Character and Traits

Concepts

Impeccable Majordomo
You may look like a monster, but you pride yourself on your politeness and efficiency. You are trusted to run a holding all on your own, be it a chantry or perhaps a haven held by a coterie of Kindred. Newcomers put off by your fearsome looks are won over by your dry wit, your excellent taste in clothing, and your ability to quote the classics. Your calm demeanor can deceive some into thinking you’re a pushover, which is a fatal mistake. You’ll play the brute when necessary, though you’ll feel terrible about it the next evening. You’d much prefer a good book or a game of chess to the vicious politics of vampires.

 

The Thing in the Basement
They keep you in chains so that when you are unchained, you run hard and fast at wherever they point. They keep you hungry because they want you to tear apart whatever needs to be killed. They keep you out of sight of other Kindred, so the frightened tales they tell make you seem bigger and scarier when you are seen. You are a blunt, brutal solution to your master’s problems. You enjoy solving them, for the most part, as long as you don’t have to clean up the mess afterwards. You may be a dog on a leash, but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the steaks that get tossed your way.

 

Abolitionist
The mere thought of how many of your brothers and sisters still willingly call themselves slaves drives you to the edge of frenzy. It’s been six hundred years after the Gargoyle Revolt, and so many still willingly live in the houses of those Tremere bastards. If they won’t free themselves, you must take up arms and protect your brothers and sisters by striking down the slave masters and breaking the chains. They’ll thank you when they are free. You’ve developed a reputation as a troublemaker in most cities, but you know that every city has need for someone that shakes up the status quo. You’re willing to ally yourself with anyone so long as they agree to assist your cause.

 

Combination Disciplines

The Shoulders of Atlas (Flight ••, Potence ••)
The power of flight is one of the reasons the Gargoyles have existed for so long. Usually, they can only carry a limited amount of cargo based on their mastery of Flight. This combination allows them to apply some of their superhuman strength to carry bigger amounts at lower levels of Flight. 
System: This combination allows dots of Potence to count as dots of Flight when determining a Gargoyle’s carrying capacity (V20, p. 448). For example, if Jurgen the Gargoyle has Flight 2, Potence 2, and this ability, Jurgen can take off with 50 pounds/25 kgs of load but carry up to 100 pounds/45 kgs while flying. Speed is still limited by the mastery of Flight. This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

 

Falconer’s Dive (Flight •, Visceratika ••••)
Gargoyles swoop down on their enemies like few other Kindred can. “Death from above” is a common tactic of these vampires, but a select few can streamline their diving forms for minimum wind resistance and maximum impact on a target.
System: The Kindred spends a point of Willpower to subtly make their body more aerodynamic as they fall. Using this ability requires room to maneuver high in the air or a great height to drop from, like the edge of a skyscraper. The Kindred makes a Dexterity + Athletics roll (difficulty 7) as an action. For each success rolled, they subtract 1 from the difficulty of their next Brawl or Melee roll on a target below them (minimum difficulty of 3). The Kindred must make the roll as their next action or they lose the bonus. Using it indoors is unlikely unless the space is massive, like an aircraft hangar or massive cave. This power costs 15 experience points to learn.

 

Carry The Mountain’s Burden (Visceratika ••••, Fortitude •••)
Gargoyles who master the Armor of Terra (V20, p. 476) can make themselves even tougher by using it in conjunction with their Fortitude. These Disciplines work together to make the Gargoyle into an unstoppable brute that requires a miracle to take down. For obvious reasons, this is a favorite choice of Sentinel Gargoyles. 
System: The Gargoyle spends a point of Willpower to enhance their Armor of Terra strategically with the supernatural toughness of Fortitude. All bonuses and penalties for the Armor of Terra double for the remainder of the combat scene. The Gargoyle receives two extra soak dice for aggravated and lethal soak dice pools. It also gains four dice to soak bashing wounds, ignores two levels of wound penalties, and reduces any fire-based damage pools to a quarter (round down) of their original size. All touchbased Perception-rolled have a difficulty of +4 (maximum of 9) because the Gargoyle’s skin becomes even tougher. This power costs 21 experience points to learn.

 

I Am The Keystone (Fortitude ••, Potence ••, Visceratika •••)
Visceratika is known for Masquerade-shredding displays of toughness and strength. Masters of the Discipline can invoke changes to their body that are a bit subtler but no less devastating when unleashed at the right time. 
System: The Kindred spends a point of Willpower. Upon doing so, she may temporarily redistribute points between her Fortitude and Potence Disciplines up to the maximum allowed by her Generation. The Disciplines stay redistributed until the Kindred is Incapacitated or the next sunrise, whichever comes first. They may spend another point of Willpower to change the dots back or adjust them to new totals. This power costs 21 experience points to learn.

 

Gargoyles Variations
 

Many Gargoyles are unique, but some are more distinct than the “typical” Gargoyle. These variations are colloquially called Scouts, Sentinels, and Warriors. The split between them — particularly older Gargoyles that are hundreds of years old — can be quite pronounced, depending on what “stock” was used and how the creator refined the ritual used. For characters reflecting these deeper variations, use the following in-Clan Disciplines and Clan weakness instead of the ones listed in V20. Visceratika is considered out of clan for Gargoyles from these variants. All Gargoyles remain susceptible to mind control from any source. A Gargoyle’s Willpower score (current or permanent) is considered two points lower when used to resist such powers. 

