Species in The Oz Series
Gargoyles
Also known as the dreadful creatures, these queer creatures, the wooden bodies, the wooden things, the grinning, ugly creatures, the enemy, the wooden people, the wooden folks, the wooden creatures, Gurgles, the wooden Gargoyles.
A species of dreadful creatures living in the awful Land of Naught, reached by the spiral staircase inside Pyramid Mountain; they fight fiercely but dread loud noise. Their wooden wings detach at the hinge, are stored away during their rest periods, and can be worn/used by others, since flight power resides in the wings rather than the wooden body.
Appears in 5 chapters, first in chapter 78, last in chapter 82.
This encyclopedia covers chapters 1 to 100 of the story and shows the world as it stands at chapter 100, so it contains spoilers up to that point. To read it spoiler free, one chapter at a time, open the interactive codex.
What the story establishes
| Cultural norms | Being soundless, they communicate without speech. Because their land has no night, they set aside a fixed rest period to sleep or doze, and on going to bed they unhook the hinges of their wings and store them in a corner until they wake. Misbehaving Gargoyles are punished by being imprisoned in a windowless wooden tower with their wings unhooked and confiscated until they promise to be good. (as of ch. 81) |
| Habitat | The Land of Naught, atop Pyramid Mountain, reached via a spiral staircase whose top is lost in the clouds. (as of ch. 78) |
| Innate traits | Made entirely of flammable wood and possessing acute hearing (they can hear a pin drop). They dread loud noise and sudden sound (the Wizard's revolver reports stun them), but dread fire even more — a thing wholly unknown in their wooden land — which fills them with fear and horror. Their power of flight resides in their detachable hinged wooden wings, not in their bodies, so a Gargoyle stripped of its wings cannot fly. (as of ch. 82) |
Relationships
- enemy of ← underground_traveling_party ch. 81The stranded surface-world fellowship and the wooden Gargoyles are locked in open hostility: after a pitched battle the Gargoyles overpower and capture the whole party, who nonetheless steal wings and flee, leaving the two sides in active enmity.
- located in → Land of Naught ch. 78The unseen man explains that at the top of the Pyramid Mountain lies the Land of Naught, which is where the Gargoyles live.
- imprisoned by ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 81The traveling party (Dorothy, Zeb, the Wizard, Jim, and Eureka) is imprisoned by the Gargoyles, who shut them inside a doorless, windowless wooden tower with only a high roof-opening and fly away, leaving them captive.
- captures → underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 81After the travelers' revolvers, sword, and improvised weapons failed to stop them, the Gargoyles swarmed and wound their wooden arms around Zeb, the Wizard, Dorothy, Jim, and Eureka, capturing the entire party.
- imprisoned by → underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 81The Gargoyles flew the captured party to a wooden city and pushed them onto a high platform inside a windowless, doorless tower-house used as a jail, leaving them stranded far above the ground.
- defeats ← Jim (ended) ch. 80Jim turns his heels toward the attacking Gargoyles and kicks out with his iron-shod hoofs, battering their wooden bodies and scattering them, driving the whole group to flee to a distance.
- confronts → Jim (ended) ch. 80A flock of Gargoyles, drawn to Jim as the biggest and strangest creature they had seen, rose up and flew swiftly at him with their long arms outstretched, making him the target of their first attack.
- confronts ← Oz (ended) ch. 80When the Gargoyles swarm past Jim toward the rest of the party, the Wizard raises a revolver and fires a thunderous shot into the throng, knocking some of the wooden creatures down and scattering the rest.
- used against ← Oz (ended) ch. 81The Wizard fired his two revolvers, twelve shots total, against the attacking Gargoyles, and swung his jointed sword at them once it snapped apart at the first blow.
- confronts ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 80Emerging from the spiral stairway at the top of Pyramid Mountain, the surface-world fellowship as a whole collides with the Gargoyle populace of the wooden Land of Naught: the party stands its ground rather than retreat down the stairs, and Jim, the Wizard, and Zeb collectively fight off the swarming wooden creatures. This is the arc-level collision the chapter fragments into per-member combat.
- deceives ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 81While the Gargoyles slept, the party quietly stole wings from a neighboring house and rigged their own escape without waking their captors, slipping away before the wooden folk discovered the theft.
- confronts → underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 81Once the escaping prisoners fly off on the stolen wings, the Gargoyles muster a great band and give chase across the sky, renewing their hostile pursuit of the fugitives.
- fears ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 79The party climbs knowingly toward the Land of the Gargoyles, warned by a sign at the stair's foot and dreading the creatures that killed even the Champion Overman-Anu's account.
- confronts ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 82The Wizard and Zeb tear off their borrowed wooden wings and burn them along with cavern doors in a barrier fire just as the pursuing army of Gargoyles arrives at the cave entrance, driving the wooden creatures back in fear.
- used against ← underground_traveling_party (ended) ch. 82The underground traveling party deploys a barrier fire against the pursuing Gargoyle army at the cavern mouth—burning their borrowed wooden wings and the mountain's wooden doors—driving the wooden creatures back in fear and sealing off pursuit.
- captures ← Zeb (ended) ch. 80Zeb picks up a crown-headed Gargoyle downed by the Wizard's shot, winds a strap around its body to pin its wings and arms before it can recover, buckles it fast, and tosses the bound prisoner into the buggy.
- injures ← Zeb (ended) ch. 81Wielding the captured Gargoyle king as a club, Zeb knocked down dozens of attacking Gargoyles before being overwhelmed and pinned by their numbers.
- imprisoned by → Zeb (ended) ch. 80–81[CASCADE] Created by CAPTURES(zeb→gargoyles)
- injures ← Eureka (ended) ch. 81Eureka leapt bodily onto the attacking Gargoyles, scratching and biting at them like a wild-cat during the melee.
- injures ← Jim (ended) ch. 81Jim the cab-horse kicked at the swarming Gargoyles during the battle, though he was eventually weighed down and immobilized when many of them clung to his legs.
- defeats ← Overman-Anu (ended) ch. 78The Champion Overman-Anu once climbed the spiral stairway to the Land of Naught and fought the Gargoyles for nine days before managing to escape them alive.
From the text
"What the Gargoyles most dread is a noise," said the man's voice.Chapter 78
"The Country of the Gargoyles is all wooden!" exclaimed Zeb; and so it was.Chapter 80