal. It is true that some gargoyles have the appearance of age, but still, it has yet to occur, in five hundred years, for one to die of anything save for violence.

Gargoyles also have incredible strength, four times that of a normal man, and the ability to transform. When they transform they change into large hideous monsters, resembling many of the gargoyles of legend. Transformed gargoyles have huge wings, large claws and sharp teeth. In this form they have ten times the strength of a man. In transformed state, gargoyles do have a weakness, in that most of them become completely feral in this state and cannot fight intelligently.

Beyond this, gargoyles have a list of more simple powers that, shall we say, just sort of complete the package.

Complete immunity to all disease.

Immunity to all poison.

Ability to never feel exhaustion.

The ability to only feel sensations when one so desires. This includes any sensation of pain.

The ability to turn off emotion.
The trouble with gargoyles is, if you can turn off your emotions and turn off your very ability to feel, would it feel the same anymore? What if you heard a funny joke and just, didn't laugh? Was the joke actually funny? What if a friend moved away and you just didn't care? Was that person ever really your friend? The terrible truth is, the ability to disconnect from emotion and feeling often drives gargoyles mad.

General History:

Mankind is not alone in the universe. There are creatures out there far more advanced than us, and not all of them are friendly. Some of them even see us as food.

One such evil alien race, during the late fourteen hundreds, sent a team of scientists to earth. They did not come to study us or speak with us, they came to conquer us like animals. To this end, these creatures engineered a super weapon to subdue all mankind. They made the gargoyles.

In the year 1461, monsters known as dragons walked the earth. In several countries in Europe, the invaders kidnapped several human babies and combined their DNA with these terrifying reptiles. They then set these monsters lose to rip apart the nations of earth and bring humanity to its knees.

However something went terribly wrong for these aliens. These "gars", as the aliens called them, somehow retained some of their humanity through the transformation. Not only did they not follow the orders of their kidnappers, they turned on them. In twenty years, the original "gars", intended to be the horrors of mankind, drove the aliens from earth, now haunting their own nightmares.

In the absence of their creators, the aliens believed eventually the gars would proceed with their mission anyway. Logically, separated from emotions and granted insane powers, the gars would attack humanity without remorse.

However something unexpected happened. Most gargoyles chose not to turn off their emotions. The feeling of feeling nothing felt worse than sadness or hate. Worse for the aliens, the gars instead returned to their lives, more confident than ever that they could do what they wanted in life. Gars generally told no one what they were, but overtime they had the confidence to invest in a wide variety of things such as making families, exploring, fighting and adventuring... in other words, most gars amassed tremendous fortunes. They lived well. Another invasion by the aliens would have found their adversarial creations more powerful than ever, now at times even having private armies and lordships. The aliens created the gars to avoid direct conflict with humanity by making humans fight each other, or at least invincible foes. That did not happen.

The situation did not improve for the aliens as time went on. The gars kept living, having no health problems, and their minds kept learning. Many became inventors and many started to make weapons ,some actually far beyond those around them. These new weapons would be things like gatling guns, black powder rockets and even advanced sword and armor building techniques sometimes centuries ahead of their time. By modern standards nothing they made would have been too impressive, but very impressive for the time. Needless to say, the aliens gave up on their creations, as they were utter failures.

Madness didn't make the gars start to turn on mankind. Time went on and the gars started communicating with each other, setting up networks and even a secret nation of their own, even having their own king and lords. They started to communicate regularly with the werewolves and the other societies, developing decent relations. Over two hundred years went by before anything really terrible happened involving the gars. By this point, the aliens had abandoned the gar project entirely and were losing interest in earth.

During this time, the gars had made a new name for themselves, gargoyles. They even started commissioning artists to make stone statues of their morphed states, never showing those morphed states to the artists, or revealing that the things they were creating were even real creatures. So generally, the depictions were a bit off, but this was still quite the display of extravagance.

Gargoyles lived and lived, never dying. Only their children were vulnerable, having to wait until their twenties for their powers to manifest.They grew smarter and smarter and most grew richer and richer. Overtime, to many of them, the rest of humanity seemed dumber and dumber and more and more frail. Some thought that even the oldest of humans were like children lacking good adults to guide them. They were poor, weak, and foolish, where the gargoyles were rich, strong, and intelligent.

