of monstrous and queer creatures 7: the rakshasa

GENERAL

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gods rule the sky , gods rule the earth and gods rule the underworld and all of the mortals and their destiny. But who gave them this right? does a mother owns his child? does she have any right to command them around when they reach adulthood? Rakshasas believe that mortals are mature enough to shed their ties to these tyrannical supernal beings , and

are willing to offer them the means to emancipate themselves and to reach higher states of existence, because what mortals don't know is that in each one of them there is a seed that with enough care and attention would develop and bloom into a newborn god. 

so rakshasas roam the world of the living, searching for cults and sects to infiltrate so they can hijack them and transform them into vessels for unlocking the true potential of these poor , neglected souls that scutter on the world. Their methods are harsh and terrifying, but few can resist the temptation to shake their fist at the sky and uttter "i'm coming for you!" after the creatures show them how bad of a lot they actually have in the cosmic sense of things.

ENLIGHTENMENT

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rakshasa are not of this world. They aren't from the fey lands outside the planet's atmosphere , nor from the underworld. They are a very ancient sect that long ago made a voyage into the unknown, searching for the meaning of things and to understand the nature of creation. They finally returned, different, wiser, changed. They now know things even some gods don't know and are absolutely ECSTATIC to share them with their fellow mortal friends. These truths and secrets the rakshasa wield so casually are so powerful and strike so deep in the soul of mortals they are able to change completely their personality and point of view by merely being uttered. The result of the exposure to these cosmic truths are varied: people's minds oftentimes break from the experience, and they develop a ravenous obsession with the creatures that opened their eyes. This obsession can range from fear to murderous rage, to an intense love and carnal desire towards the rakshasa: they don't mind any of the reactions, and are willing to fruther the mortal's education no matter in what  state their mind is. After all, the road towards enlightenment are manifold.

THE TRUTHS OF THE WORLD

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the truths rakshasa preach aren't many, but each one can be discussed at length , and each one has a thousand stories tied to it that serve as stepping stones to understand them completely.

a very popular truth is the truth of carnal unity, that states that the bodies of mortals are made to join together and that's the ideal state to reach their inner, deeper self. Sermons

about this truth often result into week-long orgies where people lose completely their sense of selves, the barrier separating them imposed by society completely annihlated. 

some of these orgies don't end at all, and people simply start bursting into purple flames as their inner consciousness starts traveling  to a higher state of existence, dragging each person joined to them along in their epiphanic journey, creating a daisy chain of self combustion that often leaves no survivors.

there's the truth of sacrificial blood, where people abandon their mortal vessel to walk the path of the tenebrous walkway with the rackshasa in the void of the underworld

there's the truth of the shattered mirror, and its frenzy inducing mushrooms , the truth of the silent pilgrimage and its meditative boxes under the sea, the truth of the feasting massacre and all its excesses . Each rakshasa knows many of these truths, and all are willing to tell them to any listener they encounter, willing or not. 

THE TWO SECTS

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rakshasas and the ancients were part of two different sects, but they effictevely lived in the same age and knew eachother. Whereas the ancients believed the journey to illumination should be taken one step at a time and that only the ones prepared and willing to embark on it should do so, the rakshasas thought the opposite : they knew their time on the world was limited and that their little safe bubble of a planet would sooner than later be swallowed whole by the fey chaos. That's why they've chosen the most violent and dangerous method to achieve illumination and that's why they returned from the upper planes of enlightenment and that's why they're hellbent on freeing  the living from the shackles of religion and mortality whether they want it or not: Mortals need to ascend NOW, before it is too late, and no method is too barbaric or too immoral for them, if it means elevating people to the level of the gods. 

ps: as usual you can find  the high res version of the pic and the version i just posted in the rar archive attached