D&D 5E What is a Rakshasas place in the Nine Hells

[schnee]

That's just incredibly odd to me though, to have this entire race of fiendish creatures in the Nine Hells be otherwise unconnected with the rest of the Nine Hells.

I dunno, there's an incredible variety of things in the Prime Material. Undead have a place here, and they're antithetical to life. Are other planes always so uniform and monoculture?

 

[Chaosmancer]

THere was a very good GM's Word of the Week about them: https://www.gmwordoftheweek.com/home/zxei2ci9gtmemkx8vn88z34psb8kvo
that answered (and created) a lot of questions about them, like just how much of the D&D ones are not like the Mythological ones.

As for why they're in the 9 Hells, I suspect it probably because they're Lawful Evil Fiends, and that's where Lawful Evil Fiends are based, no matter what.

I rather liked the 4E version of them, where they were the reincarnations of Devas (Aasimar) who become corrupt and evil over the course of their lifetimes.

I really need to start listening to these. I keep hearing good things about the Word of the Week podcast but I still haven't actually listened to one yet.

Promotion might not be that common in the 9 Hells, so impatient devils might opt for "alternative career path" as a rakshsas. You get a power boost (if you were weaker than a rak to begin with) and the perks of living the good life on the material plane, but your odds of advancement are pretty small (even smaller than for a normal devil). On the other hand, if you have been passed up for promotion 100 times, what have you got to loose?

That isn't a bad idea, that Rakshasa are devils that cheated the system put in place.

I don't know why but I really want to put a deal with hags into this somehow. My homebrew has Asmodeus as being so powerful because he was the first being to make a deal, and he then later created the Nine Hells out of parts of the Infinite Abyss and Elemental Chaos, hags then being the other major deal making power in the world should have some ties with this.


Edit because posting timing:

I dunno, there's an incredible variety of things in the Prime Material. Undead have a place here, and they're antithetical to life. Are other planes always so uniform and monoculture?

All of them, no.

But the Nine Hells as I imagine them are an evil empire ruled by Asmodeus, he created the Hells, he created everything in the Hells, and all of it is subject to his will. He allows the other Nine to plot and scheme to keep him sharp, and to in turn improve them.

Rakshasa are incredibly powerful beings, in some ways more powerful than any other fiend in the book because of their limited immunity to magic. They just seem too powerful to be in the Hells and have no connection to the hierarchy.

Also, Undead aren't supposed to be in the MAterial plane, they (to my understanding) are a result of the horrible stuff of the Shadowfell combined with the machinations of Orcus. It's like finding trash in the oceans, its there because other places and people have messed it up, not because it is supposed to be there.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Another thought is that the raks might be the previous owners of the 9 Hells, but unlike the demons and obriths (or however that is spelled), the devils didn't just try to wipe them out but made a deal to be their agents on the prime material planes.

For my own setting, I treat them as Asmodeus' chosen ones (mortal worshippers who he has plucked out of the general pool of LE types that become devils). [Assy's form when dealing with the raks is a big 3-headed rakhsasas.] His "official" religion pushes "give up a little security for a lot of safety", and is very respectable (way too respectable for most PC's to join). Assy uses raks to run the day to day activities (and to recruit the powerful to the religion), because they are more subtle than the devils. If He needs something bad done, that is for the devils and the other members of the Lords of the 9 (except his daughter), which his church teaches are really demons, and their warlocks. Assy's church has a lot of lawyers, so anyone who claims the devils are really working for Assy gets sued something fierce (and they have manufactured a lot of "evidence" that proves that isn't true).

 

[MarkB]

The 5e MM also states: "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 cart 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." Note that it doesn't state exactly which body reforms. Perhaps the rakshasa reforms in its original devil body... which could be a pretty amazing story hook for a campaign. The party takes out a CR 13 rakshasa... and then some time later, they get ambushed by a very angry CR 20 pit fiend, who seems to be nursing a grudge...