Thus, it was not insanity that first started driving a wedge between the gargoyles and humanity, it was pride. This is not to say that madness was not becoming an issue. An issue commonly referred to as "creep" started to set in over time on several gargoyles. Denying all emotion is not something most people want to do on a good day, or even bad days. No, the problem comes on really bad days. Say your friend moves away, so you shut off your emotions so you won't feel bad that day. Seems harmless right? The problem comes when another friend leaves, then another, and another. As a gargoyle, you continue to live, but your friends do not. They die. When this happens, you feel sad and, once again, turn off your emotions. Getting into the habit of turning off emotions in order to avoid feeling can eventually lead to forgetting to turn them back on, or even knowingly, never turning them back on. Without emotion many gargoyles lose all sense of connection to other humans, even other gargoyles. Still, other gargoyles found out how to turn off only the negative emotions. These gargoyles turned truly insane, as they would never feel guilt, only pleasure. Insane gargoyles who lose touch with their emotions are often called "creepers". It is believed that all gargoyles, if they live long enough, will be tempted to turn off their emotions over and over, and thus, all gargoyles will become creepers eventually.

In 1691 a new leader came to the throne of the gargoyles. Well, rather he took the throne, as rightly the gargoyle king should never have passed away. This new gargoyle had sharpened teeth, wore torn, frayed rags, even as he sat on the throne, and constantly wore a cloak with a hood that cast a shadow over his face, never allowing anyone to see his face... the thing that many had feared had come to pass. The secret gargoyle nation now had a creeper on the throne.

How this creeper had taken the throne was not known, but several gargoyles mounted an assault on him in an attempt to take him down before it was too late. However, somehow the creeper king had powerful telekinetic powers, extraordinary combat skills, and phenomenal strength, even for a gargoyle. This allowed him to easily dispatch the assaulting gargoyles.

The nation of the gargoyles had four lords under the king. The creeper king called meetings with all of them and massaged their egos, telling them that, as the leaders of the oldest and most powerful people in the world, they should each rule a fourth of the world, not just a fourth of the gargoyles. Three of them joined with the creeper king. The fourth lord took himself and his followers to live in India.

The other three gargoyle lords prepared their followers for a fight. Their subordinates preparing their private armies and castles for war. The king planned to start his war in about twenty years, giving his army plenty of time to prepare. Due to their immortality, the gargoyles had all learned the value of patience.

By this point there were nearly four million gargoyles in the world, sprouting up from an original population of about fifty, as gargoyles never died and their women never went barren. Each lord had hundreds of commanders and each commander was in charge of thousandsof gargoyle soldiers. Even with their numbers, the gargoyles amassed their fortunes to pay for the services of hundreds of mystics, mutants of incredible power.

As the creeper king prepared to march on the countries in Europe, and then the world, the werewolves, leading most of the other mutant tribes at the time, organized their forces and the other mutant societies to resist them. They began organizing fifteen years after the creeper king took power, at the time only suspicious of what was going on. Two years prior, the creeper king had cut off all communication between his forces and the werewolves, prompting the werewolves to send banshee spies among them, and thus to discover the full extent of the gargoyle plans.

Most non-gargoyles organized with the werewolves, hoping not only to save the world, but to somehow keep the world from learning of their existence. Most mystics however, refused to join the fight. The few hundred who did, joined for money. In the end, it is likely that more mystics joined the gargoyles to help conquer the world rather than joined the werewolves to save it.

The werewolves attempted to bring the fourth gargoyle lord to their side, however he refused to be involved with either side.

An army of banshees, werewolves, and wildmen joined together, organizing outside many of the gargoyle castles. To the rest of the world it looked like just another peasant uprising or a series of military coups (depending on how well supplied the mutant forces were) but in reality, the future of mankind was hanging in the balance.

The gargoyles had better weapons, better powers, and they were only marginally outnumbered. The mutants' united forces organized, knowing their chances of any kind of victory were slim. As they organized, several of those serving under the creeper and his lords set in motion plans to destroy their homes and families. The organized mutant forces, if they failed, would likely be wiped out.

