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<blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 8506682" data-attributes="member: 79428">D&amp;D, especially early D&amp;D, sometimes just grabs whatever creature from real world mythology someone thinks is cool and puts it in without much care for the world building implications. IIRC I think the original description for the D&amp;D Rakshasa actually says they come from India, and given that connections to Earth showed up more in early D&amp;D material perhaps all rakshasas really did come from real-world India.Both the Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder's Lost Omens (Golarion) setting take the avenue of having monsters associated with various real world cultures be especially associated with their fantasy analogues. Genies, which are from the Elemental Planes, for whatever reason just end liking Middle Eastern-style sections of Material Plane worlds for some reason.4E was a bit of an outlier for the rakshasa because the designers had a strong concept for the cosmology of the Points of Light setting and tried to tie as many things as possible to the setting's lore. In that edition the rakshasas came into being when angels who had elected to be continually reincarnated in the world as humanoids became too evil, resulting in reincarnation as a rakshasa. This not only gave the rakshasa more of a niche in the setting's cosmology, but also informed the visual design for 4E's substitute for the aasimar, devas.[ATTACH=full]149643[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]149645[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hexmage-EN, post: 8506682, member: 79428"] D&D, especially early D&D, sometimes just grabs whatever creature from real world mythology someone thinks is cool and puts it in without much care for the world building implications. IIRC I think the original description for the D&D Rakshasa actually says they come from India, and given that connections to Earth showed up more in early D&D material perhaps all rakshasas really did come from real-world India. Both the Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder's Lost Omens (Golarion) setting take the avenue of having monsters associated with various real world cultures be especially associated with their fantasy analogues. Genies, which are from the Elemental Planes, for whatever reason just end liking Middle Eastern-style sections of Material Plane worlds for some reason. 4E was a bit of an outlier for the rakshasa because the designers had a strong concept for the cosmology of the Points of Light setting and tried to tie as many things as possible to the setting's lore. In that edition the rakshasas came into being when angels who had elected to be continually reincarnated in the world as humanoids became too evil, resulting in reincarnation as a rakshasa. This not only gave the rakshasa more of a niche in the setting's cosmology, but also informed the visual design for 4E's substitute for the aasimar, devas. [ATTACH type="full" alt="4e_Deva.jpg"]149643[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="deva.jpg"]149645[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]

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