Avatarana

With their spindly limbs, arms instead of legs (giving them the predatory slink of a jungle cat or mandrill), and distinctive flaps of skin(?) over their faces, avataranas look like things out of a video game—and guess what, it’s a horror title.  (And since you guys know that world a lot better than me, you’ll have to tell me which one.)

Lots of rakshasas want to manipulate mortals, but avataranas skip the details and just flat-out possess them, actually melting into their bodies.  The Occult Bestiary details their usual M.O. after that point:

[T]hey patiently work their way up social ladders, finding more impressive and influential individuals to possess […] but their viciousness increasingly shows. Only when others turn against their victims do avataranas release their control, leaving their prey to deal with the ramifications of the rakshasa’s acts.”

So first the issue is detecting the rakshasa, then the issue is successfully confronting the outsider without killing the host, and ideally doing so in a public setting so that the host’s innocence in the rakshasa’s vile doings can be confirmed.  And it’s that last part that’s the tricky bit.  Reputations don’t respond to Heal checks, and in a game world without mass media, Diplomacy and Profession (Barrister) checks will only get you so far…particularly against a monster who’s probably been using mental magic left and right for weeks, if not months or years, on the very people the PCs are trying to win over.  Good luck!

Adventurers are being fêted by vanaras after services to one of the ape-men’s gurus, only to be framed for the murder of an occultist by the end of the banquet.  They are kept on the run and sleepless throughout the vanara temple complex, with friends becoming enemies the second the rakshasa takes possession of them.

The Choker King is neither a choker nor a doppelganger.  He is an avatarana…and some of the chokers even whisper that he shaped them in his own image.  (The doppelgangers are too proud to whisper such things, but privately some believe it.)  The chokers say you never know when the king will chose to ride one of them (which also means that in game terms he is Advanced enough to possess aberrations as well as humanoids).  Certain doppelgangers have pieced together there is a pattern to his killings, and quake with the knowledge that all their race’s pitiful schemes and murders might be simply a smokescreen to hide his real ends.  The chokers simply know that if you displease the Choker King, he’ll likely torture and murder your whole clutch out of hand…and if you think the rack or crucifixion are awful, you really haven’t seen them until you’ve seen them inflicted upon creatures whose limbs stretch more than twice their own height…

In a sudden reversal of policy, the head of the British Museum declares all Egyptian artifacts to be pagan works that corrupt the national spirit, and demands they be smashed.  The head Egyptologist is horrified and demands a party of adventurers investigate.  (And since they are owed a substantial bounty for recovering many of these artifacts from under the nose of Napoleon’s armies, the adventurers have a vested interest in doing so.)  The British Museum head is actually under the possession of an avatarana who does not wish Britain to unlock the secrets of the artifacts, as they could open the door to occult powers with the potential to rival his own.  Of course, if the adventurers successfully drive out the rakshasa, they may have traded one evil for another, because the Egyptology department has been thoroughly infiltrated by worshippers of the Great Old Ones—cultists who very much want to see those artifacts not only preserved and catalogued, but also put to use.

—Occult Bestiary 49

Amanusya

Amanusyas are beguiling performers and seducers.  Interestingly, they are not interested in the seduction of souls per se, but rather that of the body—welcoming new partners in vice, gaining new victims to toy with or devour, and turning ascetics into the worst kind of addicts and gourmands.  Of course, if their actions cause a victim’s soul to fall off the wheel of reincarnation and return as a rakshasa, so much the better.

Since the last time a party of adventurers was in town, an amanusya has reduced a once popular local street preacher into a babbling, paranoid wreck.  The adventurers might not have even noticed, but they have been recently charged with administering a dead man’s estate by the local magistrate.  The dead man left a sizable fortune and a public hall to the preacher, and the adventurers could face criminal charges or ruinous tax bills on their treasure if they don't find the preacher (and ideally ease his torment).

In the guise of a beautiful woman, an amanusya asks the party’s help in saving her fiancée from temptation.  Apparently he has fallen in with servants of the Nine, rejecting the 1,001 gods of the Heavenly Panoply for the small, dour pantheon of the North.  She fears his soul may be lost from the cycle of reincarnation!  The truth, though, is that the man sought the missionaries’ help in curing his many addictions.  The amanusya, certain she was grooming a future rakshasa mate, is determined not to lose her toy after part of only one lifetime.

