This tiger-headed humanoid exudes an air of confidence and elegance with an undercurrent of evil. It is dressed in fine silk robes, with jeweled rings on the fingers of its unnatural hands.

The rakshasa raja is a scheming lord usually surrounded by servitors, either lesser rakshasa or summoned and bound demons. A raja revels in turning its foes against each other and sowing doubt and distrust in its enemies.

While it projects an air of sophistication and culture, it is still a dangerous spirit of unredeemable evil, and will not shirk away from violence and bloodlust if and when civility breaks down.

Immortal beings with a ceaseless appetite for evil, the rakshasas have changed their tactics from overt destruction to covert corruption. They only reveal their true nature if they are in their homelands or want to gloat over certain victory.

Now the rakshasa rajas are building their empires again. Rakshasa spies infiltrate major city states, learning who to corrupt, and who to kill.

The rakshasa employs delicacy and misdirection in its pursuit of dominion over others. Few creatures ever see the fiend in its true form, for it can take on any guise it wants, although it prefers to masquerade as someone powerful or influential: a noble, cardinal, or rich merchant, for example. A rakshasa's true form combines the features of a human and a tiger, with one noteworthy deformity: its palms are where the backs of the hands would be on a human.

Evil Spirits in Mortal Flesh

Rakshasas originated long ago in the Nine Hells, when powerful devils created a dark ritual to free their essence from their fiendish bodies in order to escape the Lower Planes. A rakshasa enters the Material Plane to feed its appetite for humanoid flesh and evil schemes. It selects its prey with care, taking pains to keep its presence in the world a secret.

Evil Reborn

For a rakshasa, death on the Material Plane means an agonizing and torturous return to the Nine Hells, where its essence remains trapped until its body reforms-a process that can take months or years.

When the rakshasa is reborn, it has all the memories and knowledge of its former life, and it seeks retribution against the one who slew it. If the target has somehow slipped through its grasp, the rakshasa might punish its killer's family, friends, or descendants.

Like devils, rakshasas killed in the Nine Hells are forever destroyed.

Slay me once, shame on you.

Slay me twice, shame on me.

Rakshasa

Deceiver Hungry for Power and Flesh

Masters of manipulation, rakshasas infiltrate communities to claim positions of power. While disguising their true natures, they kidnap victims and indulge their insatiable hunger for flesh.

Rakshasas can withstand some degree of magic, but legends tell of blessed warriors felling them with crossbow bolts, arrows, or similar weapons.

Rakshasas' appearances combine humanlike bodies with the features of animals and monsters. All rakshasas have a physical oddity that remains when they adopt magical disguises, such as palms where the backs of the hands would be on humans.

Tiger-headed humanoids with backward-curving claws who use illusions to disguise themselves

In their natural form, rakshasa appear as tiger-headed humanoids; they have claws which curve backward, so that their claw attack is delivered with a backhand strike. However, rakshasa are able to create powerful illusions including sight, sound, and even touch, and generally use them to change their own appearance to one less threatening to any potential victims. This task is made substantially easier by the fact that they can use **mind reading** (as the spell) at will. While chaotic and rather bloodthirsty in nature, rakshasa may choose to fight at the side of any character or under the command of any ruler.

Tiger-headed humanoids with backward-curving claws who use illusions to disguise themselves

Rakshasas are evil spirits. Their main diet is human flesh and they use deception to get it. When first encountered a rakshasa will use its ESP to detect whomever the victim trusts, then use illusion to assume that form. Once the victim lets his or her guard down the rakshasa will reveal its true self and attack.