The Purge

As the doom of man and mutant kind seemed to be at hand, someone completely unexpected was watching the events in Europe.

Triad, the nation of the pharaohs in space, was watching the gargoyles. The gargoyles had incredible powers and the potential to live even longer than the pharaohs. Even with the incredible technology of Triad, and having a home in the stars, the pharaohs feared the gargoyles could eventually threaten them.

As the armies of earth prepared for their final and ultimate show down, a fleet prepared in space and sped to earth.

December 1721 came, the armies of the werewolves had finished gathering and launched several simultaneous assaults, most resulting in massive armies charging at heavily fortified castles. The gargoyles sent out their scout armies to attack the families of their opponents. The werewolf armies knew this. Instead of running home to fight the scouts however, the werewolf armies still attacked the gargoyle fortresses, hoping to break bulk of the gargoyle forces. Had they gone after the scouts, they knew even defeating them wouldn't make much difference.

It is reported that as the armies of the wolves approached and smashed through the gates of the gargoyle castles, the skies lit up with fire, like hundreds of falling stars flying over the battlefield.

Hundreds of pharaoh ships rained down on the gargoyle castles all over Europe. While the gargoyles used heavy gatling guns and rockets along with hundreds of cannons, the pharaohs dominated the skies. They dropped hundreds of earth shattering bombs on the lords of the gargoyles and their commanders, along with advanced missiles. The pharaohs bombarded the gargoyles with heavy lasers and so much machine gunfire... many saw it as the pharaoh nation coming to crush an army of insects. The gargoyles didn't stand a chance.

As the armies of the creeper king fell, the pharaohs invaded the castle of the creeper  himself in a matter of three weeks. Their forces were swift and brought the might of their technology to bear against even the strongest of gargoyle opponents, with nary a challenge.

How the creeper king survived is not truly known. According to legend he made a deal with forces of the supernatural to create for him a champion so powerful not even the pharaohs could fight him.

The legend of this monster from the creeper king is told in a poem.

"When the flood waters rise,

When tornadoes seal your demise

When fire falls from the heavens

When all disasters come in sevens

Even at this time the Lord of the storm

Even he still has yet to show his form

Listen to the sounds of the drum

Come and hear and greet their sum

The maelstrom"

The creeper king summoned a terrifying creature known only as Lord Maelstrom.

According to legend, Lord Maelstrom had the powers of all mutants, stood seven feet tall, wielded a seven foot sword, and, at all times, had sharp teeth and powerful claws. With a single sweep of his sword he could destroy an entire village, so it was said. Even the mighty pharaoh special forces were said to have fled from this champion in utter terror. With but one swipe of his sword, he destroyed a pharaoh ship larger than the largest of battleships.

However the creeper king managed to escaped, his armies had been thoroughly defeated, humiliated even. The gargoyle nation stood down, retreating into hiding underground.

The forces of the pharaoh army did not stop at this point, however. As they learned the mythology of the creepers, and how all gargoyles are possibly doomed to become such things, the pharaohs took it upon themselves to "save the gargoyles from their fate". To the pharaohs, all gargoyles were destined to turn insane and evil, and so, the only way to save them and the world they lived in, was to hunt them down and destroy them all. The armies of Triad went into India and pursued the followers of the fourth gargoyle lord.

Many believe that had the pharaohs simply left, the fourth gargoyle lord would have become the new gargoyle king and peace would have been restored to the mutant societies. Instead, the pharaohs hunted down all gargoyles without mercy for fifty years. They only stopped as support for their attacks dried up back on their homeworld. The people of Triad were growing weary of war.

And thus, the pharaohs, destesed by many for not leaving when they should have or not staying to finish the job, had doomed the gargoyles. They destroyed the families of so many gargoyles and had driven them all underground, the pharaohs had started to no doubt fulfill their own prophecy. All gargoyles were now, more than ever, likely to become creepers. After all, who would ever want to continue feeling after being torn from their family and hunted like an animal? In the wake of the war, thousands of gargoyles became creepers.

We Will Rise

The gargoyles were not fully destroyed, many remained after the pharaohs left.

