a rabid dhole, foaming at the mouth. They are explosively short-tempered.
2
an elephant whose trunk is a leech. They will hold a grudge even long after the target of it has died.
3
a snow leopard. They are cold and unfazeable.
4
a tiger. They are proud and cruel even by the standards of their kind.
5
a fanged kiang. They are wild and hate restrictions more than anything else.
6
a vampire bat. They are obscure and secretive even when it might help them to be more direct.
7
a gangetic dolphin. They loathe tedium and try to make everything into a game.
8
a wild buffalo. They are ferociously loyal, and expect the same of their fellows. Any falling short of this is considered treachery of the lowest sort.
9
a lion with a braided and bejewelled mane. They believe that all creatures exist to serve them, and that behaviour to the contrary violates the natural order of things.
10
a hooded cobra. They are spiteful and can’t help but insult everyone around them.
11
a leopard. They live for the hunt and testing themself against worthy prey.
12
a wild boar with spiralling tusks. They can’t stand pretension or aristocratic seemings, except in themself.
13
an albino crocodile. They are slothful in everything except weaving webs of conspiracy, and prefer to get others to do the hard and dirty work for them.
14
a bengal fox. They will always speak lies if they think they can get away with it.
15
a black bharal with pupils that dilate into rude sigils. They delight in blasphemy and obscenities.
16
a caracal. They see everything in transactional terms, and hold no higher good than turning a profit.
17
a lynx. They can’t relax around someone until they’ve proven their superiority to them.
18
a great hornbill. They are paranoid and tend to layer every sort of protection around themself.
19
a leering mongoose. They are compelled to scheme and feud well above their ability to follow through.
20
a hyena. They laugh at murder and quiver at the sunrise. Their reactions are never quite what you’d expect.
D20
This rakshasa has the body of
1
a great ape. They are prone to fits of bestial idiocy.
2
a gaunt, starving person. They are never satisfied.
3
an obese person. They adore luxury and indulgence.
4
a muscular man. They will tolerate no challenge to their warrior’s honour.
5
a voluptuous woman. They enjoy seducing others into self-destruction.
6
a rotting corpse. They are morbid and prefer to keep the company of the dead over the living.
7
an ash-painted ascetic. They maintain a facade of piety when it’s convenient.
8
a lanky giant. They consider all things to be within their rightful grasp.
9
a scrawny runt. They’re driven by a tremendous Napoleon complex.
10
a sumo wrestler, or a powerlifter: plump and buff. They consider themself a peer of even the highest gods.
11
a lithe dancer. Grace and beauty (or their lack) carry the weight of right and wrong for it.
12
a scarred and mutilated flagellant. They resent their evil nature but can never overcome it for long.
13
a hunched and decrepit ancient. They see the world through jadedness that comes by long epochs lived in it.
14
a deformed mutant with an uneven number of limbs. They have a loathsome love for the outcast and pariah.
15
a skinless vivisectee. They feel no distinction between pleasure and pain.
16
a wrinkled and saggy elder. They can’t stand change, and push for stagnation wherever possible.
17
a lesioned leper. They fear the contamination of humanity.
18
someone singed and burned, red raw flesh peeking between the cracks in black char. They wish to destroy themself and everything else along with them.
19
a crooked, broken person. Their mind is as fractured as their body.
20
a child. They are young for their kind, and keen to prove themself.
D20
This rakshasa’s lair
1
is infested with monkeys, their inconstant servants.
2
is a fortress lost to the encroaching jungle.
3
is a slum of which they’re the lord of. They keep their ownership hidden behind layers of proxies.
4
is the camp of a bandit clan who venerate and fear them.
5
is an opium den bent by its patrons’ collective fantasies leaking into reality.
6
is a grotto behind a waterfall.
7
is a tower where corpses are left for birds.
8
is vast blue halls carved through a mountain glacier.
9
contains a menagerie of colourful beasts from across the earth.
10
is a huge howdah atop the back of an equally huge tortoise.
11
is a gargantuan cenotaph to all the world’s dead.
12
is hidden two-dimensionally in the figures of a shadow play.
13
is in a Grand Guignol-esque theatre where public sensibility is challenged by scandal and gore.
14
is a haunted palace abandoned by a now-extinct dynasty because of the weight of its tragedy.
15
is a castle that floats on a cloud of congealed miasma.
16
is hidden magically in a bazaar, accessible only by those who make a coded series of transactions.
17
is a keep on a borderland, the garrison of which has been subverted from soldierly professionalism to base bloodlust by the rakshasa’s forged orders.
18
warps and twists like a living thing. Rooms and passages within it change between encounters.
19
contains a hive of torture chambers outfit with every imaginable implement.
20
imprisons a petty divinity, being slowly drained of blood to win the favour of a clan of leech-men.
D20
This rakshasa’s magic
1
inflicts terror and hallucinations.
2
manipulates dreams and nightmares.
3
conjures up demons. They have many infernal favours to call in, but in turn are bound by bizarre taboos.
4
lets them warp and weave flesh. Their lair is decorated with their living art pieces.
5
lets them change size, and into the shape of any beast.
6
can alter the weather for miles around.
7
calls forth sickness and contamination.
8
raises unburied and unburned corpses under their command.
9
comes from a divine artifact they have stolen and profaned.
10
can create cold fire and burning ice.
11
twists shadows and makes them physical objects.
12
can dominate weak and desperate wills.
13
draws on the stuff of wastelands: sandstorms that flay flesh from bone, starvation that withers its victims away in seconds, and the like.
14
is prone to flaring uncontrollably due to an old wound they received from a cursed blade.
15
was sealed away by a bodhisattva. They’d do anything to get it back.
16
can peer into the dark secrets held in mortal hearts.
17
lets them pass invisibly and fly on the wind.
18
augments their swordplay and archery.
19
weaves smoke and razors like a spider’s web.
20
is enhanced by their pacts with the dark spirits of the land. Breaking those would weaken them.
D20
This rakshasa plots
1
to gather a cult by posing as a god.
2
to exploit a heroic warrior’s tragic flaw to precipitate their downfall.
3
to desecrate the temple and slaughter the priests of a minor sect.
4
to break into a royal tomb and eat the noble bones within.
5
to host a festival for the damned in the streets of an unsuspecting city on an inauspicious date.
6
to artificially manufacture a child by merging the head of an animal with a decapitated human body.
7
to trick a monk off the path of enlightenment.
8
to arrange a mass sacrifice and harness its power to ascend to a more terrible form.
9
to foment an invasion of a neighbouring nation and use that as cover to steal their lore and artifacts.
10
to seduce the betrothed heir of a kingdom and so bring two families and crowns into strife.
11
to arrange the omens which mark the turning of the cosmic calendar and so prematurely start the age of discord.
12
to kidnap the newborn incarnation of a god and raise them to be a faithful servant.
13
to fake their defeat at the hands of a false champion they’re working behind the scenes with, to cement that champion’s reputation as a saviour. Both are planning to eventually betray the other.
14
to churn a stagnant, poisoned lake with an army of slaves and so produce the elixir of mortality for use against divine enemies.
15
to flood the region with weapons and unrest.
16
to sic a sacred inquisition against a rival rakshasa so that the two wipe each other out.
17
to set themself up as the head of a drug-dealing criminal empire.
18
to engage in karmic arbitrage so that they and their lackeys are reincarnated into favourable positions.
19
to raise an artificial celestial body into the sky and corrupt astrological workings to their ends.
20
to impersonate the royal vizier and counsel the lord into committing atrocities.
No comments:
Post a Comment