Alternatively, maybe the diabolic spirit reforms in the Nine Hells in its new rakshasa body. In this case, it's probably a figure of some derision and amusement for the other devils. Think about it... you've just shed your diabolic body to create a new rakshasa form on the Material Plane. Your existence back in the Nine Hells in rakshasa form implies that somebody killed you, and you've recently regenerated. It's like wearing a big sign saying: "Some humans killed me!".

I really like that take on it.

To take it further, maybe the Rakshasa's new body doesn't re-form in the Nine Hells. Maybe it re-forms on the Prime Material plane - and maybe it's not so much re-form as transform.

Imagine: Some devil-cultist who has pledged himself to evil, or some poor schmuck who went and sold his soul in exchange for power, wakes up one day to find that his body has started to transform, growing ever-more monstrous. And as it does so, his mind is twisted to match, growing more fiendish. It's a slow process, taking weeks or months, and it does grant the subject power, so that they often rise to become the leader of a cult or criminal organisation.

And then, just as their power reaches its peak, the transformation is complete and their soul is dragged screaming down into the Nine Hells, with the devil rising to fill its place, all set up with a ready-made power base.

That could work for both newly-minted Rakshasa and those returning from having been destroyed. The ones who end up having to wait years rather than months are the ones whose potential meatsacks get themselves killed by adventurers (or ambitious subordinates) before they fully mature.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Promotion might not be that common in the 9 Hells, so impatient devils might opt for "alternative career path" as a rakshsas. You get a power boost (if you were weaker than a rak to begin with) and the perks of living the good life on the material plane, but your odds of advancement are pretty small (even smaller than for a normal devil). On the other hand, if you have been passed up for promotion 100 times, what have you got to loose?

Wouldn't they see such a supplicant as more of a toy than a prospect?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I CAN HAZ LEMURES?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Wouldn't they see such a supplicant as more of a toy than a prospect?

Don't forget the power of bureaucracy and performance measures. Submitting someone to be a rakshasas might be a requirement once a millennia. And you can toy with devils who want to be raks by pretending it is a limited resources instead of a requirement.

Or maybe it is just punishment for not filling out your TPS form on time.....

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I really need to start listening to these. I keep hearing good things about the Word of the Week podcast but I still haven't actually listened to one yet.




That isn't a bad idea, that Rakshasa are devils that cheated the system put in place.

I don't know why but I really want to put a deal with hags into this somehow. My homebrew has Asmodeus as being so powerful because he was the first being to make a deal, and he then later created the Nine Hells out of parts of the Infinite Abyss and Elemental Chaos, hags then being the other major deal making power in the world should have some ties with this.


Edit because posting timing:



All of them, no.

But the Nine Hells as I imagine them are an evil empire ruled by Asmodeus, he created the Hells, he created everything in the Hells, and all of it is subject to his will. He allows the other Nine to plot and scheme to keep him sharp, and to in turn improve them.

Rakshasa are incredibly powerful beings, in some ways more powerful than any other fiend in the book because of their limited immunity to magic. They just seem too powerful to be in the Hells and have no connection to the hierarchy.

Also, Undead aren't supposed to be in the MAterial plane, they (to my understanding) are a result of the horrible stuff of the Shadowfell combined with the machinations of Orcus. It's like finding trash in the oceans, its there because other places and people have messed it up, not because it is supposed to be there.

That would be a good origin for night hags (the are the decedents of hags who made a deal with Asmodeaus). Of course, if there is a big Momma Night Hag out there, maybe the devils got the worse end of the deal....and they may not know it yet.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or maybe it is just punishment for not filling out your TPS form on time.....

That guy would make a perfect Rakshasha!

 

[Valdier]

I think I want to run with an idea where each time a Rakshasa dies, they are taken back to the hells and reborn, using one of the legendary 9 lives cats are assumed to be born with.

Rakshasa, actually are the origin though, and hence where the legend/mythology started.

Each time a Rakshasa dies, they gain in power (roughly +1/2 CR). Upon their final death they are truly destroyed for good. This makes for a great recurring villain. They gain in power when they die, but also forces self preservation because it can only happen 8 additional times (They are born on their first life).