A troupe of amanusyas has permission to dance in the lobby of the Palace of Souls.  Those they lure away from the Procession of the Dead are reborn as rakshasas (typically raktavarnas). Unable to break the letter of their agreement, some pychopomp clerks hire mortal adventurers to drive off the troublemaking troubadours before any more petitioners are lost.

—Occult Bestiary 48

I know “amanusya” means something like “any other being but a man” or “demon,” but all I’m finding is links to an anime.  Thoughts?

Yes, I only posted about monsters twice this week—but there is a method to my madness!  (That method involves making sure that Friday’s post is always a multiple of five in the archive, so I don't go mad.)

Also, today I blabbed about Eberron on Reddit during my lunch break.  It’s nothing you all haven’t heard before, but if you’re new to the blog check it out!

Did you appreciate this?  Because I did.

This week’s radio show was all about big anniversaries: 20 years of Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill.  Also a massive set of strong ’90s/’00s female artists, plus new Grimes!  The link is good till Monday, 11/2, and you can right-click/Save As if you want to download it.  Enjoy!

Dandasuka

The default tiger-headed rakshasa is so iconic it can be a hard image to get out of your head.  (At least it’s hard to get out of mine.  Ask me to think of a rakshasa and I picture: A) Shere Khan, and B) Shere Khan in TaleSpin.  Which is impressive, because I’ve never seen TaleSpin.) 

The dandasuka resembles neither of those guys that guy.

Instead, to get a sense of the dandasuka, imagine Salacious Crumb (Jabba the Hutt’s Muppet court jester) with the DIY initiative of one of Henry II’s knights (“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”).  Add to that a taste for gems and finery (worn) and blood (licked) and you’ve got the general idea. 

Dandasukas are named (as best as I can tell) after a snake-filled Hindu hell for the envious.  Given that envy is rather effective fuel for a fiend, this might explain their general hyperactivity and maliciousness.  That doesn't mean they’re chaotic—they follow orders and they’re actually quite good negotiators—they’re just bloodthirsty and easily bored.  (So, they’re prep school lacrosse players, essentially.  (Source: I’m from Maryland.))

Assuming your group’s PCs haven’t already run into a raktavarna, a dandasuka could be a great way to introduce them to the dark world of the rakshasas.  As spies and assassins (and overeager ones at that), they could be found almost anywhere in society, from the royal court to the dockyards.  What might start as a simple random encounter—stumbling across a snaggletoothed gnome gnawing on the arm of a dead snitch—could eventually lead to far-off lands and the courts of the rakshasa maharajas.

An elaborately carved jeweled box is sent to an adventuring party’s patron.  Out pops a comely blue-skinned genie, who promises a tale a night for a year and a day.  Her tales are excellent, but she is no genie—she’s a dandasuka with her teeth filed down and a ring of mind shielding to foil alignment detection.  She slays the patron the first night they are left alone together.

The local gnomish trading consortium is representing by a dandasuka.  Soon political rivals begin turning up dead.  Confronting the gnomes will be difficult, as they all donate heavily to the local temple of the god of revelry, and several are illusionists or wereboars besides.  The gnomes and the dandasuka are links in a chain that leads to a rakshasa noble who controls most of the caravan trade from here to the Silver Peaks.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been slain.  The blame fails on four Norman knights, but they're actually innocent.  The real culprit is a dandasuka.  (The knights surprised the rakshasa while it was supping on Becket’s blood.  It splattered them in gore and then vanished in an obscuring mist, leaving them to deal with the outcry.)  The knights meant to flee north to Cumbria, but vanished en route.  Adventures sent to find them will discover they are prisoners of the Heather King, a fey lord of the Yorkshire moors.  Meanwhile, the dandasuka is still stirring up trouble, picking off more clergymen and doctoring the murder scenes to look like the work of a demon or sorcerer. 

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 225

I don't want to overdo the fantastic historical fiction prompts (though I’m thrilled you all like Jesuit blue dragons), but given how dandasukas are described in the Bestiary 3 the Thomas Becket one was just begging to be written.