 

Scout Gargoyles
These Gargoyles were created to explore and report back to Tremere about their surroundings. They were designed to turn to stone if heavily damaged so that the Tremere or other Scouts could retrieve them later to claim any information they were unable to report back. 

Disciplines: Auspex, Obfuscate, Flight

Weakness: All Health penalties from injures double as the Gargoyle’s damaged body turns back to stone. These penalties only go away when the Gargoyle awakens in an evening with no health boxes crossed off.

 

Sentinel Gargoyles
These Gargoyles were created to watch over the chantries, havens, and other important locations of the early Tremere. They are quite sociable and friendly, despite appearances to the contrary.

Disciplines: Flight, Potence, Fortitude

Weakness: If a Sentinel Gargoyle finds itself truly alone without someone to call master, mate, ally or friend, all dice pools are halved until the Gargoyle can find someone to trust and serve in the world.

 

Warrior Gargoyles
These Gargoyles were built to wage war on the enemies of House and Clan Tremere. The Tremere did not want to waste their small number on fighting their battles, so they created these stone soldiers instead.

Disciplines: Flight, Fortitude, Protean

Weakness: Whenever a Warrior Gargoyle frenzies, a part of their body turns to stone. Choose a body part and an Attribute that reflects the part (such as eyes for Perception or legs for Dexterity). Until the next sunrise, any rolls requiring the attribute are considered an automatic failure. The next  evening, the body part returns to normal. 

 

Merits and Flaws
 

Stillness of Death (2pt. Merit)
Gargoyles often hide themselves as statuary. The difficulty for any searches to find you are increased by 2 when you stay perfectly still.

 

Heavy Hands (3pt. Merit)
One of the effects of becoming a vampire is strange changes happening to your body. The obvious alterations to your hands have made them tougher, harder, and more impervious to pain. All difficulties for damage rolls using unarmed attacks go down by 1.

 

Stone Tongue (3pt. Flaw)
The transformation of the Embrace didn’t just affect your appearance. It made it physically difficult for you to speak properly and clearly. It may be because of a clumsy tongue, some nasty looking tusks, or a raptor-type beak. No matter the cause, you suffer a +2 difficulty to any Social rolls requiring you to speak.

 

Blood Weakness (4 or 7pt. Flaw)
The bloodline began as an experiment in manufacturing a Kindred from diverse bloodlines. They perfected the alchemical process, but somewhere along the way, a weakness in an ancestor caught hold. It manifested in your Embrace. In addition to the weaknesses you possess, you also possess either the Gangrel (V20, p. 55) or the Tzimisce weakness (V20, p. 71). For four points, choose one of the two weaknesses. For seven points, you possess both. Warrior Gargoyles with the Gangrel weakness version of Blood Weakness may gain both animal features and stone features from one frenzy.

 

Additionally, choose one of the four Disciplines available to the Gargoyles. For you, this Discipline is considered out of Clan and costs the higher amount of experience points to advance.

 

Gargoyle Rituals

Some Tremere creators have discovered that if they use the Enchant Talisman ritual on a Gargoyle (V20, p. 239), additional rituals can be cast on the Gargoyle for a permanent effect. This requires casting the ritual for six hours a night, for one week per level of the ritual to be applied, but otherwise enchanting a Gargoyle uses the same rules as Enchant Talisman.

Rituals activated by a Gargoyle require no roll to cast, and last a scene or until dismissed. A Gargoyle enchanted in this matter can spend its own blood or Willpower as if it were the caster of the ritual enchanted into its blood. If no cost is normally required for the ritual, however, the Gargoyle must still spend at least one blood to activate it. If the ritual requires a specific item, the Gargoyle herself is considered to be the “item” for purposes of the ritual. Many of these so-called “Gargoyle rituals” were lost hundreds of years ago, but some modern rituals may or may not be compatible with Enchant Talisman at the Storyteller’s discretion. However, Gargoyles can learn enchantments from other Gargoyles (by paying experience points equal to the cost of an out-of-Clan Discipline times the level of the ritual). At least one ritual is known to have survived, but there may be more.

 

Ward of the Winged Sepulcher (Level 3 Gargoyle Ritual)
The Gargoyle (or its master) can prepare the creature to provide temporary shelter from the damning rays of the sun. When the rays of the sun strike the caster’s skin, wings billow out and dramatically wrap around itself and anyone in the creature’s grasp. Both the caster and its charge are protected from taking sunlight damage until the sun sets the next evening. 
System: The caster must prepare a small cube, half an inch in diameter, carefully cut from a tombstone marking an empty grave in a graveyard. Spending a blood point, he dabs each side of the cube with a drop of blood, whispering an incantation. The caster ingests the cube and the ritual lies dormant until the creature’s skin is touched by sunlight, at which point wings unfurl to protect the caster. The wing hardens to a stone-like substance and it is able to protect one person inside its space. If the caster does not already possess wings, the ward does one level of aggravated damage if only protecting the caster, two if protecting the caster and one other subject.