Rakshasa

Rakshasa
(Creature)
Common Rakshasa Spirit Unholy Level Varies Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Adjective Rakshasa Images of rakshasas Source: Monster Core, pg(s). 286–287 Type Outsider (native, rakshasa, shapechanger) CR Varies Environment Any Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Adjective Rakshasa Images of rakshasas Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 224

This article covers the family of creatures known as rakshasas. For the specific type of rakshasa formerly simply referred to as "rakshasas" or "raja rakshasas", see raja-krodha.

Rakshasas are spiritual incarnations of unholiness who often take humanoid-like forms. They act on primordial designs to embody and commit acts of extreme evil as part of a cosmic balance to define morality for mortals.

Appearance

More powerful rakshasas often have multiple heads, grown during horrific rituals in which the rakshasa steals the soul of a fiend.

Ecology

Rakshasas were created alongside the cosmic origins of morality, during the primordial moments of the multiverse. They manifested as embodiments of corruption, profanity, obscenity, and taboo, their actions defining unholiness by how their actions offended the holy.

Rakshasas live to be defeated by doers of good and heroic mortals and are incapable of living lives by their own definition. They dutifully play these roles even if they themselves despise their own evil acts, because refusing to play their part is their own most heinous sin.

Types

Domitian, a two-headed rakshasa.

The known "species" of rakshasa are as many ranging from relatively weak raktavarnas, who embody betrayal, to the most powerful rakshasa immortals.

Raktavarna

Raktavarnas are rakshasas of assassination and betrayal who test the reincarnated forms of those who were toxic double-crossers in a past life.

Raja-krodha

Tiger-headed, flesh-eating raja-krodhas are the iconic rakshasas and are manifestations of self-denied malice wrongly attributed to animalistic predations. They are alternately brutal and eloquent, and adept at blending into cities and intellectual circles.

Rakshasa immortal

Rakshasa immortals, the most powerful and evil rakshasas, manifest from the most foul and unholy aspects of reality.

Abilities

Different types of rakshasas have different abilities, but as a whole they are known as shapeshifters who use their abilities to imitate other beings or objects to further their infiltration and temptation of mortal societies. They also delude the knowledgable and insightful who fail to see through their schemes.

On Golarion

Rakshasas infiltrate humanoid cities to prey upon, test, and tempt their inhabitants.

In Vudra

In Vudra, rakshasas are known as "earthbound evils". The Cradle region of the Impossible Kingdoms of Vudra hosts the coastal city of Vaktai, which is controlled by rakshasas. Many rakshasas live in the Vudran trading port of Sihadrimon, though these focus their schemes more on the lands west of the Betul Sea rather than on Vudra itself.

Tales of Mahka

In Vudra, popular parables purportedly depict the origins of the rakshasas by telling the story of a corrupt human sorcerer, often named Mahka Abihcara, who was obsessed with his own mortality and wanted to enjoy his material pleasures for eternity. He resolved to live so much that his essence would continue on past his death in a cycle of reincarnation and became a patron of the arts, a conqueror, and ultimately a cannibal, consuming the bodies of his foes to absorb their life forces.

When he grew too old for his magic to keep him alive any longer, he and his chief generals—in most stories, a dozen—partook in a feast in which they each devoured an animal that Mahka assigned to them, claiming it would guide them to their next lives as more powerful beings, creatures that could be reincarnated as long as any one of them remained alive. Mahka took and consumed a tiger as his guide and died from consuming it.

Twenty years later, a young sorcerer named Purusav Vagbha appeared, seeking out Mahka Abihcara's generals and killing them and their totem animals. Purusav reconquered Mahka's empire, and it soon became clear that he was not only Mahka reincarnate but also far more evil and powerful. Gopa Citrasena, one of Mahka's generals who adopted his mongoose guide and rejected Mahka's evil ways, slew Purusav in a battle in which it was revealed that Purusav was a tiger-headed monster with backward-bending hands: the first rakshasa.

Mahka and his generals continued to reincarnate, and as Mahka's foul philosophy spread, tales claim that more evil souls have become rakshasas.

References

Paizo published a major article on rakshasas in Escape from Old Korvosa.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.