Tataka

Twelve feet tall, animal-jawed, and blue-skinned, the tataka rakshasa looks like a religious idol come to life—appropriate, since one of its main goals is the corruption of the devout and spreading blasphemy in holy places.  Tatakas lure victims into apostasy through subterfuge, seduction, and well-placed healing magic…and those they cannot lead astray end up being on the receiving end of their devastating martial arts blows.

Pradil, Tempter of the Lost, is a tataka that lives in the abandoned temple complex at Purna.  Her main ally and servant is a bhuta who was unjustly tried and executed as a heretic by covetous rivals from his order.  The bhuta puts the animals of the jungle to work spying on nearby travelers. Those that look like they would make good slaves, sparring partners, or converts are met by the tataka; any clerics or inquisitors are left to the undead’s not-so-tender mercies.

The Terror in Lapis appears to be a murti, one of the many statues in the great mandir at the mouth of the Geer River.  In reality, it is a tataka bound in place there by the blue-stoned mandala that surrounds it.  Fortunately, it can only be freed if the mandala is broken and the ruby of binding torn from its brow…but that is just what some gem-hunting adventurers have been hired to do, not knowing what they disturb…

In the green-roofed temple of Whitewall, custom dictates that the lama or his champion must answer any challenge involving unarmed combat.  This year, a tataka demands to fight.  She scoffs at protests that the lama is too old—and interestingly, claims to have known him in a different life, when he was a thief.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 230

Raktavarna

Ever held a loaded gun?  A real sword?  That switchblade your locker buddy snuck into school?  Do you remember how it felt to hold it?  The sense that not only had you taken up an implement of violence…but that you were holding something outside yourself…an object of power…something almost alive?

A raktavarna is that living weapon—a demoted rakshasa bound in blade form.  Which is pretty cool in and of itself (a step above the usual evil intelligent weapon story), and is an opportunity to introduce PCs to the dark world of these shapechanging fiends.  So a raktavarna could just be the creepy memory-stealing snake-monster they suddenly find themselves holding, or it could be the thing that spurs them to take a xebec across the sea to fight these insidious alien evils.

One final note: Shame defines a raktavarna—their form is karmic punishment for failure in a previous life, and they are desperate for a cosmic do-over.  I’m guessing their desperation for a master puts them in the darshaka caste (see Bestiary 3), which means they must prove themselves as good servants before returning to the ranks of their paradeshi kin.  Thus, while some may try to seek out ever-stronger masters in a manner typical to intelligent weapons, most will be devoted aides.  This makes a raktavarna familiar far more loyal than the usual lawful evil outsider such as an imp…and makes its facility with comprehend languages, commune, and Master’s Eyes (Su) all the more dangerous for the useful intelligence which it can supply its master.

Unowned, a desperate raktavarna identifies a party of adventurers as the most powerful potential masters in the area.  It tries a number of ways to get noticed by the party, including appearing as a jeweled dagger in their path, charming a servant to pack it with their things, or cajoling a local cutpurse through suggestion into making a move for their obviously fat purses.

The Running of the Mage Maze is an annual event where spellcasters navigate passages, solve puzzles, and duel monsters—and each other, though the practice is frowned upon.  Parviz Sing has managed to smuggle in his raktavarna familiar in the form of a blade. The rakshasa’s senses free Sing to study more combat-oriented charms, and its memory-modifying poison bite helps hide the evidence of his cheating from his competitors.

The feud between the walrus-headed Shamatar and the lynx-headed Ebony Night occupied most of last century, becoming practically legend among rakshasakind (and even among a few in-the-know mortals).  Then came Ebony Night’s fall into indolence and subsequent submission to a mortal sorceress.  Her later demise found her reincarnated as a raktavarna.  Shamatar, an avid fan of divinations, has learned of his rival’s rebirth and seeks to claim her as his personal blade.  The fact that some feeble adventurers now unwittingly carry her is no obstacle, he is sure.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 229

Bonus hint for making your party think you are the best GM ever: Have your party defeat a rakshasa.  Two or three campaigns down the road, when they’re playing different characters, have them encounter that same rakshasa as a raktavarna—demoted because of their original PCs’ success.  It won’t mean anything in-game, but it’ll bring smiles all around the table, and new members will want to hear the story…

Also, I just opened my email and holy crap did I get some amazing comments on the rakshasa.  I can’t do them justice today—my brother’s in town from Portland, OR, so I’ve got hosting duties—but consider my mind blown.  More soon, I promise!  In the meantime, you all can read them here.

