Glaaki
Glaaki is a Great Old One from the Cthulhu Mythos developed by H.P. Lovecraft and a number of authors devoted to expanding the strange Lovecraftian universe first presented in the 1920s. In the case of Glaaki, the monster first appeared in Ramsey Campbell's 1964 story, "The Inhabitant of the Lake." As presented in the story, Glaaki is knowledgeable, devious, and horrible in his manipulations.
Glaaki Biography
In The Inhabitant of the Lake, Glaaki is found in a lake near Brichester in the Severn Valley in the Western Midlands of England. The creature landed on Earth in an apparent meteor crash which formed the lake in which Glaaki lives. Glaaki apparently has knowledge of other creatures that dwell in England's lakes and streams: Shub-Niggurath, Eihort, and Y'golonac. Cultists have worshipped Glaaki over the years and he has provided enough knowledge to his worshippers they wrote a book based on these teachings, called The Revelations of Glaaki.
The main reason people come to worship Glaaki is his reputed ability to bestow agelessness on his devotees. What these acolytes don't understand is that the Glaaki uses the massive spikes on his body to inject a fluid into mortals, arresting their aging process (making them undead), but also making that person his slave. Once a person is injected with the fluid, they are as good as dead. They can be saved from slavery only if Glaaki's protrusion is broken off before it finishes injecting all of the needed Glaaki fluids. The victim will die after having been injected, nevertheless.
Glaaki Appearance
Glaaki's appearance is at once off-putting, a little ridiculous, and horrible. Glaaki appears like a giant slug with metallic spikes protruding from every angle of his body. Some depictions make Glaaki look a bit like a sea urchin, but most give Glaaki a more cylindrical or oval body with thorns or spikes, more like certain types of burrs. One should know that the spikes are organic growths of Glaaki. Besides these protrusions, the create has eye-stalks which allow it to peer above the water without being seen.
Glaaki Slaves and Cultists
Glaaki's slaves take on the look of the undead. As soon as these poor souls are turned into undead, they become more and more sensitive to light. Eventually, light does damage to Glaaki's servants. The cult calls this process the Green Death.
Glaaki in Arkham Horror
Glaaki has a -5 combat rating in the Arkham Horror board game and the doom track while he's in the game is 12. That places him behind Tsathoggua in terms of pure power, but slightly ahead of Chaugnar Faugn in terms of straight combat rating (-5 as opposed to -4). Glaaki's special abilities and his innate connection to his servants make him a particular challenge for the players, perhaps more than the numbers would imply.
Glaaki's undead servants are relentless, so even when an investigator kills one, they aren't removed from the board and they can never be taken as trophies. All 5 servants of Glaaki remain in play, though a slain servant is sent back to Glaaki's card. Whenever an ally card is removed from the game, you must draw a mythos card and place one of the servants on a gate. If all five servants are already in play when this action is called for, Glaaki awakens. Whenever Glaaki devours an investigator, you must raise the terror level by 2.
Perhaps the most challenging rule is that the terror level raises by 1 whenever Glaaki attacks. If the terror rating is 10 or higher, then Glaaki devours all the investigators.
Glaaki Collectible Cards
Fantasy Flight Games produced a number of Glaaki cards for its Aspirations of Ascension expansion. Cards include "Glaaki: The Inhabitant of the Lake", "Servants of Glaaki", and "Initiation of Glaaki". The third of these cards includes perhaps my favorite piece of Glaaki art, where two undead servants of Glaaki hold an investigator while the protrusions of Glaaki come up through the surface of the water to perform its grizzly ritual. The investigator's body language and facial expression are excellent portrayals of both defiance and horror.
Glaaki Miniatures
I couldn't find too many top-notch miniatures of Glaaki, which is a shame. The fact that Glaaki is a little more accessible than many of the Cthulhu Mythos gods is interesting to me. A Great Old One lucid enough (by human standards) for his collected wisdom to be contained in a book should have his own miniature. The fact Glaaki lures people to his lake in order to initiate him into his cult makes him a particularly sinister character amongst a pantheon that generally prefers to devour and be done with it. Perhaps the fact Glaaki behaves more like a traditional creature of horror is what makes him less popular for Lovecraft-inspired artists. Part of the allure of H.P. Lovecraft's stories is the departure from traditional occult lore and the alien, mysterious nature of the creatures being investigated. In other words, Glaaki may be too human for his own good.
Glaaki still represents a nice plot device for learning about the Elder
Gods and deepening ones knowledge of the intrigues and power struggles
between these beings. Glaaki in the Lovecraft tales may not be the most
powerful or interesting of the Cthulhu mythos monsters, but he's actually
one of the better horror monsters to be found in the Lovecraftian universe,
if you prefer more traditional monster tales.