The Gōryū

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The mighty Gōryū, attacking a Shiomi ship.

The Gōryū (Maraian, lit: "The Sea-Dragon") is a kaiju of exceptional strength and intelligence, found in the Sea of the Gōryū that splits eastern Marai from the western Skylands. It guards a wide territory in this minor ocean, but is mercifully uninterested in land forays. Nonetheless, it is the sole reason why travel between Marai and the Skylands is solely through the (also treacherous) Asura's Wall Mountains. Despite its name, kaiju are not related to True Dragons.

Description

The Sea-Dragon is so named due to its eerily dragonlike appearance, with a smart, lizardlike face, an impressive crest of plates & horns, dexterous forelimbs and a colossal, snakelike body. It is dark grey in colour with a slight iridescent sheen to its scales. It even bears a crude emulation of the dragons' infamous 'breath' weapon (see § Behaviour, below).

Its otherwordly look has leant it a sort of morbid fame in bardic & storytelling circles, and has drawn no small amount of converts to the near-feral Silexian Churches.

Behaviour

The Gōryū acts with reliable aggression towards anything it deems an intruder on its territory, which seems to constitute anything above a canoe in size. It will engage entire navies, using divide-and-conquer tactics if necessary. On three separate occasions, auxiliary vessels were allowed to flee the scene, as the Sea Dragon settled on a particular target to torment with acute focus, displaying what might be a bestial sense of play or a rudimentary but sapient cruelty. There can be no doubt it is a clever creature due to the range of tactics it's displayed: it has perfected the ability to fire water from its gullet at ship-piercing pressures, happy to force navies to take the fight to it. It prefers to play to its advantages, waiting for storms to help obscure its movements.

In Human Culture

The Sea-Dragon widely agreed to be one of the plane's Eight Benthic Titans, a sort of pantheon of demigodlike sea monsters. Most churches of Ob'Silexia, oceanic demigoddess of hunger and predation, claim the Benthic Titans answer to her as monstrous lieutenants. This, however, is debated.

The Gōryū is also famous in several Maraian cults of Elir-Otrinax, who believe it to be an avatar (or at least a horrid tribute of nature) to the God-Eater. They enthusiastically spread the story that the Sea-Dragon was once a humble eel, before swimming too close to Otrinax's prison and absorbing the bleed-over of his hate-fuelled puissance.