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[ferratus]

Agreed. I love the notion of the rakshasa, and I don't even mind tiger-headed rakshasa. But that should never have become the default, and they certainly shouldn't have become "cat-people" overall. (They were, IIRC, entirely human in appearance, but for the backward hands and animal head.)

I agree with this sentiment myself. I think that the rakshasa are one of the few monsters that suffered flavour-wise with the transition from 2e to 3e. They downplayed them as enemies of the gods, and instead played them up as evil masterminds. However, as far as shapechanging infiltrators go, dopplegangers do it better. As far as cannibal tiger-beasts disguised as humans go, were-tigers do it better.

From Wikipedia:

Legend has it that many rakshasas were particularly wicked humans in previous incarnations. Rakshasas are notorious for disturbing sacrifices, desecrating graves, harassing priests, possessing human beings, and so on. Their fingernails are venomous, and they feed on human flesh and spoiled food. They are shapechangers, illusionists, and magicians.

This flavour text actually works very well with the ancient war between the primordials and the Gods. These would be demons that have a particular hatred of the gods and their churches, and thus attempt to desecrate rites and make a mockery of human civilization. With this flavour text, Demogorgon actually makes an excellent Rakshasa Rajah.

Another place where rakshasas would fit would be the Shadowfell. Being reincarnations of evil beings, eating unclean things like human flesh and spoiled food, desecrating graves and using foul rituals makes them excellent denizens of that plane. Especially when you consider the fact that the Shadowfell is also going to be a source of illusion magic.

You know, while I was writing the preceding paragraph, I realized who I'm going to replace the Shadar-Kai (who I hate) with as top dogs in the Shadowfell. I was going to use the drow, but this is much, much better.

With either flavour text, I would certainly vary the animal hybrids. I would do it as follows:

Controller - monkey
Soldier - Tiger
Brute - Elephant (Thaskor mini would be an excellent Rakshasa brute)
Striker - Panther
Lurker - Cobra

Extra heads would show the power of the Rakshasa by granting extra actions, and would bump any of them up to noble status.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Hm, I just looked over that art gallery for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. All of the pictures, with the exception of the cambion, looked good to me .... and I like the fact that the rakshasa is wearing more 'traditional' armor and gear, rather than the bondage fetish leather of 3rd edition.

 

[hong]

You know, while I was writing the preceding paragraph, I realized who I'm going to replace the Shadar-Kai (who I hate) with as top dogs in the Shadowfell.

Heretic! Next you'll be saying you don't like Abyssals.

 

[DandD]

Shadar-Kai suck. Badly. In a badwrongandtotallynotfun-way.

 

[ferratus]

Heretic! Next you'll be saying you don't like Abyssals.

If the Abyssals aren't emo goths I'm okay with them.

 

[Khaalis]

But is it really a surprise that our resident blood-sucking rodent might have a problem with cat-people?

Ok so that brings up the fact that we need an anthropomorphic rat. Or at least Wererats as playable.

 

[lutecius]

Mouse, maybe your hatred stems from the fact that the vast majority of cat-folk designers tend to make their races either uber at everything (always fall on their feet! flawless stealth!) or too cat-like (affected by catnip! hates dogs!), whereas gnolls and minotaurs have very little in them that is hyena-like or bull-like. It's far too easy to fall into the Mary Sue trap, specially if you like cats.

E-mail me so I can show you my own cat-race, the kathos, and let's see if that steers you away from your trauma...

My hatred definitely has something to do with furries. And I love cats. As a kid, I even used to like the idea of animal-people... and then came the internet. Now i find cat-people and fox-people nauseating, especially the anime ones.

Minotaurs are not really beast-peole, they are more like assembled animal and human parts.
well, except in 3e... they were horned wookies.

As for the rakshasa, the art is not bad, but i wish they looked more like the demons or shapechanging ogres they were in mythology, something akin to the oni or efreet.
If they insist on making them animal people, they should mix it up a little: tigers with horns, apes with tusks and such.

 

[hong]

If the Abyssals aren't emo goths I'm okay with them.

They're kinda like bloodsucking Sith. With big swords.

 

[Klaus]

Hm, I just looked over that art gallery for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. All of the pictures, with the exception of the cambion, looked good to me .... and I like the fact that the rakshasa is wearing more 'traditional' armor and gear, rather than the bondage fetish leather of 3rd edition.

And of course, rakshasa never wore that in 3e.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I just can't accept rakshasas as cat-folk. Can't do it. Other than an accident of art, there's nothing cat-like about them. Why should shape-shifting evil even have a default form?

Well, for the record, cats as shape-shifting evil has a very long and storied history not just in India.

Cats are sneaky little buggers that lurk in the shadows and pounce on you out of nowhere. They were witches familiars 'round the West, and as you scaled them up to tiger sized they got to be fiends in their own right (as they started being a direct threat to a lot of humans, instead of just some critter).

I mean, rakshasas are mythic beings, and though the D&D description of them is, as in most cases, amusingly off, they work for the role that they've been given. Tigers are creatures of stealth and power, of unknown danger lurking in the deep underbrush, of terror in the night. The backwards hands symbolize their "backwards actions," their propensity to evil, while giving them something distinctly alien.

They ain't typical "cat people" from fantasy lit, that's for sure. As prolific as the idea of uber-dexterous kitty women is, rakshasas are definately more than "evil humanoid tigers."

And if they do turn into that, I will be annoyed.

I'm content with various "predatory cat" forms, really. All kinds of big cat have had a pretty powerful effect on human mythic ideas, lions, tigers, jaguars..... all dangerous forest predators that leap out of nowhere and kill you, all experts at hiding (illusion, deception, shapechanging)....yeah...good stuff.