The Naga's Glaik of Galik

X Worldbuilders:

GM James R

Mike W. (u/n: maelforrest)

The Naga's Glaik of Galik was a psionic assault on Galik in 500 PR that brought the city's defenses to its knees.

About

The central conflict of the infiltration involved the emergence of a Mindsnare Naga, who at some point managed to infiltrate the mind of the captain of the Lyreguard, a tortle named Captain Krunch. The infiltration happened at some point in years prior, allowing the Naga to grow in psionic power as it harvested the ancient mind of the ancient tortle, increasing its ability to access the psionic energies around it, mentally paralyzing large swaths of the armies around Krunch.

The Naga's Nightmares

Inside Captain Kronch's mind, a second battlefield had been laid out, digging through the various traps the Naga had set inside the tortle's subconcious, the heroes of Galik had to protect and serve the poor captain on a psionic level.

The Backhalls

One level of the nightmares appearaed much like the infamous BackHalls, dimmly lit hallways of seemingly infinite length cascaded across a labyrinth in which a dark lurking shadow (an echo of the naga) hunted the heroes.

Sinking

In this level, the heroes found themselves alone on a ship in the middle of a storm, unfortunately, as sharks begin to fill the oceans around them, the ship begins to sink, and the ship's captain, a stone giant, also began to fling the heroes overboard one by one.

Shrinking

For a slow 30 minutes, this chamber of nightmares was completely barren except for an umber hulk who burrowed all around them, in the liminal space they could not reach. At the same time, the room subtly began to get smaller and smaller, eventually crushing the heroes down to the next level.

Falling

Sky above, sky below. Heroes had to navigate the most tricky of battlefields, a 3-dimensional one where flattening out or narrowing their dive let them sink and float to fight the cockatrices which risked turning them to stone.

Silent

Slaad lurked in this terrifying, silent, jungle. Any sounds the heroes made caused deep venomous shocks to their core. Only by strategizing in complete silence could they overcome the egg-injecting monsters around them.

In the final attempt to stop the heroes, the Naga bore down, trying to kill Captain Krunch to jump into someone else's mind instead.

Siege

In one final attempt to kill the heores, the Naga tricked them into thinking they were back on a city street, maybe out in Galik, while it took full form and began to attack with all of its might.

Victory

After navigating the many layers of the Naga's dreamscapes, the heroes inside of Captain Krunch's mind finally found themselves face to face with the Mindsnare Naga in full. However, due to how strong its influences had become, it had psionically anchored its existence to a series of divine pillars located in a temple in Galik. Much like a phylactery, the pillars empowered and kept the Naga's psionic energy strong.

Learning this, the heroes quickly ushered Krunch's unconcious body to the temple, eventually knocking down the 4 pillars as psionically posessed snakes, spiders, monsters, victims, and other obstacles tried their best to keep the heroes at bay.

With all 4 pillars destroyed on the outside world, the Naga could finally be punished in the dreamscape, eventually being beaten to a psionic mist.

Behind the Screen

The events of the Glaik were told during QuelmarCon 21, more information can be found on that page.