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He should have fallen on his sword. That would have been the sensible thing to do.
Punched his ticket for Elysium right away, no waiting around.
He thought they'd only kill him.
Why did he think that? How stupid was he? Why in the world did he think that?
And now instead of his next great adventure he's flubbed a save against dominate person.
My family's ties to the Impossible Kingdoms of Vudra are well known, and while I first saw that land with my own eyes in the summer of my sixteenth year, I learned of Vudran gods and monsters as a babe at my father's knee.
It was a darker night than most when he spake to me and said, "Glorio, my child. I have taught you all I know of Janasini the mother of birds, and the price she paid her sister the mother of serpents. I sung you lullabies of Maharajah Khiben-Sald and the timeless years he passed with Nex. But I am remiss, and beg your forgiveness, that never once have I yet spoken of Raja Mahka Abihcara and his wicked philosophy of dhruva jivita."
"The eternal rebirth," I said, for even then I spoke some few words in that tongue. "On its face, it seems no wicked thing."
Cheating Pharasma's Judgement is totally wicked.
Wicked awesome.
What? What?? Aren't you Good aligned? Shouldn't you be in favor of an afterlife system that rewards Good and punishes Evil??
Um, so, reincarnation is relatively popular in Vudra, there's a couple different ways to do it, I've reincarnated a bunch of times already, and mostly it does reward good and punish evil? Not that I think it's good to punish evil other than, like, instrumentally. The point is for there not to be any more evil happening to anyone, not to make people upset because you don't like them for being bad. If you did that... logically, wouldn't you have to then punish yourself? Uh, I guess you could be, like, Othar Tryggvassen!
I don't know any of these people, I'm not affiliated with them.
They said, roll up a rogue, and I said, sure, I can roll a rogue, people I don't know. I'm always happy to join a game of Pathfinder with people I don't know.
I will carry you through this game on my back, unloved strangers.
The dhruva jivita... innovation was finding a way to reincarnate into stronger forms after living lives of iniquity, and so become worse people with each life, instead of doing it the other way around.
The oldest rakshasa, it is said and shown, are as powerful as gods, and as cruel as the worst of fiends.
And nothing can truly slay one.
What would be the point, chucklehead? You can't kill rakshasa, that's the entire problem!
The earthbound evils are worse than demons and devils because they share a planet with you and there's pretty much jack shit you can do about them.
You can't even make them someone else's problem, because they tend reincarnate in the same general area that they die!
But I'm telling this story out of order.
Raja Mahka Abihcara was a king in Vudra, a sorcerer, a warrior, a cannibal, and a peerless conqueror.
Dragonlike, he was given wholly to life's pleasures - to food, to sleep, to lust, and fine things. Alike today's Thrunes, his name was spoken as a curse. But in that kinder age it was known that all such men die and are Judged - and that the next world gives little consideration for one's station in the first.
The raja took no comfort in this, but would not let it sway him from the life of vice he'd chosen.
He was unwilling, even faced with torment everlasting else his soul's true death, to bend his knee to unworthy gods. Nor would they accept his false supplication! And so the raja resolved to become his perfect self, and follow his own Way.
'Mahka conceived of an endless cycle, of living lives of pleasure and power over and over. He called this idea dhruva jivita, or eternal rebirth. The philosophy of the dhruva jivita remains common among rakshasas. To accomplish this, Mahka concluded he must absorb so much life that his death would not destroy all of it. As he was already ruler of a large stronghold, he set about expanding his territory through a series of violent wars. Mahka moved with his army so he could enjoy each new sight, new smell, and new cultural entertainment of the people he conquered. He also began the practice of eating the mightiest heroes of his defeated foes, in great feasts to which he invited his greatest generals and advisors. Those who refused to partake were themselves served at the next event. Each feast was a complex ritual as well, as Mahka absorbed the life force of those he ate and tied together the lives of himself and his generals...'
The raja toured the Impossible Kingdoms wearing iron boots, and experienced all which life had to offer a conquering sorcerer-king. When all of Vudra united against him, their armies he shattered, their lands he pillaged, and their champions he screaming devoured. He became a maharajah - a king of kings.
Where he went he taught of the dhruva jivita, and shared dark feasts with his closest court. When infirmity came to him in his time, and age caused his limbs to tremble, he gathered his disciples. For now he entered, through death, into eternal life. One last feast he had prepared for them, and final rites and rituals.
His final lesson this: while any adherent to dhruva jivita lives, none can truly die.
And on the flesh of a tiger, Maharajah Mahka Abihcara ate himself to death.
But was reborn, to a human mother.
A shapeshifter with the head of a tiger, the first of the rakshasa.
The first of the earthbound evils.
*deep breath*
'Early Life of the Rakshasa: Rakshasa come into being in one of two ways: either they are born to a couple including a rakshasa parent or they are born to two non-rakshasas. It's not unusual for a rakshasa to be born to a single parent of its own species and one humanoid who has no idea she is in a mixed- species union - ' I was going to protest this but I guess actually I would have also been going to protest it if they'd said "no idea he is in a mixed- species union" and you can't protest something if, uh, actually, I mean, I guess you can protest the entire, um, if I were to protest this I guess I'd say that - well, actually, I don't want to protest this too much because it's not clear how much of what I'd be protesting is just clumsy writing or relatively clumsy writing and I don't want to make people afraid to write clumsily heaven knows that I write clumsily and I don't want to contribute to that general environment, moving on, 'Such rakshasas are born appearing to be of the same species as their non-rakshasa parents, their natural gift for deception functional before they can even speak. As soon as they are old enough to understand their legacy, rakshasa children are told of their true power and form by their rakshasa parents. This rarely comes as a surprise to the young outsiders - rakshasas are the reincarnation of evil souls and come to understand their difference from their fellows a very young age. In the same ways, a foul soul that spontaneously resurrects as the child of unsuspecting, non-rakshasa parents fundamentally understands that it is different from its parents, yet- for a time - dependent on them for survival. Tragic tales of rakshasa young being born to innocent parents, mauling mothers as they feed or cannibalizing their brothers and sisters, fill Vudrani lore. As such, new parents in the Impossible Kingdoms are ever watchful of their newborns and rely on the prognostications of priests and wise women to determine if their children's souls are clean. Sometimes even these thorough divinations fail, though, leading to the occasional stoning or drowning of innocents as paranoid communities mistake destructive or otherwise "touched" children for pariyaka - devil children. Even worse, occasionally, young rakshasas are not detected at all, and like wolves raised by sheep, they invariably destroy the families that sheltered them. Rakshasa mature quickly, but often hide this fact from any non-rakshasas they grow up with. By the age of 14, a rakshasa is fully mature, although it can continue to take the form of a younger humanoid if it chooses. Rakshasas otherwise age like elves, giving them lives of up to 5 centuries to build personal empires and acquire vast wealth...'
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