Upon his final retreat from the pharaoh fleet, the creeper king swore he would return. To the best of everyone's knowledge, the creeper king remains and has never changed his mind about ruling the world. According to spies who barely escaped with their lives, he has already elected four new lords.

What's worse, the population of gargoyles is continuing to grow, just like before. It is estimated the gargoyle population has officially reached 1.5 million from the paltry ten thousand left after the purge. They cannot continue to live underground.

The gargoyles will have to rise up again some day, there is no choice. There are gargoyles who wish for peace, but when they rise up, it is doubtful that they will be in control.

Not much is known of current gargoyle culture or customs. They are thought of as the enemies of all other mutant societies and few still hold out hope for peace with them. Even the Globe Tracers, who have befriended several gargoyles, fear war is upon the societies as the gargoyles grow far too numerous to stay underground. It is feared by nearly all in the societies, that it is only a matter of time... a very short time...

Modern Gargoyles:

As already stated, not much is known about modern gargoyles, but here is an explanation of what little is known.

The remaining gargoyles have joined three factions. In these factions they continue to produce children and multiply.

The Gargoyle Nation:

Lead by the creeper king, the Gargoyle Nation survives to this day. Without the resources they had in the past, many doubt they will be much of a threat if they ever resurface, but there is always the chance that in nearly three hundred years they could come up with something to at least challenge their enemies.

The Fade:

Most gargoyles live in this group. The Fade is a network of underground gargoyle communities. Even they don't know much about each other, as they only communicate around the world to discover where they can best hide from the societies. The Fade has been peaceful, however several times, Fade cells have been seen holding talks with known members of the Gargoyle Nation.

Ageless:

Headed up by gargoyles, this is an underground community of humans, werewolves, banshees, magics, gargoyles and even pharaohs. They're stated goal is to finally bring humanity together.

Their core stated beliefs are as follows:

Hiding from humanity is wrong and is the core reason for many of the problems the secret societies have. The secrecy must be disrupted.

The societies are violent and close minded in their current forms, they must be broken up and their children allowed to pursue their dreams without the prejudice of their parents.

The reasons for divisions between the societies are childish and must be overcome.

Many people in the societies sympathize with these beliefs, especially in the modern day. Many are growing tired of the fear and hate coupled with wars that do not have much hope of ending. Many have thus joined the Ageless.

However, there are many who believe Ageless to be a front, a Gargoyle nation ploy to weaken the resolve of the societies. If only more was known of their plans, but they remain secretive even from the secret societies themselves.

Gargoyle Sightings and Legends:

Most sane gargoyles, and those still loyal to the creeper king, prefer to stay underground. However sightings of monsters have been continuing, perhaps even growing more frequent. It is possible these creatures don't exist, or that they are wholly unrelated to gargoyles gone mad, but the prudent do not ignore the possibilities.

The Jersey Devil:

Some gargoyles have been known to spend too much time in their transformed state. When this happens they start to take on animalistic and, sometimes, even grotesque mutations. Normally, this drives them insane. This is thought to be the reason behind the creeper king's terrifying appearance.

The Jersey Devil is believed to be an advanced onset of this problem.

With the head of a goat, wings of a bat, small arms, small tail, and cloven hooves this is, perhaps, too far from an actual gargoyle.

From the beast, several terrifying screams have been heard at night and it moves at an incredible speed. Guns appear to have no effect on it. Legends tell of a creature of cruelty and depravity.

This could be a mutated gargoyle. It could be fake. Or perhaps the worst option of them all, it's real, but it's something even the societies don't understand.

Wendigo:

Several creatures have been said to hunt humans for food. In particular, the Wendigo, a large and partially human creature. Many believe these creatures to have been gargoyles driven insane and mutated beyond recognition.

There are even bands of pharaohs that continue to roam the earth, claiming to be hunting wendigoes, to keep humanity safe. They say they do this, not as a sport, but as a sense of duty. They feel obligated to destroy the Wendigoes, for it is very likely, that if they do exist as insane gargoyles, they were likely driven insane during the pharaohs' attempted extermination of the gargoyles. Thus destroying the wendigoes is atonement.