I know most of you come here for the monsters, the Pathfinder, and the D&D.  But for you indie radio fans, Saturday was one of my best shows in months.  New Iron & Wine, old Velocity Girl, live Decemberists, and clean Macklemore, just to name a few highlights. 

If you’ve never listened, this is the one to click; if you listen regularly, this is one to download and save.  Thanks!

(The feed skips on some computers. If this happens to you, load it in Firefox or Chrome, Save As an mp3, and enjoy in iTunes. Link good till Friday, 5/10, at midnight.)

Rakshasa

We already covered the most powerful rakshasas, the maharajas, and their mad scientists, the marai.  But this is the factory-standard model, the classic backward-handed, mind-reading tiger-(or snake, or vulture, or whatever)-headed fiend.

Like oni, rakshasas are creatures of extreme appetites.  But whereas oni are spirits who have taken on mortal flesh, rakshasas were once mortals whose appetites held them so tightly to this world that they reincarnated as fiends—a level of gluttony and greed that would impress even a Runelord.  Now they exist in strange cycle of death and rebirth, attempting to climb the rungs of an ever more foul and self-indulgent caste system.

But you don’t care about that, right?  You care about how to use them in an adventure!  Well, they make outstanding guildmasters, pimps, and libertines of all kinds.  They are also emblematic of a self-indulgent aristocracy that cares nothing for the lower orders that support it.  So they make a great “Things are worse in Falcon Point than we ever imagined!” reveal, or a fittingly exotic adversary after a long trek to an exotic destination.

And again—they’re fiends…but fiends who live on this world.  So they’re literally a kind of Hell on Earth (though thankfully more interested in luxury and indulgence than domination and rule).  Killing one doesn’t even end the threat; it just sends them off to (eventually) reincarnate.  A rakshasa might even be a PC’s dad, if she’s a beastbrood tiefling (see Blood of Fiends).  If you need a mastermind, a behind-the-scenes player, or a surprise special guest, you could do a lot worse.

A woman’s sister has disappeared.  Following her trail means finding the paramour who seduced her and then sold her to the thieves’ guild to pay off his gambling debts…who in turn sold her to gillmen slavers.  From there, she was shipped to the Gnoll Pens, where she was bought by the harem master of Kul Khan.  Kul Khan is a rakshasa with ties to a strange city of jade constructs and a library staffed by syrinx diviners.

An upasanda (a kind of asura) insists that mortals are worthless in and of themselves.  She has founded a monastery to train those monks who wish to emulate her striving for perfection (and to test her own skills—once a year she secretly kills her most promising student in a duel).  Her rakshasa neighbor insists that mortals are delightful slaves, breeding partners, and food, and his thieves’ guild has stolen him a palace’s worth of gems, rare wood, and fineries.  Determined to settle the matter once and for all, monks and thieves battle in the streets for their leaders’ amusement, turning the city of Panruti into a war zone.  Local authorities need help.

A rakshasa has formed a dining club that hosts appallingly lavish—and just plain appalling—feasts.  The next menu features braised tengu, quarterlings (halflings halved and roasted), and unicorn in a mushroom sauce with brownie stuffing.  One of the brownies escaped (wearing nothing but the sausage casing he was stuffed into) and now seeks adventurers to help.  If they assent, they face not only the rakshasa but also his greedy dinner guests.  Their vast appetites have given them equally vast bulk and strange powers (use the ogrekin template for most of the guests, and the bloatmage prestige class for exceptional spellcasters).

—Pathfinder Bestiary 231

It’s the letter R!  We covered Q quick, didn’t we?  By the way, the raccoon was handled here.

For D&D 3.5 fans, note that on Eberron rakshasas were even more fiendish, being some of the prime evil movers and shakers in that setting.  They were ancient enemies of the couatls and were currently trapped in Khyber and the Demon Wastes.  The Eberron Campaign Setting had one subrace; I believe Monster Manual III had at least one or two more.

