At Our Command It Breathes
Description: This ritual permits the creation of a Gargoyle from the dismembered parts of slain Cainites and is the process through which the first of that line came into being. The vampire (with assistants, if desired) takes fresh-cut portions from the bodies of various victims and sews them together into a single humanoid form. She then sews a sac made from an animal's womb (usually from a cow but sometimes sheep or deer) around her creation. The sac is then suspended in a cask containing an alchemical equivalent of the womb's waters or placed inside an oversized, specially prepared female Gargoyle for gestation. during a period ranging from one to three months, the thaumaturge must periodically visit the gestating Gargoyle and perform various incantations and blessings. If she is away from the gestation chamber for more than a week at a time, the fetal Gargoyle dies and cannot be revived. Finally the Gargoyle either forces its way down the living mother's birth canal or bursts forth from its cask. The ritualist must be present to waft purifying smoke onto the newborn Gargoyle. Any other Gargoyles within half a mile instinctively sense the impending birth of a new brother. They feel a powerful urge to flock to its side when it is born and lick the bodily fluids off its skin. Although this custom helps bond the Gargoyle to its new community, it is not a requisite of the ritual. A Gargoyle can be born in isolation.
System: The thaumaturge sews together pieces of Cainites in order to form a full humanoid shape and to grant various capabilities to the new Gargoyle. The correspondence of parts to capabilities is laid out in a variety of ancient and arcane medical texts (for example, the heart provides courage and resolve, the eyes perception and wisdom) but also depends on specific alchemical preparations. Physical beauty is beyond the ritual's capabilities, though. All Gargoyles appear stony and twisted.
The thaumaturge makes the ritual roll as the fetal sac is put into gestation. The roll is Intelligence _ Occult (difficulty 9 + one for each donor after the first). An unliving womb (such as that of Alvusia, see p. 67) reduces the difficulty by 4. A single success allows the creation of a Gargoyle character built according to the standard creation rules (see Book of Storyteller Secrets). The basic blood cost of the ritual is 5 points for each Cainite used in the Gargoyle's manufacture. Add an extra 5 points if the caster wants the Gargoyle to be fertile.
By devoting further years of research to the Gargoyle arts, the thaumaturge may devise and construct variant types like the hexaped, iecur or womb-bearers like Alvusia (se pages 124, 125, and 67 for descriptions).
Historical Note: The Tremere cease making Gargoyles after the Slaves revolt, and, as part of the Camarilla negotiations, promise never to revive the technique. The instructions for the ritual have been hidden, but not destroyed. Some suspect that the Gargoyle Fidus occasionally makes use of them.
