Gargoyles

The Gargoyles are a construction pack of almost three hundred members. As construction workers, they are a minority in the Blood Nation, which concentrate primarily on entertainment The Gargoyles have always had relatively heavy equipment for a nomad pack-some of the members were originally employees of Disney, and they absconded with cranes and earth-movers when they took to the road almost fifteen years ago. The family makeup has changed considerably from the days when they and the other pads of the Blood Nation lived at the Disney Complex; many new- comets have been accepted to compensate for the old- timers who have passed on.

Overview
The leader of the Gargoyles is a so-called houngan named Sadie Jacobs. She comes from a long line of religious women with roots on the island of Santo Domingo, but never felt that the religion she was brought up in was all that useful. She is not that religious in her own life, despite the fact that as the daughter of an influential houngan, she got a lot of exposure to it In the pre-Collapse years, her struggle to rise out of poverty motivated her to become a dedicated student She took a degree in civil engineering at the U. of Florida, and then moved back to the Miami area to work The Collapse, and various personal set- backs returned her to the poverty and struggle of her earlier life, but with one difference: she knew she could get out, because she had done so before. Her expertise in civil engineering made her a valuable asset to the Gargoyles, and her knowledge enabled her to teach the theory behind the labor.

Sadie is an older woman now. At the age of sixty, she is in a very small minority. The younger nomads in the pack have studiously learned the trade that hopefully will keep them solvent for many years to come. Sadie may step down soon; she has talked of settling down somewhere. Having worked hard all of her life, she wants to rest in her last years.

In general, the Gargoyles do not rest much. Their experience has led not only to many small jobs for them, but also to jobs as supervisors for other nomad families working on large construction jobs. They hope to start work soon (with about six thousand other nomads) extending the TransCon Maglev to New York City, the site of the nomads' next major reconstruction project (preliminary work on NYC should start by 2023). A pack delegation from is currently negotiating with several other Nations for labor and transportation services for the Maglev project, while at the same time, other Gargoyles are negotiating with the American government for the job itself. When the project will actually happen is still up in the air. New York will be rebuilt. but who will get the elusive contract is another question altogether.

Over all, the Gargoyles are very well-off nomads with skills and abilities above the norm. They also work themselves to death-even among nomads they are considered "workaholics''. They live by their deadlines, and favor projects which offer lucrative bonuses for early completion. Consequently, the family relies on a lot of technology; almost half the Gargoyles are techs or engineers. Being affluent also allows the pack to support many children and the educational equipment necessary to teach them valuable skills. Any family with children carries several books, and most have a fully-equipped VR education system like the SegAtari RUSH. There is slightly more cyberware in the Gargoyles. This is largely due to the constant danger of construction accidents; when working with equipment and materials that weighs tons, they can easily shear off a limb. Having neuralware helps avoid these accidents, and new chrome limbs help one recover.

Vehicles
Families and couples usually have a personal vehicle like a converted RV or camper trailer. Some also keep small cycles for local commutes. In addition they have several ex-Army HEMTT trucks to transport and assist their construction equipment Their outriders favor heavier muscle cars and larger cycles, as these are status symbols in nomad society. A pack has 15 twenty-eight-wheel semi tractor-trailers with flat beds (transporting bulldozers, cement mixers, two three-hundred foot cranes, a large water purification system with well- drilling equipment, portable metalworking equipment, twenty fully-equipped mobile shops, backhoes, graders, and three complete autolathe machine shops), ten forty-ton 8x8 trucks (transporting ten large generators, a compete cable-laying system, and several hundred smaller pieces of construction equipment), six buses (both for transporting children on the road and for transporting workers to job sites when camped), 35 converted RVs or pickup/trailer combinations, 6 muscle car outrider vehicles and twelve heavy motorcycles.

All vehicles have at least one fifteen-millimeter Long Rifle in an open mount. and most have some type of light machine gun, either in tandem with or instead of the 15mm. All four-wheeled outrider vehicles have at least one heavy machine gun in a ring mount with a wire-guided ATGM or other anti-tank weapon in a fixed forward launcher. The outrider motorcycles usually forego the ATGM for a LAW or similar man-portable weapon.

Primary Weapons
10mm pistols or carbines are carried by most members at all times (pistols are carried even on a work-site). Most adults have an assault rifle chambered for 5.56mm NATO ammunition. Original manufacture varies from surplus US Military M16A2 or HBAR, to custom-made weapons of nomad manufacture. Warriors and outriders also sometimes carry PI-M205 (or similar) 25mm support grenade- launchers mounted under the barrel. As Bloods, all adult Gargoyles carry the sugarcane style machete on formal occasions as a tribal badge of sorts. The dog soldiers carry a slightly different version as a badge of office. Some may carry custom weapons, but all are chambered for 10mm cased or 5.56 NATO cased ammunition.