Meanwhile, in Pathfinder we still don’t have much info on Vudra.  And India in general is pretty neglected in terms of RPG supplements.  Can any of you readers nominate some good ones?  My go-to is the old Hollow World module Nightstorm—Allen Varney packed an amazing fantasy take on India in very little space.  Highly recommended!  One day I’d love to work a shapechanger (rakshasas and doppelgangers) war vs. fey, genies, or oni into a campaign…

Today when I should have been working on this blog I was instead writing way too much about GMing for just one player.

More rakshasas on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Marai

Marai are lesser rakshasas who have a little something extra up their sleeves—specifically rainbow-colored, energy bolt-hurling serpent limbs.  Secretive students of esoteric magicks, they are likely to be spell-trap setters and hit-and-run ambushers, doing everything they can to keep from fighting face to face.  In fact, when met in straight-up combat, a marai might just flee after a single flurry of energy bolts—prey that can fight back aren’t any fun for the duplicitous rakshasa, and it would be a shame to squander this incarnation on mortal foes destined to die anyway…

A maker of clockwork constructs has gone missing.  A marai has captured him, forcing him to craft animate clockwork limbs that the marai can wear.  Unfortunately his exploits have kept him too long away from the court of his rakshasa master, who comes looking for the marai at the exact same moment as the clockwork maker’s rescuers.

Adventurers fighting serpentfolk discover the snake-men have an unusual ally—a particularly serpentine marai who has been living among them, claiming to be a serpentfolk sorcerer blessed in the egg with magical might.  (While initially suspicious, the snake-men have since been convinced by the marai’s spell-spitting limbs and knowledge of Undercommon.)  The rakshasa Viper actually seeks to enter and study the demiplane that the serpentfolk guard—he is fascinated with extradimensional spaces, and the traps in his quarters include a portable hole and two giant bags of devouring.

The Sunrise Seat is a carving-bedecked temple so large it is practically a ziggurat, with new rooms being discovered all the time.  (The temple fell into disuse during an orc invasion, then mudslides covered one quarter of the complex.)  The marai Sudeep Ranj spends every night in the temple, creeping in and out under a cloak of invisibility in order to study the secrets the loremasters and mystic theurges have unearthed that day.  But the temple has also attracted the attention of an asura, a stealthy adhukait named Katari and Zoonha, who wants to see it resealed.  Now the god-mocking rakshasa and the god-loathing asura set traps and ambushes to drive the other out, with the poor bewildered scholars caught in the middle.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 228

Advanced marai viper colors: mauve, puce, coral, taupe—y’know, I’m going to need some Pantone color chips for this…

Maharaja

Maharaja rakshasas are the apex of that vile race—creatures so evil and decadent that not only have they reincarnated as fiends, but also mastered the cycle of lives adeptly enough to climb to the very top of the rakshasa caste system.  The Bestiary 3 goes into great detail about maharajas and their natures, so I’ll just add one final thought: While there are numerous other CR 20 fiends (pit fiends, balors, etc.), one of their hallmarks is that these monsters dwell in remote planes far removed from the realms of man—in fact, gaining easier access to the Material Plane is often one of their obsessions.  Maharajas don’t need to reach across time and space—as native outsiders, they already walk among mortals, free to enchant, manipulate, enslave, and spread their evil at will.

An army of jotund trolls is approaching.  The norns have predicted a defending force of heroes will rally and drive them back.  But the steel-winged angel predicted to lead the countercharge is half a world away, chained in a maharaja’s seraglio.  She needs a rescue—and sometimes prophecy needs a helping hand.

A maharaja has stolen the secrets of urdefhan soul harvesting and clockwork technology to build the Engine of Fate.  Part of the maharaja’s bid to mount the next level of the rakshasa caste system, this monstrous minor artifact will not only pulp samsarans in its gears, but also rip their souls out of the cycle of reincarnation in the process.

The Kingdom of One Thousand and One Forms is known far and wide as a land of monsters, where the nagaji and minotaur natives rub shoulders with a dizzying array of humanoids and intelligent monsters that beggars description.  What is not commonly known is the reason for this profusion of diversity—the secret monarch of the land is a human, snake, bull, and crocodile-headed rajadhirajas.  By sending dandasukas to neighboring lands to quietly recruit cripples, lepers, the fatally ill, and other sufferers deemed untouchable, the rajadhirajas has amassed a fanatically loyal army happy to fight and die for the lord who has already rebirthed them once.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 226–227